A Diachronic Analyses of Exodus 31: 12-17 - feel free to comment!!!!


The text I plan to analyse in this essay is that of Exodus 31: 12-17. In this passage one can clearly see God addressing Israel, using Moses as an intermediatory. The passage discusses the observance of the Sabbath as a holy day for the Israelites.
I have chosen this particular text for two reasons; the first being that I wanted to look at a passage that was not especially well known in order to approach it without any preconceptions or prior exegesis of the text, which I feel may have hindered my investigation had I chosen a more familiar passage from Exodus. The second reason I have chosen this particular passage to study is that I have a personal interest in looking at the covenantal laws set out in the early books of the Old Testament, and their relevance to the cultures and traditions of Ancient Israel, both prior to, and after their impartation, be that divinely or otherwise.

To place this passage in context, the Israelites have already been given the command to ‘keep the Sabbath holy’ previous to this particular passage, and from looking at the text, the Israelites seem to think that because they are building the tabernacle, i.e. working for God, this rule does not apply in their current situation. However the text tells us that God has a different perspective.
The way in which I plan to analyse this text is not to concentrate on only one form of diachronic analysis, but to use a combination of source, form, and redaction criticism to help me to attempt to better understand the text. This will be followed by an evaluation as to whether approaching a text in a purely diachronic method is helpful to the scholar.

When examining this passage, the first thing to note is that the content of this passage also appears in other places in the book of Exodus; namely, Ex 20.8; 23.12; 35.2. This suggests that the authors of the book of Exodus as it appears in present-day form considered this to be an important thing to be considered by the Israelite people.
The genre of this passage could be defined as 'legal discourse', as it discusses a law- the commandment to keep the Sabbath holy (Ex 20:8-12) and the consequences of failure to adhere to that, as well as logical reason for the existence and justification of such a law. The passage as a whole can also be described as verbal discourse, as in it, the authors set out a commandment from God, communicated verbally to and through Moses, to the people of Israel.

Another indication that this passage was deemed to be of some importance is the opening verse. Noth, and Cassuto both note the variation in introduction to this legal discourse to others given throughout Exodus in their respective observations on this passage. Noth argues in favour of the difference being due to an intended direct connection with the text immediately preceding this passage, whereas Cassuto argues that this may be because the verb ‘speak’ immediately follows this first sentence. Regardless of the correct outcome it is a feature of this passage which sets it apart from other similar passages, and intentionally or not, the authors have succeeded in causing the reader to pay more close attention to this particular passage.
Verse 13 talks about Israel’s obedience of this commandment as a sign of the covenant between God and Israel, which Noth describes as ‘The peculiar relationship between God and his people'. The Word Biblical Commentary argues that keeping the Sabbath holy is a way of 'recognising that Yahweh is the one who has made them special' and in keeping the Sabbath holy Yahweh is honoured and that specialness is recognised.
Verse 14 is a more concise repetition of the information given in the previous verse and has the additional warning of the punishment for breaking the command. This verse could be seen as an indication of more than one source being used for the text in question, alternatively it could be seen as emphasis by the author upon this commandment. Noth is for the former argument for that verse and is insistent that verses 15-17 include a 'secondary addition, clear from the phrasing of the text and the use of Yahweh in both third and first persons. Verse 16 contains the only translational variation of the passage, with the Septuagint having the word Sabbaths in place of the first Sabbath, and them, in place of the second.

Stepping back to consider the passage as a whole once more, we can see input from two sources, which I would state as being most likely to be J and P, although one cannot claim to have any solid basis for that other than it is unlikely to be E as ‘Elohim’ is not used in this passage. Other than the aforementioned discrepancies in the text however, the redactor has managed to weave the texts together well, giving little indication of patching several sources together.

When considering the structure of the passage, we see that the overarching theme of this pericope is that of Yahweh's relationship with Israel, also with some evidence of divine revelation, which is another theme common throughout many pericopes of Exodus and both these themes involve Moses as the representative of the Israelites.
The passage contains words which stem from the Hebrew sabhath ['abstain from work'; desist] seven times. This is an interesting parallel to draw in this pericope and one has to wonder whether or not this was intentional on the author’s part, or purely coincidental. In the same way, the verb samar['keep'], expressions of holiness and the term 'to work' are all incorporated into the text three times, which is probably indicative of the importance the author places upon the information given within the text here. Verse 17 also has an interesting allusion back to Genesis, and the creation narrative, the purpose of which may have been to justify the command being given to the Israelites, or alternatively, a convenient way of ending the communication to the people of Israel in such a way that would be fitting for God.

The fact that the subject of the text has already appeared several times previously to this pericope causes one to wonder why so much emphasis is being placed on such a trivial command. As aforementioned, it could be because of the covenant relationship between God and Israel, and a spur to keep it, which in turn makes one consider as to whether or not the Israelites had once again stopped following the laws set by Moses, and were beginning to worship other deities, or to just become lawless in general. In context with the text surrounding this pericope it is quite clear that the Israelites were not obeying this law when it came to building the tabernacle and this causes doubt as to whether the Israelites were obeying this law at all, giving it less importance than the 'bigger' commandments. In context, to go back to something already mentioned, it is said that the Israelites were to keep the Sabbath holy so that they would show their special relationship with Yahweh, which by proxy was quite probably in direct contravention to the surrounding cultures of this time.

In sum, the methods used to evaluate this text have revealed a lot about the both the Israelite’s culture and position at that time, and the ways in which such texts have been put together, which in turn I feel helps the reader to better understand the text, however a purely diachronic analysis can leave the reader feeling bogged down in small sections of the text, and these methods are less useful for considering the text as a whole so I would suggest that diachronic analysis should be used in conjunction with alternative criticisms in order to gain the best possible understanding of the text and the context in which it was written