Judges: Chapter 8

Who stands back

and who joins?

Who leads. who follows?

Who birthed you 

and what do you birth?

We come to the closing of the Gideon cycle, as the young man who stepped into Debora's place achieves victory, providing, like her, for  a transformative "forty years of quiet."

As he chases the Midianites to achieve this decisive victory,  Gideon traverses the bank of the river, revisiting the stops made by his ancestor Jacob on his primordial journey back to Canaan: Penuel, Succot, and finally Shechem.

 Yet Gideon's trajectory here is the opposite of Jacob's.

If Jacob sends his children and wives ahead remaining "alone" to be rebirthed as Israel through a struggle with a mysterious assailant, Gideon's symbolic rebirth as Yerubaal took place before he approached Penuel. If Jacob's tumultuous life narrowed to the strains of Jabbok,Gideon's canvas widens. If before, we met Gideon alone, at night, in private dialogue with God and angels, here we see Gideon within the national context, as he interacts with the other tribes, and speaks to the Midianite kings.

 If Gideon's earlier struggles were with his own fears and doubts, here he struggles to placate those who wish for greater involvement (Ephraim), and to punish those who hold back (Succoth and Penuel). No longer does he carefully assuage fears. Instead, he ruthlessly and violently asserts national authority. Not for nothing does Israel offer him kingship. 

In place of the lone young initiate, we now see Gideon embedded within a family: suddenly he has "brothers, the sons of my mother," and a young son he is trying to train. Gideon's history begins to extend forward and back in time. As he retraces his forefather  Jacob's journey, and worries for his brothers, he is offered hereditary kingship, extending forward in time. "I will not reign over you, nor will my son reign over you. God will  reign over you," Gideon ceremoniously declaims, his every choice now reverberating through time.

 Yet this sudden tension between Gideon's rule and God's is dangerous, as the man who once was "clothed" in God's spirit now lays down a "dress" to gather gold (in a scene reminiscent of the creation of the Golden Calf). The money gathered serves to create an article of clothing (an "ephod") that becomes a gateway to idolatry, indeed competing with God.

Despite the achievement of the forty years of peace, the Gideon-cycle ends on a dark note. From one son we end with 70, and "many women" (precisely what Moses warned the king to avoid). The Israelites, we are  told, do not "deal kindly" with Yerubaal or his family. The hero who comes to deal with a post-Golden-Calf Israel gets trapped in their cycle of idolatry and sin).

Judges: Chapter 6

 

To be clothed in God's spirit

or be its clothes

and feel rain fall, while the earth cracks sear

or see earth drink, as the cloth stayes dry

As if the rain did not fall on all, 

or every day

[For full chapter, click here

Forty years of peace--the count of a generation, as transformative as the forty years wandering in the desert to birth a nation capable of independence. But the end of this forty-year cycle is breakdown, not rebirth, as "Israel does what is offensive to God", and are delivered to the Midianites for a symbolic 7 years--seven, the number that structures the covenant and its abnegation, creation and destruction.

And indeed, this enemy is destructive--the leitwort is ש'ח'ת, destroy, as the nomads come to pillage, not settle, and strip the land "like locust".

If the previous chapter returns to the Song of the Sea, in complement and echo, this chapter is in dark dialogue with the Exodus story, as the mighty hand that God once employed against Egypt crashes down on Israel. The "living" (מחיה) that Joseph provided for his brothers is here taken away (they left them no מחיה ), and if once Israel called (ve'yizak) and their voice rose to God, now the only thing that rises is the enemy, while Israel's cry dangels, unanswered. And indeed, when God does send a "man prophet" in place of the "woman prophetess" Deborah, his message is now an accusation of how they have failed the Exodus: "I rescued you from Egypt...yet you did not obey Me" (Judges 6:9-10).

The message ends abruptly and hopelessly, in a seeming rejection of Israel's pleas for help. "If God is with us, why has this befallen us? Where are all the wonderful deeds with which took us out of Egypt?" Gideon demands, giving voice to this hopelessness. Yet an angel is waiting under a tree to appoint a new redeemer. Gideon's initiation is replete with intertextual allusions to Moses and to his initiation: "Bi adoni", Gideon says, echoing Moses' double "please sir" as he tries to convince God to send someone else; I have sent you (שלחתחך), God says, echoing his appointment of Moses. Like Moses, Gideon is given multiple "signs" (ot). Like Moses, he asks "if I have found favor" (Exodus 33:13). If Moses was the only prophet to see God "face to face", Gideon declares "I have seen an angel face to face."

Yet this very parallel highlights the essential difference. Moses asks to find favor in order to reject God's plan of an angelic intermediary, saying "Unless Your face goes before us, do not lead us from here. For how else shall it be known that I and Your people have gained Your favor, unless You go with us, so that we may be distinguished, I and Your people, from every people on the face of the earth?” (Exodus 34: 14-15). But having failed the Exodus so deeply, the angelic intermediary is all that remains. Gideon is the Moses of this angelic redemption, a shadow who communicates with angels rather directly with God; a postlapsarian redeemer who "wears" (לבש( the spirit of God, rather than feeling it intrinsically within him. For God, as expressed by the prophet, is indeed angry, rejecting Israel's call; but on a lower level, an angel can respond. If Moses ' signs are primordial--water that turns to blood, an Edenic snake--Gideon's are homely: let the earth get wet while the wool stays dry; let the wool be soaked, while the earth stays sere. Yet look closely, and this is his own version of Moses' request to be "distinguished": let there be, even at this lower level, some element of care. Show us we can still be special.]

Even though he is driven by fear, Gideon ends up echoing the redemption of the Exodus "at night", as he finally fulfills the commandment of breaking the altars, and destroying the Ashera trees. It is not that appointed, awaited "night" when God acts with no intermediary as he did in Egypt. But it is something.]

Joshua: Chapter 7

How do you rise

after the fall?

What chases behind as you flee?

[For full chapter, click here

From perfect victory we move to abject failure. If before, Jericho's heart melted before the approach of Israel, now the heart of Israel melts before the people of Ai. Joshua's rising fame comes tumbling down, as he "falls on his face" before God.

The opening of the chapter sets into place the reversal that is to come, contrasting Joshua's rising fame with the Children of Israel's desecrations of the herem. All is not well in the aftermath of the miraculous victory of Jericho. What stands out in this context is the conflation of the nation with the individual:

And the children of Israel committed a trespass against the Herem.  

Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took of the herem; 

and the anger of the LORD was kindled against the children of Israel. 

The secret sin of Achan is bracketed between two declarations of Israel’s collective guilt. The growth into nationhood is dangerous. Having crossed the transformative passage of the Jordan, Israel has become a single entity, and a problem in a single part can destroy the whole. No more are there incidental details. All is incorporated and impacts the nation.

The herem that closes the previous chapter establishes that the victory over Jericho did not come by human means. The city fell to the yovel call of the Shofar, while the nation was ordered to be silent. Like the Jubilee year, the disintegration of Jericho establishes that "the Land is Mine," and the city is "set aside" (herem) completly to God. Yet how is the nation to move on from this overwhelming revelation,  Joshua's diluted version of Moses' encounter at the Burning Bush?

Joshua attempts to recreate  Jericho by once again sending to spies to "scout out the land." Yet unlike the first scouts, who are careful to look at both "city and land," these second set of scouts immediately zoom in on the city of Ai. And unlike the careful reconnaissance that characterized the approach to Jericho, these  spies arrogantly proceed by approximation: “About two thousand or three thousand..." Not for nothing is Achan conflated with the nation as a whole. There overconfidence reveals that the lesson of Jericho has not been learned. Like Achan, who steals from the physical wealth of Jericho, the nation as a whole steals the aura of the victory over Jericho:  believing their own invincibility, they assume that the city is theirs to win. 

This appropriate of God's action becomes a betrayal as deep, in some ways, as the worship of the Golden Calf in the aftermath of Sinai-- God's exchange with Joshua echoes His words to Moses as he is sent down the mountain.  Desecrating the herem is undoing the covenant. Israel "has stolen and also lied and also taken into his possessions." The attempt to appropriate the herem for oneself makes the herem spread like a contagion. Achan becomes an extension of Jericho, burned with all the possessions that drove him, as well as his family. Israel, which has also become herem, must physically exorcise their connection to Ahan, actively and ruthlessly cutting him out of the body politic.

The meagre objects, and their oversized consequence, become a physical embodyment of the danger of the God of Small Things, who makes no approxumates, and demands a confession of the very specific "this and this." ]

Numbers: Chapter 14

What is within

seen and heard

What carries

Gone

And we fall 

down, down, 

down

[For full chapter, click here

The saga of disintegration continues, with the same key words: "complaint" "crying" "carry" (s'a'a') "within" ; the motif of food.

The people once again dissolve in weeping, "crying all that night." Echoing Moses' despairing "kill me now, please kill me" they lament: "Would that we had died in Egypt, or in this wilderness, we had died!" In the face of the national despair, Moses and Aaron dissolve as well, "falling on their face."

God once again loses patience "with the complaints that that are complaining about Me." In a recreation  of the aftermath of the Golden Calf, He resolves to abandon Israel, and turn Moses to a new nation. Moses once again steps into the breach. Being "within" (k'r'v) is not something that can be reversed. Israel has become intertwined with God. There can be no true severing. God must "bear" (lit. carry "s'a'a') with His nation. As in the case of the Golden Calf, God "forgives, as you spoke."

Yet this time, God takes Israel at their word. "As you have spoken in My ears, so I will do to you." The people will indeed die in the desert: "your carcasses will fall here", in a reversal of the spies "going up" to the land.

In response, the people resolve to "go up" by force, and fall in battle. The dissolution is complete.]

Numbers: Chapter 13

What you see

in a world of opposites

The doubled eyes

Whithin and without


 








[For full chapter, click here
From the depths of complaints and anger, we seem to have returned to the hopefulness of Moses' declaration to his father-in-law: "We are journeying (n's'a) to the place that God has spoken of."In accordance with the spreading of leadership to the people, the "princes of the tribes" (n's'a) now take an active role. Whereas until now, the Ark has gone forth to "scout out" (le-tur) the road, now the princes are sent to "scout out" (la-tur) the chosen land. But that backdrop of the previous chapters lend ominous undertones. We are back in the realm of the aftermath of the Golden Calf, the 40 days and nights of prayers. We still are dealing with the same leitwords of "eating" (a'kh'l), carrying / burden (n's'a), and the gaze--the focus on eyes and looking, which is intensified here. 
What happens when the "heads" of a small encampment are sent to see a new world? The options are doubled and opposed: "are they strong or weak / many or few / fat or lean"? It is a primordial moment of choice, as indicated by the motif of 40 days--the same fateful number that defined Sinai, and the forgiveness for the Golden Calf.
For a moment on return, the options remain suspended.  The land is "of milk and honey", but...
Caleb tries to turn the tide, doubling his language in an attempt to decide the duality: "let us go up up (alo-na-ale) for we surely can (yakhol nukhal)". What follows is a crash to the other side, a total disintegration of self: It is a land of people of "stature" but we were as "insects in our eyes", shrunken and diminished. The dissolution of leadership continues.]

Goodbye to Exodus

“And these are the names of the children of Israel who went to Egypt with Jacob, each with his family… Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died, and the Israelites were exceedingly fruitful; they multiplied greatly, and increased in numbers” Those opening verses set into place the themes of the Book of Names (the Hebrew name of Exodus) as a whole. We have moved from the primordial, archetypal Genesis, that deals with the creation of the individual identity, of the self. Now we must find a name for the nameless masses, the meaning of the self within the context of the many.

The book of Genesis deals with the “chronicles of Man as he was being created.” It revolves around the interrelationship of the individual with the world. Its central metaphor is hands: how do we  handle and manipulate our environment. The key repeating phrase is “ve-yishlach yado—to send forth the hand”: “And now, lest he send forth his hand and eat from the tree of life” introduced the exile from Eden; “Do not send forth your hand against the boy” closes the demand for the sacrifice of Isaac; “I told you not to send forth your hand against the youth” Reuben cries after the sale of Joseph. Letting go versus holding on; learning how to relate to Other. The book revolves around ever-intensifying painful relations between sibling and sibling, and man and woman: the two main patterns of Otherness. It closes with Joseph’s acceptance of the wrong his brothers have done him; balanced by Judah’s acceptance of the fact that Rachel—and only Rachel—holds Jacob's heart. The self has learned to accept the independence of other.  

Exodus is the next stage. Having moved beyond the placement of  self within family (Genesis), we now begin to deal with the birth of a nation. And it is a unique story of nationhood that begins in being stripped of all elements of identity. This is the faceless generation that has no land and has no name, birthing “like animals.” It is a story of nationhood that begins in powerlessness.

 Yet the painful acceptance of otherness that introduces this story opens the possibility of a different mode of identity. Not the certainty of power and choice, but relationship to absolute Other—God.  The key images of this book are “eyes” and “ears”; to “see” “hear” “smell”: from a focus on the hands, we move to a focus on the face. This is the book of learning to communicate “face to face.” Moses, the liminal figure who is “drawn from the waters” remaining always “on the banks” between heaven and earth ,God and man, is central for this connection.

For it is not a simple process. Rather, it requires transformations on both sides. “What shall I say Your name is?” Moses asks, and God changes names within communication—from the impersonal “powers” (Elohim) to the “Almighty power” (el shaddai) to the God of history who will “be what He will be”, and who bears a  personal Name. Israel also is transformed, in a protracted year-long process. The Exodus is dominated by birth-imagery: from the preternatural fecundity of the opening chapter, to the bloody doorways that birth the nation, to the passage through the waters that spits the despairing slaves out on the other side as a free people. “My firstborn child, Israel” “opens the womb,” and all that “open the womb”, whether human or animal, are consecrated.  Birthing a child begins a process. The opening of the womb of the Sea of Reeds is followed by the “testing” of the  terrible twos: tantrums about food  and attention, doubts about love.

The parent-child imagery becomes entwined with metaphors of infatuation and young love (maybe they are not so far apart as we think…) Not for nothing did the prophets describe the Exodus as “the grace of your youth, the love of your bridal days. You followed Me through the wilderness, in an untamed land.” The passage through the wilderness is a dance of approach and retreat, closeness and distance. The lead-up to Sinai is accompanied by a demand for greater and greater closeness, coupled with existential uncertainty: “Is God amongst us or nothingness?” Again and again, God imposes boundaries, which Israel “test”: “and they gazed upon God and ate and drank.”  Yet consummation (both meanings) breeds not certainty, but the need for distance and escape. The relationship is too overbearing, a complete crushing of the self. “Speak you to us, but let not God speak to us lest we die.” In the aftermath of Sinai, we begin the translation of God to humanity, bringing God down to earth.

The creation of the Dwelling is a myse-en-abyme for the book as a whole, a point-counterpoint of self and other, closeness and distance,   the accommodation (in both senses!) of God an humanity. We begin with God’s “pattern,” his “command” to Moses. This is vision dominated by the unified keruvim, locked together, but forever apart, each on a separate side. This must pass through the prism of Bezalel, who will translate it into physicality. Yet the translation of revelation into material brings a counter movement from Israel, who rush in to create the Golden Calf—an attempt at complete closeness, without the burden and threat of Other.

Moses once again steps into the breach.He brings God to acknowlege that “no man can see My face and live.” The relationship to humanity must be slant, to the back, rather than direct revelation. Thus, He accedes to Moses' request for forgiveness “You must walk within us.” God will indeed “be what He will be,” revealed in the walking, in the process, rather than directly.

This opens a space for human action, and in the next chapter, the people begin to build the Dwelling, transforming God’s vision with their own desires and “hearts.” Moses stands at the center, uniting their disparate parts back to the initial ideal that “he had seen on the mountain.”

The book closes when the pieces come together, and the Dwelling suddenly ignites, “a pillar of fire by night.” There is a synergy in the growth of a nation. In the end, the whole is greater than the sum of separate parts, greater than the individuals who dominated the Book of Genesis. Moses cannot even enter the Dwelling that he created. This allows a new unity of God and humanity. Not the painful separated unity of the keruvim, who are of “a single mass,” gazing at each other, but divided by the breath of their wings. Rather, it is a unity that comes of  “walking together”: “when the cloud rose, the people would rise and travel.” In the year that followed the birthing of the nation in the womb of Egypt, a new relationship has been built. "For the cloud of God  dwelt above the Dwelling by day, and fire was over it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel, throughout all their journeys." God and humanity journey together, within "sight" of each other, essentially unknown and Other, but fully present.

Exodus: Chapter 38

To count 
Account 
Remember 

Meet yourself at the entrance 
Coming towards you 


















[For full chapter, click here
We continue the actual construction of the Dwelling, moving out from the furnishings of the inner Sanctum to the outer courtyard, marked by the use of bronze and silver, rather than gold. Again, the execution ("and Bezalel did") transforms the initial vision ("as God commanded Moses"), as the people bring theere own drives and desires. The laver is made of "the mirrors of the serving women that did service at the door of the tent of meeting." The gifts that create the Dwelling come also from the discounted classes: women--and serving women at that. What is more, the gifts are not homogenized: we know which specific objects create the laver. The people brings "mirrors," reflecting their own desires and involvement, and these gifts retain their presence within the completed Dwelling, as a kind of incorporated found object. The material changes the piece.
The chapter closes with an "accounting" (pikudei) of all the materials that went into the dwelling. No gift is lost, everything is given its place. 
This laden leitwort also creates an arch connecting the beginning of this book towards its end. "I have surely remembered you--pakod pakadeti"  is God's initial message to the children of Israel: you have been taken into account and will be redeemed. But this retained memory is a double edged sword, that also implies consequence and accountability. In the aftermath of the Golden Calf, God is "poked--accounts the inquiry of the fathers on the sons," and the nation's sin will continued to be held in account: "beyom pokdi u-pakadeti--on the day that there is an accounting, I will account their sin on them." Now, we make an accounting of the Dwelling. "Pakod"--"memory, accounting" implies continuity, care. It is the source of relationship, both for redemption and anger] 

Exodus: Chapter 36

To weave a house 
to bring love in 
come close

From conception to fruition
overflowing giving
morning by morning

to be enough

connected to one
twinned,  entwined
complete

[For full chapter, click here

“As God commanded, so they did”. The Mishkan/Dwelling-project is built around this interaction of heaven and earth, the divine “structure” (tavnit) and human action (asiya). It is a chiastic framework, with the story of the Golden Calf in the middle. We open with God’s commands to Moses, a grand vision that begins from the highest—the Ark of Covenant and Keruvim, and gradually moves to include the human component of the kohanim/priest. It is a vision that contains hints of menace, but focuses on the possibility of relationship between God and man. Yet the translation of revelation into material is dangerous. Giving over the two tablets of stone "written with the writing of God" is followed immediately by the creation of the Golden Calf, making a god of gold.

God’s acceptance of this failure, His agreement to “walk amongst us” allows for the actual creation of the Dwelling. The translation from vision into doing causes subtle transformations. First, the overwhelming involvement of the people—here, the overflow of passion is so great, that the people have to be told to stop giving: “The people bring too much, more than the service of the work that God commanded to make… so the people were restrained from giving.” There is a chaotic "coming close of "all who "heart's stirred them to create" rather than an orderly hierarchy. In the actual creation, we begin from the building itself, only then moving gradually into the sanctuary. The keruvim are woven into walls, before they are actually craved of gold. We come from earth to heaven]

Exodus: Chapter 35

To cease from creating

And to create

A generative power 

men and women

those who are called

those who are taught

[For full chapter, click here

We continue the process of restitution and recreation. From reiterating the covenant, we come back to the calling of Bezalel that introduced the story of the Golden Calf. Once again, the return is also a transformation. Structurally, there is a chiastic inversion. Whereas the initial presentation began with the calling of the divinely inspired Bezelel, and closed with the Sabbath that calls upon everybody, here, we begin with the Sabbath, and  move on to the calling of Bezalel. This change is indicative.

Here, the creation of the Dwelling begins from the bottom up. It is charged with the same populist, frenetic energy that drove the creation of the Calf. “And they came, every one whose heart stirred him up, and every one whose spirit was generous… And they came, the men on the women, as many as were willing-hearted, and brought nose-rings, and ear-rings, and signet-rings, and girdles, all jewels of gold every man that brought an offering of gold.” The “golden earrings that Aaron demanded for the creation of the Calf, becomes a stream of jewelry (now,willingly brought by everybody, rather than forcefully “taken from your wives and children”]. The strange, sexually charged phrase “and the men came on the women” (va-yavou ha-anashim al ha-nashim—which can also mean “and the men slept with the women”) hints that we are dealing with the same ecstatic, erotic drives of zenut (idolatry/ fornication) and letzahek (laughter/ sex) that drove the dancing around the Calf. This is a creativity related to earthy reproduction. 

The Dwelling is now the creation of the people, with the leadership coming last. This change is encapsulated in the sudden focus on the involvement of previously-unmentioned women—“all the women who were wise-hearted, spun with their hands… all the women whose heart moved them in wisdom, spun.” The usually dismissed "women's arts" of spinning and weaving are highlighted and acknowledged. Creativity is no longer the realm of the lone divine artist. Now, Bezalel and Ohaliav have been inspired to “teach”: creativity moves outwards, a collaborative folk-art.]

Exodus: Chapter 33

To see
To know
To call by name

Locked together
Face to face

At the limen of being
A gaze of longing
At the back receding

[For full chapter, click here

A chapter full of great distance, and intimate closeness.  It opens with the Children of Israel gazing longingly after Moses’ receding back, and closes with Moses’ glimpse of God’s “back” passing before him. The key words are telling:  “see” “know” and “face.”

Moses’ liminal role is intensified and transformed. Here, he becomes more potently a stand-in for God—his private tent is the “tent of meeting,” called by the same name as God’s Dwelling. “Let Me be and I will destroy them…and make a great nation of you” God said to Moses in the aftermath  of the Golden Calf.  Moses averted the decree, but the relationship between him and God indeed now seems to exclude Israel:  “When Moses went out to the Tent, that all the people rose up, and stood, every man at his door of the tend, and looked after Moses, until he was gone into the Tent…when Moses entered into the Tent, the pillar of cloud descended, and stood at the door of the Tent; and God spoke with Moses.” In parallel structure, the verses highlight that Moses and Israel stand at wholly different portals; the people look longingly at the receding figure of Moses while Moses speaks to God.

Yet in the course of the chapter, this is transformed. Moses' new intimacy with God becomes a way to rebuilt the connection to Israel, rather than exclude them. Love, knowledge, and an inalienable connection become intertwined: “You have said: I know you by name, and you have found favor (hen) in My eyes. And now, if indeed I find favor in your eyes, make Your ways known to me, that I may know You and find favor in your eyes, so you will see that this nation is your people.” The personal hen is extended over the nation as a whole: “How will it be known that I have found favor in your eyes—I and your  people? Only if You walk with us. We will be special, I, and your nation.” The intimacy of speaking “face to face” becomes the demand  for the presence of the Face among the nation as a whole: “if Your face does not walk with us, do not carry us out of here.” 

Moses is indeed the intermediary, but he does not only offer access to God’s word for the people. Now he also makes the people present to God: It is through love of Moses that God will know that “this nation is your people." At the moment that Moses is most alone, living "outside" the camp, he paradoxically becomes the stand in for the people, their embodiment to God. ]

Exodus 32: In Writing

Weight of waiting

heavy hours roll slow

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow

Who will cradle me

lift me from the pit

You are not here

hollow absence without a face

I raise my eyes to the mountain

see no arms upraised

See no anchor 

Pivoting the world

You are not within

Break the shackles of the empty Os

Self-sparmagos in gold frenzy

rend my flesh an eat it too

in an engorged whirl 

to end all longing

Exodus: Chapter 32

Things break apart

The center cannot hold

Taking out

or taking out

Rising and falling

Or standing at the portal

[For full chapter, click here

The subtextual threat that has been humming since Sinai “breaks” (porek) into the open. It is a short step between the translation of Sinai into physical material—“gold and silver and bronze”—the “doing” asiya that played so central a part in the previous chapter, and the demand “make us (ase) a god,” who is hammered of gold. It is no coincidence that it is the same Aaron who is consecrated with clothing of gold who creates the golden calf.

It is a short step between the translation of revelation into local gods (elohim)of courthouses and temporal powers, and the desire for “a god” to lead the way. A short step between demanding that Moses “speak to us, and we will hear, but let not God speak to us, lest we die” and demanding another intermediary.

  And this points us to the deeper problem:

“What has this nation done to you, that you brought this great sin upon them?” Moses demands of Aaron—a clear echo of Jethro’s accusation: “what are you doing to this nation that you sit alone, and all the people stand about you?”

“The nation comes to me to inquire of God,” Moses defends himself.

“It is not good, what your are doing,” Jethro responds.

Moses had become the intermediary to God.  He is the connecting channel, running “up” and “down”  (the leitwords of this chapter) the mountain, passing the massages between them. And at times, the boundary blurs. Moses has disappeared into the mists alone, not to come “back down.” Israel demands a replacement for “Moses the man who took us up from Egypt.” But very quickly, the line between “man” and god blurs: “This is your god Israel, who took you up from Egypt,” the people declare.

The Golden Calf is Sinai recreated, but without the terrifying, overwhelming presence of utter Otherness. This time the Children of  Israel can have their cake and eat it too. They can “come close” (geshu) as they could not “come close” to the mountain; like the “nobles” of Israel, they can “see God and eat and drink.” As in Sinai, “early the next morning” they build an altar. They have the intermediary, without the God.

Forgiveness comes of reminding God that this is the nation He “took out”—not “took up,” a reference to Moses’ intermediary function—of Egypt. The investment and faithfulness stand.

But now the ominous undertones of the need for “atonement” (kippurim) becomes clear. The “carrying” (naso) of the names of Israel becomes the “carrying” of sin (sa na). The counting of names becomes the need for accounting (pokdi u-pakaditi). The dangers of translating God have come into the open.]