Biblical Hebrew Forum

[jimstinehart AT aol.com]

Chavoux Luyt:

 

You wrote:  “That option [that the place where Moses saw the burning bush and where he is to “serve God” is not in or near the Sinai or Arabia] is simply not possible because Exodus 3:12 makes it explicit that the Israelites will serve God on that very mountain where He first appeared to Moses.  Whether that mountain is actually the place called Mt.Sinai today, is another question that should probably be asked in an archaeological group rather than b-hebrew.”

 

The key issue here is not archaeology, but rather is the meaning of the Hebrew common word (BD, in the _expression_ “serve God” or “serve Me”.  That’s a classic question for the b-hebrew list to discuss.

 

In fact, the Exodus 3: 12 concept of “serving God” on “this mountain” requires a locale where the Hebrews are divinely fated to live, not a desolate locale far south of where the Israelites settle.  An express reference to “serv[ing] God”, where “serve” is some form of the Hebrew verb (BD, appears on 15 occasions in Exodus.  On all but the first and third occasions, the phrase certainly embodies the concept of serving YHWH for a long time, even forever, rather than signifying an act of short duration.  Exodus 4: 23; 8: 1, 20; 9: 1, 13; 10: 3, 7-8, 11, 26(2); 12: 31; 23: 25.  Under ordinary circumstances, that would seem to be the only natural reading of this phrase “serve God” [or “serve Me”] that is used so many times in Exodus.  However, the third such reference, at Exodus 7: 16, is ambiguous in this regard, because although YHWH is intending that the Israelites should serve Him forever, he there refers to the Israelites serving God in the wilderness [midbar], which at least in some sense would imply only a limited period of time [while the Israelites were in the wilderness during the Exodus].

 

The key question then is this:  what concept is implied in the first such reference to the phrase “serv[ing] God”, at Exodus 3: 12?  Certainly the meaning that applies at least 13 out of the other 14 times such phrase occurs in Exodus should be favored.  When Moses is fairly near [but not in] MDYN, and YHWH tells Moses “ye shall serve God upon this mountain”, the phrase “serve God upon this mountain” should be given its natural meaning of serving God forever at that locale.  Accordingly, the mountain in question needs to be located within the land that the Israelites are divinely fated to inhabit [and hence nowhere near the Sinai or Arabia, contra the traditional and scholarly view of the geography here].  So once the Israelites have taken all of the land which they have been divinely granted, they will be able to continually “serve God” forever in this location [upon “this mountain”].  That is my interpretation.  It strains the Hebrew word (BD to take the radically different interpretation that “serv[ing] God upon this mountain” merely implies that the Israelites are to listen to God’s word at Mt. Sinai [with Mt. Sinai being “this mountain” on that interpretation], when they are in the wilderness during the Exodus.  After the Exodus from Egypt has been completed, the Israelites will have no further occasion to go south to the southern Sinai to serve God at that desolate location, which is situated very far south of the land that the Israelites are divinely fated to inhabit as their own land.  Of course, the Israelites must always keep the 10 Commandments that Moses receives at Mt. Sinai, that’s for sure.  But the Israelites will not be at Mt. Sinai to “serve God” after the Exodus has been completed, as the more natural reading of Exodus 3: 12 requires.

 

The interpretation of “serv[ing] God” at Exodus 3: 12 which requires serving God on an ongoing, permanent basis is the only natural reading of this phrase, as backed up by at least 13 of the other 14 uses of this same phrase in Exodus.  On that natural reading, the “desert”/XRB mountain where Moses encounters the burning bush must be located within the boundaries of the land that the Israelites are divinely fated to possess and inhabit, so that “upon this mountain” the Israelites will be able to serve YHWH forever.  And  t-h-a-t  is why Moses insists on attacking King Og at Numbers 21: 33 and taking his land of Bashan in the northern Transjordan, even though Bashan was not on the route of the Conquest and was not part of the Promised Land of Canaan [west of the Jordan River]:  so that "this mountain", the "desert"/XRB mountain where Moses sees the burning bush at Exodus 3: 2-4, will be part of the land where the Israelites settle.  The XRB/"desert" mountain site of the burning bush is located just south of Zipporah's homeland of MDYN [historical Mitanni in eastern Syria],being just north of the eastern Transjordan, at the far northeast corner of where the Israelites settled and "serve[d] God" forever.

 

Jim Stinehart

Evanston, Illinois