Chapter 67: The Covenant at Mount Sinai
readx;? The precepts 5 to 10 relate to relationships with others: filial piety, no murder, no ****, no stealing, no false witness, and no covetousness of what others have (including wives and property). The Ten Precepts www.biquge.info are not detailed legal provisions, but they contain the foundations necessary for religious, moral, and social peace throughout the world, laying the foundation for the faith and legal roots of God's people.
It is said that the Israelites watched the miracle in amazement, then shouted for joy and tears in their eyes, thanking God for not abandoning the Israelites when they were in a desperate situation. In the darkness of the night, people lit torches and recited the "Ten Commandments of Moses" over and over again, and stayed up all night.
This is how Moses truly established Israelite (Judeo) religion. In fact, from a scientific point of view, the existence of God cannot be proven, and all these laws, including Israelite, were established by Moses.
For 40 years, the Israelites lived a wandering life around Mount Sinai in the wilderness across the Sinai Peninsula to escape the Egyptian government's hunt and persecution, but there were almost no traitors, all because of the influence of Israel.
Moses and the elders gave a more detailed judicial interpretation of the "Ten Commandments," the "constitution" of the new state that was about to be born, covering civil, commercial, and criminal laws, known as the Book of Covenants.
The Book of the Covenant is a collection of laws that concisely emphasizes the moral life of society and the family, and protects human rights, including the way of slaves, the handling of murder, the treatment of thieves, the love of the needy, the handling of complaints, and the observance of Sabbaths and feasts. God's righteousness and benevolence are evident in the law. Israel is a nation that is subject to God's rule and has a high standard of moral and legal governance.
Since then, generations of Israelite elders have perfected the book of the covenant, and today the entire law of the book of the covenant is scattered in the books of the Torah, with a total of 613 articles.
The statutes are the religious laws of the Ten Commandments of Moses, including the ordinances governing sanctuaries and the establishment of liturgies. The Israelites were not only to obey the law and live a moral life, but also to serve God according to God's heart and live a life of worship. The sanctuary was built according to the pattern of God, according to God's will, such as the ark of the covenant, the table for the showbread, the candlestick, the curtain, the tabernacles, the altars, the holy garments worn by the high priests, the breastplates they wore, the rites to be performed by the priests at the time of sacrifice, the portion to be due to the priests, the altar of incense, the laver, the holy anointing oil, the holy incense, etc.
All of this is explained in detail, showing that the Old Testament worship liturgy is meticulous, everything must be carried out in the most rigorous way, and the worship of God is indispensable, which is the true meaning of worship. Because God is a consuming fire, the people are to serve God with reverence and reverence, and to worship God [he must be worshiped in spirit and in truth].
God commanded Moses to build the sanctuary (Christ) because it was in the wilderness, but it was actually a tent (the prototype of the church) for three purposes: (1) to be his temporary dwelling place among them, to show his presence with them, to strengthen their faith, and to prevent them from falling back into idolatry, (2) to show God's need for fellowship with men, which is of course important in spirit and in a uniform place, and (3) to foreshadow the complete redemption in Christ in the future. Since then, people have a special place to worship God, which makes people's relationship with God more intimate. God spoke to the Israelites behind a curtain in the tent. The curtain of God is on earth so that people can worship and draw close to Him. This is the fulfillment of God's will to bring man to God. People can worship and ask, and there is no barrier between God and man, and this is the purpose of the establishment of the club.
The advent of the written law of Moses had a profound impact on the religious and social life of the Jews, many aspects of which still strictly govern their behavior today. But no matter how many laws there are, only the Ten Commandments are the most important. When the pagans threatened with their lives and demanded that the Jews renounce the law, all other commandments could be waived, except for the Ten Commandments, which were the law of God.
With faith, the Israelites had an unshakable spiritual backbone, and the world's oldest surviving monotheistic religion was born. In the history of world civilization, the transition from polytheism to monotheism is a qualitative leap. For many centuries, it has maintained the survival of the Jewish nation and created a magnificent historical picture of 3,000 years of "flowing but not scattering" and "scattering but not dying", which not only gave birth to Hebrew culture, but also watered the brilliant flower of European civilization together with the ancient Greek culture.
Why God at Mount Sinai in Egypt chose to make a covenant approach to the relationship between God and man is a question worth considering. Man should have freedom, but man is a very uncertain being, who can do good and evil. Man is under God, but above all things, and is positioned as the ruler of all things, and once man does evil, it will bring great danger to this world. Therefore, man's freedom must be restrained and man's state of complete nature must be put to an end. These are the two meanings of the book of Exodus: the search for freedom and the restraint of freedom.
According to the Hebrew Old Testament, God also went through a process of dealing with this uncertainty in human beings. After the use of physical punishment and the warnings of the Great Flood, God finally chose to make a covenant with man, to establish a sympathetic and interdependent relationship between man and God: God is the embodiment of the supreme will, the presiding ruler of the fate of the Hebrews, and man should reverently fear and obey God, and at the same time God has a commitment and responsibility to man.
According to the Bible, God had a "rainbow covenant" with the Hebrews and an Abrahamic covenant, and Moses made a covenant three times, thus forming a "biblical covenant chain." Since the covenant has been made, it must be fulfilled, which brings the relationship between God and man into the orbit of the "rule of law".
God binds human behavior by making a covenant with His chosen people, that is, placing people under the law, and to obey God is to obey the law; "under God" means "under the law." In the eyes of the Jews, "what else could be the law besides the voice of God?" They firmly believe that there is only one authority in the world, God, and refuse to recognize or accept other authorities. God's "divine law" thus becomes a law superior to all earthly laws, exalting over human beings and constituting the ultimate object of human obedience.