The LORD is easily triggered

Don’t be stiff-necked.

Welcome to the Daily Bible Chapter. My name is James Leroy Wilson and I invite you to join me as we discover new insights and new perspectives from a very old book.

Exodus 33

I’m reading Young’s Literal Translation (YLT) and the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

I had to look up what “stiff-necked” means. I think I recall from childhood Sunday School teachers that it meant “stubborn,” and it does, but Merriam-Webster also says it means, among other things,arrogant, highfalutin, imperious, and pretentious.

The LORD tells them he’s easily triggered and could burn them all, so they take off their “ornaments” (rings? Necklaces? earrings?) which were probably signs of pretentiousness.

The “pillar of cloud” would greet Moses at the tent of meeting. Taken as a literal story, the Israelites were witnessing what may have seemed to be modern eyes as a directed aircraft. There’s good reason they followed Moses, who had a verbal relationship with the self-named LORD inside that “cloud.”

When near the presence of the LORD, then, the Israelites were both subdued (humbled) and subdued (at the mercy of a mightier one).