1513 B.C. Events near Mount Sinai. The Law Covenant

When they had arrived at Mount Sinai, God kept them there for a long period of time. He approached Moses and the people and told them that He would make a unique covenant with them. He wanted to be their God in a very special way. He likewise asked the people to become His people in an equally special way. Moreover, JHWH asked the people if they would be prepared to obey a large number of laws, commandments, prohibitions, and regulations that He would give them. If they would be willing to do this and would be prepared to obey their God completely, He would bless them abundantly and see to it that they would do very well.

The people unanimously agreed to God's proposal and thereby concluded a holy covenant with their God: the Law Covenant.

God gave the well-known Ten Commandments to the people. These strongly emphasize God's insistence that His followers must exclusively and completely acknowledge Him as their creator and law-giver. They must not worship other gods. Some other well-known commandments: keeping the Sabbath, obeying father and mother, the prohibition of murder, adultery, theft, and swearing false oaths.

In addition to the Ten Commandments, God gave the people a large number of other laws near His holy mountain, Sinai. These laws told the people of Israel exactly and in great detail how they would have to behave once they arrived in the Promised Land. JHWH also ordered the people to organize great feasts for Him three times a year. At these feasts, the people could come together to honor and praise their God.

When God had told the people all these laws, regulations, and commandments, Moses wrote them down and read them to the people. Once more, the people unanimously declared that they were prepared to obey God in everything and they really wanted to be God's chosen people.

Moses built an altar (a sacrificial table), slaughtered a number of animals, and sprinkled the blood of the sacrifices on the altar, and on the book in which he had written down the laws and on the people. With this act, the covenant between God and the people of Israel was a fact. From now on, the people of Israel were, in a special way, the people of God. A law-covenant had been concluded between the two parties mentioned. If Israel would do what they had promised to do, they would be blessed by God more than any other nation. Moreover, God would use Israel in a special way to achieve the ends for which He had made the earth and man.

After the covenant between JHWH and the people of Israel had been concluded in the way just described, JHWH asked Moses to climb up to the mountain top to receive a concrete and tangible document concerning the agreement. Moses climbed up and stayed with God on top of the mountain for forty days and nights. In those days, JHWH again gave Moses highly detailed instructions regarding the way He wanted to be served and honored. This time, the emphasis was on the building of a tabernacle. In this movable sanctuary, God could be served by the members of one of the twelve tribes, which would be given the task of organizing and carrying out the daily worship of JHWH. For this special task, God selected the tribe to which Moses and Aaron belonged: the tribe of Levi.

God also ordered Moses to create a special class of priests. These priests would be members of the tribe of Levi who would be given the duty to play the role of mediators between the people of Israel and their God. JHWH gave Moses highly specific instructions regarding the duties of the priests, clothing, their ordination, etc.

In addition, God appointed Aaron as the first High Priest. He was the outstanding mediator between JHWH and the people. The office of High Priest was passed on from father to oldest son. From the time of the ordination of Aaron in 1512 B.C. to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., there was always a descendant of Aaron who served as High Priest of the people of Israel.

At the end of the forty days, God gave Moses the two stone tablets (oblong pieces of stone) on which He had written Ten Commandments with His own hands.

During Moses' long absence, the people at the bottom of the mountain began to be restless and impatient. This was despite the fact that it was only a few months after they had witnessed God's miracles in the form of the ten blows dealt to Pharaoh. Moreover, God had liberated them in a miraculous way, had helped them to cross the Red Sea through another miracle and had guided them through the desert through a miraculous pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire. God likewise performed daily miracles by providing them with quails and with manna. Despite all these miracles, they forgot their God, the covenant they had just made with Him and the words of their leader Moses on the very first occasion when their patience and faith were put to the test.

They asked Aaron the make them a tangible and visible image of their God. They wanted an image that they had seen worshipped during their years in Egypt. This was in spite of God's clear prohibition regarding the making of images. This was one of the most important items of the law covenant.

Aaron did what the people wanted and made them a golden calf. When Moses descended from the mountain after forty days and nights, the people were busy celebrating a feast in honor of this statue. Moses got furious and he smashed the two stone to pieces. Both JHWH Himself and His servant Moses were extremely disappointed by this idol-worship.

On this occasion, the tribe of Levi demonstrated that God had done well in selecting them as the tribe with a main task of taking care of a form of worship that was acceptable in God's eyes. They killed 3,000 of the "revelers". In this way, they mitigated the fury of God and Moses to a certain extent.

Later on, Moses climbed the mountain again and JHWH gave him two new stone tablets. This time, the people had learned their lesson. They patiently waited for Moses to return and refrained from idolatry and worship of images.

In the following months, the Israelites built the tabernacle. This was the movable sanctuary in which God would "dwell" in a special way in the midst of His people. This would also be the place where the priests could get into contact with Him.

They also built the Ark of the Covenant. It was a gold covered chest in which the two stone tablets were kept. These were the tablets Moses had received from God on the mountain. From the days when it was built (1513 B.C.), the Ark of the Covenant played a great part in the religious life of the people of JHWH. About one year after the Exodus (1512 B.C.), the tabernacle and the ark were finished. In 607 B.C., when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians, the ark was lost.

(It is very worthwhile to read the stories about the Exodus of the people of Israel out of Egypt, their being saved near the Red Sea, their journey through the desert to Mount Sinai and the concluding part of the law-covenant, in the Bible itself. These stories are to be found in Exodus, from chapter 11 to the end.)