You may subscribe yourself at the Ascension site here and receive notifications in your email, or just follow along on my blog. Bible in One Year Readings Index
Plague of Flies (Joseph Tissot)
From a Study I did in 2010 on the connection between Passover the the Eucharist
The maggid culminates with the ten plagues God finally sends to Egypt. Each plague punishes a god of the Egyptians. As each plague is named, each person dips their finger into their cup of wine and wipes the drop on their plate. Symbolizing the spilling of a drop of blood for each plague.
Dam (Blood) All the water in Egypt was changed to blood
Tzfardeyah (Frogs) An infestation of frogs sprang up in Egypt
Kinim (Lice) Egypt was afflicted by lice
Arov (Swarms of Flies) An infestation of flies sprang up in Egypt
Dever (Blight or pestilence) Killed of all Egyptian livestock
Shichin (Boils) The Egyptians were afflicted by an epidemic of boils
Barad (Hail) Large heavy hail rained down on Egypt
Areh (Locusts) Swarms destroy crops in Egypt
Choshech (Darkness) Egypt is covered in darkness
Understanding the Scriptures - The Didache Series (Chapter 7, page 134-135)
Plague of frogs (Exodus 8: 1 - 15) still didn't scare Pharaoh. But the plague of gnats (Exodus 8: 16 - 19) caused the magicians to throw up their hands and admit, "This is the finger of God." But Pharaoh still wouldn't listen.
With the fourth plague that of flies (Exodus 8: 20-32), God made it even more obvious that it was the God of the Israelites who was sending these plagues. When the flies came, they covered all of Egypt except for Goshen, where the Israelites lived. Now Pharaoh was willing to negotiate. Perhaps the Israelites could just take some time off and sacrifice here in Egypt. But Moses could not accept those conditions. And his argument is very important, because it tells us not only why God chose these particular plagues, but also why God asked the Israelites to sacrifice animals like cattle, sheep, and goats.
But Moses said, "It would not be right to do so; for we shall sacrifice to the Lord our God offerings abominable to the Egyptians. If we sacrifice offerings abominable to the Egyptians before their eyes, will they not stone us? We must go three days' journey into the wilderness and sacrifice to the Lord our God as he will command us. (Exodus 8:26-27)
The animals that the Israelites would be sacrificing would be the animals that the Egyptians worshiped as gods. God's message to the Israelites was clear that they had to give up the Egyptian gods and worship the one true God. The animal sacrifices would be a permanent warning against falling back into the idolatry of the Egyptians.
The plagues also were judgments on the gods of Egypt. The Egyptians worshiped the Nile as a god (Hapi). God turned its water into blood. The Egyptians worshiped a bull, God brought a plague on their cattle. The Egyptians worshiped a frog, and God sent them so many frogs that they had to shovel them into stinking piles of dead Egyptian gods.
Leviticus 6 A Guilt Offering for Causing Financial Loss to a Neighbor by Dishonesty
‘‘If any one sin, and commit a trespass against Yahweh, and deal falsely with his neighbor in a matter of a deposit, or of bargaining, or of robbery, or have oppressed his neighbor, or have found that which was lost, and deal falsely with regard to it, and swear to a lie; in any of all these things that a man does, sinning in them." Leviticus 6:2-3
These are sins against God's people which require compensation as well as atonement, for they have suffered loss. They are evidence of financial dishonesty and greed. This is a reminder that to take false advantage of God’s people is to take false advantage of God. Here the command ‘you shall not covet’ has been broken.
The sins in mind are those of dishonesty with respect to a deposit not repaid when it should have been, the making of a false or unfair bargain, a deliberate theft, the sin of oppressing or crowding a neighbor for financial gain, that of finding something that was lost and keeping it, or the making of a lie on oath. If someone has done any of these things they must complete the following requirements.
‘Then it shall be, if he has sinned, and is guilty, that he shall restore that which he took by robbery, or the thing which he has obtained by oppression, or the deposit which was committed to him, or the lost thing which he found, or any thing about which he has sworn falsely; he shall even restore it in full, and shall add the fifth part more to it, to him to whom it belongs shall he give it, in the day of his being found guilty.’ Leviticus 6:4-5
The first thing that he must do is make full restoration, and on top must add one fifth as a kind of fine. It is possible that this signifies a double tithe (two tenths). Then only can we come to God to find forgiveness.
+++
A Daily Defense
Day 31 Literal versus Non-literal Accounts
CHALLENGE: “If you admit non-literal accounts into the Bible, how do you know that it isn’t all non-literal?”
DEFENSE: Just because the Bible contains one kind of material doesn’t mean it can’t contain other kinds, or that we can’t tell the difference. It would be the fallacy of hasty generalization to conclude that just because some passages are non-literal, they all must be.
We don’t make this kind of mistake with other literature. For example, if you walk into a library and notice that it has fiction shelves, you don’t thereby conclude that all the books in the library must be fiction. Typical libraries have both fiction and nonfiction. This analogy is closer to the Bible than may at first be obvious.
Although the Bible is printed in a single volume today, it is a library of books that were written over a period of more than a thousand years. Like a modern library, the Bible has books of different types. Some are historical, some poetic, some prophetic, and some fall into other categories. The different types of books do not prevent us from being able to distinguish them.
In a modern library, a biography does not read like a novel, and in the Bible a poetic book does not read like a historical one. It is even possible to identify which passages of a book belong to which genres, as when the Gospels switch between biographical material about Jesus and his parables or his prophecies.
Sometimes the genre of a biblical book is not immediately obvious because of cultural differences between then and today. We have a native faculty for identifying the genres of books written in our own culture because we are used to reading them and we understand their cultural references. We have less of a faculty for identifying the genres of biblical books because they were written in a different culture, do not always follow the same conventions, and contain unfamiliar references.
However, a close study of the books and the culture they were written in can compensate for this. That is a major function of biblical scholarship. It is thus possible to identify the clues in a text that told the original audience what kind of literature they were reading (see Days 181, 196).
Jimmy Akin, A Daily Defense: 365 Days (Plus One) to Becoming a Better Apologist
No comments:
Post a Comment