Chavoux Luyt: You wrote: “Thatoption [that the place where Moses saw the burning bush and where he is to “serveGod” is not in or near the Sinai or Arabia] is simply not possible becauseExodus 3:12 makes it explicit that the Israelites will serve God on that verymountain where He first appeared to Moses. Whether that mountain is actually the placecalled Mt.Sinai today, is another question that should probably be asked in anarchaeological group rather than b-hebrew.”
The key issue here is not archaeology, but rather is themeaning of the Hebrew common word (BD, in the expression “serve God” or “serveMe”. That’s a classic question for theb-hebrew list to discuss. In fact, the Exodus 3: 12concept of “serving God” on “this mountain” requires a locale where the Hebrewsare divinely fated to live, not a desolate locale far south of where theIsraelites settle. An express referenceto “serv[ing] God”, where “serve” is some form of the Hebrew verb (BD, appearson 15 occasions in Exodus. On all butthe first and third occasions, the phrase certainly embodies the concept ofserving YHWH for a long time, even forever, rather than signifying an act ofshort duration. Exodus 4: 23; 8: 1, 20;9: 1, 13; 10: 3, 7-8, 11, 26(2); 12: 31; 23: 25. Under ordinary circumstances, that would seemto be the only natural reading of this phrase “serve God” [or “serve Me”] thatis used so many times in Exodus. However,the third such reference, at Exodus 7: 16, is ambiguous in this regard, becausealthough YHWH is intending that the Israelites should serve Him forever, hethere refers to the Israelites serving God in the wilderness [midbar], which atleast in some sense would imply only a limited period of time [while theIsraelites were in the wilderness during the Exodus]. The key question then isthis: what concept is implied in thefirst such reference to the phrase “serv[ing] God”, at Exodus 3: 12? Certainly the meaning that applies at least 13out of the other 14 times such phrase occurs in Exodus should be favored. When Moses is fairly near [but not in] MDYN,and YHWH tells Moses “ye shall serve God upon this mountain”, the phrase “serveGod upon this mountain” should be given its natural meaning of serving Godforever at that locale. Accordingly, themountain in question needs to be located within the land that the Israelitesare divinely fated to inhabit [and hence nowhere near the Sinai or Arabia,contra the traditional and scholarly view of the geography here]. So once the Israelites have taken all of theland which they have been divinely granted, they will be able to continually“serve God” forever in this location [upon “this mountain”]. That is my interpretation. It strains the Hebrew word (BD to take theradically different interpretation that “serv[ing] God upon this mountain”merely implies that the Israelites are to listen to God’s word at Mt. Sinai[with Mt. Sinai being “this mountain” on that interpretation], when they are inthe wilderness during the Exodus. Afterthe Exodus from Egypt has been completed, the Israelites will have no furtheroccasion to go south to the southern Sinai to serve God at that desolatelocation, which is situated very far south of the land that the Israelites aredivinely fated to inhabit as their own land. Of course, the Israelites must always keep the10 Commandments that Moses receives at Mt. Sinai, that’s for sure. But the Israelites will not be at Mt. Sinai to“serve God” after the Exodus has been completed, as the more natural reading ofExodus 3: 12 requires. The interpretation of“serv[ing] God” at Exodus 3: 12 which requires serving God on an ongoing,permanent basis is the only natural reading of this phrase, as backed up by atleast 13 of the other 14 uses of this same phrase in Exodus. On that natural reading, the “desert”/XRBmountain where Moses encounters the burning bush must be located within theboundaries of the land that the Israelites are divinely fated to possess andinhabit, so that “upon this mountain” the Israelites will be able to serve YHWHforever. And t-h-a-t is why Moses insists on attacking King Og at Numbers 21: 33 and taking his land of Bashan in the northern Transjordan, even though Bashan was not on the route of the Conquest and was not part of the Promised Land of Canaan [west of the Jordan River]: so that "this mountain", the "desert"/XRB mountain where Moses sees the burning bush at Exodus 3: 2-4, will be part of the land where the Israelites settle. The XRB/"desert" mountain site of the burning bush is located just south of Zipporah's homeland of MDYN [historical Mitanni in eastern Syria],being just north of the eastern Transjordan, at the far northeast corner of where the Israelites settled and "serve[d] God" forever. Jim Stinehart Evanston, Illinois
_______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
