Monday, March 15 2010 19:52

[This is part 17 of "101 verses you need to know about angels, gods, and demons" which began several weeks ago. To catch up with our conversation, start at the beginning by hitting "Read More" below, then going to "Pastor's Corner" at the left side of the next screen. You will then see (at the bottom) a list of all previous posts, which you can read in biblical order, from the bottom up, for best results.]

In considering why angels and gods are important to our understanding of the Bible, I have found myself returning to Exodus 23:32-33 again and again. It is certainly a simple warning: "You shall make no covenant with [the Canaanites], nor with their elohim. They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against me. For if you serve their elohim, it will surely be a snare to you."

This passage comes on the heels of the Ten Commandments, and is the first clear indication as to why our God is jealous of human worship (Exod. 20:5). It is one thing to have misplaced jealousy, of course, like a husband or wife who suspects that their spouse is having an affair because they keep sneaking out at night--only to find out that they are busy planning an anniversary surprise. It is another thing entirely to have a properly placed jealousy, where the temptation to be unfaithful is real and dangerous, and where the spouse is actually being disloyal. This passage positions God's jealousy in just this light. He wants our singular worship, and warns that the alternative is hazardous. He predicts that our loyalty to any other god will bring about a "snare" (Heb, moqesh, "trap," as used for unsuspecting birds and animals, cp. Ps. 140:5; Amos 3:5). This theme of being trapped in wrongly-directed worship is repeated several times (Exod. 34:12; Deut. 7:16; Judg. 2:3; 8:27). Let's spend a few moments thinking about the impact of this warning.

First, this Scripture demonstrates how real these gods are. They are not "false" gods in the sense that they do not exist. We can play out the illustration of a wife who suspects her husband of cheating to help make our point. Let's say she sees him from a distance talking intimately to someone on the phone. When he realizes she is watching, he quickly hangs up. "Who was that?" she asks, and he replies with, "Oh, that was the plumber." A week later it happens again, and he claims he is talking with the bank. She doesn't buy it, but lets it pass once again. Finally she surprises him and is able to grab the phone and listen to the other person--only to hear a dial tone. He was talking to no one the whole time, except in his own mind. I believe the wife's reaction would not be one of jealousy as much as it would be sadness and sorrow. He wasn't being unfaithful. He was sick and in need of medical attention. So it is with God, I believe. He isn't jealous of our worship toward non-existent beings, or something we make up in our own minds--he is jealous because these beings are very, very real, and very, very dangerous. They lie in wait as a trap, wanting to deceive an unsuspecting animal.

Second, the phrase "lest they make you sin against me" seems to predict idolatry as the cause of all the other iniquity and sin that follows in the life of Israel: "Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their hearts, and put before them that which causes them to stumble into iniquity" (Ezek. 14:3). Our thoughts even turn to the great King Solomon, who will hear of God's judgment because of this snare: "So Yahweh because angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned from Yahweh elohim of Israel, who had appeared to him twice, and had commanded him concerning this thing--that he should not go after other gods" (1 Kings 11:9-10). Solomon messed up the "one thing" he had been told to do: avoid worshipping other gods. I find Exod. 23:32 to be the tipping point for the rampant evil that will follow in the story line of the Old Testament.

Third--and this will become increasingly evident the farther we venture into the life of Israel--this kind of warning sets the stage for what the nation will need when it comes to such common terms as "savior" and "salvation." We are very used to these words from a NT perspective (we often associate getting saved with going to heaven, for example), but we must always think of them primarily as OT ideas grounded in the life of the Israelite people. The nation will fall into idolatry very quickly (Exod. 32 is just around the corner!), and they will need to be saved from that idolatry. In this sense "salvation" will be a term primarily designated as a means of restoring Israel's covenant with Yahweh, to the point of being forgiven for the sin of national disloyalty to their Creator (notice how words like "chosen" and "our Father" are used in salvation passages such as Ps. 80:14-19, Isa. 64:5-12, and Jer. 23:5-6). A "savior" will be someone who will restore the nation to this loyalty. For what it's worth, I personally think that Exodus 23 sets the stage for human salvation better than Genesis 3, the initial fall of the human race into sin. For it is from this specific sin--the snare of improper worship--that we need to be saved. We cannot go to heaven while worshipping the wrong god. And we can only go to heaven if we are worshipping the right one!

Fourth, the word "snare" or "trap" teases us with the idea of how strong the temptation of elohim-worship will be throughout the Bible. Like a bird who sees the food and not the net, the person who wanders from loyalty to Yahweh is likely following the temptation of his senses. False worship (as we unfortunately call it) must have been a beautiful thing to watch and even do. I often made the mistake of thinking that pagan worship was icky (how's that for a theological word!) or in some sense grotesque. I have lately come to realize by scanning the literature of the ancient Near East that non-Israelites had many wonderful, even beautiful, forms of worship and devotion directed toward their deities. Their poetry and songs and religious artistry mimicked and even put to shame much of what Israel experienced in the desert and in their homeland of Canaan.

So with Exod. 23:32-33 in hand we now venture into the meat grinder of Israel's history, observing how a nation seriously loved by their covenant God will openly flirt with the elohim of the nations around them. We wish the story were different. But we also know how God will respond!

God bless,
Ronn 

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