The Ark of the Covenant
- Moses continues to rehash the Exodus story. Here's what went down:
- He brings tablets of stone to God, and God writes the Ten Commandments on them. Moses puts them in ark made of acacia wood. Cue John Williams music.
- Now the writer provides a note about the death of Aaron. The Levites, his tribe, are responsible for carrying the ark, but their tribe will receive no allotment of the land since they'll be taking care of religious matters. Tough luck.
- Once again, Moses lets the Israelites know that he's to thank for the Lord not destroying them.
- Deuteronomy places Moses in a much different place than Exodus. In Exodus, Moses is more the doer than the talker. Here, Moses probably needs a lozenge from all the speeching he does.
- It's neat to see how writers spanned across centuries can take the same character and the same story and still put a twist on it. Just think of all the different incarnations of Batman over the past fifty years. It all depends on who's doing the writing.
- Back to the story, where Moses is talking about being loyal to God. The Israelites should keep God's laws and love the Lord because the Lord loves them. Moses even tells them to "Circumcise your hearts." Don't worry, it's just a figure of speech. The point is, the Israelites should hold as strongly as they can onto this contract with God.
- God gets a major endorsement at the end of this chapter. As usual.