Exodus

Well, the Book of Exodus, the second book of Moses, starts off with a bang and then, in my humble opinion, fizzles out.

Moses is unknowingly adopted by Egyptian royalty, he grows up to lead his people out of Egypt after casting a bunch of plagues (flies, boils, river into blood, pretty horrific stuff) and then does all those other miracles with the parting of the Red Sea and the finding of bread and water in the desert so his people don't starve, etc. There's a reason they make movies about these things with Charlton Heston.

Of course the 10 commandments part on Mount Sinai is classic, but I was confused by the idea of God actually changing his mind after Moses convinces him not to kill everybody for worshipping the golden calf.

32:14 -- "And the Lord repented of the evil which He said He would do unto His people."

Am I missing something about what the word "evil" means? And wouldn't repenting imply repenting TO God? I'm terribly confused on this point. The Dummies book has nothing to say on this matter of evil. This vengeful God is not the one I'm use to, the one from the New Testament. This God walks on the Earth and gets all hot and feisty. Granted it is pretty exciting stuff... but then...

...there's all that stuff about how to build a great tabernacle. Oh, my goodness, it's SO BORING! Maybe in the original Greek or Aramaic or whatever it's poetic, but in English, it's so dry. I think it repeats about 20 times that the curtains around the altar should be blue and purple and should be made of twined linen. Okay, we've got it. Make a really nice place to worship God and make it portable so you can keep moving through the desert. Chapter after chapter on the exact dimensions and materials for this thing. Couldn't Moses have just drawn up a blueprint?

Well, that's the end of Exodus. Next is Leviticus. The book with all the rules. I expect I may need to brace myself for the repetition in this one, too.

**NEXT: Leviticus