{N}3,{/}8 {N}THE SEVEN NATIONS{/}
Here the nations that must be dispossessed of the land of Canaan are six. The same list will be found in other passages: Ex 3,17; 23,23...; Jos 12,8. In Dt 7,1 the Girgashites will be added, which allows us to speak of {C}seven nations{/} like in Jos 3,10. The list is found in an almost identical form in ten places, and shorter in various others. This list is only a traditional enumeration and it would not be useful for a geographical atlas. Because upon entering Canaan, the Israelites found there a mixed population of Amorites (who belonged to the same race as Abraham) and Hittites. The latter came from the North and had occupied the country for a time; they formed the high class. In fact the Canaanite people appeared like a mosaic of small kingdoms and the Bible sometimes calls them with the names of these regions: they are called Jebusites in Jerusalem (2Sam 5,6), Hivites and Girgashites in other places (see Gen 10,17).
Note how calmly there is talk of taking away from them the land they occupy. When they looked to the past the authors of these books were aware that the conquest had been an essential element for the foundation of a people of God, different from the others, and that this was in a way the will of God. These texts continue to inspire some protagonists of the present conflict in the Middle East, as if to justify new conquests. In this we recognize a fundamentalist interpretation of the sacred text: what was the will of God in far-off times is considered by some a norm for today, as if the people of God, its rights and duties, its territorial base and its institutions should be now what they were thirty centuries ago.

{N}3,{/}21 {N}THE EGYPTIANS DESPOILED{/}
Let us not forget that this paragraph was written many centuries before the Sermon on the Mount. To despoil the enemy, be it by force or by cunning, seemed to be a demonstration that God was returning the honor to his humiliated people: God was blessing it by turning over to them the possessions of their oppressors. This detail comes perhaps from the traditions that inspired the account of the tenth plague and had their origin in some nomadic groups that were expelled on the occasion of a plague. At that time it was very common to blame the foreigners for any plague that might happen: probably they had altered the order of nature. There was then such eagerness to see them go that they would do anything to hasten their departure.

{N}4,{/}27 {N}AARON{/}
Aaron was the brother of Moses in a very wide sense (see in 4,14-17); it is implied by this paragraph which is the work of the oldest author. In 6,20 a later writer will make Aaron the blood brother of Moses.
{C}Aaron, the levite,{/} must have been an authority well known to some desert group, perhaps the levites. Aaron and his clan took sides with Moses for his work of reform. The {C}Mount of God{/} mentioned here must have been a sacred place different from Mount Horeb; perhaps they were identified later, as in 3,1 and 17,6. In these two passages the text seems to have been retouched.
Why go into such details? These observations help us see that the revelation of Exodus was not mounted by God by a series of miracles, through a prophet, Moses, who controls everything and infallibly accomplishes God's work. On the contrary it looks like the apparently most common and least grandiose history, whose actors are the Christians of today. God intervenes in some moments to open a way and entrust a mission, but He also guides us through encounters, friends and even obstacles. One has doubts, seeks supports, discovers brethren some of whom fail or betray; decisions are taken that seem to be good but soon enough they seriously endanger the future of our struggles.
It is very difficult to say by what paths God led the great prophet and founder of Israel; the grandiose images the sacred books leave about him help us better to grasp the importance of such revelation that present to us his life and his experiences.

{N}6,{/}2 {N}A VERY PRIVATE NAME{/}
We have commented on the name of Yahweh in 3,14. The present text underlines the importance of the gift granted to Israel when the divine name, which was ignored by the Patriarchs, was revealed to it. Since Israel becomes the people of God, God for his part has to reveal to him some of his mystery. "God" is not really a proper noun, since frequently it is used for gods who are only what they are (see the ironic allusion of Paul in 1Cor 8,5). Yahweh however will be the proper name by which they could invoke Him (3,15). In this we recognize the profound spirit of the covenant, which means mutual trust. It is not by chance that in the narrative of Eden, where so often the name of Yahweh God appears, the serpent is the only one who cannot pronounce the sacred name and it says only: "God".
The gift of this sacred name allows us to glimpse how difficult it will be for the believers to establish an authentic dialogue with those who do not share their faith. The divine revelation has set us apart.
This paragraph emphasizes the continuity between the promises made to the forefathers and the present revelation to Moses. The text sees in this the proof of divine faithfulness throughout the centuries: we could speak of a continuity in God's plan. In the Bible there is no example of a word passed on to a prophet, that is merely a beginning: there is always a reference to a previous tradition and we never reach the beginnings.

{N}10,{/}20 {N}YAHWEH HARDENS THE HEART{/}
We have clarified in the commentary to 10,1 the meaning that should be given to the biblical expression "to harden the heart". In many cases the Bible seems to attribute to God the responsibility for human decisions, like in Is 6,10 and Jn 12,40. This is not to say that the author had an erroneous concept of human freedom, but he expressed himself in a language different from ours (Jg 2,14). For as soon as one believes in the existence of God, human freedom becomes a mystery. For our reason, it is impossible to reconcile satisfactorily this freedom and omnipotence, or God's omnipotence. We freely take our decisions, but in the last analysis, the result will be what is in accord with the plan of God (Pro 16,1). And not only this: we are so submerged in God (Acts 17,28), that we could not decide or act without some reference to Him one way or another. Even when we harm our neighbor, he sees our wickedness, but he should also see God's hand in it (2Mac 5,17; 7,18). For He takes care that everything may turn out for good to those who love Him (Rom 8,28).

{N}12,{/}12 {N}THE DEATH OF THE FIRSTBORN{/}
{C}I shall strike every firstborn in Egypt. {/}We have commented this expression in 11,1. See also the commentary to Gen 22. Here it would be good to note how the authors of Exodus emphasize the gesture of God. This killing intends to justify the offering of the firstborn of animals to God, and the ransom of the firstborn of Israel according to the laws in chapter 13.
From this also comes the dignity proper of the eldest son in Israel. The Bible invites the family to believe in life and to be fruitful, nor for its own satisfaction but as a mission to accomplish. The firstborn and the first fruits are the best and they are for God. To offer them to God is to pay a debt contracted with Him by the mere fact that they were chosen by Him over all other nations.
Israel belongs to God and is devoted to the divine worship. The Bible teaches them in this way the sentence that Gandhi placed among the seven commandments of social morality: "there can be no worship without sacrifices". There will be no worship that will not imply and will not accept some form of death; the letter to the Hebrews will recall this (Heb 9,22) when it sees in the bloody worship of the Temple the expression of a deep law inscribed in the plan of salvation, which would be fulfilled in Jesus.
The new covenant granted to the baptized is not like the first the integration to a people different from the rest neither can we pay a gift of God that has been communicated from person to person in faith and love. This covenant however implies a prospect of death: John will remind us that the salvation of Jesus is not only a purification, the sign of which is water, but also a sacrifice, the sign of which is blood (1Jn 5,6).

{N}14,{/}30 {N}THE SAVING GOD{/}
Probably there will be few people who honor some divinity without expecting from it some or much help in their difficulties: "Deliver me from this problem; save me from the enemy that persecutes me...; heal me from such sickness..." These petitions are plentiful in the psalms. And this is salvation, at least right now. But the salvation offered by the great religions has a broader sense, whether we speak of the Buddhist, or Muslim or Christian salvation; then it is understood that a profound evil impinges upon the human condition, or that there is the aspiration to a happier life after death, and we expect to attain it by obeying certain precepts or making some changes in our life.
In this sense, it is very true that the entire Bible offers us salvation, but its message is given only partially in its beginning. Because no salvation could be given free to all until they have traveled a certain way. The child as well as the young person or the adult needs much time and experience before they can distinguish between what is good and what is bad for them, between what is only appearance and what is true wealth and true happiness. And all the experiences narrated by the Bible point in the same direction: humankind cannot be saved by itself. It begins with great projects and beautiful intentions, but sooner or later, it always falls. Many peoples believed that the gods were envious of us; but the Bible does away with these suspicions beginning with chapter 3 of Genesis, and it is on this occasion that it gives a first message of hope, without specifying it: at the end humankind will win the victory over evil.
But this will not happen without God. And the book of Exodus shows us the particular character of Christian salvation when it brings to memory the interventions of the Saving God. What the Bible highlights when the troop of Moses is delivered from its persecutors in some shore of the Sea of Reeds, is not first of all that it was saved, but rather that there was a Saving God: {C}Yahweh was my salvation, He is my God, the God of my father {/}15,2). The text clearly manifests that Israel was incapable of saving himself and that he did not even have the courage to face danger squarely. But Yahweh gratuitously intervened in their favor. God intervened as much out of fidelity to the promises He had made to his forefathers (15,2) as because He wanted Israel to become his partner (15,13).
That crossing of the sea was perhaps nothing but a small incident with regards to history, and the salvation that was offered to those fugitives may seem to us rather alien to the big problems that plague humanity; however the essential is already there. Centuries will have to pass before we can discover the full extent of salvation, but already in this page we read that humankind is not saved by its own power. It is an affair of God and his love (15,13) or rather of his free generosity. And in a certain sense, one is already saved when one knows that God is a God who intervenes and who loves; He is both the companion and the goal.
The human person will be for God an unfaithful and ever unsafe partner. The reconciliation with God and the forgiveness of sins will be the central theme of the salvation announced by the prophets when they speak of an era of peace and reconciliation with nature. And in the same way, in the New Testament, our reconciliation with God the Father through the death of Jesus will be the soul of Christian salvation.

{N}20,{/}24 {N}PROVINCIAL ALTARS{/}
The altar is made out of earth or uncut stones (v.25), lest the construction or the tools of worship include images. {C}In every place...:{/} this law is a witness of the long period during which the Israelites kept several places of worship.
According to some texts of Deuteronomy, Moses himself spoke of only one sanctuary which should be that of Jerusalem. In reality, other texts show that until the end of the kingdom of Juda, the kings tried to eliminate the altars from the province: 2Kings 18,4; 23,8; 23,15... Here the text asks only that the sanctuary be legitimized by some manifestation of Yahweh in that place. And of course, each one of those sanctuaries, usually built in the same place where a Canaanite sanctuary had earlier been built, effortlessly established its own legitimacy by means of very old and very trustworthy traditions... The books of Genesis and Exodus mention some of them: Gen 8,20; 12,7 and 8; 13,8; 26,25; 35,7; Jos 4,20.

{N}23,{/}32 {N}"YOU SHALL MAKE NO TREATY WITH YOUR ENEMY"{/}
This text is one of those that justify the word of Jesus in Mt 5,43. In 23,9 we are very strongly reminded of the rights of the foreigner in Israel, because Yahweh is the just God who defends justice. This does not preclude reaffirming that Israel must conquer the land of Canaan and that no consideration of opportunity or rights of the other could oppose that will of God: any other people or any other culture must be eliminated from the promised land.

{N}24,{/}9 Among the promises that the prophets would transmit to the people of God and that would be fulfilled in the days of the Messiah, we find this in a prominent place: All will know me: Is 54,13; Jer 31,33.
In many places in the Bible we find the expression: "to go to see God". But in this case the verb {C}to see{/} means to present oneself or to visit, and it refers to the pilgrimage to a sanctuary: Ex 34,23; Ps 84,8. Only for Jacob and Moses the expression appears "I saw God" (Gen 32,31) or "God let Himself be seen by me" (Ex 3,16).

{N}25,{/}40 {N}THE HEAVENLY LITURGY{/}
These long chapters devoted first of all to the description of all the objects of cult which Moses had to make in his desert, and later to the manufacture of those same objects, will certainly not be the most attractive part of the book of Exodus. Yet they were of prime importance to the person who made the final draft of this book. It is easy to prove that the narrative interrupted in 24,8 is directly resumed in 31,18 and that the block of chapters 25-31 ends with a reminder of the Sabbath the conclusion of which takes up the first verses of chapter 35. It is clear then that chapters 25-31 and 35-40 formed at the beginning one single unit and later on they were inserted in the book.
The book in its previous version ended with the celebration of the perpetual covenant between God and Israel, immediately followed by the original sin of Israel, the feast of the golden calf. But at the moment of incorporating it in the Bible, they changed a little its original orientation. Now they emphasized the fact that the covenant of God with Israel found its perfect expression in the cult that Israel, the only one among all the nations, rendered to Yahweh in his Temple.
In the commentary to 25,1 we briefly said that this whole vision of the Tent-Sanctuary in the desert had something like two foundations. On the one hand they kept the memory of a tent that sheltered the sacred objects of the nomad tribe (for Israel the coffer called {C}Ark{/} was essential) and accompanied them in their journeys. And on the other hand they wanted to maintain the idea that the people of Moses already had in the desert an anticipation of the Temple of Jerusalem under the form of an immense movable sanctuary. That tent, thought of and built in proportion to a multitude  of 600.000 persons, existed only in the imagination of its authors, who in this way wanted to assert the importance of the liturgy in the call of Israel. These chapters dedicated to all the cultual material governed the domain of God; logically then they are located exactly where they were placed, before all the other laws that will be found in Leviticus and in Numbers.
The Tent -or later on the Temple- is the place where the liturgy is performed in accord with the laws given by God himself. This is the meaning of verse 25,40: {C}See that you make all according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.{/} The same happens in 26,30 and 27,8. A confirmation will be found of an earthly cult similar to the heavenly liturgy in other passages of the Bible: Wis 9,8; Sir 24,9-11. In the New Testament the speech of Stephen makes reference to it. It is good to remember this in order to understand what the gospel of John says regarding the Temple which is the "body" -and we should translate: the person- of Jesus (Jn 2,21). The letter to the Hebrews evokes the heavenly Temple where Christ entered taking with himself his own blood (9, 11-12) and immediately it goes on to another image (10,19): the Temple is the body of Christ.
The Revelation of John will also speak of that heavenly Temple in which the sentences of God regarding history are pronounced, beginning with 11,19 up to chapter 16. At the end of history, that vision of the Temple will disappear from the scene, because in the final state, God is everything in all people: 21,22.
This entire reminder will perhaps not be superfluous, since our Western Christianism has forgotten that long tradition which, inversely, deeply marks the liturgy of the Eucharist of the Greek Church.

{N}31,{/}18 The mosaic narrative continues here, in the exact place where it stopped in 24,18.
{C}The two slabs of the Statement. {/}Both in the Hebrew text of the Old Testament and in the Greek text of the New Testament  the same word means testimony and statement. What is contained in the Ark of the Covenant is a statement of the conditions of the Covenant granted by God to Israel. Our modern Constitutions ordinarily contain a preamble after which come the articles. The same thing happens in the Bible, but here the preamble is not a set of principles; it is rather events that precede and substantiate the gift of the Law. These events are to a large extent in Genesis, whence this book is part of "the Law", although it contains very few laws outside of chapter 17. There we could read a prehistory of Israel that prepared the choice of the people of God through the laws of Moses. The Hebrew word {C}Torah{/} that we translate as {C}the Law{/} at the beginning meant "the teaching": God illumines the way that He proposes or gives or imposes to those He has chosen.

{N}33,{/}20 It is easy to see that this episode is very similar to those we read in 1Kings 19,10-13. Let us remember that the present paragraphs most probably originate in the groups of prophets that surrounded Elisha in the 8th century before Christ. The time of Moses was already far off and more traditions than writings were kept about him. It is very likely that the experience of Elijah came first. Then they thought that Moses must have had a rather similar experience of God. Verse 1Kings 19,9 speaks of {C}the cave{/}. Perhaps it refers to a very old sacred place that Moses may have visited. In Ex 33,6-7, the insistence on the mercy of God who always chastises but maintains his promises seems more suitable to the language of the prophets than to the situation of Moses with his Hebrews.

{N}40,{/}36 {N}THE MIRACLES OF THE DESERT{/}
We cannot doubt that through the entire adventure of Sinai there were very important signs of the intervention of God. It's impossible to see how those traditions about the wonders of the desert could have originated if there would not have been something. They were embellished, many things were added, but there like everywhere else, only the rich are given loans. We will never know how things happened. Events that, seen from a distance, could have been considered merely as the result of chance, were seen as the work of God by those who lived and experienced them in their own flesh, and were impressed by a thousand concrete details that left no place for doubt. Those who later transmitted those memories were unable to safeguard the context, so that the narrated events lost their divine sense and became ordinary events. Knowing that there had been something marvelous, those who transmitted the story did so in their own way multiplying the wonders, as it is done in edifying stories. It can be said in general that they invented miracles to replace those true miracles they no longer knew how to tell as they really were.
We have already spoken about the manna and the quails in the commentary to 17,8. Regarding the cloud, it is a fact that when a small cyclone begins in Sinai (which is not rare), it is frequently announced by a whirlwind that raises grains of sand, so fine that they form a translucent impalpable dust cloud: a true luminous column that moves slowly, totally agleam when hit by sunlight. It is very likely that the cloud of Exodus originated from testimonies related to those phenomena. But what is of interest now is the interpretation that was given to them. The cloud was a beautiful image, given by God, that could express many things for which there were no words: the mysterious presence of God with us, bright and dark all at once.

