Bible In One Year Day 42 (Exodus 24, Leviticus 17 - 18, Psalm 78)

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Day 42:  Moral Laws 

Commentary
Understanding the Scripture - The Didache Series
Chapter 7, page 142 - 143

Moses went up to speak for the people and God gave him a more detailed version of the laws.  Moses built an altar and the people sealed the covenant with a sacrifice uniting them and God in the same covenant.  
The Ten Commandments sum up and proclaim God's law.  They form an organic unity, outlining in full the requirements for loving both God and neighbor. For example, one cannot honor another person without blessing God his Creator, and one cannot adore God without loving all men, and his creatures.  In this way, the Ten Commandments bring man's religious and social life into unity.  
The Ten Commandments also reflects the natural law which contains those rules which regulate moral behavior that are available to us through the application of human reason.  

Moses on Mount Sinai (Jean Leon Gerome)+++
Commentary 
Agape Bible

Exodus 24:1-11: The Ratification Ceremony and the Sacred Meal
^24:1He then said to Moses, Come up to Yahweh, you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel and bow down at a distance. ²Moses alone will approach Yahweh; the others will not approach, nor will the people come up with him.' ³Moses went and told the people all Yahweh's words and all the laws, and all the people answered with one voice, All the words Yahweh has spoken we will carry out!' ⁴Moses put all Yahweh's words into writing, and early next morning he built an altar at the foot of the mountain, with twelve standing-stones for the twelve tribes of Israel. ⁵Then he sent certain young Israelites to offer burnt offerings and sacrifice bullocks to Yahweh as communion sacrifices. ⁶Moses then took half the blood and put it into basins, and the other half he sprinkled on the altar. ⁷Then, taking the Book of the Covenant, he read it to the listening people, who then said, We shall do everything that Yahweh has said; we shall obey.' ⁸Moses then took the blood and sprinkled it over the people, saying, This is the blood of the covenant which Yahweh has made with you, entailing all these stipulations.' ⁹Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu and seventy elders of Israel then went up, ¹⁰and they saw the God of Israel beneath whose feet there was what looked like a sapphire pavement pure as the heavens themselves, ¹¹but he did no harm to the Israelite notables; they actually gazed on God and then ate and drank.

Moses, Aaron, the two eldest of Aaron's four sons (Nadab and Abihu), and the seventy elders of the twelve tribes (who represent the entire people) were invited to come mid-way up the mountain closer to Yahweh's presence where they prostrated themselves before God. The division establishes the governing hierarchy of the Old Covenant Church at this time: Moses, the three chief priests, the twelve tribes (descended from the twelve sons of Israel who are the physical fathers of the Old Covenant Church) and the most important seventy elders of the judicial authority who as representatives of the twelve tribes assisted Moses in governing the Old Covenant Church.

Question: Where is a similar division of this hierarchy repeated in the New Testament Gospels?

Answer: Jesus, the three Apostles: Peter, James and John Zebedee, who are chosen to accompany Jesus on certain occasions without the other Apostles (i.e., Mt 17:1; 26:37; Mk 5:37; 14:33), the twelve Apostles (spiritual fathers of the New Covenant Church) and Jesus' seventy disciples.

+++Agape Bible Commentary
Leviticus Chapter 17 - 18  

1. Prologue: laws concerning right worship and blood prohibition (Lev 17:1-16)
2. Commands concerning sexual unions (Lev 18:1-30) 
   
   Chapter 17: Slaughtering of Animals Acceptable for Sacrifice and the Blood Prohibition

   Chapter seventeen is composed of five laws addressing proper conduct in offering sacrifice and in the slaughtering of animals.

   Please read Leviticus 17:1-7: The Law Limiting the Slaughtering of Animals Acceptable for Sacrifice
   Law #1: The only animals that the Israelites are prohibited from killing and eating are those animals that are acceptable as communion sacrifices.  The goals are:

   1. To promote fellowship with God through the sacred meal of the communion offering which must be sacrificed on God's one Altar of Burnt Offerings within His one Sanctuary and through the blood ritual executed by Yahweh's ordained priesthood.
   2. To discourage the former practice of setting up altars whenever and wherever they wanted to offer Yahweh sacrifice.
   3. To discourage offering these animals in pagan sacrifice for communion or burnt offerings.

   There is now only one place of sacrifice and worship and there is only one legitimate priesthood (descend through Aaron).  The Aaronic priesthood has superseded and suspended the old priesthood of the patriarchal family that set up altars and offered sacrifice wherever they saw fit.

   Question: What does the one central point for obtaining expiation and salvation foreshadow?  See Mt 16:18-20; Jn 14:6; Jn 20:21-23; Acts 4:12.

   Answer:

   1. The redeeming work of Jesus Christ who is the one and only way to salvation and
   2. The Universal Church-Christ's one priestly authority on earth guided by Christ's one Vicar, the successors of St. Peter.

   Law #2 Leviticus 17:8-9: The Law Concerning the Individual Whole Burnt Offerings

3. Law #3 Leviticus 17:10-12: The Prohibition against Consuming Blood

4. Question: What three reasons does God give for the prohibition against consuming blood in the second law concerning sacrifice and the slaughtering of animals (vs. 11-12)?

   Answer:

   1. Blood sustains life.
   2. God has given blood shed on the altar as the means by which humans may find expiation.
   3. Blood is what expiates for a person's life.

   Sacred Scripture has always considered blood a sacred sign of life (see CCC 2260)

5. Law #4 Leviticus 17:13-14: Concerning the Hunting of Wild Game

6. Law #5 Leviticus 17:15-16: The Prohibition against Eating Dead or Wounded Animals

7. 
   Chapters 18: The Laws of Sexual Purity within the Family and the Community

   Many of the commands and prohibitions of the Law recorded in the Holiness Code are listed in groups of sevens, including the list of the seven annual feasts in the Liturgical Calendar. 
   
   Chapter 18 is a list of twenty-one commands regulating sexual conduct within the family and the community.  The Biblical family was organized along patriarchal lines, and therefore the prohibitions are addressed to the male head of the family.
   
   God defines the nuclear family as founded on six relatives: father, mother, son, daughter, brother and unmarried sister (Lev 21:2-3).  In this section defining sexual prohibitions, the phrase "uncover her/his/their nakedness" is a euphemism for sexual intercourse.  The literal Hebrew phrase is used in verses: 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 (twice), 18, and 19 (see footnote 1).  The regulations concerning sexual prohibitions are divided into three main topics:

   1. Sexual prohibitions within the family defined as incest (verses 6-16)
   2. Forbidden sexual unions with women who are closely related (verses 17-18)
   3. Practices that are detestable to God, including adultery, child sacrifice, homosexuality and bestiality (verses 19-23)

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A Daily Defense 
Day 42 What Happened at Jesus' Tomb? 

CHALLENGE: “The Gospel accounts of what happened at Jesus’ tomb contradict one another.”

DEFENSE: They do not contradict. They agree on all the core facts, and the differences in detail are due to the literary choices that ancient authors regularly made. All four agree that women went to Jesus’ tomb after the Sabbath, around dawn on the first day of the week (Matt. 28:1; Mark 16:1–2; Luke 24:1; John 20:1). The stone was rolled away, the body was gone, and they encountered an angel (Matt. 28:2–7; Mark 16:4–7; Luke 24:2–7, 10; John 20:1, 11–13).

 The evangelists do mention different details. All the Gospels indicate Mary Magdalen was among the women, but Matthew, Mark, and Luke mention her companions. Which ones are mentioned was likely determined by who an evangelist knew to be there, who he thought his audience would recognize, and who he wanted to emphasize. 

Matthew and Mark mention one angel, while Luke and John indicate there were two. The formers’ omission of the second angel is an omission, not a contradiction (see Day 37). 

Mark refers to “a young man . . . in a white robe,” but leaves it to the reader to infer that he was an angel. The others make this explicit, and also take note of his clothing, which is described as “white as snow” (Matthew), “dazzling” (Luke), and simply “white” (John). 

The evangelists record different parts of the angels’ message. Matthew and Mark mention that Jesus will appear to the disciples in Galilee (see Day 115), while Luke and John omit this.

Matthew mentions the guards at the tomb, which he previously mentioned in Matthew 27:62–66. He also records that an angel rolled back the stone. This is implicit in the other three. The way Matthew records the angel’s action could be read as a flashback (i.e., what happened before the women arrived).

Even without this reading, the evangelists were not bound to record events in chronological order (see Day 89). John mentions that between the time the women first visited the tomb and the angelic encounter, Peter and John visited the tomb. Peter’s visit is also confirmed in Luke 24:12. Such variations are choices that an ancient author would be expected to make. None involve contradictions.

Jimmy Akin, A Daily Defense: 365 Days (Plus One) to Becoming a Better Apologist