Week 4 Exodus 13-32
When I got to Exodus 20 I read it and the next four chapters all at once.
Exodus 20 is titanically and stupendously important so I slow down a bit. But I don’t stop and stare. It’s an important 20% chunk of the day’s reading, but I’m conscious of the 80% still coming.
In spite of my urgency, when I get past the ten commandments I bog down. There’s a three-chapter collection of what the author called ordinances: specific case laws, real life situations, legal decisions, ifs & thens. For example the fifth-commandment in chapter 20 says honor your father and mother. But 21 moves right on and develops that vanilla-flavoured guideline, adding a shot of legislative Tabasco by saying that he who strikes his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.
I read chapters 21, 22, 23. I notice myself edging toward a couple of conclusions, and also jumping to one pretty solid and definite one: this section doesn’t make much sense to me.
Jumping to conclusions might be one of my most common reading responses to the bible. I try to be alert to my jumpiness; try to remind myself to look before I leap; dial back on my confident this-doesn’t-make-sense; be a little less affirmative, more interrogative; ask myself: why isn’t this section making sense to me?
Notes: quotes from Exodus 20:12 and 21:15