MSB Introduction to Exodus:
This book is the sequel to Genesis.  Few doubt that the book was written by Moses.  There are many places in both Old and New Testaments where authorship of this book is attributed to Moses.  The "exodus" of Israel from Egypt is about 1445 BC. Moses wrote the book by the same name sometime in the next 40 years or so.  The Bible says Solomon started to build the temple 480 years after the exodus.  That is where the 1445 BC comes from.  Scripture also puts Jacob and his family's entrance into  Egypt (about 1875 BC) as being 430 years before the exodus.  That puts Joseph in the 18th Dynasty, or New Kingdom period.  

The 18th Dynasty was not a politically or economically weak and obscure period of Egyptian history.  Thutmose III has in fact been called the Napoleon of Ancient Egypt.  He is the Pharoah of the oppression.  

Moses was born in about 1525 BC.  He grew up in the courts of Thutmose I and II and Queen Hatshepsut for 40 years.  He returned to Egypt from self imposed exile in Midian during the reign of Amenhotep II, the pharaoh of the exodus.  Moses died on Mt. Nebo, at the age of 120.  MSB describes the purpose of the Book of Exodus as "To trace the rapid growth of Jacob's descendants from Egypt to the establishment of the theocratic nation of Israel.  The laws given at various times from the time they left Egypt to Sinai to the plains of Moab set Israel apart from all nations on earth.  

The book begins with Israel captive in Egypt, then covers the journey from Egypt to Mt. Sinai, and ends with the nation encamped at Sinai in chapters 19 through the end of the book in chapter 40.  So half of it is at Mt. Sinai.

This paragraph copied nearly word for word from MSB:
"The typological significance of the tabernacle has occasioned much reflection.  Ingenuity in linking every item of furniture and every piece of building material to Christ may appear most intriguing, but if NT statements and allusions do not support such linkage and typology then hermeneutical caution must rule.  The tabernacle's structure and ornamentation for efficiency and beauty are one thing, but finding hidden meaning and symbolism is unfounded.  How the sacrificial and worship system of the tabernacle and its parts meaningfully typify the redeeming work of the coming Messiah must be left to those NT passages which treat the subject.

Chapter 1
Joseph and his brothers die in Egypt as time passes, but their descendants multiply.  The new Pharoah fears their numbers.  The more he oppresses and enslaves them, the more they multiply.  The Egyptians are ruthless towards the Hebrews.

2021 - Vs 5 says there were 70 persons in Egypt.  I believe in another place MSB ties this 70 to the 70 nations established after the flood by Noah's descendants.  Or maybe it was to the so-called Table of nations, or maybe those are one and the same.  In any case, here again we see 70.  Many believe the Sanhedrin was also 70 persons, continuing this significant numerological trend.

2021 - 13 So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves [Exo 1:13 ESV]  This is the summary sentence for the strategy adopted by Thutmose III to try and keep the people of Israel in check - to control their population - by working them to death.  His great fear was that if Egypt was invaded by external enemies, the slaves would rise up internally at the same time, aiding those external enemies in overthrowing Egypt from both within and without.  This was a very real fear with the population of Israel as intense as it was.  I do not know just what all of the remaining iconic structures in Egypt were built during the reign of Thutmose III, but I would expect them to be very extensive and widespread, and built with the blood of the young men of Israel.  Surely the slavery in the US - which was never designed for population control by working people literally to death - hold no candle to what went on with Israel in the land of Egypt, in a time where the concept of slavery was not even questioned.  No, this was not mere slavery.  This was slavery intended to kill and that at a rate faster than they could multiply.  

Pharoah orders that all the sons be thrown into the Nile, but the daughters will live.
2021 - These verses:  15 Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, 16 "When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live." [Exo 1:15-16 ESV]  So only two midwives were given this order?  Has to be more than two.  MSB note says the two mentioned were likely the leading representatives of their profession, and certainly not the only two.  I good example of what is not said being pretty important.  

2021 - What does this verse mean?  21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. [Exo 1:21 ESV]  But...midwives were generally older women with experience with labor and delivery.  Too old for child-bearing themselves.  Unless...perhaps midwifing is what widowed - but not necessarily old - women did to support themselves.  Perhaps barren women also did this to ease their grief at having not children of their own?  Culturally, this might have been appropriate and expected.  In either of these cases, God would be blessing those who obeyed his orders above Pharoah's.  

When questioned, the midwives say that the sons live because Hebrew women just "pop out kids" and go back to worth, and never even call for a midwife.  So this strategy of Pharoah's, like any other that directly opposes God's plans, fails utterly.  So Pharoah's strategy escalates to something even more diabolical.    We see this in vs 22:
22 Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, "Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live." [Exo 1:22 ESV]  Depending on midwives for population control is insufficient.  Pharoah now calls on anyone and everyone in his kingdom to murder any Hebrew male baby they encounter.  There is no age limit on this that I can see, unless it is implied by "son that is born".  Obviously, there would be no repercussions to any Egyptian for killing any Hebrew male.  Already they were being worked to death.  Now open season has been declared on them as if they are game to be hunted for sport.

Chapter 2
A Levite man marries a Levite woman and Moses is born during the time when male children are being killed.  His mother hides him three months, then puts him in a basket on the river.  Pharoah's daughter finds him, adopts him, and hires Moses' own mother to nurse the baby for her.  Then when he is older, Moses comes to live in the palace.  It is Pharoah's daughter who names him Moses.

2021 - 3 When she could hide him no longer, she took for him a basket made of bulrushes and daubed it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds by the river bank. [Exo 2:3 ESV]  The underlined implies active, aggressive, continual searching for any Hebrew male children.  I imagine patrols through the streets of the slave quarters, and any sound of a baby crying being investigated immediately, and any male being killed right at that second, in the presence of his mother.  Unimaginable horror.

This verse:  6 When she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the baby was crying. She took pity on him and said, "This is one of the Hebrews' children." [Exo 2:6 ESV]  So the movie is a bit misleading.  There does not seem to be any indication that Moses true identity was concealed.  As Pharoah's daughter, she could keep a Hebrew child if she wanted to do so.  So many were being killed, who would care if Pharoah's daughter wanted a "doll" to play with?  I wonder how she protected Moses from the patrols, though?  It is clear that Pharoah's daughter didn't invite Moses' mother to the palace to nurse him.  She went Moses home with her, with orders to bring him back to her, likely after he was weaned.  There had to be a seal or something that made Moses immune to extermination by the Egyptians.

11 One day, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. [Exo 2:11 ESV]
This surely implies that Moses grew up knowing he was Hebrew and not Egyptian, and that he identified always with his own people.  Not like what is portrayed in the movie.

15 When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and stayed in the land of Midian. And he sat down by a well. [Exo 2:15 ESV]
So Moses ran away of his own accord, to escape Pharoah's justice.  He was not captured and sent into exile against his will, as the movie shows.

Moses winds up in Midian, and helps some shepherd girls water their father's flocks.  The father's name is given here as Reuel, and he is a priest of Midian.  Moses stays with him and is given Reuel's daughter Zipporah as wife.  Zipporah gives birth to Gershom.

During this time, Pharoah dies, and the people of Israel cry out to God over their slavery, and they cry to God for rescue.
25 God saw the people of Israel--and God knew. [Exo 2:25 ESV]  What a great verse.  God saw, and He knew.

2023 - This verse:  25 God saw the people of Israel--and God knew. [Exo 2:25 ESV].  Look at that last phrase.  How much is implied by those three words?  How universally true, how specifically true to every tiny thing in the universe.  God sees, God knows. The KJV says it this very different way:  25 And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto [them]. [Exo 2:25 KJV].  In the BLB, you can narrow the key words down to "yaw-dah".  Makes you wonder if our "yada yada yada" comes from this Hebrew word?  And how about "Yoda" from Star Wars?  Looking strictly at the definition of the word, we find that it is complex in many many ways.  It is translated "know" 625 times in the KJV.  Next, at 105 times, is known.  Here is what BLB says about the word:  yaw-dah'; a primitive root; to know (properly, to ascertain by seeing); used in a great variety of senses, figuratively, literally, euphemistically and inferentially (including observation, care, recognition; and causatively, instruction, designation, punishment, etc.):—acknowledge, acquaintance(-ted with), advise, answer, appoint, assuredly, be aware, (un-) awares, can(-not), certainly, comprehend, consider, × could they, cunning, declare, be diligent, (can, cause to) discern, discover, endued with, familiar friend, famous, feel, can have, be (ig-) norant, instruct, kinsfolk, kinsman, (cause to let, make) know, (come to give, have, take) knowledge, have (knowledge), (be, make, make to be, make self) known, be learned, lie by man, mark, perceive, privy to, × prognosticator, regard, have respect, skillful, shew, can (man of) skill, be sure, of a surety, teach, (can) tell, understand, have (understanding), × will be, wist, wit, wot.  It can mean just about anything.  So KJV seems to be saying, by the way it translates the phrase that includes "yada", that God fully comprehended the situation of the Hebrews.  It wasn't just that he saw unfairness, but that he comprehended all the implications of their situation.  The ESV is saying the same thing, just in fewer words.  God knew.  What a wonderful little verse.

Chapter 3
In this chapter, the first verse says that Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro.  MSB says the man had two names, and glosses right over it as if it is nothing.  I don't know...maybe it has something to do with these particular languages.  Apparently I'm not the first to notice.  Reuel in 2:18, Jethro in 3:1, Hobab in Numbers 10:29 - but that's not how I'd have read it, and Hobab also in Judges 4:11.  So there must have been a lot going on.  I read what Wikipedia said and it was ok, but like the explanation here better:  https://abundantsprings.church/blog/who-is-moses-father-in-law-reuel-jethro-or-hobab.  In short, Reuel and Jethro are the same man, as Jacob and Israel are the same man.  Perhaps one of the names was the priestly name.  Hobab is Moses' brother-in-law, not father-in-law due to an idiosyncrasy in the language

12 He said, "But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain." [Exo 3:12 ESV].  So from this, we know that Mt. Sinai is in the land of Midian.  Where do the old maps say Midian was located?  Most maps show it as below - to the East of the Gulf of Aqaba.  This would mean that Mt. Sinai is also on that side.  But if you look up Mt Sinai, most every place puts it over on the West side, near the south end of the Sinai peninsula, It is indeed a good question to ask how Israel, after leaving Egypt, went all the way back to Midian before stopping at Mt. Sinai.  I think we will also see in a few chapters just how many day's journey it was to Sinai.  So some interesting geographical complications begin here in Chapter 3.

The burning bush story.  
God wants Moses to go back to Egypt, Moses balks.  He asks God's name God answers:
14 God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." And he said, "Say this to the people of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.'" [Exo 3:14 ESV]
2021 - This phrase becomes almost Holy in and of itself.  The transliteration of "I AM WHO I AM" would be "Hayah, Hayah", the same word repeated twice.  Jesus uses it of himself and almost gets stoned for doing it.  He would have been stoned but he supernaturally escapes. Here is something I need to figure out:  In the interlinear tab in BLB, it says this:
"Strong's Number H1961 matches the Hebrew הָיָה (hāyâ), which occurs 1,388 times in 1,295 verses in the Hebrew concordance of the NASB".  If you click on the "View results" it says this:
"Strong's Number H1961 matches the Hebrew הָיָה (hāyâ), which occurs 75 times in 72 verses in the Hebrew concordance of the KJV".
I do not understand why the number of times the word occurs would be different for different translations?  Why so incredibly many more times if about the NASB than about the KJV?  Whom can I ask?

2023 - There is a good "short" study here of this word H1961.  It goes all the way back to Genesis 1:2.  It occurs 75 times in the KJV, but for some reason, the translation count into English is not shown.  Yep.  Lots to study here.

19 But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless compelled by a mighty hand. 20 So I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all the wonders that I will do in it; after that he will let you go. [Exo 3:19-20 ESV]
It should have come as no surprise to Moses that things with the Hebrews got worse before they got better.  God had already told Moses it would be a process.

Chapter 4
Chapter starts with Moses still talking to God at the burning bush.  Asks how he will make the Israelites believe that he is telling them God's word.  God demonstrates by turning the staff into a serpent and turning Moses' hand leprous, and turning Nile water to blood.  
2021 - Yet still Moses balks.  This verse:
10 But Moses said to the LORD, "Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue." [Exo 4:10 ESV]  These words from the man who wrote the entire Pentateuch!  He really did not want to go back to Egypt.  Think of the change that goes through from this time until he looks over into Canaan.

11 Then the LORD said to him, "Who has made man's mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD? [Exo 4:11 ESV]
Surely this has been preached many times to those of us who are timid about witnessing, about confessing that Jesus is Lord right out loud and so on.  "I'm just not good at talking to people about that."  But here is God's own first hand response to that excuse.  Who made your mouth?
2023 - Note also that God here takes responsibility for the mute, the deaf and the blind.  They are not surprises to him.  God makes them that way.

Moses is still balking.  Now says he is not eloquent.  God gets angry with Moses and tells him Aaron can do the actual talking, but God will still speak directly to Moses.
13 But he said, "Oh, my Lord, please send someone else." [Exo 4:13 ESV]  Moses balks for so long that God gets angry with him.  Few of us get the kind of direct, unambiguous direction that Moses got but still he balked.  

God tells Moses to go from Midian to Egypt and show Pharoah the signs.  But God says he will harden Pharoah's heart.  So Moses is to say that Israel is God's firstborn son, and that if Pharoah won't let them go, God will kill Pharoah's firstborn son:
22 Then you shall say to Pharaoh, 'Thus says the LORD, Israel is my firstborn son, 23 and I say to you, "Let my son go that he may serve me." If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son.'" [Exo 4:22-23 ESV]
This sets up the nation of Israel as a type for Christ, surely.  But I don't recall ever hearing any sermons about it.  MSB gives this a very different meaning.  MSB looks at it in the context of how Egypt considered a firstborn son.  Special, even sacred.  God is telling Pharoah that he considers Israel sacred, and that He will protect them, make a nation of them, and lead them.  These verses move the Egyptian concept from application to a son to application to a whole nation as a singular entity.  Using Israel as a type for Christ might be going way too far...as Israel didn't act much like Christ in its relationship to God.

At a lodging on the way, the Lord seeks to kill Moses.  Zipporah quickly circumcises her son.  She calls Moses a bridegroom of blood.  MSB says that Zipporah thought circumcision a repulsive practice, and so had kept Moses from doing it to their son.  But once she knows her husband can die over it, she relents.  Why would God wait until they were here, on the way to Egypt, before getting so angry?  Perhaps so Zipporah would realize she couldn't travel home alone without Moses, if God killed him in this place?

Aaron comes to meet Moses.

2023 - This verse:
27 The LORD said to Aaron, "Go into the wilderness to meet Moses." So he went and met him at the mountain of God and kissed him. [Exo 4:27 ESV].  So Aaron travels to Mt. Sinai.  It seems unlikely that he went all the way into interior Midian, meeting Moses just as Moses began the journey to Egypt.  This implies that Sinai is MUCH closer to Egypt.  Aaron was a slave.  How did he get leave to go very far at all out into the desert?  I'm betting we have no clue where the real Mt. Sinai is.  We probably think we do...but we don't.

Moses and Aaron gather the elders of Israel, show the signs, and they believe.  So things start off very well.  Not only do they believe, but they worship.  For many, it is likely this was the first time they'd heard of God, the first time they'd worshiped Him.  I think these signs were necessary to show them there was a legitimate difference between the God of Moses and the gods of the Egyptians that they were used to worshiping.  The Egyptian gods couldn't do miracles.

Chapter 5
Moses and Aaron see Pharoah.  He won't let the people go, even for three days into the wilderness to sacrifice.  

2023 - This verse:  3 Then they said, "The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please let us go a three days' journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God, lest he fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword." [Exo 5:3 ESV].  If they were to worship at Sinai, then this implies that Sinai was way close to Egypt.  If so, this would explain why Pharoah's army had to be wiped out completely.  They could have attacked Israel at any time otherwise, since supply lines would be short and they were so close to Egypt while at Mt. Sinai.  Three days march for so many millions....that doesn't see like it would be far at all.  But where is the boundary of "the wilderness"?

He commands that they find their own straw, yet does not reduce the quota for bricks each day.
2021 - What were they doing with all these bricks?  It makes it sound like this was a primary task for them, and they'd used up most of the straw in Egypt making them.  What were they building?  Here is another good reason to see what was built in Egypt during the reigns of Thutmose III and then of Amenhotep II.  We also know the years these two were Pharoah.  We should be able to find out what the Hebrews built.  The pyramids of Giza were built under Kufu from 2550-2490 BC, per National Geographic.  So the Hebrews did not build those.  Those pyramids had already been there nearly a thousand years when Moses showed up in Egypt.  Wow.
When the people come up short, Pharoah has the foremen beaten.  These foremen were Hebrews set up as foremen by the Egyptians.  They cry out to Pharoah...not to God.  Hmm...
Pharoah repeats that they are just idle, and if they have time for sacrifices, they  have time to gather straw.  So the Foremen complain to the elders.  And then Moses complains to God that things are worse instead of better.

Chapter 6
3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by my name the LORD I did not make myself known to them. [Exo 6:3 ESV]
"God Almighty" is El Shaddai.  LORD is Yahweh.  And let's not forget that when Moses asked God who He was, he answered "Hayah, Hayah", which has many meanings.  Or is Yahweh a different spelling of Hayah?  
God is going to reveal himself to Moses and the people in a way He has never done before.  They will have a more personal relationship with the Lord than their ancestors did.

2021 - God tells Moses he will bring Israel out with a strong hand.  God repeats all the covenant promises.  He tells them what he is going to do to Pharoah, that he will deliver them, and that he will bring them into Canaan and give that to them.  Faith is needed.  God is telling them, and they have no faith in Him, they just don't believe the promises.  They have no experience of any of Egypt's gods keeling any promises, and they just cannot make that jump.  On top of that, the people still won't believe, because their bondage has broken their spirit.  This verse:
9 Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses, because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery. [Exo 6:9 ESV]  They had a long history of cruel oppression.  We have already seen that their slavery was not ordinary, but cruel, harsh, and designed to reduce their population.
These people have been so beaten down for so many generations that they have no courage or ambition to be free men again.  Men, women and children treated as expendable labor.  Donkeys and oxen probably were treated as well or better than these people.  With enough generations of this treatment - that was all most of them had ever known - it wouldn't even occur to them that they might be free.

Then we break off into some genealogy information.  This is good to note because when the duties and responsibilities of each tribe are set up later, these names will be prominent.
We find out here that Amram, Moses father, married his father's sister, that is, his aunt, and she bore Aaron and Moses.  
Aaron's sons are Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar.  Eleazar's son is Phineas.  

2021 - Look how Chapter 6 ends:
30 But Moses said to the LORD, "Behold, I am of uncircumcised lips. How will Pharaoh listen to me?" [Exo 6:30 ESV]  This is the second time Moses has used this phrase.  He balked about coming back to Egypt at all, he balked at being the spokesman, and now, after things have gotten started, he is still trying to put an end to his service to God as a primary spokesman.  It is not just the people who need to see the power of God in order to truly believe.  It is almost like Moses really doesn't believe that God can do this either.  He is really not committed or convinced at all.  Moses too had grown up in Egypt, and his experience of gods was just like those he'd been sent to lead.  So perhaps this is the reason for the 10 plagues, the reason things drag out, and in fact get worse before they get better.  Not only the Egyptians, not only Pharoah, but all the people, right up to Moses and Aaron, need irrefutable evidence that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was not like ANY other god, anywhere, ever.

Chapter 7
Verse 6:28 seems to sort of "take up the narrative" where it was before the long genealogy.  This makes it seem like 7:1 is sort of starting over.  It isn't really.  It is just continuation.   God says the relationship is like this:  Moses will be as God to Pharoah - that is, Moses will speak the words of God to Aaron, who will be as a prophet, and then Aaron will tell Pharoah - in a prophetic role - what Moses has said.  God tells Moses that Pharoah will say no many times before he relents.  This verse:
6 Moses and Aaron did so; they did just as the LORD commanded them. [Exo 7:6 ESV]
So at some point, these two brothers get it all exactly right, and begin to carry out God's will as intended.  Without complaint or attempt at escape from the responsibility given them, and even in the face of anger and criticism from those they are trying to help.

2021 - This chapter is where the signs and wonders God performs, escalating to the angel of death taking all the firstborn of Egypt, really begin.  What went before was just preliminary.  A simple request, and brutal response, and a rejection of Moses by the people.  That all had to happen before these signs, sent in judgment and aimed at coercion, would begin.

Moses and Aaron talk to Pharoah.  Staffs turn to serpents.  Aaron's serpent eats the serpents made by the magicians.  Still, Pharoah refuses to see, and God sends the first plague.  God sends Moses to announce the plague with these words:
16 And you shall say to him, 'The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, sent me to you, saying, "Let my people go, that they may serve me in the wilderness." But so far, you have not obeyed. [Exo 7:16 ESV]
One could see in this that Moses is still asking Pharoah to let them go three days into the desert to sacrifice and then they will come back.  But taken literally, it just says God wants the people to worship him not in Egypt but in the wilderness.  The promise to return that was implied before is no longer here.
First plague.  Water to blood for seven days.  This affected not only the Nile, but all water in Egypt, even what was already stored in pots.  But the magicians of Egypt could do the same.  They could also turn water into blood.  BUT, they apparently could not turn blood into water.  They could not undo what God had done, but they could mimic it.  Satan can do this too - and indeed he was likely working through the magicians here.  By false signs he made Pharoah confident in denying the power of God, the sovereignty of God, and so escalated the events that were coming.  Today, we use science to "explain" the unexplainable, and so justify continuing in our own "power" and denying God a place in our lives.
Possible FB post here.  Maybe two.  

2021 - This year I note that the plague had two parts.  For Moses' part, the Nile turns to blood.  That is here:  17 Thus says the LORD, "By this you shall know that I am the LORD: behold, with the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water that is in the Nile, and it shall turn into blood. [Exo 7:17 ESV]  God is speaking directly to Moses here, and this is what Moses is to say to Pharoah, and then Moses' staff touches the Nile and it becomes blood.  But next is this:  19 And the LORD said to Moses, "Say to Aaron, 'Take your staff and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt, over their rivers, their canals, and their ponds, and all their pools of water, so that they may become blood, and there shall be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, even in vessels of wood and in vessels of stone.'" [Exo 7:19 ESV]  All the other water in Egypt, besides that in the Nile, is turned to blood by Aaron's hand staff.  This certainly reinforces vs 6, where Moses and Aaron were both doing exactly as instructed.

2023 - This also validates Aaron's role as "prophet" in the whole scenario about to unfold.  Pharoah would note that it is not just Moses who is exercising God's power, but also Aaron.

Digging near the Nile you could get potable water.  God's intent was not to kill off the Egyptians with thirst.  It was to show his power and convince them to do as he willed.  Even in the plagues, mercy still exists.  This situation continues for 7 days.


Chapter 8
Frogs.  This verse:
5 And the LORD said to Moses, "Say to Aaron, 'Stretch out your hand with your staff over the rivers, over the canals and over the pools, and make frogs come up on the land of Egypt!'" [Exo 8:5 ESV]
So the frogs came from the water.  The water that had been blood now spawns frogs in great numbers.  But interesting that the phrasing of what God "struck" to bring the plague is the same.  
2021 - Note also that this time, Moses staff is not used.  It is Aaron's hand and staff that bring up the frogs, from both the Nile and from all the waters of Egypt.  And as I have noted elsewhere, the Magicians of Egypt can duplicate the "miracles" of God on the land, but they seem completely powerless to remove those plagues.  The first went away of itself after 7 days.   But Pharoah has to ask Moses to take away the frogs.
The magicians also make frogs.  They duplicate what God did, but they cannot undo what God has done.  So Pharoah asks Moses to get rid of the frogs, not the magicians.  He knew the truth.  Pharoah says that if Moses gets rid of the frogs, he will let the people go and sacrifice.  So he makes a promise.
Moses upholds his end.  The frogs die out from every place but the Nile.  There are so many dead frogs that the people rake them up into piles, and all Egypt stinks of frogs rotting in the hot sun.  And once the frogs are gone, Pharoah makes himself a liar.  He had changed his mind and agreed to let them go, and now he recants that promise.  This is the first time he's done this.

Fourth plague is gnats from the dust.  So God touches the earth this time, and not the water, and the magicians could not duplicate this.  This verse:
19 Then the magicians said to Pharaoh, "This is the finger of God." But Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and he would not listen to them, as the LORD had said. [Exo 8:19 ESV]
Those whom Pharoah had relied upon to "equal" God in what God was doing are now convinced that it is really God who is doing this.  They can't even come close.  But those he relied upon before Pharoah now ignores.  He is off on his own in continuing to doubt and refuse.
2021 - For this third plague, Moses staff is again not involved.  This time, only Aaron's staff, not his hand and staff, is required to initiate the plague of gnats.  Interesting that the Magicians could duplicate what Moses and his staff did, what Aaron and his staff and hand did, but then, as things seem to get easier for God - requiring only Aaron's staff this time - the magicians are stumped.

Flies come next in great swarms.  You can't walk for crushing the files you step on.  This happens to Egypt, but this time God sets his people apart from the plague.  This is the first time this has happened.  Here is the verse:  24 And the LORD did so. There came great swarms of flies into the house of Pharaoh and into his servants' houses. Throughout all the land of Egypt the land was ruined by the swarms of flies. [Exo 8:24 ESV]  No staffs, no hands, not even a verbal pronouncement.  When Egypt and Goshen are separated for plaguing, God alone brings that plague.  I note also that once we got passed the blood, no time frame has been given for the other plagues.  They could have been a day, they could have been a decade.

Flies everywhere except in the land of Goshen.  Pharoah tells them they can make sacrifices to God, but they must stay in Goshen to do so.  He tries negotiating.  Moses is firm.  If they offer abominable sacrifices in the land, the Egyptians will try to kill them.  Moses says they must leave Egypt to sacrifice.  Pharoah says they can go three day's journey into the wilderness, and asks Moses to "plea for him".  Moses says he will, but warns Pharoah not to "cheat" again, and recant, once the flies are gone.  But Pharoah does.  He recants again, and this is the second time he has made himself a liar.
2022 - So the false god worship of the Egyptians required them to kill any who worshiped otherwise.  Reading closely, it says the offerings they would offer would be abominable to the Egyptians.  Maybe this goes all the way back to the occupation of shepherd being an abomination to the Egyptians.  Perhaps they had something against sheep.  Much like the Jews considered the sacrifice of a pig to be an abomination, provoking AE IV to sacrifice one in the temple - as a provocation, as a demonstration of his disdain for the God of Israel.  Egypt would have seen the sacrifice of sheep in that same light - as a provocation, and a disdain.  An "in your face" act of aggression.  And they would have killed the Hebrews because of it.  At first, I thought this was like Islam, where non-believers can/should be/ought to be killed.  But on closer reading, it is not really like that. 

Chapter 9
Fifth plague.  Livestock belonging to the Egyptians all die while the Israelites lose none at all.  God makes a distinction.  This is not a universal plague.  This did not impress Pharoah at all.  Note that there was nothing to be removed.  The animals were all dead.  The plague was completely fulfilled.  It was over.  So Pharoah never even considered yielding to this plague.  This plague also was brought by God.  No staffs, no hands involved.  God is doing it all now.

Boils.  First the water, then the land, then the livestock, and now the air.  The soot is thrown into the air by Moses.  See the progression? The soot becomes a dust that causes boils on everyone.  People cannot stand up because of the boils on their feet.  What a horrid mess.  And yet Pharoah does not break on this one either.

Next comes hail, but not without some introduction.  The hail burns during the plague.  Ice doesn't burn.  God is also in control of fire.  Water, earth, wind, fire.  God has covered them all.  We get some explanation here of why God is doing things this way.  God says he could have just killed them off, and wiped Egypt from the earth.  But that only gets rid of Egypt.  Here was God's reason for doing things this way:
16 But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth. [Exo 9:16 ESV]
God is glorifying Himself by demonstrating his power over the mightiest nation on earth at that time.  He is showing His power over all that is.  Then God follows with this:
17 You are still exalting yourself against my people and will not let them go. [Exo 9:17 ESV]

To defy God, to ignore God, to try and keep doing things your way in the face of God's clear direction otherwise, is to exalt yourself, to "promote" yourself, to a position at least equal to God.  You are making yourself A god, equal with THE God.  This never works out well.

19 Now therefore send, get your livestock and all that you have in the field into safe shelter, for every man and beast that is in the field and is not brought home will die when the hail falls on them."'" [Exo 9:19 ESV]
Who is this message for?  Weren't all the Egyptian animals dead already?  So does this mean the hail will fall on Goshen too and this part of the message is for Israel?  MSB has no comment here.  vs. 26 says Goshen was unaffected.  So either some time had passed since the previous plague, such that the Egyptians were at least starting up their flocks and herds again, or they had stolen some of the Israelites livestock.  Hard to know for sure on this one.  
2021 - This instruction is given to Pharoah himself.  Perhaps to show the extent of his stubbornness.  Even in this he refuses to obey God.  Obstinate, arrogant, and defiant in the face of overwhelming evidence.  Vs 20 tells us that some of the Egyptians heeded this warning and brought in their livestock and their servants.  Others did not.  The point here is that the tide is turning.  Pharoah is losing control of his people.  It is interesting that such huge burning hailstones could be stopped by houses and barns, yet that is what is implied.  The hail only fell on the open places apparently.  Again, Moses is told to stretch out his hand toward heaven to begin the hail.  But vs 29 says he stretched out that staff of his.  Thunder and hail and fire.  I don't recall ever hearing about this thunder before.  And I thought it was the hail that burned.  The wording in vs 23 makes them three separate things.  God sent thunder and hail, and fire ran down to the earth.  This verse explains further:  
24 There was hail and fire flashing continually in the midst of the hail, very heavy hail, such as had never been in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation. [Exo 9:24 ESV]  This was unprecedented, so we are given a little more information about it.  The way they did this fire in "The Ten Commandments" may have been pretty close...but they left out the thunder.  This hail was so big it broke down even the trees of Egypt.  Nothing was left standing.  Yet no hail fell in Goshen.  

Pharoah has now reached this point:
27 Then Pharaoh sent and called Moses and Aaron and said to them, "This time I have sinned; the LORD is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong. 28 Plead with the LORD, for there has been enough of God's thunder and hail. I will let you go, and you shall stay no longer." [Exo 9:27-28 ESV]
Pharoah - for a moment at least - understands his place in relation to God.  He is wrong, God is right.  
Moses agrees to stop the hail, and says this is the reason:
29 Moses said to him, "As soon as I have gone out of the city, I will stretch out my hands to the LORD. The thunder will cease, and there will be no more hail, so that you may know that the earth is the LORD's. [Exo 9:29 ESV]
The earth is the Lord's.  Water, earth, air, and fire have all been used by God to accomplish His purposes.  All these belong to Him.  Only He has power over them.
Moses is not fooled this time though.  He knows Pharoah is dealing falsely.
30 But as for you and your servants, I know that you do not yet fear the LORD God." [Exo 9:30 ESV]
Pharoah is not the only one refusing to yield.  It is not Pharoah in defiance of all his people.  Some who serve Pharoah agree with his handling of things.  He is not the only one exalting himself.  
Pharoah recants again when the hail stops, and makes himself a liar for the third time.

Chapter 10
Locusts.  They will cover everything so that you cannot even see the ground.  They will fill the houses.  They will wipe out anything that is growing.  The land of Egypt will have no crops at all in process.  Each time, Moses tells Pharoah the plague will come the next day.  He always had overnight to think about it.  This time, Pharoah's servants tell him that Egypt is now ruined, and that he should at least let the men of Israel go and worship, just not the women, children and flocks.  Pharoah is losing control, he is losing the confidence of his servants and of his people.  His authority as Pharoah is being systematically undermined.  Pharoah calls Moses and offers to let the men only go.  Moses says they all need to go, and Moses leaves.  The next day, as foretold, the locust come and eat every green thing in Egypt.  As this goes on, Pharoah calls Moses again, tells him he has sinned, and pleads with Moses to just this once take away the plague.  Moses pleads with God, and the locusts are blown into the red sea by a strong west wind.  This time, it says that God hardened Pharoah's heart, and Pharoah recanted, and would not let the people go.  Is this a fourth lie, or has God now taken over the proceedings?

21 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Stretch out your hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, a darkness to be felt." [Exo 10:21 ESV]  So.  Water, earth, wind, fire, and now heaven itself is shown to be in God's power, under His command, and in His power alone.
Ninth Plague -Darkness that can be felt.  No one could get up from his place.  I imagine a darkness like Carlsbad Caverns - only darker.  There is an implication that fire and candles and such did not push back this darkness.  God wrought a change in the physics of light that could only be interpreted as supernatural, and he darkened the sky, a place that even the magicians and sages looked to as a source of supernatural portents even from their own gods.  And the God of Israel has now shown that he can manipulate the heavens and indeed light itself.  There was really nothing else to do but bring about the 10th plague.  When the lights go out, Pharoah tries another negotiation.  He calls Moses to him, so somehow, a messenger went to get Moses, and Moses came back to Pharoah.  This overrules the idea - to me at least - that even flames gave no light.  I think it better to see what happened as an intensifying of darkness.  It took more lumens to see.  And they did not have LED's, only torches, so an intense darkness.  Pharoah's offer is that all the people, regardless of age or sex, can go and worship, but they must leave their livestock behind.  Moses says no deal.  2021 - I had this right to start with.  For three days, no one can even move because of this darkness.  It s pitch dark.  Light does not penetrate this darkness.  Only after the three days is Moses summoned again to Pharoah.  

Chapter 11
1 The LORD said to Moses, "Yet one plague more I will bring upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt. Afterward he will let you go from here. When he lets you go, he will drive you away completely. [Exo 11:1 ESV]
Yet one...
Tenth Plague- Death of the firstborn.  God's repayment of Pharoah for ordering the deaths of all the male children of Israel?  This verse:
8 And all these your servants shall come down to me and bow down to me, saying, 'Get out, you and all the people who follow you.' And after that I will go out." And he went out from Pharaoh in hot anger. [Exo 11:8 ESV]
So despite Pharoah's warning that if he saw Moses again, he'd have him killed, Moses goes back to talk to Pharoah again.  And Moses leaves angry.  This summary verse:
9 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Pharaoh will not listen to you, that my wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt." [Exo 11:9 ESV]  We know how this will end.
Passover.  Pharoah will still not relent.  So the death angel comes.  
2021 - All Pharoah's servants look favorably on Israel and God disposes them to give gifts - lavish gifts.  All the servants look on Moses as a very high person, and authority.  God has turned all Egypt to Himself.  He has shown them that He alone is God, and they now fear Him.

And in 2021, reading Proverbs 21:1, I find this:
1 The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will. [Pro 21:1 ESV]  Exodus is truly a story that demonstrates this principle.

Chapter 12
Israel's calendar set to the first month because of the Exodus.  Passover to be on the 10th day of the first month.  The Passover lamb had to be without blemish.  It was to be kept four days, then killed at twilight.  Lamb's blood to be put on the doorposts and lintel.  Roasted, not boiled or fried, with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.  Roasted whole it appears.  Leftovers to be burned.  Not to be eaten after Passover.  To be eaten hurriedly, and with shoes on, ready to travel.  

2021 - What does this last phrase mean?
12 For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the LORD. [Exo 12:12 ESV]  I don't think we're ever told just what this means.  Could mean all the statues were torn down, fell over, or something like that.  Could mean the pagan Egyptian temples collapsed or burned.  A death angel that killed the first  born of man and beast could also have made short work of stone idols, pagan priests and priestesses, and so on.  But we really don't know.

Passover to be a tradition with the Jews forever.  For seven days they eat unleavened bread. All leaven to be removed from the houses from the 14th to the 21st.  The penalty was removal from the people.  A pretty harsh sentence.  

29 At midnight the LORD struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock. [Exo 12:29 ESV]
This verse implies that the striking down was instantaneous throughout the land.  It wasn't the death angel creeping through as in the movie.  All the first born died at once.  And it says there wasn't a single house where someone hadn't died.  

The firstborn die, Pharoah calls Moses and Aaron in the middle of the night and tells them to get out.  And to bless him also.  Has he finally repented?  No...we know that he will send his army after Israel just a few hours after they leave.
The Egyptians give away gold, silver and clothing, because God makes them look with favor on Israel.  Thus they are plundered.  Egypt is looted as if by an invading and victorious army, though no conventional battle has been fought.

The people go from Ramses to Succoth, 600,000 men.  They were leaving after 430 years, to the very day.
 

Chapter 13
All first born, both man and beast, belongs to God.  His price?  The firstborn males were to be redeemed.  God did not require that all the firstborn become slaves in the temple or anything like that.  But they were his, and were to be redeemed.  The redemption was with a sacrificial lamb.  Yet another type of Jesus, who redeems us from eternal hell, which is the just penalty for our sins.  I really am having trouble though with how this ties to the work of Christ?
MSB says that since the 10th plague did not touch the firstborn of Israel - He spared them from it - it is fitting that the firstborn be set aside as special to God.  So perhaps there is not a "tie" with Jesus as the firstborn other than that he was Mary's firstborn, and therefore special, and consecrated to God.

Next the requirements of the Feast of Unleavened Bread are reiterated.  MSB emphasizes that the Exodus, the consecration of the firstborn, and the instruction about the Feast of Unleavened Bread all occur on the same day as the Exodus.  This is a very big day.  The promises about the land of Canaan are also restated here, with God telling them that the plan will continue in that land after His promises are fulfilled.  The Passover lamb was to be set aside on the 10th.  All of Israel was to kill the lamb on the 14th.  Then, from the 14th until the 21st, no leavening allowed.  On the seventh day, the 21st is the Feast of Unleavened Bread.  The Feast of Unleavened Bread is reiterated in more detail here than in Chapter 12.  It was to be on the seventh day of eating the unleavened bread.  

The Lord leads Israel with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.  MSB gives some details about the possible routes argued as the way the people actually went.  He seems to favor the route through the Bitter Lakes region.  I found a map of that, and this is an area along the present day Suez Canal, well north of the Red Sea itself.  I'm not going to get bogged down on the actual geographical route at this time.  But there is more here if one were interested.

Chapter 14
God tells the Israelites to turn back and to camp between Migdol and the sea - militarily a bad idea - so that he could get glory over Pharoah and all his host.  This phrase "turn back" may indicate that we shouldn't expect the exodus to follow a straight line, or indeed to have much human logic to it at all.  Any argument based on these would have to deal with "turn back".  God sends them to a place - on purpose - where they have no chance of escape.  He sends them here to build their faith, to show them His power, and to show the world that Egypt in all its glory is a trifling matter for the Lord of Israel.  There ought to be a FB verse here somewhere...

Perhaps this verse would do:
2 "Tell the people of Israel to turn back and encamp in front of Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, in front of Baal-zephon; you shall encamp facing it, by the sea. [Exo 14:2 ESV]
Here God sends Israel into a place from which they have no power to escape.  They are entirely in God's hands - only He can save them.

2023 - This verse:
6 So he made ready his chariot and took his army with him, [Exo 14:6 ESV].  Pharoah went with them to recapture Israel.  It is that way in the movie, but I thought I had decided there was no Biblical documentation of that.  Here it is.  What we really do not know is whether Pharoah was killed in the Red Sea or he returned to Egypt in disgrace, like the movie showed it.  There is also this in vs 9:
9 The Egyptians pursued them, all Pharaoh's horses and chariots and his horsemen and his army, and overtook them encamped at the sea, by Pi-hahiroth, in front of Baal-zephon. [Exo 14:9 ESV].  This certainly looks like the entire military establishment of Egypt.  Chariots, horsemen, and army.  Chariots, cavalry, infantry.  They all went.  Confirmed in vs 10 where the army was "marching after them".  Chariots and horsemen do not march.

God hardens Pharoah's heart one last time.  He orders all his chariots and his armies and his officers to pursue Israel to bring them back.  They catch up with Israel at the camp where God placed them.  Pharoah was supposed to catch up to them there.  
When the people see them coming they are afraid.  Then Moses gives the best short speech - in my opinion - in the whole Bible:

13 And Moses said to the people, "Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. 14 The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to be silent." [Exo 14:13-14 ESV]
Another really good FB post here.

I like ending it with "you shall see again no more forever", as in the NKJV, but this version is good too.
"...you have only to be silent."  Just shut up and watch.  I sooo need to learn this principal.
Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the LORD drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. [Exo 14:21 ESV]
So it did not happen as in the Hollywood movie.  It took a strong wind the whole night to divide the water, and then dry up the sea floor so they could walk through.
As the Egyptians follow Israel into the water, the Lord sends them into a panic.  He also "clogs" their chariot wheels, so that the chariots are sluggish and slow.  Essentially, even with chariots they are unable to catch up with the fleeing Israelites.  The Egyptians recognize that something supernatural is going on.  That too is part of the panic.  At the end of vs 25, it says:
25 ...And the Egyptians said, "Let us flee from before Israel, for the LORD fights for them against the Egyptians." [Exo 14:25 ESV]
This could mean that the Egyptians were turning around and preparing to flee themselves and get back to the shore they had just left.  Imagine the mass confusion and increasing panic, with walls of water on both sides...some trying to continue the pursuit, others trying to retreat.  As the waters closed over them, they are already in a very high state of fear and anxiety.  And that turned out to be justified.  
Here is one that I am surprised I haven't noticed before:
27 So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to its normal course when the morning appeared. And as the Egyptians fled into it, the LORD threw the Egyptians into the midst of the sea. 28 The waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen; of all the host of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea, not one of them remained. [Exo 14:27-28 ESV]
Doesn't this verse seem to say that the Israelites actually crossed this dry ground in the dark, as the pillar of fire guarded the rear and kept Pharoah out?  And then at some point, the fire let the Egyptians pursue, but God slowed them down so that by the time the Israelites exited the sea, the entire chariot corp of Pharoah was out in the water.  And then - in the dark - the water came back upon them.  By morning, the sea was as it had been the day before.  MSB does not comment on this aspect of things.  MSB is the NASB.  Many translations say that the sea crashed back onto the Egyptians at daybreak, as they tried in vain to escape from the valley between the waters.

2023 - I think, this year, that Israel started into the water after the wind had blown all night.  I think it took them 24 hours to all get across.  The next morning, in the morning watch, the Egyptians were allowed to pursue, and they go bogged down out in the middle.  So it took Israel all night to get through the sea, because there were so many, and probably because the passage was not all that wide.  It stretched them out.  But when the Egyptians went in, they all "fit" into the passage at the same time.  The WHOLE ARMY of Egypt fit into this canyon through the water.  And as the day started - the NEXT day - the sea crashed back to normal, killing the Egyptians and washing them up on the shore.  Pharoah's fate is not here mentioned.  Closest we get is vs 28 where it says "not one of them remained".

30 Thus the LORD saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. [Exo 14:30 ESV]  The soldiers and likely the horses too washed up on the seashore, and were doubtless seen and reported by many.

Given the total devastation of Egypt by the plagues, followed by the loss of her chariots - I am not at all clear that the foot soldiers were killed in the water - Egypt should have gone through a long rebuilding period.  You would even think they might have been conquered by some other nation during the period immediately following the exodus.  History should confirm this.  I need to look for it.

Chapter 15
The Song of Moses:
4 "Pharaoh's chariots and his host he cast into the sea, and his chosen officers were sunk in the Red Sea. [Exo 15:4 ESV]
If by host is meant his foot soldiers, then Pharoah's entire military was annihilated.  Surely Egypt would have been conquered after this?

This verse:
13 "You have led in your steadfast love the people whom you have redeemed; you have guided them by your strength to your holy abode. [Exo 15:13 ESV]
Here is that word redeemed again.  Perhaps we are to see the entire nation of Israel as the firstborn of God.  And he has redeemed them.  It shows up again in the last part of this verse:
16 ...till the people pass by whom you have purchased. [Exo 15:16 ESV]
Ahh!  Israel is a type of Christ in that He has brought them out of Egypt by His own will and power - it is God's doing that they are now free from Egypt, Egypt being "sin".  God also sends Christ to pay the price of sin and purchase His people out of its despair and inevitable justice.  In both instances, it is God who is the Redeemer.  

2023 - Go back though...look at this verse!  14 The people shall hear, [and] be afraid: sorrow shall take hold on the inhabitants of Palestina. [Exo 15:14 KJV].  Palestina?  In the OT?  IN the Torah?  What does this mean???  I looked it up in BLB.  The transliterated word is "pelaset".  The literal meaning is "land of sojourners".  It is Strong's 6429.  In the KJV it is used 8 times:  As Palestina 3 times, Philistia 3 times, Philistine once and Palestine once.  Exodus, Psalms, Isaiah, and Joel.  I believe the designation of modern day Palestine as Palestine goes way further back than some people seem to think.  EITHER it is modern Palestine going all the way back to the Torah, OR it is not a place name at all, but a reminder of the fact that NO ONE living in that particular part of the world is NATIVE to that particular part of the world.  Wow!  I missed this seven times!

What kind of a people, after seeing a miracle like this, could be doubting God again in a few week's time?  They go three days into the desert, and start to murmur when they get to Mara because the water is bitter.  It says they could not drink it, but I am not sure it was undrinkable if one were about to die of thirst.  Surely the livestock could drink it, but they whined about it.  It tasted bad.  Moses throws a log in it and it gets drinkable.  Then this, the first test:
25 ...there he made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he proved them, [Exo 15:25 KJV]26 saying, "If you will diligently listen to the voice of the LORD your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, your healer." [Exo 15:26 ESV]
This is most definitely a conditional promise.  If you do what I say, you won't get Egyptian diseases.  This could be referring to the boils that he gave the Egyptians.  But could refer to other diseases also.  But they had to obey.  Since we know they did not, we would expect that people were constantly succumbing to diseases, and some, perhaps many, dying of them as they traveled through the desert.

2021 - I think this was a very big deal, though it perhaps does not read that way.  The people murmur - God is testing them here.  Testing to see if they will look to Him when they are in need, if they will look to Him when the impossible is required, and will trust Him to provide all their needs.  Perhaps this was a low level test.  There was water there, but it was bitter.  They were thirsty, but not for long.  God demonstrated quite quickly that he would provide for them, and then He made it very clear that His doing so was conditional.  He gets them right out of this jam, and explains to them that the rest of their lives can be this way - with God providing whatever they need whenever they need it.  And they won't get sick.  That seems an odd thing to promise at this early point.  Perhaps it is all they were capable of understanding concretely at this early point.  I believe that later, when Moses strikes the rock he should have spoken to, that we are looking back at this first incident, when God tested them, and showed them the formula for how things should work.  But they murmured again, and as I recall, threatened to kill Moses over the situation.  It all seems to link back to here.  Try and remember this passage when that one comes up.  
He tells them He is Jehovah Rafa (written phonetically here), the Lord their healer.  So the part about keeping them from disease is right here in the title God gives Himself for them to remember.  

2021 - This is better read aloud, and in the KJV, at least vvs 1-18 are.  The rhythm of it, the repetition of words and phrases to make it flow on and on.  I want to memorize vs 18 in Hebrew.  Yehovah malach olam ad.  I wish I could hear it read together in Hebrew.  I know I am only guessing based on Strong's pronunciations.  It means "The Lord will reign forever and ever".  
2023 - So now that the forward inline is available in BLB, I looked at this verse again to see the inflected forms of each word.  Turns out I memorized it quite wrong.  Not only were the words pronounced wrong, but I had them in the wrong order.  In order, it says "and ever, For ever, shall reign the Lord.  Here is the phonetic version:  Vay'ed, ...oh, let's face it.  I have no idea how to read this.  The forward inline has the "right" words - the inflected forms - but it reads left to right in Hebrew...which is NOT how you read Hebrew!  In Hebrew it reads The Lord shall reign forever and ever, just as in our Bible, in English.  But I don't know how to pronounce it.  I sure wish I did.  And it's Biblical Hebrew, so there's no guarantee that if I found a Hebrew speaking person that they would be much help either!

2023 - So at Mara - at bitter water - God tests the whole nation of Israel for the first time.  He lays down "Rule #1".  If you will listen...and DO...and GIVE EAR...and KEEP ALL.  So later, when Moses strikes instead of speaks...in that scene it this very first rule from God to Israel that is being flaunted.  They  had not learned the very first thing that God told them.  This first time, God just takes care if it right away.  He does not wait for them to ask.  He has shown them he is stronger than Egypt and now he shows them he is Lord of nature.  He can fix anything...he is on their side...and if they listen and do, he will take full care of them.  THAT is why God is so angry, not just with Israel, but at Moses, at the waters of Meribah later, per this verse:  51 because you broke faith with me in the midst of the people of Israel at the waters of Meribah-kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin, and because you did not treat me as holy in the midst of the people of Israel. [Deu 32:51 ESV].  Rule #1.

Chapter 16
They reach the Wilderness of Sin about a month after leaving Egypt, and grumble because they are hungry.  They grumbled about the water at Mara, and now they grumble about the food in Sin.  They say they'd rather be by the meatpots in Egypt and eat bread until they're full in Egypt than to die of hunger in the desert.  This is less than a month after God destroyed the entire Egyptian military to save their lives.  

2023 - This verse:  4 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not. [Exo 16:4 ESV].  Another test.  This time, God is giving them food with specific instructions on gathering it.  It is to see if they will do as he says.  At Mara, he gave them water and told them he would take care of them if they obeyed.  Now we have a second, more specific tests.  Wonder how many times in Exodus God speaks of testing?  They fail here also.  They keep the manna overnight, though they are told not to do so.  They go out to gather on the Sabbath, though they are told not to do so.  They need a lot of training...they are like stubborn, self-reliant children.  They do what seems best to them, and they never trust anyone but themselves.

7 ...For what are we, that you grumble against us?" [Exo 16:7 ESV]
Another example of displacement.  As we often don't realize that when we disagree with God, we make ourselves equal to God, it is also true when we grumble against our leaders - that the Bible clearly teaches were put in place by God - we are telling God He did it wrong.  Our national, state and local leaders are given authority by God - no matter which side of the aisle they sit on.
Possible FB post.

8 And Moses said, "When the LORD gives you in the evening meat to eat and in the morning bread to the full, because the LORD has heard your grumbling that you grumble against him--what are we? Your grumbling is not against us but against the LORD." [Exo 16:8 ESV]
When you complain and whine about anyone, you are complaining against the Lord.  All your circumstances are by Him, or for Him, or the result of his judgement.  Flip off a bad driver?  Guess who you're really flipping off.  You sure you want to do that???  Gripe about how slow the service is at the restaurant?  Guess who is really being slow.  Wonder what lesson I'm supposed to learn from it?  What test am I failing that I have to take again and again until I pass?  All that happens, good or bad, is in His will, for His good.  We credit God with what we think of as random or coincidental good that happens to us, but we always blame specific people for the bad.  Unless it's really awfully bad, and in that case then yes, we blame God for those.
Another possible FB post - maybe an either/or with the one above.

The evening of the griping, God sent quail - all they could eat.  So they had meat.  The next morning was the first morning the manna fell.  I hadn't realized that God sent them quail this first time, separate from the later time when He sends quail for a week.
21 Morning by morning they gathered it, each as much as he could eat; but when the sun grew hot, it melted. [Exo 16:21 ESV]
This is what He gives each of us every day.  All that we can handle, all that we need, and all that we could reasonably want.  If we would just use what He gives us, we would have more than enough.
It is interesting that this manna fell six days a week, but every seventh day was skipped.  Who could doubt that God was doing this?  There is no way that this could happen by any natural means.  Even so, people went out to gather on that seventh day.  It is amazing that even in so small a thing, so tiny a thing, these people could not obey.  They were so caught up in serving their own bellies that they defied God's simplest commands.  Note that back in vs 4 God said that this would be a test for the people.  So far, they seem to be failing miserably.  

31 Now the house of Israel called its name manna. It was like coriander seed, white, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey. [Exo 16:31 ESV]
Guess the Hebrews had a bit of a sweet tooth.

Chapter 17
More grumbling.  Moses grows impatient with the grumbling of the people.  Water from the rock.  God tells Moses to strike this rock in the presence of some elders.  Apparently Moses does so.  This is not the rock where Moses disobeys God.  He names this place Massah (testing, because the people tested God) and Meribah (which means quarreling)

2021 - This is now the second time that the people have complained about the lack of water.  The first was at a place called Mara, three days into the wilderness from the Red Sea crossing.  The water was bitter there, so it was call Marah.  Moses threw a log into the water at Marah and that water became sweet.  God said that it was a test.  Now they are at Rephidim.  The people are so angry that they are without water that they are ready to stone Moses for bringing them out of Egypt - where water was plentiful when it was not blood.  This time, God tells Moses to take his staff and strike the"Rock at Horeb", and water will come out.  Moses does this.  Then Moses names the place Massah and Meribah.  Much is made of the people "testing" God here.  I suspect that at Marah, they had no idea what to expect, and were grateful for what God gave them.  By the time God sends manna, they are beginning to expect things from God, as though they can dictate to Him.  And here in Meribah, the attitude has escalated to something more like making demands of God.  They seem to be saying, So you're God huh?  Well then lets see you get us some water and be quick about it.  An arrogant, presumptive, ungrateful attitude.  Perhaps this is why this episode is brought up so many times through the rest of the Bible.  Meribah is mentioned here, at the time of the people's grumbling, and then Meribah is recalled an additional 8 times, up through Psalms.  Here are those references and the words used to describe what happened here:
13 These are the waters of Meribah, where the people of Israel quarreled with the LORD, and through them he showed himself holy. ... 24 "Let Aaron be gathered to his people, for he shall not enter the land that I have given to the people of Israel, because you rebelled against my command at the waters of Meribah. [Num 20:13, 24 ESV]
14 because you rebelled against my word in the wilderness of Zin when the congregation quarreled, failing to uphold me as holy at the waters before their eyes." (These are the waters of Meribah of Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin.) [Num 27:14 ESV]
51 because you broke faith with me in the midst of the people of Israel at the waters of Meribah-kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin, and because you did not treat me as holy in the midst of the people of Israel. [Deu 32:51 ESV]
8 And of Levi he said, "Give to Levi your Thummim, and your Urim to your godly one, whom you tested at Massah, with whom you quarreled at the waters of Meribah; [Deu 33:8 ESV]
7 In distress you called, and I delivered you; I answered you in the secret place of thunder; I tested you at the waters of Meribah. Selah [Psa 81:7 ESV]
8 do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, [Psa 95:8 ESV]
32 They angered him at the waters of Meribah, and it went ill with Moses on their account, [Psa 106:32 ESV]
Hmm...I am not sure that all of these verses are referring back to Ex 17.  I think there is another time where Moses strikes a rock instead of speaking to it that is referred to by many of the verses above.  So it appears that they will come back to this spot at a later time.  I want to watch out for that.  It seems to me that the people are profoundly ungrateful even this time - Moses fears for his life here - and yet perhaps there will be a third "dispute" over water that is even worse.

Amalek comes to make war.  Moses holds his arms up all day.  King of the Amalekites I should say.  This was at a place called Rephidim, and would be Israel's first military engagement.  Not sure where Rephidim was, but found this verse from later on:
29 The Amalekites dwell in the land of the Negeb. The Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the hill country. And the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and along the Jordan." [Num 13:29 ESV]  So the Amalekites in Numbers were inhabiting Canaan.  However, when God promises the land to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Amalekites are never mentioned.  Perhaps they retreated to the Negeb after this defeat.  Or maybe God initially takes Israel to Canaan by a relatively direct route.

In vs 16, Moses builds an altar and names it "The Lord is my Banner".  Jehovah-Nissi.

Chapter 18
Jethro, again referred to as the priest of Midian, comes for a visit, and brings Zipporah, Gershom, and Eliezer with him.  Moses receives him warmly.
This verse:
11 Now I know that the LORD is greater than all gods, because in this affair they dealt arrogantly with the people." [Exo 18:11 ESV]
Jethro was a priest of Midian, and would therefore have been worshiping other gods, false gods, idols and such.  But after hearing about all that God has done for Israel, Jethro converts, and gives God first place.

Jethro advises Moses on administrative matters, and as a result, Moses appoints judges over 10's, 50's, hundreds, and thousands.

Chapter 19
Jethro has just left the encampment after establishing some administrative procedures for handling disputes within the camp.

They come into the Sinai wilderness.  They come to the mountain of God.  So if this is the same mountain where Moses saw the burning bush, this place is not too awfully far from Midian.  But most maps I find put Midian over across east of the Gulf of Aqaba, and not on the Sinai peninsula at all.  So that would be an argument that this is not the same mountain.  However, there are not just a whole lot of maps.  It is also interesting that Jethro went home to Midian, and then the people traveled after he left to get to this mountain.  Likely then, they were not all headed in the same direction.  Another argument that the burning bush was on a different mountain.

5 Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; 6 and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel." [Exo 19:5-6 ESV]

On the third full moon since Egypt they come to Mt. Sinai.  (2021 - No...they come to the wilderness of Sinai.  I think the implication is that they went some distance further than the boundary before encamping at the mountain.  It doesn't even say it was Mt. Sinai.  They encamped before "the mountain".)  Moses is called up and God tells him to relay the above conditional agreement to Israel.  He reminds them that He has already brought them out of Egypt.  They already owe him.  This conditional does not, in my opinion, negate the promises about the land made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  This is a promise to a nation, that they will be a nation, if they keep the covenant.  The descendants of Abraham still would possess the land, still would be uncountable, and all nations would be blessed through them.  But being a treasured possession as a single nation rather than just the residents of many nations scattered across the world is an important distinction between the Abrahamic and Sinai covenants.

Moses presents the covenant to the elders of the people and they say "All that the Lord has spoken we will do."  They agree to their part of the commitment.  So God tells Moses he will come in a thick cloud and speak to the people.  As he would to a priest or a prophet I think is the indication.  Perhaps this is part of being a kingdom of priests.

This verse:
8 All the people answered together and said, "All that the LORD has spoken we will do." And Moses reported the words of the people to the LORD. [Exo 19:8 ESV]

I believe they were sincere and committed when they agreed to this covenant.  They jumped in with both feet, enthusiastic and willing.  But when things start to go south later in their journey, they lose their memory of their promises.  This is what testing faith is about.  No one, when first committing themselves to God, has an inkling of the trials they will face in the future.  No one is already practiced at laying their fears, their burdens, their ambitions before God and trusting Him with those things.  Faith is learned, and strengthened and broadened over time.  It grows stronger yet more resilient as life in a sin-corrupted world goes forward, and in the face of the enemy.  Israel started strong,  as we all do.  But they drifted later as a people.  It is important to remember that this covenant is not really with individuals, but with the nation of Israel.  Much of God's dealings through the rest of the Old Testament are "nation-centric", and individuals play their part in that kind of plan.

I expect the part about a kingdom of priests means something specific also.  But MSB says nothing about it.

10 the LORD said to Moses, "Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments [Exo 19:10 ESV]
They needed to be ceremonially clean to approach God, to enter into a covenant with him.  If they were unwilling to do this washing, they were still Israel, but they were not fit for direct dealings with God.  Is this a sort of ante-type for the baptism that would come later?  We will see this washing many times in the next several books.

2021 - God warns the people through Moses that He is coming down on Mount Sinai (the mountain is named in my ESV), and that he will speak to Moses - not to the people - in the hearing of the people.  This will convince them to believe what Moses tells them, and forever.  They shouldn't doubt him ever again after they hear God speaking to him.

Never noticed this before:
13 No hand shall touch him, but he shall be stoned or shot; whether beast or man, he shall not live.' When the trumpet sounds a long blast, they shall come up to the mountain." [Exo 19:13 ESV]
This was the punishment for coming too near the mountain of God over the next three days.  Execution was to be without the touch of human hand.  This is a clear distinction God makes between war, murder, and those sorts of things, and the punishment for a crime.  Probably not a huge deal, but it is interesting.
2022 - Perhaps the idea is also that corporate execution disconnects the executioners from the sentence.  If a hundred people throw rocks, and the prisoner dies, then no one knows exactly which blow caused death.  Therefore the executioners have an "escape" from personal guilt in the process.  Firing squad works.  Stoning works.  Electrocution?  Is there only one lever, or several?  Hanging seems to be one.  Decapitation seems to be just one.  Hmm...

15 And he said to the people, "Be ready for the third day; do not go near a woman." [Exo 19:15 ESV]
Interesting verse.  I checked other translations.  All pretty much the same.  MSB says this is required in order to be ceremonially clean.
The third full moon.  The third day.

On this day, in the morning, God comes down on Mt. Sinai.  There is a visible and auditory demonstration of His presence there.  It inspires awe and fear in the people of Israel.  Lightning, thunder, and a trumpet blast.  The mountain was shaking, so tremor or earthquake also. This verse:
19 And as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him in thunder. [Exo 19:19 ESV]
At this point, I believe Moses is still within the camp, but out front at the head of the people.  Moses speaks, and God Himself answers.  This would certainly  have been a fearful thing to the people, humbling them, making very clear the power of the Lord their God.

In vs 20, God calls Moses up to the top of the mountain. Then there is this verse:
24 And the LORD said to him, "Go down, and come up bringing Aaron with you. But do not let the priests and the people break through to come up to the LORD, lest he break out against them." [Exo 19:24 ESV]
So Moses goes back down, gets Aaron and only Aaron, and comes back up the mountain.


Chapter 20
The Ten Commandments spoken to Moses, or to all the people together?  There is nothing saying that Moses and Aaron went back up the mountain before the commandments were spoken.  Chapter 19 ends with Moses going down to get Aaron, then the commandments come.  Possibly to just Moses and Aaron also as the last verses of 19 tells Moses to go and get Aaron and bring him back up the mountain also, but reading all the way through, it seems to me these words were spoken from the mountain to all the people and scared them to death.  

2022 - I believe the Ten were spoken by God from the mountain directly to the people of Israel.  To them all.  20:1 says "And God spoke all these words...".  And this one, which leaves little doubt:
"22 And the LORD said to Moses, "Thus you shall say to the people of Israel: 'You have seen for yourselves that I have talked with you from heaven." [Exo 20:22 ESV]
This is what distinguishes the Ten from the rest of the Law.  These Ten were spoken by God to each and every individual Israelite.  These were not "passed on" to them by Moses.  They heard these words.  These are a different sort of covenant than the Law that will come later.  More than that, these were spoken to ALL that were assembled, to the descendants of Jacob and to the mixed company, even to the uncircumcised.  Therefore, these Ten were not abrogated by Jesus when he came.  Jesus abrogated what came after, but the Ten are still binding on all.  For the most part, the Ten are universal truths accepted by all - Christian, Hindu, Muslim....everyone.  BUT, what about "Remember the Sabbath...".  Modern Christians don't abstain from work on the Sabbath.  We ignore this one for the most part.  Islam says you can steal from non-Muslims.  That is not what the Ten say.  Can't lie about other people either, even if they are non-Muslim.  Honoring father and mother gets stepped on a lot too I fear.

The commandments themselves are listed in vss 3-17.

12 "Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you. [Exo 20:12 ESV]
Called the first commandment with promise.  Long life.  But that isn't really what it says.  It says long in the land the Lord is giving you.  This promise is to those who would live in Canaan.  That's why we don't really see it...possibly.  BUT, Martha showed me Eph 6:1, 2.  Paul thinks it is more universal.

After the 10 are spoken, the people tell Moses:
19 and said to Moses, "You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die." [Exo 20:19 ESV]
I think after hearing the 10, they are too afraid of God's voice to listen anymore.  So they ask Moses to do it for them.  But the nation of priests were given the 10 commandments directly, man, woman, and child. It seems pretty clear that Moses was down in the camp, and that they all heard God's 10 Commandments together.  
This is Moses' answer to them when they ask him to speak to God and leave them out of it:
20 Moses said to the people, "Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of Him may be before you, that you may not sin." [Exo 20:20 ESV]
God's intention was to "put the fear of God" into them, because if we have the right kind of fear, if we realize what we are in comparison to Him, we would dare not defy Him.  Isn't the discipline of children much the same?  A healthy and respectful fear of parents, as stand-ins for God?

Confirmed in vs 22:
22 And the LORD said to Moses, "Thus you shall say to the people of Israel: 'You have seen for yourselves that I have talked with you from heaven. [Exo 20:22 ESV]  
Moses has gone closer, as the people asked him to do for them, because they are too afraid to hear any more.  And God reminds the people, through Moses, that he gave those first 10 to them directly.

However, we still have not been specifically told that Moses and Aaron have gone back up.  This does not seem to have happened yet.  So I am not sure how that all fits in.

Then some rules about how to build altars.  Earth or unhewn stone.  No steps leading up to it.

Chapter 21
2022 - In 20:19 the people had requested that Moses become their go-between with God.  God's voice so frightened them that they preferred not to hear Him directly.  They did this after the Ten were given to them directly.  So the rules from here on are passed on to them by Moses, as their prophet, as their law giver.

The rules continue.  The only "break" between the first 10 and the rules about altars and the rules now in 21 is that after the 10, God spoke directly only to Moses, not to all the people together.  There is therefore no reason to believe that these add'l rules are any less important, any less consecrated, than the first 10 were.  
MSB note on 21:1,
A combination of casuistic (case-law) and apodictic (direct command) precepts laid down, as a detailed enlargement of the Decalogue, the framework for judging and resolving civil disputes in Israel.  Such a combination continued to confirm the uniqueness of Israel's law among the different ancient Near Eastern law codes.  Later in a special ceremony, God entitled these precepts the Book of the Covenant (24:7)

Slaves served for 6 years only, in the seventh, they were to be set free.  If the slave's master gave him a wife and she had children, these others still belong to the master, and do not go out the seventh year.  So the slave has the option of staying with his wife and children, but to do so makes him a slave forever.  This is for Hebrew slaves, not slaves taken in war.  A Hebrew slave was a slave forever only by his own choice, never by force.  At least, this is how it was supposed to be.
Several rules about daughters sold into slavery by their fathers.
Those who kill by direct violence to be killed themselves...if it was premeditated.  But if not, if God let the other fall into his hands so he could kill him, then the killer gets to go to a place prepared for such people.
Striking father or mother is a capital offense.

2023 - This verse is what the Bible says about the kind of slavery practiced at one time in this country:
“Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death.
Exodus 21:16 ESV

Stealing a man, and selling him, is a capital offense for the one who sold him and the one in possession of such a man.  This is an interesting thing, and distinguishes between the kind of slavery the Bible often speaks of and the kind we know today.  I think in Israel, one could sell himself as a slave, or sell his wife and children as slaves, and that would last 6 years.  BUT, if you wanted to be a slaver, and go out and round up other Israelites as captives, and sell them for a profit, you were committing a capital crime.  This was not to be done.  We will see later where captives taken in war were slaves forever - in the sense that we see slavery today.  But then, we don't take captives in war really anymore.  At any rate, this is an interesting rule.
Whoever curses father or mother is to die.
If two guys fight, and one is injured enough to be confined to his bed but doesn't die, then when he recovers, the one who struck him must pay for the loss of his time, and pay to have him thoroughly  healed.

And so on...
Here is an interesting rule:
22 "When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman's husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. 23 But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. [Exo 21:22-25 ESV]

That oft-quoted eye for an eye thing is first stated as to pregnant women injured during a fight, causing the child to be born.  If it is born blind, then the fighters are to be blinded and so on.  This is a specific case, not universal for any harm caused by any man.  But I wonder where else it might show up later?

YES, it shows up and is more broadly applied here:
19 If anyone injures his neighbor, as he has done it shall be done to him, 20 fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; whatever injury he has given a person shall be given to him. [Lev 24:19-20 ESV]
...and Jesus mitigates it during his ministry with these words:
38 "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' 39 But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. [Mat 5:38-39 ESV]

Chapter 22
Many more laws about borrowing and loaning and accidents and how much is owed when one person takes a loss due to the action or inaction of another.  

2022 - This interesting little verse:
"3 nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his lawsuit." [Exo 23:3 ESV]
This was under the law, but the principle is equal justice under the law.  We always focus on how the rich ought not be above the law, but subject to it as everyone else.  But the other side of that coin, though rarely discussed, is also true.  Just because someone is poor doesn't make him entitled to a giant settlement.  In our culture, violation of this verse runs rampant.  Large corporations almost never go to court over even the most frivolous lawsuit because of the tendency of juries to "over compensate" for the downtrodden.  This does not mean that corporations shouldn't be held accountable - nor that municipalities shouldn't, nor that law enforcement shouldn't.  But it ought to be the same when a poor person is abused as when a rich one is abused.  This would be justice under the law, and it ought to be the same in civil as in criminal cases.  We can also see how socialism is rooted in violation of this same verse.  Why is the rich not entitled to be rich?  Why is the poor man entitled to more than he earns?  
Possible FB post.

Some that jumped out at me:
21 "You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. [Exo 22:21 ESV]
I would classify a sojourner as a legal immigrant, because that is what Israel was in Egypt.  But this says much about how to treat Chinatown, Little Italy, and all the other names for the places where we confine such people.  Doesn't say to embrace them and their cultures with open arms, but it is very clear that they are to be treated fairly, according to the same rules that apply to everyone else!

28 "You shall not revile God, nor curse a ruler of your people. [Exo 22:28 ESV]
Doesn't say not to curse Dems or Repubs.  Or anything else.  If they're in charge,  you do not curse them.

Chapter 23
2023 - The rules for living continue.  These are additional to the Ten.  Actually, these began all the way back in Chapter 20, and they are still going...

2021 - These first few verses make clear what must happen for a legal system to function properly:
1 "You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness. 2 You shall not fall in with the many to do evil, nor shall you bear witness in a lawsuit, siding with the many, so as to pervert justice, 3 nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his lawsuit. [Exo 23:1-3 ESV]
You have to have an honest citizenry, who won't lie for money, and one that doesn't reward the poor because they are poor instead of because they are right.  You need people who will tell the truth even when it is a very unpopular truth.  It is like this was written for the US in 2021.
Possible FB post if not already done....
2024 - I think I had this right.  The first nine verses are about how the standard that people must embrace if their legal system is to be just.  I think it is interesting that character of those who do the judging is not mentioned.  These verses focus instead on the standard required of the rank and file.  Here are some attitudes specifically mentioned in these verses.  There cannot be a willingness among the people to collude with others in order to falsely accuse others.  The next verse says it CANNOT BE OKAY to break the same laws that everyone else is breaking.  Then it says the population is not to "pile on" when someone is attacked unjustly just because they want to be on the "winning side".  Then starting in vs 4, people cannot harm their enemies by omission.  In those days that meant you had to send their ox back to them instead of letting it wander away so that they had to spend money to replace it. Today perhaps it means not paying other people to file lawsuits that cost money to defend against.  Perhaps it means testifying on behalf of the accused even when that is not the popular thing to do.  People  - you and me, the many - have to be unwilling to bribed either by money or by popularity so that bribery is removed as a viable weapon against the innocent.  All that to say this.  A legal system is only as just as the people that it serves. We must all be unwilling to accuse the innocent, we must all be unwilling to turn a blind eye to the guilty, or there will be no justice for anyone.  
Trump broke the law in falsely representing real estate values.  The legal system has turned that mole hill into a mountain not so that justice may be done but so Trump can be hurt by cowards unwilling to face him themselves.  Trump did have an affair with a porn star and he did try to bribe her into silence.  That same porn star didn't come forward to see justice done, but in exchange for popularity, notoriety, and possibly - likely I think - for financial gain.  Both sides are horribly wrong, horribly unjust, and violating at least some part of these verses.  Yet both sides are supported by people who will not acknowledge that it is our justice system that is imperiled, not the accusers or the accused.  Our whole system of justice is on the line because we the people, the rank and file, want our side to win, and we don't seem to care how "dirty" our champion is.  

Don't lie under oath, don't let another's property come to harm just because that person doesn't like you.
This verse:
8 And you shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds the clear-sighted and subverts the cause of those who are in the right. [Exo 23:8 ESV]
The reasons bribes are forbidden.  If you cannot take them, you also should not give them.

Treat "sojourners", that is, immigrants, well, for you were a sojourner in Egypt and should know how they feel.

The land is to rest every seventh year.

This verse is interesting:
13 "Pay attention to all that I have said to you, and make no mention of the names of other gods, nor let it be heard on your lips. [Exo 23:13 ESV]
Don't even say the names of other gods.  How then are their "Christian" books about demons and Satan and the gods of the pagans?  We shouldn't say them, we shouldn't write them, we shouldn't read them.

There were to be three yearly feasts.  The Feast of Unleavened Bread, as previously described to commemorate coming out of Egypt.  
The Feast of Harvest, when the firstfruits are ready.  
The Feast of In-gathering, at the end of harvest.  

An angel is sent before them to guard them.  They are to pay careful attention to this angel and obey his voice.
2023 - Look at the details of these verses:
20 "Behold, I send an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared. 21 Pay careful attention to him and obey his voice; do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression, for my name is in him. 22 "But if you carefully obey his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries. 23 "When my angel goes before you and brings you to the Amorites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, and I blot them out, 24 you shall not bow down to their gods nor serve them, nor do as they do, but you shall utterly overthrow them and break their pillars in pieces. [Exo 23:20-24 ESV]
We don't  hear much about this "function" of one of God's angels.  We don't know who this angel might be though Michael seems a prime candidate.  The Tabernacle has not been built.  God is not yet dwelling among them above the Ark .  Instead, a God-sent angel is purposed and sent to GUARD them and GUIDE them.  We rarely think of being guided by an angel.  Probably, we see this as a "one time Israel thing", so that we don't have to deal with the implications.  MSB note on vs 23 says this angel is the pre-incarnate Christ.  So there ya go.  We don't allow that it is really an angel, but is an oblique reference to Christ, who is yet to come in person, but operates here as guide and guard.  I...am not really sure I buy that at all.  This note also sends us back to Ex 3:2, and the "angel of the Lord".  MSB says this actually turns out to be the Lord Himself, speaking to Moses.  This is said to come from the context, and I do see that...but it begs the question.  Why call this an angel if it is God.  I can better understand the one in Ex 23, because perhaps even Moses did not yet comprehend the coming of the Son.  And there are those verses that say angels gave the Law.  I think there are two of those (I need to find them and paste them in here...).  I think this is worth further study.  This seems to be a big point, and subject to much objection by outsiders as to why we interpret these as we do...

A short restatement of the covenant between God and Israel at this time:
25 You shall serve the LORD your God, and he will bless your bread and your water, and I will take sickness away from among you. 26 None shall miscarry or be barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days. [Exo 23:25-26 ESV]
God also promises to strike fear into any who oppose them, to send hornets before them to "disturb" their enemies,

The last part of this chapter is God's promise to drive out Israel's enemies from Canaan.  The land that they are to conquer is laid out as below:
31 And I will set your border from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the Euphrates, for I will give the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you shall drive them out before you. [Exo 23:31 ESV].

2024 - The word here translated "Philistines" is the Hebrew word transliterated "pel-ish-tee'" with the accent on the last syllable.  Sounds pretty close to Palestine if we pronounce it pal es teen instead of pal es tine.  Previously, we saw Strong's 6429 in Exodus 15:14.  The word here in Chapter 23 is Strong's 6430.  6430 is the adjectival form of 3429, which was a proper noun meaning "land of sojourners" so more specifically identified a specific geographic area, and in turn, 6429 came from 6428, transliterated "paw-lash", which is a primitive root and a verb meaning "to roll" as in rolling in dust or ashes as in mourning.  Almost prophetic as to the squalor in which these people now live.  ON THE OTHER HAND, Israel, when they invaded this area, had orders to wipe them out completely, which they did not do, and so today they reap the consequences of their inaction back then.

Chapter 24
2023 - Begins with "Then".  So once these rules, and possibly many more that were not passed down to us, but were important for them, are recorded, Moses is called up the mountain with Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and 70 elders.  This would be one elder for each PERSON who went into Egypt under Joseph.  It would be one person for each nation established after the flood.  Even these could not "come near".  Only Moses could do so.

Moses writes all the laws that God has given him in the Book of the Covenant.  He builds an altar with 12 pillars.  He takes blood from sacrificed animals and sprinkles it on the altar.  He reads the book to all the people, and they all agree to abide by these new laws.  So:
8 And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, "Behold the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words." [Exo 24:8 ESV]
Is this the first baptism?  Done with real blood and not water.  Or is this a blood covenant, a different thing completely?  Water now because we don't sacrifice animals anymore?  Didn't baptism look back at this?  You have to ask what they were being baptized into, if this was a baptism.  Baptism into Moses?  And let's not forget that previously, some, that is 8 souls, were saved by water in the ark.  So this is not the first.  But is it a type?

2023 - We don't hear much about "The Book of the Covenant" either.  The Ten were first spoken, but I don't recall them being written.  Then, once the people agreed to the "just decrees" given to Moses, God has Moses write them down in this book.  This written book came before the written commandments.

9 Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up, 10 and they saw the God of Israel. There was under his feet as it were a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness. 11 And he did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel; they beheld God, and ate and drank. [Exo 24:9-11 ESV]

But it is written somewhere that no man has seen God at any time.  MSB cross references I Jn 4:12, which is where it says no man has seen God.  See further explanation in "Contradictions to Explain" Notebook.

2024 - There is a footnote on vss 9-11 in MSB.  He notes that the wording implies that they saw God's "footstool", they saw God and saw what was under his feet.  Likely they dared not raise their eyes to behold his face.  They saw only the pavement and the feet of God resting on that pavement.  This is one possible way of resolving these two scriptures.

12 The LORD said to Moses, "Come up to me on the mountain and wait there, that I may give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction." [Exo 24:12 ESV]
So God spoke the 10 to all the people, together, and they heard his voice, each and every one.  Then He gave Moses the rest of the law and Moses wrote it all in the Book of the Covenant.  Then the book was read to the people, they accepted it, and the blood of the covenant was sprinkled on the whole of the people.
Then, and only then, did God say he was going to write it in stone.  AFTER it was accepted it was carved in granite!

2023 - This verse:  17 Now the appearance of the glory of the LORD was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel. [Exo 24:17 ESV].  Throne's described:
3 And he who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald. [Rev 4:3 ESV].  Jasper is always very red - not bright red like blood, but saturated red.  Carnelian is sort of a translucent red.
27 And upward from what had the appearance of his waist I saw as it were gleaming metal, like the appearance of fire enclosed all around. And downward from what had the appearance of his waist I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and there was brightness around him. [Eze 1:27 ESV]
9 "As I looked, thrones were placed, and the Ancient of Days took his seat; his clothing was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool; his throne was fiery flames; its wheels were burning fire. [Dan 7:9 ESV]

2023 - So this is the first "40 days and 40 nights" that Moses is up on the mountain.  Back in 20, God SPOKE the Ten.  The people heard it and asked that God speak only to Moses in future, because it scared them too bad.  There is nothing there about them accepting the Ten as their Law.  The "just decrees" begin at 20:22 and go until the end of 23.  In 24, the people accept the Book, but the Ten are not mentioned - even though the people heard these themselves with their own ears.  God had spoken the Ten directly to each and everyone of them.  Now, God calls Moses up alone (but sort of with Joshua but not Aaron?) for this purpose:  12 The LORD said to Moses, "Come up to me on the mountain and wait there, that I may give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction." [Exo 24:12 ESV].

Chapter 25
Contributions taken to be used in the building of the tabernacle.  Far as I can tell, they are still at Mt. Sinai when this happens.  The contributions are very specific.  This was not an opportunity to give away garage sale items.  The Hebrews had been given much of value when they left Egypt and now God asks for a voluntary contribution to build His tabernacle.  "Plundered the Egyptians".
Next start the dimensions for the furnishings of the tabernacle.  They are specific, but the real details of decoration and appearance will come later.  These are more the overall.  I wonder how you apply molten gold to acacia wood without burning the wood?  Or did they use some type of gilding with very thin sheets of gold hammered on?  
First, instructions for the Ark of the Covenant.  The two cherubim were on the mercy seat, which was 2.5 x 1.5 cubits, the same as the ark itself.  This was the "lid" for the box that was the ark of the covenant.  So the cherubim were much smaller still, with wings touching in the middle of the mercy seat.  The whole thing was 45" end to end.  The reproductions I've seen show the cherubim being huge and sitting on each side.  It is interesting also that the God of the Bible needs only a very small place to meet with man.  He will be above the mercy seat and he will speak from between the cherubim.  
Also, the height of these furnishing is interesting.  1.5 cubits high is only 27".  The table is also 27" high.  Either that, or our understanding of what a cubit was at this time is very wrong.  And these items from the Holy of Holies were each to be carried separately and on their own poles.  Small items, but carried as very honored, very reverenced items.  
Second, the Table for Bread.  1.5 cubits tall.
The Lampstand.  No dimensions given, but it was to be made of one talent of gold, about 75 lbs according to the TCR notes.  I cannot really tell how many almond blossoms were on this lampstand.  It almost seems like three blossoms on each of the six branches and then four more on the main stem.  That would be 22, which doesn't really seem right - but the ESV surely reads that way.  There are seven lamps on it though.  I am sure of that.  

Chapter 26
The Tabernacle itself.  As I read this, each curtain was 42' tall, and 6' wide, and five were together on each side of the tabernacle.  So the side walls were 42' x 30'.  Then there is a tent over the side walls that is 45' tall, 66' long, if only one piece.  There were eleven of these outer curtains, five together and 6 together.  I get lost right here.  I don't see how this would fit together.  I don't see where the ends of the tabernacle or the outer tent are mentioned.   Once it gets done with the walls, curtains, and coverings, it goes into detail about the wooden structure that will support it all.  I find it impossible to understand how this would all work.  You'd need someone familiar with large tents to really understand it.  
It seems that it would have been very dark inside.  Much effort seems to have gone into shutting out all light, with overlapping curtains, double layers and screens at the entrance.  God dwells in the thick darkness I think is the phrase.  Seems all wrong to our way of thinking about God, but this phrase shows up several times.  A few examples:
21 The people stood far off, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was. [Exo 20:21 ESV]
10 He bowed the heavens and came down; thick darkness was under his feet. [2Sa 22:10 ESV]
12 Then Solomon said, "The LORD has said that he would dwell in thick darkness. [1Ki 8:12 ESV]
2 Clouds and thick darkness are all around him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. [Psa 97:2 ESV]

Chapter 27
The Bronze Altar.  This was made of acacia wood, overlaid with bronze.  Given just how much heat this would have to endure over the years it amazes me that it could have wood in it at all.  
It is 7.5' square and 4.5' above the ground.  You couldn't exactly sacrifice a dozen calves at a time on such an altar.  How would you ever be able to keep the wood renewed...unless it was a grate, and the wood was located and replenished underneath.  Sacrificing animals would take a lot of fuel.  Where did it all come from?  Yep...it turns out this is how it was done:  4 You shall also make for it a grating, a network of bronze, and on the net you shall make four bronze rings at its four corners. [Exo 27:4 ESV]  Note that the grate could be taken off, likely to allow easier clean up of the ashes down below the grate.
The Court of the Tabernacle.  So this court encircled the main tent with the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies.  Probably only the very top of that inner tent could be seen from outside.  This court was 150' x 75'.  Still not a huge thing.  And only 7.5' high.  You couldn't see over it from nearby.

The people were to bring beaten oil.  Not sure what this was exactly - what was different about it - but there was to be a lamp in the Holy Place, outside the veil, that was kept lit by Aaron and his sons.  It was to be kept lit from evening to morning.  So...at night?  Even though this place would be pitch dark even in the daytime if I understand it right?  What did they use in the day?  Maybe they took light in with them during the day? 

Chapter 28
The priests garments.  Breastpiece, ephod, robe, coat, turban and sash.  For Aaron and for his four sons.  Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar.
21 There shall be twelve stones with their names according to the names of the sons of Israel. They shall be like signets, each engraved with its name, for the twelve tribes. [Exo 28:21 ESV]  One of the stones was a diamond...correction 2023...the names were engraved on onyx.  Six on one shoulder, six on the other, according to their birth order.  AND...on each of the 12 stones in the breastpiece of judgment, a name was to be engraved.  So somehow, they were able to engrave a diamond, way back then.

2023 - I note this year that the ephod and the breastpiece of judgment were NOT made of gold with some pretty cloth around the edges.  They were made of this gold, scarlet, blue, and purple yarns and fine twined linen.  They were some sort of "cloth", made of these specifically colored threads.  Had they been pure gold, they would have been extraordinarily heavy.

2023 - Beginning in vs 17, the four rows of stones to be set in the breastpiece of judgment are described.  There is a note in the TCR saying we aren't sure what some of these stones really were.
Sardius, topaz, and carbuncle.
Emerald, sapphire, diamond.
Jacinth, agate, amethyst
Beryl, onyx, jasper


This verse:
29 So Aaron shall bear the names of the sons of Israel in the breastpiece of judgment on his heart, when he goes into the Holy Place, to bring them to regular remembrance before the LORD. [Exo 28:29 ESV]
I don't recall a breastplate being symbolic of judgement before.  Fire, yes, but a breastplate, no.
Also here:
30 And in the breastpiece of judgment you shall put the Urim and the Thummim, and they shall be on Aaron's heart, when he goes in before the LORD. Thus Aaron shall bear the judgment of the people of Israel on his heart before the LORD regularly. [Exo 28:30 ESV]
2021 - So judgement was what "showed" in Aaron's priestly garments.  The Law was focused on judgement for sin.  This was it's most visible characteristic.  The Law, the priests, the furnishings, the altar....all of it was about judgement, and the necessity of constantly delaying justice lest it wipe out the whole people, the whole planet.  I know when I read the OT for months on end, that I get focused on judgement.  I get a little more harsh about broken laws, and I get full of "enforcement" ideas.  But when I get to the NT, that all changes.  The NT is sacrifice, benevolence, and giving until it hurts.  You feel all this as you read the Bible through.  And here it is in Exodus as part and parcel of what these two covenants are about.  One is about justice deserved by all, the other is about justice served by one.  Wow.

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=what+is+an+ephod&iax=images&ia=images&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2F1200x%2F9b%2F85%2F08%2F9b85083372913c5b35043309ea9b412a.jpg

2021 - This interesting verse:
35 And it shall be on Aaron when he ministers, and its sound shall be heard when he goes into the Holy Place before the LORD, and when he comes out, so that he does not die. [Exo 28:35 ESV]  Why was the sound necessary to keep him alive?  God would know he was coming, so this has to be about Aaron - about men, and not about God.  Is it about respect?  Is it just too presumptuous to go barging into the Holy of Holies without announcing your presence?  Would it be wrong to try and sneak quietly into the Holy of Holies and maybe escape detection, maybe when you weren't quite as clean and pure as you better be to enter the presence of God?  A good lesson here  about prayer maybe...
Possible FB post

Then this verse:
38 It shall be on Aaron's forehead, and Aaron shall bear any guilt from the holy things that the people of Israel consecrate as their holy gifts. It shall regularly be on his forehead, that they may be accepted before the LORD. [Exo 28:38 ESV]

The high priest bears the guilt of the holy things...Christ carried all our guilt on the cross.  There is no amplification in MSB.  Surely there is significance in this wording.

Chapter 29
Instructions for consecrating the priests.
Sacrifices gathered, unleavened bread in three forms gathered, oil put on some of the bread.
Aaron and his sons brought to the entrance of the tent.  The door into fellowship with God if you will.
WASH THEM WITH WATER.  Ceremonial cleanliness perhaps.  I think of this as the first baptism (4/5/20).  They had already been chosen as Holy to God, they had been set apart by God's own decree.  Even so, before they could serve him, they needed to be washed of the contaminants of the world.  Of earthly dirt and grime.  They needed to be earthly clean in order to serve God spiritually, inside the tent of meeting.  To come near God physically, they needed to be clean physically.

In verse 7, anointing oil is poured on Aaron.  This first time.  This next:
9 and you shall gird Aaron and his sons with sashes and bind caps on them. And the priesthood shall be theirs by a statute forever. Thus you shall ordain Aaron and his sons. [Exo 29:9 ESV]
Aaron was anointed with oil, his sons were only washed.  Aaron is high priest, his sons offices are different.  This is the start of the Aaronic priesthood.  It is after Melchizedek, and before the Levitical priesthood.

14 But the flesh of the bull and its skin and its dung you shall burn with fire outside the camp; it is a sin offering. [Exo 29:14 ESV]
So the sin offering was not all burned on the altar.  On the altar, they burned the fat covering the entrails, the long lobe of the liver, and both kidneys with the fat that covered them.  That is all that was burned of the sin offering on the altar.  Remember too that this was done in consecrating Aaron and his sons.  I would think it is also what is done in all sin offerings but that is yet to be seen.  Very little really of the sin offering is burned on the altar.  I saw somewhere that the best fat to use in making rendered fat is the fat off the kidneys.  I have never eaten liver and kidney meat, it tastes bad to me.  But I know these organs are packed with nutrients, and that more "primitive" peoples consider the organs delicacies.  The rest of the sacrificial animal - all the rest of it - was burned outside the camp.  Surely there is much symbolism here.  God gets the most desired parts as offering for sin - the best fat, and the best organs - but the sinner who offers the sacrifice gets nothing.  No one else gets any part of this sin offering.  There is no "benefit" to anyone from sin, and the offering for sin is only about appeasement, waste, and loss.  
2023 - I don't think I have this burnt offering exactly right.  If you look at what they "don't" burn, there is a lot left out besides just that fat and those few organs.  That is, if you add up what they burn on the altar and what they burn outside the camp, there is a lot of the bull still unaccounted for.  The meat is all missing.  The tenderloins, the ribeye, the head...I can't see that the disposition of these things is accounted for so far.
2023 - I am leaving the blood out of all this.  They blood is drained from the bull, and some of it is placed on each of the horns of the altar with a finger, and then the rest - the most - is poured out at the base of the altar.  So the blood stays with the altar.  I don't know if the "base" of the altar gets burned.  Then, it appears that beyond the specific parts mentioned to be burned, ALL the rest of the bull is burned outside the camp.  None of the sin offering is eaten by anyone.
2024 - Aaron and his sons are washed with water.  They are as clean as water can make them.  Only then do they don the trappings of the priests.  They are dressed for service to God.  Then they all lay their hands on the head of the bull to be sacrificed.  I think this symbolizes a "transfer" of their sins to the bull, which then dies - which then sheds its blood - and so temporarily atones for that sin.  Next, blood is placed on the horns of the altar, and the rest of the blood is poured out at the base of the altar.  The blood has special handling at this time.  It is neither discarded nor disregarded.  But it is neither offered by being burned on the altar, nor is it carried outside to be burned.  It is simply poured out on the ground at the base of the altar.  The life of the flesh is poured out because the life of bulls and goats has not associated righteousness.  Part of the bull - the fat, the kidneys, and the liver - are burned on the altar.  These represent appeasement.  The best of the bull is burned on the altar to appease God.  He has been offended, even angered, by sin, and this is not sin that is being burned up, it is a "gift" to turn away anger.  It is given in exchange for mercy toward the one who offended.  But in the Old Covenant, it is also propitiation - payment - for sins committed.  Then the rest of the animal is taken outside the camp, and burned up.  The sins of Aaron and his sons were transferred - symbolically to the bull, the bull dies for the sin, the best is offered to God for appeasement, and the rest - the shell, the common, the ordinary - is taken outside to an unused place and burned with the sin it now contains.  As I'm seeing this right now, the sin offering cleanses the sin of the priests.  Removes their sin.  Obviously, the washing that preceded it all did nothing about the sin.  

Next is the burnt offering.  Note the laying on of hands to sort of "transfer" the sins of Aaron and his sons to the offering.  
18 and burn the whole ram on the altar. It is a burnt offering to the LORD. It is a pleasing aroma, a food offering to the LORD. [Exo 29:18 ESV]
They laid their hands on the ram next, and then it was sacrificed.  It was killed, and then cut into pieces (so it could be moved more easily onto the altar?).  The entrails and the legs were to be washed, and then put with the pieces and the head.  It does not appear that all of it had to be washed, only some, and perhaps that is the reason for cutting it up.  So the "dirty" parts could be washed.  Then, the whole of it was burnt.  This is a burnt offering.  So burnt offerings are to God alone, and the priests do not eat any part of it.  It is also called a food offering here.  The sin offering mostly burnt outside the camp.  The burnt offering burned in its entirety on the altar.  2023 - The blood from this offering is thrown against the sides of the altar.  All its blood.  That would likely get pretty hot and dry that blood...what a sight...

2024 - The first ram was the high priests ordination offering.  In this case Aaron's.  The high priest is differentiated here from the rest of the priests - his sons.  They all lay hands on this first ram, and the first thing they do is sprinkle its blood all over the altar.  This is not poured out.  Then it is cut up in manageable pieces, the "dirty" parts are washed, and then all of it burnt.  "It is a soothing aroma".  I think the sin went away with the bull.  Anger has been abated.  Now, like playing soft music to sooth, comes the whole burnt offering.  This seems to be about insuring a good standing for the priest before God.

The second ram is the ram of consecration.  Seems like a "special" sacrifice.  They lay their hands on this one also.  The blood from this ram is applied to those being consecrated - on their right earlobe, right thumb, right great toe.  I don't get this, but that's what it says.  Then blood from the altar itself and anointing oil are sprinkled on Aaron and his sons.  This verse about that:
21 Then you shall take part of the blood that is on the altar, and of the anointing oil, and sprinkle it on Aaron and his garments, and on his sons and his sons' garments with him. He and his garments shall be holy, and his sons and his sons' garments with him. [Exo 29:21 ESV]
So Aaron, his sons, and their clothing are now Holy.  They are set apart for use in service to God.
2023 - The remaining blood was thrown on the sides of the altar.

After the blood is sprinkled, the fat from the ram, some of the bread, and so on are placed on the palms of Aaron and his sons.  They touch these things - they hold them, each one - and then they "wave them" before the Lord.  So this is what a wave offering is.  After they are waved, they go on the altar, atop the burnt offering, and these parts are all burnt also.  This is the fat that gets burned.  It is not the whole animal in the case of the wave offering.  This wave, like the burnt, is also referred to as a food offering.  I note that the right thigh (for it is a ram of ordination) is included in the wave offering and then burnt.  The right thigh is what the angel touched in Jacob's wrestling match with the angel.  This thigh is where God touched man...and that angel made a promise to that man.  So somehow this is a reference back to that.  It is ordination, it is setting apart for service, as Jacob was chosen and set apart from men as God's chosen.  That is played out again here.
2024 - Wave offerings are burnt.  Though they are not a part of the burnt offering, they are placed on top of the burnt offering and burned also.  No....because the breast of Aaron's ram is also waved, and then eaten.  So...the breast of the first ram, the one for Aaron, is a wave offering, and the breast of the second ram, for his sons, is called a "heave" offering.  This portion is always for the priests. As I read it, the breast of the peace offerings (which we have not yet seen I don't think) is also for the priests.

Then this verse:
26 "You shall take the breast of the ram of Aaron's ordination and wave it for a wave offering before the LORD, and it shall be your portion. [Exo 29:26 ESV]
The burning of the fat of the wave offering and the unleavened bread that accompanied it are done.  Now another part of this ram - the breast (brisket?) is also waved before the altar.  This becomes the perpetual "due" to Aaron and his sons - to the Aaronic priesthood - for their service to God.  This is from the second ram, the ram of ordination.  In future, it is to come from the "Peace offerings" of the people.  We haven't seen that offering yet.  
2023 - First offered as a wave offering, then eaten.  So this is given to God, and God designates it for them to eat.  Since offered, it seems that this would be holy to God.  They are consuming what is holy.  

This whole chapter seems to be the institution of sacrifices for their specific purposes and of their specific procedures and protocols.  These examples will be followed by Israel from this time in their history - at Mt. Sinai, until the destruction of the temple in 70 AD.  

This is what is done with the portion of the wave offering from the consecration offering that is not burnt on the altar:
31 "You shall take the ram of ordination and boil its flesh in a holy place. 32 And Aaron and his sons shall eat the flesh of the ram and the bread that is in the basket in the entrance of the tent of meeting. 33 They shall eat those things with which atonement was made at their ordination and consecration, but an outsider shall not eat of them, because they are holy. [Exo 29:31-33 ESV].

2023 - This verse:
33 They shall eat those things with which atonement was made at their ordination and consecration, but an outsider shall not eat of them, because they are holy. [Exo 29:33 ESV].  So, this sort of ties to the Lord's Supper I think.  The flesh and the blood of Christ atoned for all mankind.  So symbolically, we eat the body of Christ.  But again, the blood had been drained in the OT consecration.  But we symbolically drink the blood rather than throw it on the sides of the altar.  
So...I wonder if it is even valid to try and connect these sacrifices in the OT to the Lord's Supper.  Should there even be a correlation?  
In the NT, we are priests, and our bodies are temples.  So we ought to consume the priests portion, but to sprinkle blood on the the sides of the altar, that blood must be inside us - if our bodies are temples, the altar is inside the temple.  To drink the blood is to apply it to the altar.  This seems so very hyperbolized in order to "make it work", that it is hard to believe this is even close.  So I still don't get this part...

2024 - This year, I think the above is very much on track.  Not exact, not perfectly explained and understood, but surely on the right track.  Look at that phrase:  They eat that with which atonement was made.  They consume that which atoned for them.  In the Lord's supper, the bread symbolizes the flesh with which atonement was made for us.  But animal blood does nothing.  It is poured out for sin.  It consecrates the altar and the special clothing, and even the people designated to serve as interventionists with God - which we no longer need at all in the NT.  So we drink the blood because it is no longer needed for consecrating the "men and the trappings of service".  
2024 - The blood of animals can consecrate, it can confer temporary holiness upon both men and items.  It makes those on whom it is sprinkled holy in the eyes of God for a time.  But it does not MAKE them holy, it does not confer righteousness upon them.  Only Jesus' blood could actually make them holy, where the blood of animals made them temporarily holy.  But in Jesus' case, we eat his flesh because it atoned for all our sins - it paid the price, it made it all even with God as to sin - and we drink the blood because where sprinkling animal blood on the altar made it externally holy - ONLY externally - drinking Jesus' blood makes us holy internally.  It consecrates us wholly for God's service forever.  I can't seem to get there...but I think that the flesh of Christ fully atones for our sins, and the blood of Christ makes us righteous, holy, suitable for service to God.
2024 - Later in today's ST study, I found this:  24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. [Heb 12:24 ESV].  The blood of Abel cried out to God from the ground:  10 And the LORD said, "What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. [Gen 4:10 ESV].  Abel's blood brought injustice to God's attention.  Blood on the ground draws God's attention.  He hears the blood cry out, and he turns to deal with it.  Shed blood gets God's attention.  Abel was killed because of his better sacrifice.  Sprinkled blood, on the altar, consecrates the physical and makes it holy to God.  There is shed blood, and there is sprinkled blood.  Sprinkled is better?  There is something here...But I can't see what it is.  Not yet.

Vs 36:  36 and every day you shall offer a bull as a sin offering for atonement. Also you shall purify the altar, when you make atonement for it, and shall anoint it to consecrate it. [Exo 29:36 ESV].  The sin offering is for atonement.  

Beginning in vs 38, we seem to be seeing the "daily sacrifices" required for the duration of the people of Israel.  Each day:
Two lambs, a year old, every day, one in the morning, the other at twilight.
With the first, some fine flour mingled with some beaten oil and some wine as a drink offering.  
With the twilight offering, a grain offering and a drink offering, as in the morning.  

So these were like "feeding" God.  It is an interesting concept.  Not only meat and fat, but flour and wine were offered.

Chapter 30
These verses are important later:
7 And Aaron shall burn fragrant incense on it. Every morning when he dresses the lamps he shall burn it, 8 and when Aaron sets up the lamps at twilight, he shall burn it, a regular incense offering before the LORD throughout your generations. 9 You shall not offer unauthorized incense on it, or a burnt offering, or a grain offering, and you shall not pour a drink offering on it. [Exo 30:7-9 ESV]
Instructions for the altar of incense.  Only incense could be burned here.  Only Aaron is authorized to burn it.  No other types of offering were tolerated.  In fact, no other type of incense was allowed to be burnt there.  It is ONLY for Aaron to burn incense upon.

Then this verse after it:
10 Aaron shall make atonement on its horns once a year. With the blood of the sin offering of atonement he shall make atonement for it once in the year throughout your generations. It is most holy to the LORD." [Exo 30:10 ESV]
The altar of incense was central in the annual atonement.  There would seem to be much more to this.  Incense often represents prayers going up to God.  God does not hear the prayers of sinners...so sins atoned for at the source of the prayers?  MSB does not comment on this verse.  Will need to pay extra attention to the annual atonement procedure when it is given, and try to pull out the deeper meaning here.

"When you take the census of the people of Israel, then each shall give a ransom for his life to the Lord when you number them, that there be no plague among them when you number them."  Exodus 30:12 ESV
Never noticed this wording.  A ransom for their lives.  Rich and poor pay the same because they are the same to God.  A census involved a "taxation", a payment of ransom to redeem those counted.  In vs 16 it is even spoken of as an atonement for their lives.

2023 - So...did this national "head tax" apply EVERY TIME they did a census?  So the people didn't really care to be counted very often?  Is that part of why David's ill-advised census brought so much trouble on the country?  Hmm...doesn't really seem to fit on that score...

The bronze basin, for washing.
They shall wash their hands and their feet, so that they may not die. It shall be a statute forever to them, even to him and to his offspring throughout their generations."
Exodus 30:21 ESV
Those who would serve God, those who would offer sacrifices to God, must first be washed with water.  This seems like another reference to a ritual that will later be baptism.  This statute was to be forever, and is perhaps the only remaining vestige of these original requirements.

2023 - Is this the source of the Pharisees "required washing" before meals?  An expansion of this verse?

The "recipes" for annointing oil and for the incense to be burned are given.  The recipes are ONLY for the specified holy purposes, and the people were not to make them or use them in any other way.

Chapter 31
Oholiab and Bezalel given special knowledge to do the work in gold, silver, stone and bronze.  Others to do the work also given abilities.  God always enables us for the tasks to which be calls us.  Those called have a God-given understanding of what is to be done that others may not recognize.  When we read the precise and detailed instructions about how to build the tabernacle and its furnishings, we can't figure it out.  But Oholiab and Bezalel knew exactly what was meant and how to carry it out.  Remember this about preachers,missionaries, nursery workers...Those called by God will know what they should do.
Possible FB post.

"You are to speak to the people of Israel and say, 'Above all you shall keep my Sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, the Lord , sanctify you.
Exodus 31:13 ESV
Above all, keep the Sabbath.  I think we severely underestimate what the Sabbath is about.  The Bible says "Above all"...actually...it does not.  The interlinear doesn't show anything that I find obviously to mean "above all".  There is some word that is never translated into English that sort of makes sure you know what we're talking about, but as I read the definitions it does not imply "above all".  So I just don't see that part here at all.  Turns out that ONLY the ESV puts this kind of an emphasis on it.  KJV and others translate it as something like "Verily, ye shall keep my Sabbaths".  Or truly, or certainly, something like that.  There is an emphasis on it, it is pretty important, it is more important than we make it today - blue laws were on the right track - but in my opinion, translating H389, "ak", as "above all" is adding interpretation to translation.  BUT, vss 12-17 are ALL about the importance of the Sabbath.  Sure makes you think we ought to observe it more.  But it clearly says this Sabbath observance is a sign between God and Israel, not between God and all mankind always.  It is like the sacrifices.  Like observance of Passover.  Like the morning and evening sacrifices every day in the Temple.  The same phrasing is used - "throughout your generations".  The Sabbath is about Israel, and though we need to observe it in some sense, we need to be careful of getting Pharisaic about it.  There is so very much in the NT about how the Sabbath was over-thought.

It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.'"
Exodus 31:17 ESV
God tells Moses about creation.  Wants it remembered that He did it in seven days.

2024 - Instead of "are we still supposed to rest on the Sabbath" it might be more productive to ask why this was such a big deal?  There was no Israel when God created the earth in six and rested on seven.  God did rest that first time, but I don't think he told Adam that he should rest or Abraham that he should rest and do no work on the Sabbath.  But when it comes to Israel, the rule is laid down, emphasized, and breaking it is punishable by death!  It moves way up toward the very top of the list.  It is the fourth commandment.  It was spoken verbally to ALL the people, not just to Moses.  We know that there will be Sabbath years also , and year of Jubilee to celebrate 7 7's.  But it was never needed before...Was it because beginning with Abraham, God's people had always been wanderers but the plan for Israel was to stay in their own land, and cultivate their own food?  I suspect it is something bigger, though that is likely included.  God rested on 7...what more fundamental characteristic of God that we can emulate goes back further?  We can never create something from nothing as he did.  But we do work, we do our work as he did his.  And if he rested from his work, then so should we.  And perhaps it is simply a weekly reminder that God is creator of all, and that we need to stop our petty activities and remember him on a regular basis.  Maybe it is no more than that.

And he gave to Moses, when he had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God.
Exodus 31:18 ESV
God doesn't make as big a deal of the stone tablets as Cecil B. DeMille did.  So Moses is up on the mountain now.  Aaron is not there as we will see in the next chapter.  God has spoken the Ten Commandments directly to the people, but then he called Moses up to give him the tablets, to add additional instructions, and to give him these stone tablets.  It would be worthwhile to go back and see exactly when Moses had gone up.  Chapter and verse.  2023 - He goes up "into the cloud" in 24:18 and stays for 40 and 40.  It is during this time that Moses gets all the instructions for the tent of meeting and the furnishings that go in it, and ALSO, the written version of the 10.  The Ten were already known, the people had already sworn to follow them, BEFORE they were written down on those stone tablets.

2023 - Two tablets, four sides, written on both sides as we shall see below.  There is no reason to believe that ONLY the 10 were on those tablets.  Could be that all the instructions for the tent of meeting were on those tablets.  There could have been drawings and diagrams on them as a guide for construction and assembly.  Just how thoroughly has Cecil B "entrenched" a wrong understanding of these events on GENERATIONS of Western Christians!!?!?

Chapter 32
Aaron, who was to be God's High Priest, makes golden calves for the people to worship.  Interesting that Aaron had not yet been consecrated as High Priest.  There is no indication in vs 1-6 that Aaron even hesitated to do these things.  In fact, it implies that once he saw the people intended to make sacrifices to the calves he had fashioned, he also fashioned an altar to put before it.  He "helped" to found this cult of the golden calf.

2023 - Couple of things here:  in vs. 1, the people say "Up, make us gods...", so what they ask for is plural, as they had known in Egypt.  The Hebrew word is elohim, which is masculine plural absolute. It is elsewhere used, with a capital letter, of God Himself.  God is one, but he has this plural name.  So possibly, even at this early stage, there was an idea that a single idol could represent many gods, and so could be called elohim.
2023 - Then in vs 4:  4 And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!" [Exo 32:4 ESV].  Aaron made A golden calf, not SOME golden calves...yet later in that same verse,   Calf, in the first part, is singular, but at the end of the verse, elohim is used again, and so the ending is plural - gods.  It is hard to know what is going on here.  BUT, I think our interpretation should always be that there was a single golden calf made, and that is how we ought to see things when it says calf.  But if it is talking about false gods, we ought to see them as represented in that one golden idol - though in itself it was singular.
2023 - Through the next verses, Aaron declares a feast for the next day, the object of which is to worship the LORD - LORD is the Hebrew Yehova.  So what we have is Aaron making an idol to REPRESENT God.  This was just as the Egyptians did with statues to Isis and Osiris, and many others.  Sacrifices were laid at the feet of the idols, though there was a recognition that the god Isis was actually off somewhere else.  They worshiped the idol as representative of a god.  So what we have here is a perversion of Yehova worship.  Aaron has "translated" the Egyptian worship customs into  worship of Yehova.  And that may be the source of the mixed up singular/plural references here.  They knew Elohim was plural for God.  So when Aaron made them elohim, they saw that single god as representing the God they saw as plural.  Such distortion.  And remember...that had all heard God's own voice saying "Though shalt not make unto thee ANY graven image".  Yet in vs 4, Aaron fashions the calf with a graving tool.
2023 - In vs 8, God refers to the calf (singular), and said they are calling the calf "your gods".  They worshiped and sacrificed to the calf, while seeing it as "their gods".  They were pretty messed up.

Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you."
Exodus 32:10 ESV
These people had heard the voice of God Himself speaking from a mountain top only weeks before.  Each one heard it.  It was not a rumor that a few people told them about.  They heard it.  And yet, they are so fickle (my word, God's word for them was stiff-necked) that they turn away almost immediately.  Israel came this close to being wiped out except for Moses.

Moses talks God out of it.  Moses' argument is that if God does indeed destroy these people, then the Egyptians will say that the only reason God freed them from bondage was to take them out and kill them in the desert.  This would be a very different kind of God than the one we have.  The Egyptians, and indeed the world, would have thought that this was a mean, angry, killing kind of God, who destroys whole peoples for reasons unknown.  A God lacking logic, justice, or pity.  God did not go to all this trouble to get Israel loose from Egypt in order to be completely misrepresented in character because the people he chose were not really so great a people.  And further, Moses reminds God of his promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and that this mass of people is in fact already the fulfillment of much of the promise He had made.  To wipe out the fulfillment of the promise also shades the power that brought it about.  Did he do as he promised in a fickle way, just to say "Ok, I did it, but now I'm just going to wipe them out."  Is the fulfillment of God's promise a transient fulfillment or is it the real deal, ongoing, and forever?  These are deep arguments that Moses has presented to God.  Arguments that perhaps could only be made by one who was raised with full knowledge of the workings of Egyptian religion and so understanding of how they will interpret God's actions.  

2023 - Vss 15,16 tell us a lot about the tablets.  Two tablets, written on both sides, front and back.  So four "pages", unlike the two that we always see depicted as written only on one side.  God had made the tablets, they weren't produced by Moses then written by God.  God made the tablets, and the finger of God wrote on them.  God's own handwriting.  In Hebrew?  We have no info.  

Moses has the people drink the gold of the calves, no doubt causing many problems later. (2023 - This is two places now where I have written calves, plural.  In the movie, there is only one.  In Israel when the kingdom is divided, there are two.  So I will be paying close attention t how many there are in Exodus 32...and I will go back and correct myself if needed.)

2023 - Aaron's pathetic lie...:24 So I said to them, 'Let any who have gold take it off.' So they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf." [Exo 32:24 ESV].  Whoosh!  Aaron is claiming, almost...sort of, that he thought it was God who made the magic calf because it just "jumped out of the fire".  But we know, and Aaron knew, that he made it with a graving tool.  This is so very juvenile.  Like he didn't think this lie could be easily disproved.  Yet Aaron still becomes High Priest...and everyone knew he was the one that shaped the calf.  

This verse:
25 And when Moses saw that the people had broken loose (for Aaron had let them break loose, to the derision of their enemies), [Exo 32:25 ESV]
Not sure how we are to understand this "breaking loose".  It would seem to me to be apostasy.  Maybe what has happened to many of the Hebrews is along the same lines as what is spoken here:
3 Let no one deceive you by any means; for [that Day will not come] unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, [2Th 2:3 NKJV]
Are breaking loose and falling away the same thing?  Perhaps a very large portion of these people, having worshiped the calves (ok this is the THIRD time I've made this plural...and this, 2023, is the first time I've questioned it! - SEE 2023 notes on vss 1, 4 above), have forever and irrevocably abandoned God, and so must be purged from the people.
2021 - NASB phrases it "let them get out of control".  They were essentially without rules, discipline, or thought.  They were sort of "ecstatic" in the NT sense of pagan worship.  They were just out of their minds, in trances, that sort of thing.  It may well be implied here that even after Moses appeared back in camp, many of the people continued in this "out of control" state.  They continued to behave with complete abandon, unbridled by any consideration of propriety.  Orgiastic behavior might be the best word.
2023 - NASB note says this phrase literally means "let loose".  MacA makes no comment on vs 25.  Perhaps a husbandry reference.  Like sheep or cattle "let loose" from their keepers to wander and indulge themselves...and there is still that "to the derision of their enemies".  Wouldn't these enemies have been right there in camp with them?  Perhaps that mixed multitude that went with them were hooting and hollering at the behavior of these so-called holy people, behaving just like their former captors?  

Then this sequence of verses:
26 then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, "Who is on the LORD's side? Come to me." And all the sons of Levi gathered around him. [Exo 32:26 ESV]
Moses orders the Levites to kill those close to them - to kill their brother, his companion, and his neighbor.  Three each?  Or figurative?  In any case, they killed those in their family and those close around them who had broken away.  A hard thing.  A VERY hard thing to do. In fact, the Levites kill 3000 people.  And then, almost as a "blessing" for their willingness to do something so difficult, we get this verse:
29 And Moses said, "Today you have been ordained for the service of the LORD, each one at the cost of his son and of his brother, so that he might bestow a blessing upon you this day." [Exo 32:29 ESV]
These were all Levites who stepped forward and said they were on the Lord's side.  Only the Levites stepped forward.  This was Moses' and Aaron's tribe also.  The Levites become a tribe of priests - servants really - keepers of the temple, separate and apart from the Aaronic priesthood, though all from the same tribe.  And this right here is where it started.  They stepped away from the crowd, and did a very difficult thing, as ordered by God through Moses.

2023 - But, note that in vs 26, ALL the sons of Levi came to Moses side.  THEN, Moses told them to kill HIS brother, HIS companion, and HIS neighbor.  HIS, not YOUR.  Could just be how this would be translated...but my point is that they were not killing Levites - so not their literal brothers - because ALL the Levites came to Moses' side. So we have to understand brother, neighbor, and companion all in the same sense - other Hebrews.  No more than that.

Moses goes back up to try and make atonement for the people directly with God.  Moses asks to be blotted out himself if God will not forgive the people.  I believe God denies this request from Moses.  God says He knows who sinned against Him, and those who did He will blot out.  So there is a division of saved and unsaved within Israel already at this point.  There are faithful and unfaithful.
2023 - Because of Cecil B. DeMille, we think of this rebellion as pretty much universal within the camp, including even Aaron.  We think that they ALL behaved this way.  The Levites kill only 3,000...remember that in Ex 12:37, it says that 600,000 men left Egypt.  So 3,000 dead here is a pittance.  Then this next verse:
...
Israel probably thinks it is all over, and they'll be on their way, but then this verse:
Then the Lord sent a plague on the people, because they made the calf, the one that Aaron made.
Exodus 32:35 ESV
(Only one calf in this verse...)
2023 - Do we get any idea how many died here?  No matter, it wasn't just a whole lot I don't think.  However, it is probably also wrong to say that between the 3,000 and this plague everyone who participated - all who broke away - are now dead.  Aaron certainly is not, and he was very high up in the circle of those who broke away.  We might ought to "remember ahead" here that not one of these people - other than the spies - will enter the promised land, and the spies only see it, they never live in it.  So perhaps the real punishment for this breaking away was death for many, but denial of milk and honey for all the rest...and it started right here, not at the border of Canaan.  And see the analogy to salvation.  They had sinned, and heaven was denied them....?  No, not really a good analogy there...it is lack of repentance, submission, and service that close heaven off from the lost.

It is true that God has decided to move on.  He has blotted out the guilty, and is moving on with His promises to Abraham about the land.  However, just because God has decided to move His plan forward doesn't mean He has forgotten about the sin.  Being forgiven for sin does not make the consequences of sin go away.  This seems to be the same principle that was applied after the fall.  Adam and Eve were forgiven - they did not die immediately - but life was never the same.  Life now included thorns, pain, back breaking work...sickness, disease and so on.  The sentence for Adam's sin was death, as is the sentence for our sins.  But God did not immediately carry out that sentence.  He was merciful and let them continue their lives, but He did not remove the consequences of their sin.  The principle is that being forgiven for sins does not remove the consequences of that sin.
Possible FB post.

Chapter 33
Chapter opens with God telling Moses to leave Sinai, to move on to the land God has been promising since Abraham left Ur of Chaldees.  The time is here.
Here's an interesting verse:
Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people."
Exodus 33:3 ESV
God would still keep His promises, but be could not tolerate such people on a day to day basis.  God will keep His promises, though He cannot be this close to sinners such as these.  Are we this way today?  When we come to know Jesus, and then we revolt and turn back to the old ways, or become complacent with our pet sins, or we're just chronic complainers, does God decide to keep His promise that gets us into heaven, but He is not be as close to us as He would really like to be?  Do we forego the blessings he would like us to have because we're just too stubborn to turn our lives truly over to him?  We have salvation, but we never go much further?  Are we (Am I???) the ones at the judgement seat who have nothing but stubble, nothing to show for the grace God shows?  We still get into heaven but our crowns are small?  We're in, but we have missed so very much in this life.
Possible FB post...I like the thought, there's something about this, about dedication in this world being necessary to receive the true riches of God's blessings - and Israel missed out on it!.  See below also.  This doesn't turn out to be the case.

God orders the people to strip off all their ornaments.  MSB says this was like donning sackcloth and ashes.  It showed their understanding, even their mourning, that God was not going to be with them on the way, because their sin separated them from him.  Like David after Bathsheba!  God was still with David, but not in the way it could have been.  Even the saved can experience an imposed distance from God if sin becomes dominant in their lives!  This is the lesson!

At this time, the tent of meeting is always set up outside the camp.  Moses goes to the tent to speak with God.  When Moses goes in the tent, the pillar of cloud descends on the tent.  The people watch from camp, and they know when the cloud descends that God is right there, talking face to face with Moses, and they worship at this time, because God Himself is right there!  This verse:
11 Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. When Moses turned again into the camp, his assistant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, would not depart from the tent. [Exo 33:11 ESV]
I don't believe that anyone else ever has this privilege of talking face to face with God.  Perhaps Adam, pre-fall.

Moses intercedes for the people.  As I read it, He talked God out of not traveling with the people, saying that if God would not be with them, they might as well not go.  Moses says they'll just be another nation, another mob of wanderers, unless God Himself accompanies them.  And God agrees to Moses' request.  So that FB thing....maybe I have that wrong...

Is Jesus now our intercessor?  Though God cannot be around us in our sins, yet Jesus intercedes for us on every hand, and so we are blessed despite our sinful ways?  This is much more difficult than it at first appears.

2021 - It is also here that we get the story of God placing Moses in the cleft of the rock, covering him with His hand, and then passing by and letting Moses see only his back.  The chronology is a little bit unclear.  They seem to still be at Sinai, though there is much talk about moving on to Canaan.  I seem to recall that they will be here for another book or two before they finally set off for Canaan.  So this cleft of the rock may have been on Sinai itself.  Almost has to be, in fact.  But still, the phrasing of vs 7 is a little odd:
7 Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far off from the camp, and he called it the tent of meeting. And everyone who sought the LORD would go out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp. [Exo 33:7 ESV]  The tent has not been constructed yet, but is referred to here in past tense.  So we really don't know where or when this "seeing the back of God" took place.  MSB talks about what maybe Moses saw - and states that Moses himself never described what he saw to anyone.  MSB describes vs 7 as meaning that BEFORE the tabernacle was built, Moses would set his own tent up well outside the camp, and so meet with God there.  This was during the time when God was unwilling to go near the nation of Israel lest he outright destroy them, as they so richly deserved.  It was during this time, when Moses was meeting with God outside the camp, and Moses was interceding for the people outside the camp, and trying to get God to relent and indeed travel with them in the camp, that Moses asks to see God more clearly, and the cleft of the rock thing takes place.  
Now think of this....Moses met with God, and convinced God to relent and to visit His people and be constantly with them once again, at a location OUTSIDE the camp.  Jesus was crucified OUTSIDE the city of Jerusalem, as a way of convincing God to relent of being separated from us all so that we can now approach him directly.  The veil tearing was God accepting the atonement of Christ in our place.  Moses is a type of Christ in the way that he interceded for the people, in the unique relationship he had with the people, and in the regard that God Himself had for this intercessor.  So on previous readings, I clicked that there was something very significant about this chapter of Exodus, but it was only this year, in 2021, that it finally starts to truly unfold so that I can see what is here.  How much more will I find next time!?  The scapegoat is going to tie right into all this.  Moses intercession brought God from outside the camp into the camp, but the veil still separated Him from the people, because sin was not yet wholly paid for.  But Jesus, being the perfect sacrifice, brought God out from behind the veil - as the Holy Spirit - not to just live among us, but to live inside us!  
Possible FB post
2022 - Moses was in every way "of" the people.  Jesus was in every way a man.  Moses' relationship with God was as a favored son.  Jesus was in every way God's Son.  Moses dealt with the sin of his people from outside the camp.  Jesus dealt with the sin of all people from outside Jerusalem.  Moses walked and talked with God based on the unique relationship they had.  Jesus also had a special relationship with his Father.  This gave them both insight into God's will and ways.  Moses succeeded in bringing God into the camp with his people, though still separated by the veil.  Jesus brought God to all mankind as evidenced by the tearing of the veil.

2023 - Put these verses together...and what do they tell us:
11 Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. When Moses turned again into the camp, his assistant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, would not depart from the tent. ... 20 But," he said, "you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live." 21 And the LORD said, "Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, 22 and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. [Exo 33:11, 20-22 ESV]
How are we to understand that Moses and God talked "face to face" - that's the quote, and then just a  few verses later, God says TO MOSES "man shall not see me and live".  So...who was Moses speaking to in that tent???  Was it Christ?  The two intercessors speaking directly with each other.  Oh my!!!!  The Transfiguration...Moses, Elijah, and Jesus.  Here in this tent, Moses and Jesus...But if we go here, why is Elijah added later?  Perhaps because he was required to come before the Messiah...He had to be there to verify that this was the Messiah.  THIS is how Moses knew in the OT that Jesus was going to come, as referenced in Hebrews I think it is.  AND, if this is Moses, and Jesus, then on the mountain Moses, Jesus, and Elijah, I think we have a very strong argument that the two witnesses in Revelation are Moses and Elijah, just before Jesus comes for the second time.  Wow.  Just Wow.

Chapter 34
God tells Moses to cut two new stone tablets, bring them up the mountain the next day, and that God will write on them again the words He previously wrote on the tablets that Moses broke.  Moses is to come up alone this time - no Aaron or Joshua.  

God's covenant with Israel restated.  This verse:
7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation." [Exo 34:7 ESV]
This seems to contradict other passages - particularly in Ezekiel - where God says each is responsible for his own sin, not the sin of their parents or their children.  
MSB note sends us back to Ex 20:6, where it says the same thing about the sins of the fathers being on the children.  That note says that while the children are not responsible for what their parents do, while God does not "sentence" children for their parents crimes, the result of the parent's sins are still there for 3 or 4 generations.  As in parents at that time who decided to worship idols.  That is the example their children would see, and that is what the children would do.  The apostasy of the parents turns into the apostasy of the children.  They learn sin from their parents and they practice it.  In our day, alcohol, drugs, abortion, homosexuality - parents attitudes about these things the Bible clearly labels as sin become the attitudes of their children.  It takes generations to undo the error of this ungodly teaching.
Now THIS is a FB post!

So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights. He neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.
Exodus 34:28 ESV
This looks like it was Moses who rewrote the tablets.

2021 - In light of what we saw back in 33, where God had decided to send the angel to guide Israel to Canaan but not to go amongst them Himself, lest he kill them, but Moses pleads with God on behalf of the nation, we can see here in 34 that God relents, and agrees to travel with them.  The covenant that they  had pretty much already trashed with their worship of the golden calf, is renewed.  Many of its details are restated, so there is no doubt what is being renewed, and no doubt that the requirements are the same on the part of the nation.  You see this in the words of Moses at vs 9, pleading for pardon, and God's reply in vs 10 saying he will make the covenant.  BUT, God also laid out in the preliminaries to these verses that He will "by no means clear the guilty".  Nothing in the covenant is to be construed as removing guilt.  The Old Covenant delays punishment, but never in any sense does it remove guilt.  So chapter 34 is about renewal of the covenant spurned.

Moses comes down with his face shining of the glory of God, such that the people are afraid even to come near him.  

Chapter 35
Moses repeats the Sabbath regs to the people.

2021 - This chapter also is a restatement of the covenant broken as it is renewed.  The Tabernacle is to be built, still, as previously described.  This is renewal of what went before, not just some sort of repetition.  All aspects of that previous covenant are being renewed by the restatement of them in these chapters.  Anything could have been left out, God could also have added anything.  Not clearing the guilty may in fact have been added at this point...though it seems more likely it is a reminder and not a new covenant requirement.

An offering for the building of the tabernacle and its furnishings taken.
Bezalel and Oholiab charged with overseeing the work.
This chapter seems to be a retelling of what had gone  before - a summarized version of it at least.  The items to be offered are listed again, but the tent of meeting and it's parts are listed in summary, not in the minute detail of the first time, right after the 10 commandments.  MSB doesn't really say that, but all the references go back to that earlier version.  MSB says this time they are actually building it, so maybe that is the difference.  The first time, we read the instructions for how to build it, and after Moses comes down this time, they actually set about the construction.  If so, they will be at Sinai for yet a little longer before they actually depart.

Chapter 36

2024 - Looks to me like 36:1 might fit better as the last verse of 35.

The making of the tabernacle.  2 Then Moses called Bezalel and Oholiab, and every gifted artisan in whose heart the LORD had put wisdom, everyone whose heart was stirred, to come and do the work. [Exo 36:2 NKJV]When God appoints us to a job, He gives us the skill to do that job.  These weren't called because they were already able, God made them skilled because he had determined to use them.  They relied on God for what they did, God didn't rely on them.We get a summary of the work that was done in building the tent of meeting.  Not in the detail God described it to Moses, but enough to see that the work was done as prescribed.  They made no mistakes.  Because those given skill to do the work used what God gave them, and did not try to rely on their own knowledge.It would be interesting to see how very large tents are made these days for the people who still live their lives in tents, and from that, maybe get a little better sense of how this was put together.

Chapter 37

Making the Ark, Table, Lampstand, and Altar of Incense.

Chapter 38

Making the altar of burnt offering, the basin, and the court.8 He made the laver of bronze and its base of bronze, from the bronze mirrors of the serving women who assembled at the door of the tabernacle of meeting. [Exo 38:8 NKJV]Here is an interesting detail about the laver.  It was made from bronze mirrors.  The laver is where the washing was done.  Mirrors are for self examination, water is for cleaning.  As we prepare ourselves for service to the Lord, and continue in that service, wouldn't we want to continually examine ourselves, looking not just for cleanliness outside but purity within?Vs 24-31 are an accounting - a pretty specific inventory - of all that was used to make this tabernacle.  It used about 2200 lbs of gold.  Also, 7500 lbs of silver was donated.  The men of Israel, 20 years old and older, were 603,550.
 

Chapter 39
Making the priestly garments.  Again, these are not the instructions on how to make it, but a recounting of the actual work being carried out.  One might unravel some of the instructions by comparing them to the work accomplished.  Maybe.
This verse:
11 and the second row, an emerald, a sapphire, and a diamond; [Exo 39:11 ESV]
Which three tribes were represented by these?  These seem to me to be the most precious stones used.
Doesn't really say here...nor in 28:18 where the instructions are given.  I doubt that this is the birth order...that method gives Judah, Zebulon, and Issachar.  So probably not this.  Would make a good study.  I'm sure someone has deciphered it.
All the work of the tabernacle finished and presented to Moses.  This is the concluding verse:
43 And Moses saw all the work, and behold, they had done it; as the LORD had commanded, so had they done it. Then Moses blessed them. [Exo 39:43 ESV]
So all the parts and pieces of the Tabernacle are finished.  

Chapter 40
Tabernacle to he erected the first day of the first month.  This is the same month that they left Egypt.  So they  have been encamped around Sinai for a year.  An MSB note on vs 17 gives some more detail.  The book of Leviticus was given in the first month of that second year, still at Mt. Sinai.  That is why it is next.  Numbers begins with the people still in this camp in the second month of that second year.  So this has become a very long term camp out, living in tents, and awaiting God's word.  Would we stick it out this long?  Have to give Israel credit, they did wait here for God's direction.  

God tells Moses to set everything up, and to consecrate things with oil as he goes.  Once all the furniture is set up and consecrated, this:
12 Then you shall bring Aaron and his sons to the entrance of the tent of meeting and shall wash them with water 13 and put on Aaron the holy garments. And you shall anoint him and consecrate him, that he may serve me as priest. 14 You shall bring his sons also and put coats on them, 15 and anoint them, as you anointed their father, that they may serve me as priests. And their anointing shall admit them to a perpetual priesthood throughout their generations." [Exo 40:12-15 ESV]
So Aaron and his sons are washed with water, anointed, and consecrated to the service of God as priests, forever.

32 When they went into the tent of meeting, and when they approached the altar, they washed, as the LORD commanded Moses. [Exo 40:32 ESV]
Each time, they wash.  This is an important part of service.

The cloud descends in the tabernacle.  From then on, they move when the cloud ascends and they stay put until it ascends again.

So Exodus began with the oppression of Israel by a new Pharoah, sometime before the birth of Moses, and ends with the initial setting up of the Tabernacle, built according to God's own instruction.  God begins events at the beginning of Exodus that culminate with Him descending in a cloud over the Tabernacle.  All of Exodus has led to God's taking up residence among His chosen people.