The Exvangelical Bible Study | Eps. 32 | Exodus 16-17 | Water and War

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]Hello and welcome back to the Exevangelical Bible Study. Uh I'm Sarah from Leaving Faith and with me today is Justin as always. Hello Justin.

[00:00:11]>> Hey Sarah. I'm happy to be back with you again and happy to start seeing the other magic in Exodus where people don't just constantly die.

[00:00:24]>> Although we do have a big battle coming up. So, you know, there's there's some war and stuff, but we're going to get some miracles today, so that should be fun. Yeah, there's some treasures in chapter 17 that I don't know a lot of people realize because I mean no one's reading the book, but um there's some fun stuff that pops up in this chapter and even stuff that like may or may not have been like lost to history that gets like Josephus adds a little bit of detail to the passage that you wouldn't get if you hadn't read a little bit of Josephus.

[00:00:58]>> Oh, I'm excited. Yay.

[00:01:02]Okay. Um, one thing that I had highlighted from last time that I didn't get to in chapter 16 was the very end of it. And so we had ended with mana and um, in the very last little paragraph of 16, God um, well, Moses says this. I was thinking God said this, but actually I think it's just Moses. So Moses says to Aaron, "Get a container and put two quarts of mana and then store it in a sacred place as a reminder for all future generations."

[00:01:37]And Aaron did this just as the Lord had commanded Moses.

[00:01:42]And then it says he eventually and eventually might be doing a lot of work here, placed it for safekeeping in the ark of the covenant, which has not come up yet. And I guess is this supposed to say that like this jar of mana hung around for a while and then at some point in the future it goes in the Ark of the Covenant?

[00:02:06]>> Well, that's the thing is this this is one of those things that seems to be anacronistic, but it's got an interpretation to it that can be a little bit difficult. So, what you'll see in my translation, it says Aaron placed it before the covenant for safekeeping. M >> and you might be like, "Wait, is this the covenant?" Like the thing that Moses wrote because we're still waiting for the entire covenant to happen as well.

[00:02:32]Like we didn't even get to the ten commandments yet.

[00:02:36]>> So, um like what what covenant are we talking about? Now, scholars have kind of come to the conclusion that covenant here means arc of the covenant because this phrase keeps getting used even after the ark of the covenant appears to refer to the ark of the covenant even though sometimes it does literally use like the word arrone for ark. Uh here it doesn't seem to do that which is another irony of irony. You and I have talked about how a lot of the names in these books are like reminiscent of like people's roles in the story. And another one would be uh and this is >> u less uh well less of an indication and more of maybe a happy coincidence that Aron or Aaron uh in English literally means ark. So that's a lot of fun. And he's the priest. He's the the high priest, the first high priest essentially that gets appointed from the tribe of Levi.

[00:03:37]>> Huh. Okay.

[00:03:40]>> Yeah. It makes it's a head scratch.

[00:03:42]You're like, wait a minute. Was that on purpose or was that a happy coincidence?

[00:03:45]Like what's >> Yeah.

[00:03:47]>> Okay.

[00:03:49]>> So my I mean we know my New Living Translation is, you know, fun and embellished. Um, so is >> Yeah. Yeah. Let's Let's pull it up.

[00:04:04]>> Yeah. I guess I'm Yeah. I'm wondering like who's right. I mean, so if if it's this phrase that often means Ark of the Covenant, so we're assuming, I guess.

[00:04:17]>> Yeah. I mean, there's >> there's kind of some interpretive dance that you have to do because sometimes you're like, well, the word could be used in multiple ways. How does the author like to use this particular word?

[00:04:30]So, but the problem is like Exodus has multiple authors. So, it's not always clear like wait a minute.

[00:04:38]>> So, here they've got it. This is overlaid with the King James. I would not pay too much attention to this orange text, but the >> yeah, the actual word here >> uh had typically uh is just like like a testimony or an ag it it's not quite the same as an agreement like a covenant agreement.

[00:05:01]>> Okay.

[00:05:02]>> But it's more like a testimony of what we agreed to. Like for example, you inside uh of a legal dispute, you might have both a testimony and also a contract or or a covenant. And that's typically how this word is is being utilized.

[00:05:20]>> So it might >> Oh, sorry. Go ahead.

[00:05:22]>> It might be like the precursor to the ark.

[00:05:26]>> Huh.

[00:05:28]Okay. But who >> I mean, when you say a testimony, it doesn't sound like a physical thing.

[00:05:33]Like a a contract would be a physical thing that you could lay something in front of, but I don't know what it would mean to have a lay something in front of a testimony.

[00:05:44]>> You would think it'd be written and that they'd be able to appeal to it somehow like this is >> what the Lord told me, >> right? So, >> okay, >> they do a a binding covenant later, uh, a burit in Hebrew where it's actually written out and there's parties at two agreements with each other. This I think testimony might be fitting here because it's more like, hey, this is what the Lord spoke to me, but the problem is like it seems out of order. They haven't received >> like a full testimony from God yet. This appears to just be kind of an anacronism.

[00:06:21]>> H Okay. Well, that's weird. But here it is, >> right?

[00:06:31]>> We have it, though. We I mean, it'll come up later. the both the the jar of mana that goes into the ark or gets stationed with the ark and Aaron's magical rod, they get stored with the ark of the covenant eventually, which is why a lot of interpretations or a lot of passages will say before the ark of the covenant >> because that's where it eventually ends up.

[00:06:54]>> Oh, okay. Well, I guess I can I can see that then. The way my translation is is it does say he eventually placed it in the ark. So, it's not like he's claiming, it's not like the text is claiming the ark of the covenant exists, right? Then, >> right. And but that's the apologetic that's happening because it doesn't say eventually in the Hebrew text.

[00:07:17]>> Ooh. Right.

[00:07:18]>> Right.

[00:07:20]>> Yes.

[00:07:21]>> They've got it set up in the past tense.

[00:07:24]uh this verb right here is conjugated in the uh third person um past tense or completed tense. So this this is a thing that's happening.

[00:07:36]It is not something that's going to happen later, but it does have it to be to be watched in the infinitive.

[00:07:43]>> So uh this word here means to like to watch or to guard >> and it's it's ongoing in the infinitive.

[00:07:50]Uh to be watched or to be kept. So, it's just saying, "Hey, he put it with the testimony to be kept, to be watched after, >> and that's >> doesn't really give you much of a of a future, like he's going to do this in the future." So, the NLT is doing a little bit of apologetics with us.

[00:08:10]>> I would expect nothing less, >> right?

[00:08:16]>> Thanks, NLP.

[00:08:17]>> Okay.

[00:08:19]>> Um I Yeah, I know. Wouldn't that be great if they still had it?

[00:08:24]>> It would be crazy. I mean, >> just imagine if if this story was true and they literally saved these things as a witness to the future generations, which is what it was for. Um, and God, the Holy Spirit allowed them to preserve this magic mana that scientists thousands of years can study and be like, "Oh my gosh, this is real." And imagine that staff was still around and like we wouldn't be having the debate if whether or not Moses even existed. We'd be like, "Oh, I mean obviously look at the magic stuff."

[00:08:57]>> Yeah. It seems Yeah. unusual that God would allow that to be lost.

[00:09:05]>> It'd be great proof, wouldn't it?

[00:09:08]>> Yeah. And and it's it doesn't sit well with the argument, you know, oh well, God can't give us proof because then we wouldn't have faith and, you know, God's not allowed to show himself. Because that's exactly what God is wanting to happen. He's like, no, keep this as proof for future generations who didn't see this.

[00:09:27]>> Yeah. Yeah. That was the whole shtick was, hey guys, look at this really cool thing >> you get to keep with you.

[00:09:33]>> This is your proof.

[00:09:36]>> Oh yeah.

[00:09:38]I did hear that Ron Wyatt did discover the ark, but unfortunately God zapped it before he could pull it up. So, >> is that I that's I've heard that he claimed that and it seems like such a silly claim because you're claiming to have a physical object that you could move around. So, he he said God zapped it and now he can't show it to us.

[00:10:02]>> So, there was a couple different conspiracy theories. One is God wasn't ready for the world to see it and so it disappeared. Another one was that the the authorities at the garden uh tomb where they were essentially at um when he like left for the night, they didn't want people to have it, so they took it out and it was gone the next day. So there's kind of a couple competing narratives that how it disappeared, but the reality is there was no there's no pictures of it. There's no evidence it ever existed. the people that were on the same trip as him were like, "Yeah, there was no arc down there." So, uh I mean, and like the people the people there uh have a sh like a lot of them are um either u you know, Israeli or or u some of them might actually been converted to Islam at some point given the location, but like they all they'd all be invested in this thing being real. None of them would want to get rid of it.

[00:11:04]Um, >> yeah.

[00:11:05]>> Yeah. Because as much as Ron Wyatt wants it to prove Christianity, it would actually be humongously important to Jews all over the world.

[00:11:15]>> Oh, yeah.

[00:11:15]>> Yeah.

[00:11:17]>> If Jews had proof of the Ark of the Covenant, we'd never stop hearing about it. They'd be they'd be they'd be like the newest tourist attraction. I mean, people would be paying. Imagine how many people would fly to Israel to see the Ark of the Covenant.

[00:11:35]>> Oh my%.

[00:11:36]>> Even the non-religious people, even just like the Indiana Jones fanboys would be over there trying to find Look at the Ark. Yeah.

[00:11:44]>> Ah, 100%. There's Yeah, there's just Oh, Ron Wyatt. All right.

[00:11:53]Okay. So, moving on to chapter 17.

[00:11:59]Um, so this is in my book labeled water from the rock.

[00:12:04]Um, so at the Lord's command, the people of Israel left the sin desert and moved from place to place. Um, they get to Refiddim, but there's no water to be found. So once more, the people grumbled and complained to Moses, "Give us water to drink," they demanded.

[00:12:22]And so in this passage, this is essentially going to like happen twice, but basically they're they're saying we're thirsty and we are supposed to look down on the Israelites for complaining about it, you know, and like in the next verse, Moses says, "Why are you arguing with me? Why are you testing the Lord?" But in verse three it says tormented by thirst they continued to complain.

[00:12:56]>> Yeah.

[00:12:56]>> What? Okay. If I am dying of dehydration again and I am being tormented by thirst, I don't think I would categorize it as complaining if I say I'm thirsty.

[00:13:13]>> Yeah, it's a it's a wild one. So, it's interesting because like your translation says complain, mine says complain, and that's typically what's in there. Um, the root word, which I kind of forget at this point, it's something uh for when it talks about quarreling, is not really a it makes it sound like they're just complaining and arguing.

[00:13:34]But the word used for quarrel in verse two um is something like uh like riv, which means to bring like a legal dispute.

[00:13:44]>> So, okay. Yeah. So, it's not like it's never been people because this bring this comes up a lot anytime an atheist or non-believer is like, "Well, I don't know. God should give us a sign that he's real and then I'll believe." And they be like, "Well, don't put the Lord to the test." Even though like God invites you to test him on multiple occasions, you know, Isaiah 7:14, also in in Malachi, you know, open the storehouses, you know, um that kind of nonsense. And even Gideon, obviously, everyone remembers Gideon's fleece test.

[00:14:14]Um, and even, you know, Abraham tests uh tests Yahweh with u, will you really wipe out the righteous alongside of the wicked? And so, like, what do you mean you can't test the Lord? But this really seems to be less than like it's not that they're they're testing the Lord, like, hey, can you can you reassure us a little bit here? It seems like the author is is basically saying like the people of Israel are essentially bringing like um a damnable dispute against God. Like they're accusing God of bad will or bad faith in bringing them out there, which is different than more like a cry for help. And now reality is they have to paint it that way or else God looks bad. In reality, we all know what happened. They got out there. if if that any of this happened, they got out there and like, "Hey, we're starving. Can somebody please help us here? Uh, we're thirsty. Please somebody send water." Um, so despite the wording, it seems like they're just being normal humans.

[00:15:19]>> Well, even even worst case scenario though that like if God says, "Trust me, I'm going to take care of you." and they get to the point where they are nearly dead from dehydration, it seems very reasonable to say, "Actually, God, no. I'm mad. You have not come through on your promise because we're about to die from dehydration."

[00:15:45]Yeah, you violated our agreement. I >> Right.

[00:15:49]>> I I think that Yeah. And even in that kind of worstc case translation, it's still reasonable. It's true because they they took the I don't know that I hate to use the word they took the leap of faith to follow, you know, Moses and this Yahweh fella out here. And so like they're like, "Listen, if if if God's going to do all this stuff for us, we need him to actually get on it. Like do do all the things here, guy. At least we had food back in Egypt. You know, we weren't starving to death."

[00:16:21]And like it really bothers me how narratives like this are used in churches. Um that this I hear some variation of this all the time that you have to just be grateful for whatever God gives you and um you are not allowed to expect clarity or consistency.

[00:16:46]Um, you know, it's it's not a healthy relationship where you know that you can count on God to always not just come through in the nick of time, but like come through in a healthy, regular way.

[00:17:02]>> And if you question that, >> then it's just a moral failing on your part. Like, oh, you think you're about to die of dehydration? Well, if you complain about being thirsty, you're just not putting enough faith in God.

[00:17:17]And let's talk about how bad those unfaithful Israelites were. And I feel like it's just it's setting you up to excuse an abusive relationship.

[00:17:29]>> Yeah.

[00:17:30]>> You know, like you are nothing. You deserve nothing. And therefore, whatever scraps God gives you, you should just be grateful for. And how dare you complain because what are you talking about?

[00:17:43]God's taking care of you. He didn't quite let you die of dehydration. You should praise him all the time.

[00:17:50]>> It really feels um a lot like um you know remember growing up your one of your parents might have said, "I'll give you something to cry about." Except they had something to cry about. Like they dying of starvation and God's like, "Suck it up. Walk it off."

[00:18:09]I know.

[00:18:12]And poor Moses was reading this.

[00:18:14]>> Yeah. Like Moses is here. He's He's stuck in the middle. He's like, "Hey, they're about to ready to stone me."

[00:18:20]Like Moses is like, "Hey, God, can you can you help me out here?"

[00:18:24]>> And uh and God just gets mad.

[00:18:27]>> Yeah, totally. And what's interesting is like the people yell and are mad and then Moses asks God and then God does something about it. But we have no indication either way like what would have happened if the people hadn't complained, >> right?

[00:18:46]>> We don't know. It's not like the text tells us that no, God had this plan.

[00:18:51]Here's what the plan was and the people were being impatient. It just says they were dying of thirst and then once they complained, God helped them out.

[00:19:02]>> Yeah. And given what's going to come later in this chapter, you would think God would have the foresight to make sure they had plenty of water ahead of time.

[00:19:10]>> I know, right? Like, why would you want to do that to your people? Like, if you love these people, you would give them water regularly.

[00:19:20]>> Well, it's like you said last week with the coercive control. You have to uh ration unnecessarily ration all the provisions of food and the water and everything to increase you know that dependency and control. It's a really like sadistic manipulation game.

[00:19:41]>> Yeah, it is. It is. And it's it's it's like it's trying to teach the Israelites you you know um what's the it's from it's I don't know if you've seen heavy weights but >> or um Oh yeah.

[00:19:57]>> You know lunch is canled because of a a lack of hustle or you know the beatings will continue until morale improves.

[00:20:05]>> Exactly.

[00:20:06]>> Like >> yeah some classics there.

[00:20:10]>> I haven't seen Heavyweights in a long time. That's a great movie. What was his name? Tony Tony Perkins.

[00:20:16]>> I actually don't remember. I don't I >> Ben Stiller was the guy who played the guy, but I I think it was I think he played Tony Perkins was his weird name.

[00:20:29]>> Let me see. Or Tony Perkins might be a real person. Hold on. Let's see.

[00:20:33]>> Yeah, I don't know. I can't remember his name.

[00:20:37]>> Uh in the heavyweights movie.

[00:20:41]No, Tony Perus.

[00:20:43]>> They made it sound >> okay.

[00:20:45]>> Just close enough to be like one of those goofy motivational speakers, but not close enough to like get a lawsuit for liel or defamation.

[00:21:00]Oh man. Okay. So God is going to make Moses do some weird stuff instead of just giving the people water because it's always a test of of how well can you obey my detailed instructions.

[00:21:15]So okay um he says take your shepherd's staff call some leaders with you. My verse six says, "I will meet you by the rock at Mount Si." Which is really funny to me, this phrasing like, "Okay, all right, Moses, fine. Look, I'll meet you over there. Just I'll be there in a second."

[00:21:38]Like, it's >> it's so human and and corporeal of God of like, "Okay, I I got to like I got to take the the long way around, so I'll be there in a minute."

[00:21:51]And I I get like and you've heard it too where people are like, "Well, this is uh anthropomorphic language." Like, "No, no, no, no, no. God's speaking. This is not somebody describing God. These are God's words himself."

[00:22:05]>> If he's not physically meeting him over there, why say it? Why not just say, "Um, go over to the rock near Horeb and strike the rock, and I will make water come out." You don't have to add I'll be standing there. That's nonsense.

[00:22:24]>> I know. I really like the imagery that like it's going to take God a minute and he's like, "All right, just just give me five minutes. Hang on. I'll meet you over there."

[00:22:35]>> It's so wild. Uh, and I it's it's weird to me because like every time people really want God God to be omnipresent, but every time >> the Torah mentions God, he's just not.

[00:22:50]He's not omnipresent.

[00:22:51]>> He's not. He never is in any way.

[00:22:54]Well, it's really interesting because I I'm looking at your translation versus mine, and I find yours a little more interesting because um so the water comes out, it works, he does what he's supposed to do. And um because and it says at the end, because the people of Israel argued with Moses and tested the Lord by saying, "Is the Lord going to take care of us or not?"

[00:23:21]But yours says, "Is the Lord among us or not?"

[00:23:25]>> Um, the end of verse seven. And I mean, that's so reasonable. What a reasonable thing to say. Like, look, is God here or not? Like, what you know, and no, God's over at the rock. Like, he had to go over and meet him at the rock. So, he's not there. He's He's not with you right now.

[00:23:51]>> And there's another interesting So, if you go to Deuteronomy uh 23, I think it's like verses 12 through 16 or something. Um where we get this other really funny situation where like if you're reading it, you're like if this can't be real if God is omnipresent. So like this is for when they're marching.

[00:24:15]They're already, you know, they're lost in the desert now for 40 years. says, "You shall have a designated area outside of the camp to which you shall go. With your tools, you shall have a trowel. When you relieve yourself outside, you shall dig a hole with it and cover up your excrement because uh the Lord your God travels along with your camp to save you and hand over your enemies to you." What? What?

[00:24:40]Wait, so God God's presence can be inside the camp and your excrement and stuff is outside the camp and God's not there.

[00:24:49]Like what are we doing?

[00:24:50]>> I don't even look at the end of that sentence. So that he may not see anything indecent.

[00:24:59]>> And we'll see it when we get the the laws in Exodus. Uh when we look get the clothing laws for Aaron, right, for how he's supposed to dress when he's doing his his duties as priest, >> um like he even has to have his like particular undergarments and he has to step a particular way so that he doesn't expose his nether regions to the to like the holy region. like God is in God's presence is in this holy region and you can't expose your your underside to him cuz God doesn't he don't want to see that he created it but he doesn't want to see it.

[00:25:45]I can't get over that that like okay God designed us to poop. That's how he designed our system. But if he sees it, he's gonna be offended and will not help you win wars any longer.

[00:26:03]>> Yeah. As if God doesn't have one.

[00:26:05]>> Does God not have I mean, obviously he does.

[00:26:09]>> Is Is he wearing clothing? Is God wearing clothing?

[00:26:14]>> I don't know what he's supposed to be. I don't I don't know if he's supposed to have I don't I don't know what anatomy god is supposed to I don't know that's I don't know I don't get it weird >> Francesca Stra Capulu agrees with most of the ancient neareastern scholars which is that this god like other ancient gods had bodies >> solders to it. them.

[00:26:39]>> I mean, that would make more sense. And that like God was supposed to be hanging out amongst the Israelites, right? And so he's like, "I don't want to see that.

[00:26:49]Go do that over there." E, >> right?

[00:26:51]>> Gross.

[00:26:53]>> That's nasty. But it it again, it's just one of those funny things because you were like, listen, it's hard for me. I I cannot deal with this idea that God is is in all locations when he just flat out tells you he's not. What are we supposed to do with that?

[00:27:10]>> Right.

[00:27:10]>> Yeah.

[00:27:10]>> And people are like, "Well, he has to use words in a way that you'll understand." No, he doesn't. He He could use words that are truthful and we can just understand what he says. He could literally say, "Uh, hey guys, just no matter where you poop, cover it up because like I I can see everything everywhere and I'd rather not have your stuff lying about even if it's a 100 miles away from camp. Bury that stuff."

[00:27:34]But like he doesn't say that. He's like, "No, no, no. You just just put it over there and I'll be fine."

[00:27:39]>> Uhhuh. Yeah. I've heard an apologetic sort of in this area about like actually this is God being like understanding germ theory you know and that's like see God's giving them these laws and people at the time didn't understand they didn't know why they should cover up their excrement but but God did and so he made them poop outside for sanitation. bro is literally like trying to give them like uh bird bloodborne pathogens in Leviticus 14 by smearing like bird blood on people with skin diseases. Like what are we doing here?

[00:28:21]Like yeah, God's God's concerned with germs. Sure he is. Mur murder this blood and sprinkle it on this sick person.

[00:28:34]>> Oh no, >> it's madness.

[00:28:37]Oh, I'm gonna have to remember that one whenever I hear that argument. Bird blood.

[00:28:44]>> Yeah, read that. Just the whole the whole 14th chapter of Leviticus is just if if you're like a viologist or you work in the medical field, it'll make your skin crawl.

[00:29:00]H. If I was more organized, I would keep these in a table. I need to write some of these things down. It would make sense.

[00:29:07]>> I know. You know what? I do keep some of this stuff on and I'll plug the deconstruction cheat sheet. I do have a list of scientific errors.

[00:29:14]>> You want to do that. Yes.

[00:29:17]>> Uh but I haven't added Leviticus 14 to it. Yeah. I'll I'll do a note to add some stuff there when I get time this week.

[00:29:26]Alrighty. So, um back to our text. So, they get the water. Hooray. God has saved them. Sure. Um, so they were still at this place and the warriors of Amalecch came to fight against them. So it doesn't say anything else about why they're coming or what's I mean are they in the Amalachites land? Is that what's happening?

[00:29:56]>> So this is the difficulty. Um, it's not entirely clear where Amalecch lives.

[00:30:02]Now, based on like reconstructions of the biblical text, it seems like they live somewhere in the Negv desert region, which would be technically north of where they're at. So, they're just north of Mount Si if they're in Rfadem.

[00:30:21]And if although in other parts of the Bible, Refodm is somewhere else. So it's it's very confused. There's another Refodm way up by the tribe of Dan later.

[00:30:33]Uh which is neither here nor there for now. But um they're they're just north of Mount Si in that region. So it seems like they're south of the Amalachite territory. So but again we have no archaeological data whatsoever for the Amalachites. Not a shred of evidence that they ever existed even. Um, there's a lot of people that think that the Amalachites actually are like a fictitious uh group that just gets named like the enemies of Israel um through linguistic reasons. But the reality is if they came out to fight, would it I mean would we be wrong to think that maybe they were encroaching on their territory? Why else would they go out to fight?

[00:31:19]>> Yeah, absolutely. That that's what I thought right where the Israel I mean the Israelites entire purpose in this whole journey is to go take land from people >> right >> that's what they have stated that they're going to do that God promised them land that is currently occupied by someone else. So yeah >> it would make sense that people would be mad at them. Well, remember too when they get to Jericho, um, Rahab is like, "Hey, we've all heard about you and we're terrified." Right? So, if if they knew, right, wouldn't would it be wrong to assume that maybe the Amalachites had heard as well? And they're like, "Well, let's try to nip this in the bud, >> right?"

[00:32:06]>> You know what I mean?

[00:32:06]>> Yeah, definitely.

[00:32:09]So, um, Moses is like, "All right, call the Israelites to arms and fight the army. Tomorrow, I will stand at the top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand." So Joshua did what Moses commanded, he led his men out to fight.

[00:32:25]While Moses, Aaron, and her went to the top of the nearby hill. As long as Moses held up the staff with his hands, the Israelites had the advantage. But whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalachites gained the upper hand.

[00:32:37]Moses's arms finally became too tired to hold up the staff. So Aaron and her found a stone for him to sit and they held his arms up.

[00:32:47]>> So >> it's bad. It's really bad.

[00:32:51]>> This is one of the times where one of many times this is like witchcraft, >> right? Like this is not a relationship with a father god. This is you're doing a spell and your body has to be in the right position for the spell to continue to work. And like what kind of God would like when Moses's arm is getting tired say oh no I can't like sorry I'm I'm going to take my powers away and let the Amalachites win. Like what in what world does that make sense? Unless you're just doing a spell and and you have to hold your body in the right position for the magic powers of the spell to work.

[00:33:42]>> And the thing is, first of all, it's super capriccious because like remember when when we talk about how God like kills people, they're like, "Oh, well, they were guilty. They were judged."

[00:33:52]Right? But in this case, God's allowing innocent Israelites to be murdered. Like every time Moses's arms get tired, the good guys get killed. Like what? What are we over what reason? Because Moses couldn't hold his arms up. Like what are we doing here? And like it's funny, God doesn't tell Moses ahead of time, >> which means >> he found out by accident. He was He's just doing this. Uh he's casting the spell and eventually he gets tired and he's like, "All right, we'll just" and then it oh god, we're dying. What do we do? Right. He he he didn't know.

[00:34:28]So, like I don't I don't know how you could get more capriccious than that.

[00:34:32]Like if if God cares about these Israelites, which he clearly doesn't because he's letting them, you know, die of starvation and nearly in, you know, dehydration.

[00:34:42]And now he's just like, I don't know if Moses gets tired, we'll murder a couple of them, see what happens.

[00:34:47]>> It's Yeah, it in no way is this a personal God who loves you.

[00:34:54]>> No, >> in no way. It can't.

[00:34:59]>> It's not possible.

[00:35:00]>> I mean, unless you believe that this God is limited, which in many chapters he appears to be um God could only distribute his power and he was limited to when Moses's hands were up.

[00:35:16]>> Right. What? And the other thing too is like we've talked a little bit about how like magic and rituals uh were abundant in the ancient near east. Th this type of stuff was pretty common where in order for >> the god to do the the magic stuff, you had to do like a series of rights or recitation of uh of you know incantation.

[00:35:42]Um because those are really important to the gods. gods.

[00:35:47]They weren't all powerful. They needed you to perform the right rights, the right rituals, or else they would become displeased or they just would lack the power. And all of the ancient rituals of Mesopotamia um sound a lot like this. We're like, you you need to do symbolic nonsense to get what you need. Uh and if you don't do the symbology, God's like, I guess he didn't want it bad enough.

[00:36:12]>> Yeah. Sorry. Yeah, >> I think that's such an important point though that um how similar this text and these rituals and this culture is to others in the same area at the same time because it's so frequently a claim from Christians about how different it is. And you know, so many of us didn't actually know, right? Like if your pastor tells you that this is so different, then that's it. You just believe your pastor and go on with your day. And so I do think it's really important to keep telling people like what you know about the other surrounding cultures because it makes such a it's it's such a big part of Christianity that Christians believe that their God and their rituals are so different. Like >> how many times have you heard the argument that Christianity must be true because no other religion is like ours?

[00:37:18]>> Um and it's just it's just not the case.

[00:37:22]>> It's certainly not. And even like the really unique ones like the Day of Atonement, I remember I did a paper in seminary, maybe my first year in seminary, and I was really obsessed with these rituals when I was in school because I was studying the Hebrew Bible.

[00:37:36]And I did uh a paper on the day of atonement. And this was a basic exeetical paper, but I I dove deep into it. It was like twice as long as what I was supposed to write because I just it was too much stuff. And but in the course of doing that, I was like, hm, I keep finding these rituals that are too damn similar. Like we've got an Assyrian scape scapegoat, but it's a sheep ritual. We've got another one in from the Hittite people. I'm like, wait a minute. This just looks like the other magic that these guys were doing. And what? Like sin is transferable. You can just transfer the sin onto a goat and send it off. Like what the f what are we doing?

[00:38:17]>> And so it's like oh these the Bible's just got blood magic. Like every everybody had blood magic. The Bible got blood magic. That's all. Not special.

[00:38:26]>> Yeah. Yeah. I know. It's Yeah. I Do pastors know that?

[00:38:38]>> No.

[00:38:40]>> The majority Yeah. The The majority of pastors that you're going to find in church if they went to seminary, the almost threearter of them, one came to study the New Testament, and number two, specifically wanted to study theology.

[00:38:56]meaning they've already they're committed to the Bible being true.

[00:38:59]They're committed to Christianity being true. We don't care what's in the Old Testament. I need to know everything about the New Testament so I can get my Christian theology right so we can make sure people get really saved the right way.

[00:39:13]>> And so that's a lot of people in seminary are studying. They're studying the theology rather than what I would consider like the the nuts and the bolts. So like, hey, is this even true?

[00:39:24]Is this is does this even make sense?

[00:39:29]>> Interesting. Okay. Well, honestly, that makes me feel a little better in that it would be worse if pastors knew this and purposefully, thoughtfully lied to us about it.

[00:39:42]>> So, makes me feel a little better.

[00:39:44]Honestly, >> the typical seminary graduate, you'll take typically two to three Old Testament survey courses where you go through like the section. So, you'll do like a section on the Torah, a section on the writings, a section on the prophets. Um, and that might be all the Old Testament classes you ever took if if that's just part of your base core curriculum, unless you went to school specifically to study the Old Testament like I did. And then you would take extracurriculars and, you know, courses that were adjacent to it and uh then you would get into these texts like one of my favorite classes where I got to dig into these texts is I took Aadian. Well, what are you going to do when you're learning Aadian? want to read all of the Acadian popular texts and so then you do but then you know >> Yeah.

[00:40:38]>> Okay.

[00:40:39]>> It might not be their fault.

[00:40:41]>> Yeah.

[00:40:42]>> Yeah. Yeah. No, that really is helpful.

[00:40:44]Um >> yeah, it restores my my faith in humanity a little bit.

[00:40:51]>> I didn't I don't I didn't run into many people in seminary that were studying the Old Testament. I was like one of the only ones. Um, it's not nearly as popular obviously because we're Christians. We don't need the Old Testament, right?

[00:41:02]>> Mhm. Yeah. No, totally. That totally makes sense.

[00:41:07]>> Um, so eventually Joshua and his troops win because Moses is able to hold his hands up long enough and complete the spell >> with the loophole.

[00:41:18]>> Um, >> oh yeah. Well, >> you put the rocks under then obviously So the Lord instructs Moses, "Write this down as a permanent record and announce it to Joshua. I will blot out every trace of Amalecch from under heaven."

[00:41:37]Oo, could you use that as a like this is why there's no archaeological evidence of the Amalachites? Well, unfortunately, they survive for like another 600 years according to the Bible because they show up in 1st Samuel 15 when God's like, "Hey, remember what happened to the Amalachites about 400 years ago? We're going to go wipe them out now. Men, women, children, and baby, we're going to wipe them all out. Even the animals, kill all the animals for what they did when we came up out of Egypt." So, God waited 400 years to fulfill this promise. No, nobody holds a grudge like Yahweh.

[00:42:15]Wow.

[00:42:17]So 400 years later, the Amalachite women and children and animals had to be killed because the Amalachite army started a war >> basically >> seems proportionate >> or potentially defended their territory.

[00:42:39]Yeah.

[00:42:40]>> So, like it's pretty crazy. There's I was saying earlier there's some additional detail, too. That's interesting because uh believe it or not, this passage here is also connected to Psalm 22. This ever so famous, they pierced my hands and my feet and cast lots for my clothing. But, you know, it doesn't say pierced in Hebrew. But, um people ask, well, it has to be about Jesus cuz they divided the clothing. and people they like no it's not true they typically divided clothing uh when you lost in battle and this is one of those stories where Josephus adds some details so we hear about the loss of the army here but if you turn to Josephus he actually gives you a little extra detail says on the next day Moses spoiled the dead bodies of their enemies and gathered together the armor of those that had fled and gave rewards such had signal signalized themselves in the action and highly commended Joshua their general so on and so forth. So we we got this really interesting situation here where uh Josephus is telling us, yeah, when you lose in battle, when you get captured, when bad things happen, people come and take your stuff and they they divide it among, you know, who you know, whoever is going to end up getting it, >> which is um really good information because like, yeah, if David, he spent all of his time in war, if he got captured, which he certainly would have got captured at least once, right?

[00:44:10]Obviously, they're going to take his stuff. They're gonna take his clothing.

[00:44:14]What do you think's going to happen to him?

[00:44:17]>> Yeah.

[00:44:19]Huh. What um tell me a little about Josephus. So, why is Josephus recording what Moses did?

[00:44:28]>> Oh, so Josephus was uh commissioned by the Romans um under uh I think Vespasian to do a history of the Jewish people.

[00:44:39]And I mean to be fair, this is like as they were like uh nearly already wiped out, which is probably why they wanted to do a history of them. But um >> so he took all of the literature he had, including the biblical literature, and created uh a narrative, two different narratives. One is called the antiquities of the Jews, and one calls the wars of the Jews. And the antiquity of Jews covers like almost all of the biblical narrative with some extra tidbits in there, which is kind of nice cuz you might wonder like where did he where's he getting the extra information from. He doesn't always tell us, not always sure where it comes from. But it's cool cuz he adds you could read the same Bible story in Josephus and he's got additional deets. I'm like, oh, oh, that's interesting that Josephus version has some uh some slight nuances to it.

[00:45:28]>> Hm.

[00:45:30]Yeah. So, and we don't know like is he interviewing people and getting more information or is he just embellishing because he wants to tell a better story.

[00:45:38]Like we don't we don't know which of those things it is.

[00:45:42]>> It might be a mixture of all of them. In book 10, when he covers Daniel, he speaks very glowingly of Daniel's very miraculous prophecies. They're so precise and so accurate. And obviously he wrote before the events happened. And what a what a miracle it is, right? Of course he also says that and you know Antus Epiphanies fulfilled those prophecies, not Jesus. Um but nevertheless, like he seems to be a real believer in the religion. So he's probably trying to do his best to write the history but also be faithful to his religion.

[00:46:20]Hm.

[00:46:23]And his religion being Judaism, not following Jesus. Right.

[00:46:29]>> Right. Oh, yeah. He was definitely he was definitely a Jew, although he maybe was slightly helenized. He definitely kind of cozied up to the Roman authorities. In fact, they you know, they even bought him like his like a home or an apartment to live in and funded the writing of these works. So he was definitely in well and he he kind of welcomed almost the Roman invaders in certain occasions. Um so it's hard to say >> exactly where all of his allegiances were, but he definitely was not a Christian. Which is why if you read everything he's written and then you read like book 18 when it talks about Jesus, like that doesn't sound like what Josephus would say anything like that.

[00:47:12]Like he'd be a Christian if he believed that nonsense. It's clearly interpolated by the Christians.

[00:47:18]>> Yeah. Okay.

[00:47:20]>> Yeah. Because that quote first shows up in Eusebius. Like we don't have something prior to that quotes that exact thing. Um and he was a church historian and let's just say he had some motives.

[00:47:32]>> Ah, okay. Well, that's fair then. Yeah.

[00:47:40]>> All right. So, at the end of the chapter, um, you have to write it down and that God's going to blot out the Amalachites. And so, Moses built an altar. And Moses says, "They have dared to raise their fist against the Lord's throne. So now the Lord will be at war with Amalcch generation after generation."

[00:48:03]Yep, that's a grudge. All right.

[00:48:06]>> Why not just wipe them out if it's that if they're that bad? just like send the lightning, part the seas, you know, part the desert sand, whatever you got to do, and just wipe them out, be done with them.

[00:48:18]>> Um, >> well, and to a point I know you've made before, but in this passage, so if this is the I don't remember if this is the first time we're seeing the Amalachites, but nothing is said about them being like terrible people, you know, like nothing is said about them doing atrocious things, committing atrocities.

[00:48:37]They just attacked Israel. And so God's mad at them because they attacked Israel.

[00:48:43]>> Um, but I know that Christians have to dehumanize the Amalachites so much because how else can they morally justify the total and complete genocide that happens later, >> right? And they'll say, well, the Amalachites were doing uh, you know, infant sacrifices. They're not. That's not in the text anywhere. That's some of the Canaanites were accused of doing that. some of the Canaanite groups. The Amalachites don't appear to be part of those people groups though. Um, so like that that doesn't follow. We don't really know anything about the Amalachites and the Bible doesn't really accuse them a whole lot of anything other than, you know, just being kind of an enemy of Israel.

[00:49:28]>> It's like same old story, tale as old as time of like, okay, we want to get rid of these people. Now we have to make everyone believe that they are somehow subhuman and deserve to be wiped out and >> right >> humans fall for it every time.

[00:49:45]>> They really do. It's the tails all the time. And you know even they think about what's happening in our country today with people like willing to hurt and villainize people with brown skin because hey maybe they're not here legally. Maybe we can just ship them off to whatever country we think they might be from and let them deal with it despite the fact that they've got families and children and mouths to feed. And they're not It's okay. They're not human like we are. Like they're they don't deserve kindness like we deserve.

[00:50:16]They did a bad thing. They deserve bad treatment.

[00:50:21]>> I know. I'm like, "Oh, I have such a I have such a soap box about this." But it it's all connected to hell because you once you say it's okay to torture bad people, right? Because hell is torture and everyone deserves it and it's okay to torture bad people. then you don't ever have to feel bad for the mistreatment of people because as soon as you put them in the category of bad, then it's fine if they get tortured and killed and whatever because you've put them in that category and anything that happens to people in that category is apparently justified and >> they had it coming.

[00:51:04]>> Yeah. Yep. That's why I have such beef with hell because it it's all all of those thought lines are connected.

[00:51:14]>> And even even if you don't believe in hell, there's kind of like there's still this notion among the the Abrahamic varieties of like, well, um, God will sort that out in the afterlife.

[00:51:28]You don't you don't have to worry about that. You know, we we just we'll wipe them out now and let God deal with it.

[00:51:33]And even like during the Spanish uh Inquisition and in the like when the concistadors went out to conquer, you know, heretics and native lands that weren't Christian, they would do this this practice. I don't know if a lot of people know about this. They would go into these lands. They would forcefully baptize, like mass baptize the population and then murder them all because the idea was, well, we baptized them, so like they're, you know, God's going to accept them now. We can murder them.

[00:52:06]>> Oh my god.

[00:52:07]>> Mhm.

[00:52:08]>> That's so dark. And they they did even under like the early days of Constantine and Theodocious 1 and two, they were forcefully baptizing Jews, like tracking down Jewish people, forcefully baptizing them.

[00:52:24]>> Oh my god.

[00:52:25]>> Pretty wild. We're not really told what happened after they were forcefully baptized, but I think we kind of know, don't we?

[00:52:36]>> Well, that's terrible and upsetting. Um, yay, God.

[00:52:45]Not you.

[00:52:49]>> Oh my gosh. Okay, well, we will end here. We got through chapter 17. Um, so thank you everyone to making it to the end with us. Um, and as always, thank you very much, Justin, for co-hosting.

[00:53:05]>> Thank you so much for having me, Sarah.

[00:53:07]We'll see you again next week.