Delivered into Covenant

Pivotal Moments in the Book of Exodus, Part Two

Walter Brueggemann, Brent A. Strawn

• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781646982264
• Topic: Theologie & Religion
• Subtopic: Christliche Erziehung

The Pivotal Moments in the Old Testament Series helps readers see Scripture with new eyes, highlighting short, key texts—"pivotal moments"—that shift our expectations and invite us to turn toward another reality transformed by God's purposes and action.

The book of Exodus brims with dramatic stories familiar to most of us: Moses' ringing proclamation to Pharaoh to "let my people go, " the freed Israelites astonished by manna in the wilderness, God's descending on Mount Sinai in a cloud of fire and glory to deliver the law to Moses and the people. These signs of God's liberating agency, provision, and covenant have sustained oppressed peoples over the ages. But Exodus is also a complex book, which is why we divide it into two parts. Readers of parts one and two of Pivotal Moments in the Book of Exodus will encounter multilayered narratives about the mysterious action of the divine to overturn exploitative systems, the giving of a new law meant to set the people of Israel apart, and instructions for building a tabernacle in which God will dwell in glory. How does a contemporary reader make sense of it all?

In Delivered into Covenant, Walter Brueggemann offers a guide to the second half of Exodus—from Israel's journey through the wilderness to Mount Sinai to the establishment of the tabernacle—drawing out "pivotal moments" in the text. Throughout, Brueggemann shows how Exodus consistently reveals a God who is in radical solidarity with the powerless and who is dedicated to cultivating a covenant people who act to repudiate the powers of empire. Questions for reflection and discussion are included at the end of each of the fourteen chapters, making it ideal for individual or group study.

Chapter 1

Glory Unexpected
(Exodus 16:10)

And as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the Israelites, they looked toward the wilderness, and the glory of the LORD appeared in the cloud.

Scripture Passages for Reference

Exodus 3:8

Exodus 15

Exodus 16:3, 6–7

Exodus 24:16–17

Exodus 40:34–38

Psalm 104:14–15

They were free at last! They were no longer captive to Pharaoh’s brutalizing brick quotas. They had their defiant songs and their emancipated dancing as evidence of their new freedom. YHWH had made a promise to them:

“I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey.” (Exodus 3:8)

They were on their way to that new land of abundance and well-being. Just as soon as Moses (15:1–18) and Miriam (vv. 20–21) finished their songs, they set out:

Then Moses ordered Israel to set out from the Red Sea, and they went into the wilderness of Shur. They went three days in the wilderness and found no water. (v. 22)

The first ten steps out of Egypt toward the land of promise must have been a shock to the eager Israelites. They did not step into a land of promise as they had anticipated. Rather, they stepped into the wilderness, here called “the wilderness of Shur.” There had been no mention of a wilderness in the promise of YHWH. They had been promised a new, good land, but they found themselves instead in the wilderness. Whereas the new land of promise was to be marked by “milk and honey,” the wilderness turned out to be a place of shortage. Indeed, “wilderness” means, in this usage, a place without viable life supports. The immediate crisis, one day into the wilderness, is “no water” (v. 22). Of course! Water is a nonnegotiable requirement. There had been ample water from the Nile. But the wilderness specializes in its absence. Immediately they complained (v. 24). In three verses their dancing joy has turned to contentious complaint.

The pressing need for water was a problem soon solved by the intervention of Moses and the responsiveness of YHWH (v. 25). So they came to the oasis of Elam, where they found water (v. 27). That crisis is overcome, but the long-term problem of the wilderness will persist. We can only imagine the fearful disappointment of Israel as it faced wilderness instead of the land of promise. The contrast the people voiced, however, was not only the land promise and the wilderness they encountered. They also voiced a contrast between that wilderness and the steady supply of food they remembered that was produced by the Nile River back in Egypt. That contrast was vivid in their imagination. They remembered, perhaps romantically and unrealistically, that steady food supply they had enjoyed:

“If only we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” (16:3)

In their dire circumstance, they were fixed, in their imagination, on Egypt. We may imagine that they only reluctantly backed into the wilderness, keeping their eyes or at least their imagination focused on Egypt. Their memory was not of their brutal enslavement. It was rather about the wonder of Egypt. They remembered their steady food supply, the unchanging rule of Pharaoh, the fixed reliability of the regime. Perhaps they recalled the wonder of Pharaoh’s massive building program, pyramids and all, and the spectacle of royal parades and processions (on which see Genesis 41:42–43). They remembered “the glory of Pharaoh,” the magnificence of his showmanship, all of which was a function of his legitimacy. In this context, “glory” bespeaks the aura of authority and the right to rule. And Pharaoh had such an aura in spades! While the slaves had “groaned and cried out” in their bondage, that is not now what they recalled. What they remembered was how wondrous Egypt was, even if it was built on their aching backs.

Wilderness was such a contrast to Pharaoh’s Egypt:

Egypt had glory; wilderness had only deathly thinness.

Egypt had water; wilderness was totally arid.

Egypt had bread; wilderness was a zone of hunger.

Egypt had meat; wilderness offered none.

So they backed away from Egypt, reluctantly, now committed to a journey in which they wanted no part.

But Moses is uncompromising. He exhibits no doubt but has complete confidence in YHWH’s promises and YHWH’s presence. Moses does not doubt that YHWH’s commitment to the wilderness will transform the wilderness. In response to their complaint, Moses offers his lordly assurance:

“In the evening you shall know that it was the LORD who brought you out of the land of Egypt, and in the morning you shall see the glory of the LORD, because he has heard your complaining against the LORD.” (16:6–7)

YHWH is identified as the one who delivered Israel from Egypt. And then, in a great emancipatory leap, Moses assures that in the morning Israel will see the glory of YHWH given as reassuring response. This is an amazing utterance by Moses. It sharply juxtaposes the glory of YHWH with the glory of Pharaoh. The glory of Pharaoh consists in grandeur and spectacle and exhibit. It amounts to a claim of legitimate rule. By contrast YHWH seems poor indeed—no pyramids, parades, processions, spectacles, or exhibits.

At the outset of the departure from Egypt, however, YHWH had resolved to “gain glory” over Pharaoh (Exodus 14:4, 17). The twice-stated formula is remarkable. In this usage, “glory” means a raw exhibit of power and domination. It is a sociopolitical term bespeaking legitimate authority. Pharaoh has some glory, YHWH concedes. But YHWH will outglory Pharaoh, show YHWH’s self to be stronger, more authoritative, and more entitled to governance. And, of course, the exodus narrative traces the process whereby the glory of Pharaoh is diminished and shown to be impotent, as the glory of YHWH is maximized through the process of emancipation. It is this triumphant glory that the narrative exhibits, the force that culminated in “the dead Egyptians” of 14:30.

Now Moses promises the bereft Israelites in the wilderness that they will see the glory of the Lord exactly in the wilderness where Pharaoh is no longer on exhibit. They will see the immensity of YHWH’s power and capacity to govern. It is as though in that moment of narrative exchange Israel finally turns its eyes, its imagination, and its desire from a backward wistfulness for Egypt. It turns and faces fully into the wilderness, now with backs to Egypt, now fully coming to terms with what is to be its habitat and destiny for time to come.

In that pivotal moment of turning, moreover, they see exactly what Moses anticipated for them:

And as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the Israelites, they looked toward the wilderness, and the glory of the LORD appeared in the cloud. (16:10)

The sight must have been breathtaking! It was a surprise beyond expectation. They saw the glory of YHWH in the wilderness. The narrative is characteristically cagey and guarded when it witnesses to “seeing” anything of God. It does not tell us what they saw. We know that divine glory is often exhibited as light. What they saw was evidence of YHWH’s sovereign legitimacy. YHWH was to preside over the wilderness, a zone of existence that completely eluded Pharaoh’s control. This glimpse of holy presence and governance was the seal to the exodus narrative. They now no longer owed Pharaoh anything. They were now fully in the arena of YHWH’s sovereignty.

The characterization of YHWH’s glory that they saw was “in a cloud”—that is, it was not seen fully and directly but was shrouded and protected. “The cloud” here does not refer to a normal atmospheric condition. Rather “the cloud” will become, in subsequent tradition, a technical term to describe the cultic presence of YHWH in a shrine, a divine presence mediated through a priestly apparatus. The prominent presence of Aaron, harbinger of a priestly office, indicates that we now have YHWH given in a sacerdotal way. The narrative already anticipates the way in which YHWH will be present for Israel in the tabernacle and eventually in the temple in Jerusalem.

Thus we are able to see that the appearance of divine glory in the wilderness affirms a convergence of two very different themes. On the one hand, this is an exhibit of political authority. This is the one who has defeated Pharaoh and will govern. On the other hand, the one who is politically victorious is now encapsulated in a “holy order” as an accessible cultic presence. The two traditions are not easily accommodated to each other. But they are both there. The political agency of YHWH comes, in Israelite tradition, to be a stable, orderly cultic presence, but without surrendering any of the force of agency known in the exodus narrative itself. Thus “glory” becomes a cover term that holds together forceful agency and abiding presence.

The appearance of this glory, moreover, is in the wilderness. The juxtaposition of glory and wilderness constitutes ...