after Cain and Abel, we find out that the whole world is headed for destruction except for one man and his family. And then by chapter 11, people have gotten together to build a tower that they are convinced will make them gods.
What started with two people and some fruit has escalated to murder among family members, to an entire civilization at odds with God.
The story is a tragic progression: the broken, toxic nature at the heart of a few humans has now spread to the whole world.
What started in a garden is now affecting the globe.
The word for this condition is anti-kingdom.6
There is God’s kingdom—the peace, the shalom,7 the good that God intends for all things. And then there is what happens when entire societies and systems and empires become opposed to God’s desires for the world.
Imagine a slave girl living in Egypt asking her father why he’s got a bandage on his arm. He tells her he was beaten by his master that day. She wants to know why. He explains to her that the quotas have recently been changed and he’s now required to make the same amount of bricks as before, but he has to get his own straw.8 He tells her that he’s been falling behind in his brick production and that’s why he was beaten. She then asks why his master couldn’t just let it slide—why the beating? He explains that if the quotas aren’t met, his master will be beaten by his master. And if his master doesn’t make the quotas, he’ll be beaten by his overseer, and so on up the chain of command, which goes all the way to Pharaoh. The father tries to make the daughter understand that yes, the beating came from one particular man, his master. But his master is part of a larger system, a complex web of power and violence and industry and technology that exploits people for its expansion and profit.
The bandage on the father’s arm is from a wound inflicted by one man, and yet it’s also from an entire system of injustice. This girl’s family is facing an evil in the individual human heart that went unchecked until it gathered a head of steam and is now embedded in the very fabric of that culture.
That is anti-kingdom.
Egypt is an anti-kingdom.
Egypt is what happens when sin builds up a head of steam.
Egypt is what happens when sin becomes structured and embedded in society.
Egypt shows us how easily human nature bends toward using power to preserve privilege at the expense of the weak.
Imagine this girl asking her father more questions—questions not just about their life in Egypt but about their history: How did we get here in the first place? If we’re Israelites, why aren’t we living in Israel?
Imagine this young slave girl being told the Genesis story of how they became slaves. The escalation of violence that began with the first sons culminates in chapter 11 with the story of the Tower of Babel. And what are they building the Tower of Babel with?
Bricks.9
These slaves in Egypt, being forced to make bricks all day, would understand the Tower of Babel story. They would probably say, “We know what happens when people start building empires out of bricks.”
Exodus is about a people, a tribe, a nation being rescued from slavery.
It’s about liberation from occupation.
It’s about the insurgent power of redemption from empire.
God sends a shepherd named Moses to lead them out of Egypt. Moses challenges Pharaoh, they go back and forth over who exactly this God is and why Pharaoh should even listen, and eventually the night comes when they gather up their things and leave Egypt. Three days later the Israelites cross a sea, an event that is later referred to as the baptism of Moses,10 and on the shore they dance in celebration of their liberation.11
Which would make a nice ending to the story.
But it’s not the end. It’s actually a beginning. Their journey takes them to the foot of a mountain—a mountain called Sinai.
And what happens at Sinai is revolutionary,
not just for these former slaves, and not just for the story of the Bible, but for all of humanity.
Sinai
It’s here, at Sinai, that God speaks.
God hasn’t talked to a group of people since Eden. Things have been quiet, an eerie sort of silence. There have been exchanges with individuals—such as Abraham and Noah—but not with the masses.12
So when Moses tells the people at Sinai to “prepare yourselves” and then leads them out of the camp “to meet with God,”13 this is about way more than a group of wilderness wanderers gathering for a message from the heavens. This is about humanity estranged from its maker. This is about the primal distance that exists between the divine and the human, the gap deep in the soul of humanity. Sinai is an answer to God’s question to Adam, “Where are you?” This moment at Sinai is about the reversal of the consequences of Eden.
Sinai is the breaking of the silence.
God is near.
God is about to speak.
It’s believed that this is the only faith tradition in human history that has as its central event a god speaking to a group of people all at one time.14
It has simply never happened in the history of the world.
And it happens in the wilderness, which has global implications. Because the Sinai event happened in the wilderness and not in the midst of a nation or city or province where someone could make ownership claims, it was for all the people of the world.15
Before God speaks directly to the people, God tells Moses to remind them of the exodus. “You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.”16
It’s all grace.
It’s all a gift.
Rescue, redemption, liberation—it’s all received from God.
“Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant . . .”17
The word covenant is the Hebrew word berit. It’s where we get the word testament, as in Old or New Testament. Berit carries the idea “to cut a deal.”18 It comes from an ancient Near Eastern practice relating to business, legal, and marriage agreements. God invites the people to make a covenant—a marriage of sorts. The divine and the human, coming together in a sacred wedding ceremony.
God continues,
