2 Exodus

Exodus sits in slot 2 of the book order as expected. Isaiah chapter 2 matches stories in the second half of Exodus beginning with meeting God at the mountain and the law going forth.

The Mountain

Isaiah 2 opens with a statement that says the story in Exodus of meeting God on the mountain is a "last days" story.

13 Isaiah 2:1-2
¹The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
²And it will come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of Yahvah's house will be established above the mountains, and will be exalted above the hills; and all nations will look to it.

2 Exodus 19:1-2
¹In the 3rd month after the departure of the sons of Israel out of the land of Egypt, on the same day they came to the wilderness of Sin.
²Then they journeyed from Rephidim and came to the wilderness of Sinai, and they camped in the wilderness; and there Israel camped before the mountain.

In addition to treating the storyline in Exodus as an end-times narrative Isaiah hits the broadest themes of the book in this opening statement, the meeting at the mountain and the house that follows.

The Law

Isaiah now focuses on what happens at the mountain.

13 Isaiah 2:3
³And many people will go and say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of Yahvah, to the house of the god of Jacob; and he will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths; for out of Zion will go forth the law, and the word of Yahvah from Jerusalem.

2 Exodus 20:1
¹And god spoke all these words saying,

The law goes forth to the people as God himself teaches/speaks in the hearing of the people.

Canaanite Wars

The next piece in Isaiah deals with everyone turning their weapons into farming implements. The matched story in Exodus, on the other hand, seems to say there's going to be some serious warring going on. Compare the two quotes below.

13 Isaiah 2:4
⁴And he will judge among the nations, and will rebuke many peoples who are far off; and they will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into sickles; nation will not lift up sword against nation, nor will they learn war any longer.

2 Exodus 23:27-28
²⁷I will send my fear before you and will destroy all the peoples against whom you will go to war, and I will make all your enemies flee from you.
²⁸And I will send fierce armies before you, and will destroy the Canaanites and the Hittites from before you.

Notice who is rebuking the nations and who is sending his armies to defeat them. God takes responsibility in both passages for what's going to happen.

These passages reconcile if you treat the Isaiah passage as referring to the time after the wars described in the Exodus passage. This is what eventually happened in history, after David, and probably behaves as a template for a future time, otherwise why would Isaiah be rehashing Exodus as a "last days" story.

The Lampstand

Moving forward in Isaiah chapter 2 and the book of Exodus we arrive at the story of building the tent with all it's articles. Since Isaiah focuses on walking in the light, we focus on the lampstand here rather then some other article in the tent.

13 Isaiah 2:5
⁵House of Jacob, come, and let us walk in the light of Yahvah.

2 Exodus 25:31
³¹And you will make a candlestick of pure gold; of cast work the candlestick will be made; its shaft, its branches, its bowls, its buds, and its flowers will be of 1 piece.

Idols

The infamous golden calf story. Moses is on the mountain being told to take a collection of gold and other materials to build a house for God, and Aaron's in the valley taking a collection of gold to build an idol. Amazing.

13 Isaiah 2:6-9
⁶For you have forsaken your people the house of Jacob, because they are self-satisfied as in the olden days, and they practice augury like the Philistines, and they have reared many alien sons.
⁷Their land is also filled with silver and gold, and there is no end to their treasures; their land is also filled with horses, and there is no end to their chariots;
⁸their land is also filled with idols; they worship the work of their own hands, what their own fingers have made;
⁹and the common man is humbled, and the mighty man is brought low; therefore do not forgive them.

2 Exodus 32:1-8
¹When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, they gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, Arise, make us gods that they may go before us; as for this man Moses who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.
²And Aaron said to them, Remove the golden earrings which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them to me.
³So all the people removed the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron.
⁴And he received them, and drew a design, and made it a molten calf; and they said, This is your god, Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.
⁵And Aaron was afraid, and he built an altar before it; then Aaron made a proclamation, and said, Tomorrow is a feast to Yahvah.
⁶And they rose up early in the morning and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play and to quarrel.

⁷And Yahvah said to Moses, Go down, get away from here; for your people whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves;
⁸they have turned aside quickly from the way which I commanded them; they have made for themselves a molten calf, and have worshiped it, and have sacrificed to it, and said, This is your god, Israel, who has brought you out of the land of Egypt.

Isaiah describes the way the people were behaving while Moses was on the mountain. Lots of gold on hand, which they had plundered from Egypt, and worshipping things they make, like golden calfs, instead of God. The last statement in Isaiah is the mighty man is brought low. In the Exodus account Moses has to go down the mountain because of this debacle. It seems he would have been on the mountain longer had the people just kept the Ten Commandments they were given before Moses went up the mountain for this extended period.

Threat of Destruction

Yahvah is angry enough with the Israelites to wipe them off the face of the land and start again with one man.

13 Isaiah 2:10-17
¹⁰Enter into the rocks, and hide in the dust, for fear of Yahvah, and for the glory of his majesty.
¹¹The lofty looks of man will be humbled, and the haughtiness of man will be brought low, and Yahvah alone will be exalted in that day.

¹²For the day of Yahvah will be against everyone who is proud and lofty, and against everyone who is lifted up, that he will be brought low;
¹³and against all the cedars of Lebanon, that are high and lifted up, and against all the oaks of Bashan,
¹⁴and against all the high mountains, and against all the hills that are lifted up,
¹⁵and against every high tower, and against every fenced wall,
¹⁶and against all the ships of Tarshish, and against all the pleasant sights.
¹⁷And the loftiness of man will be humbled, and the haughtiness of man will be brought low; and Yahvah alone will be exalted in that day.

2 Exodus 32:9-10
⁹And Yahvah said to Moses, I have seen this people, and look, it is a stiff-necked people;
¹⁰now let me alone that my wrath may be kindled against them and that I may destroy them; and I will make of you a great nation.

The day will come when Yahvah alone is exalted. A day when no one worships golden calfs or does whatever they want to the detriment of others. God will be lifted up and man made low. If need be God could have accomplished this by just getting rid of men, but had he wiped out Israel, whom he had choosen, what would have become of the other nations? The Isaiah passage hints at a connection between Israel and the other nations of the world. This same connection is visible in the first match where Israel meets God at the mountain in history, but Isaiah says the nations will look to the mountain in the future. Had God destroyed Israel, who he chose as a nation of priests according to Exodus 19, he likely would have destroyed the rest of the world at the same time.

Idols Removed

The removal of idols mentioned in Isaiah has a match in the story where Moses grounds up the golden calf in Exodus.

13 Isaiah 2:18
¹⁸And the idols will utterly pass away.

2 Exodus 32:20
²⁰And he took the calf which they had made, and burned it in the fire, and filed it with a file until it was ground into dust, and he scattered it on the water, and made the sons of Israel drink of it.

Cleft of the Rock

Isaiah then deals with people hiding in the rocks for fear of Yahvah. Moses on the other hand gets to go into God's presence, but he too must be covered in the cleft of a rock when God passes by.

13 Isaiah 2:19-3:0
¹⁹And the people will go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the land, for fear of Yahvah, and for the glory of his majesty, when he arises to conquer the land.

²⁰In that day a man will cast away to the moles and to the bats his idols of gold and his idols of silver, which they each made for themselves to worship,
²¹to go into the caves of the rocks, and into the clefts of the ragged rocks, for fear of Yahvah, and for the glory of his majesty, when he arises to conquer the land.
²²Shun the man who is hasty, for of what account is he?

2 Exodus 33:21-34:0
²¹And Yahvah said to Moses, Look, there is a place in front of me, and you will stand on the rock;
²²and it will come to pass when my glory passes by that I will put you in a cave of the rock and will rest my hand on you until I pass by;
²³and I will take away my hand, and you will see my back; but my face will not be seen.

The two are more alike then not. In Isaiah God is coming to the people so they look for caves to escape direct confrontation with his presence. In the Exodus account Moses goes to God, but he too needs to be covered by the rocks.

By Ryan Eaton
Posted Thursday, Simeon 3, 13000