From the desk of Liesl St. James - The Journey to Mt. Sinai, or, Buy those Jews a Garmin!

So when last we left our plucky little Moses, he had just taught the Jews about the meaning of Passover.

Moses gathers up all the folks – it numbers about 600,000 men plus their women, children, and flocks. They all head out to the mountain of G-d. It should be noted that nobody knew where this mountain was. They just sensed it existed. So they start wandering. Pharaoh sends his army to pursue them because he’s unhappy that so many of his subjects up and left like that, especially after setting such plagues onto this pharaohdom. Moses leads the Israelites to the Red Sea. Normally a problem, right? You’re stuck with, like, a million people on one side of a body of water, angry army in hot pursuit, and not a Carnival Cruise ship in SIGHT to move all these people to the other side. What do you do?!? What DO you DO?!? You get G-d on your side, that’s what you do! So Moses calls up to G-d and is all “G-d – what’s up?” G-d looks down and says “M, I’ve got you covered. Raise your arms.”

So Moses raises his arms and the Red Sea parts like magic. Wide open. And the Israelites start trekking across. They plod along. The pharaoh’s army gives chase, and G-d responds as only he can. He closes the Sea back up, drowning them all. Good times, good times.

40 years the Jews wandered in the desert. FORTY YEARS. That’s a long time. Wandering around, looking for a mountain. Really, folks. If you’re looking for a mountain, you shouldn’t be in the desert. But they never asked my opinion. Anyway, they started whining. It’s hot, I’m tired, there’s sand in my underwear, I’m hungry, I’m thirsty. G-d listened to some of their complaints. He gave them quail and bread to eat (like dinner at Nancy’s!) At Rephidim, he gave them the miracle of water from the rock of Meribah. Sometime in that 40 years, the Amalekites attacked the Jews, so G-d ordered eternal war against those folks (nobody here is an Amalekite, are you? Jessica might slip antifreeze in your coffee). Finally finally finally, they arrived at Mt Sinai and Moses appointed some judges over Israel.

So they’re chillin’ at the mountain. G-d asks them “are you willing to be my people?” The peeps answer “sure, why not.” So everybody gathers at the base of the mountain. There’s thunder, lightening, fire, smoke, clouds, and trumpets G-d appears on the peak of the mountain and the people hear his voice. He tells Moses and his brother Aaron (remember him from the last story?) to climb the mountain to get the new list of rules and regulations for life.
Moses climbs the mountain. G-d gives him the convenant code, which is a far too detailed list of ritual and civil law. G-d tells them they can have Canaan if they obey the rules. Moses goes back down the mountain, tells the people you have to obey the rules, and the people say “sure.” Moses goes back up the mountain and they have dinner with G-d. Then G-d gives Moses a stone tablet containing the ten commandments written with G-d’s own finger! Awesome! You don’t want to ruin something awesome like that!

So Moses goes back down the mountain and finds the idiots down there worshipping golden cows. Apparently in Moses’ absence, Aaron made a gold cow for them to worship and they’re all sitting around praying to that thing. Moses gets pissed, smashes the tablets, and tells the people not worshipping the cow to kill those who are. Moses goes back up the mountain and say “G-d…interesting story about those last tablets…” G-d says “I know, I saw” and he gives Moses a new set of tablets.

And then for the final time, Moses takes the tablets down and reads the 10 commandments to the people. Those commandments are (and I’m going to do this part from memory, so they may not be in order).

1 I am the lord thy god, you shall have no other gods before me.
2 Don’t make false idols (AHEM…AARON)
3 Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy
4 don’t swear
5 honor your mom and dad
6 don’t commit adultery
7 don’t covet your neighbor’s ass (or his donkey)
8 don’t kill
9 don’t lie
10 don’t steal

HA! Got them all on the first try. So the next book of the bible is Leviticus. Then Numbers. We’re just going to skip those two. They’re not important. If you want them in a nutshell, they go like this “Whatever you want to do or are thinking about doing…DON’T” That’s the whole thing. We’ll pick up in Deuteronomy later.