Your Own Fleshpots
The Israelites on Exodus keep getting in trouble for hankering after the flesh pots of Egypt.
They should have been willing to let them go. They should have been less attached to earthly things, one thinks. Indeed, that seems to be a strong message of the Exodus. Do not settle down too much, be willing to up stakes and leave, the Christian is a wanderer and a pilgrim in this life.
But the Israelite exodus had a destination, Canaan, which is very much part of this mortal life, and they are promised it for an inheritance forever. There they get in trouble too, for not making the place sufficiently their own.
I do not know what to make of it.
Maybe the trouble is not too much attachment to earthly things but too little. Why settle for someone else’s flesh pots?
Bookslinger
July 8, 2022
On this year’s reading of the OT, I picked up on something I hadn’t seen in previous read-throughs: the power struggle between Moses and the pre-exodus leaders/princes/heads of the tribes/clans/houses.
It was not Moses who first organized them into tribes. They were organized by tribe and clan/house throughout the Egyptan period. Those princes and elders already had a social and political (political, though based on birth order and seniority, etc.) organization in place. Otherwise, Moses by himself could not have organized over 600,000 adult males and their families to pull up stakes and vamoose.
Along comes Moses and those pre-existing leaders see him as saying “I’m in charge now, you have to do what I say”.
Those guys kept stirring up the people to want to go back to Egypt. But they likely had some ulterior motives: Back in Egypt, they were the top dogs, not this Moses guy.
Think of it this way: What kind of slave/prisoner most wants to go back to the prison? The trusties, the ones with privilege.
Those pre-existing princes/elders who drove the golden calf incident were likely the ones Moses executed first. Perhaps the ones first slain by the various plagues too.
Note the 70 newly chosen elders in Numbers. They were not necessarily pre-existing authorites who already had positions due to birth order/seniority. They were chosen by Moses based on known _character_, a meritocracy.
I think I now see the political/organizational side of story, where Moses consolidated power, as he and the Lord killed off the leaders of the various rebellions.
Apparently, while the pre-exodus leaders were the worst offenders, all the pre-exodus adults still had the “Egypt mindset”, which couldn’t be fully purged from those individuals — to the degree that the Lord had to let them die off, and raise up another 1.5 generations, before entering Canaan.
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Perhaps the Zion’s Camp story is a small modern analogy. All the participants recognized Joseph Smith’s calling and authority. They wouldn’t have been there in the first place if they didn’t.
But they still had contention and conflict among themselves. So much so that the Lord saw fit to afflict them with illness and a few deaths.
And there were only less than 200 of them. How much more conflict and chaos must Moses have had with 600,000.
Bookslinger
July 8, 2022
Some of my ideas about pre-Mosaic/pre-exodus tribe leaders came from here:
https://latterdaysaintmag.com/aaronic-and-melchizedek-priesthood-operation-from-moses-to-malachi/
As pointed to by Geoff B, here: https://www.millennialstar.org/was-the-priesthood-on-the-earth-through-most-of-the-old-testament-period/
E.C.
July 8, 2022
I think the answer to your conundrum might be answered by the Lord’s idea of stewardship. Everything on this earth is ultimately His; he grants us a portion according to our ability to handle it. When we prove worthy of that portion, He gives us more – if not, what we have is given elsewhere. The stories of King Saul and King David illustrate this concept well.
This means that we love what we are given to steward, but love our Master more, and seek His ends and His good rather than our own. That is what the law of consecration is about: stewardship and wise use of things, time, and talents.
This is a difficult concept in our atomized, anti-authority age, but I think it creates a healthier relationship with wealth and earthly things than our current culture can.