Wednesday, June 11, 2025
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: Exodus 23-25
Key Verse
Exodus 24:13 — “And Moses rose up, and his minister Joshua: and Moses went up into the mount of God.”
Devotional Thought
Moses has been on the mountain with God, and what he carries down is not merely a legal code but the shape of a life. Exodus 23 opens with ordinary, street-level commands: do not spread a false report, do not follow a crowd into evil, do not take a bribe, do not oppress a stranger. These are not abstract ideals but the daily texture of a people freshly freed from Egypt. God reminds them why the stranger matters: “for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Their own memory of bondage is meant to become their mercy toward others. The chapter then turns to rest—six years of sowing, a seventh year of letting the land lie still so the poor may eat, and a weekly Sabbath so that even the ox, the handmaid’s son, and the stranger may be refreshed. God’s law is not only about worship but about a whole society learning to breathe.
Then the covenant is ratified. Moses reads the book aloud, the people answer with one voice, “All that the LORD hath said will we do, and be obedient,” and the blood is sprinkled on the altar and on the people. Seventy elders go up and see the God of Israel, and beneath His feet a pavement like sapphire, like the very body of heaven in its clearness—and they eat and drink in His presence, unharmed. Moses then enters the cloud and stays forty days and nights, receiving the pattern for the tabernacle. The gold, the shittim wood, the mercy seat, the cherubim, the lampstand—all of it is given so that God may dwell among them.
It is June, a season of long light and growing things, and this passage meets us in the middle of ordinary work. We are people who sit in meetings, drive past strangers, handle money, and choose whether to join a crowd or stand alone. The seventh-year rest and the Sabbath for servants remind us that our calendars belong to God, not to our anxieties. And the tabernacle reminds us that all this ethical detail has a destination: a holy God who wants to live among His people, meeting them above the mercy seat.
That is the wonder of it. The same God who commands honesty in the courtroom and kindness to a straying ox also says, “Let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them.” Holiness and nearness belong together. The detailed instructions are not hurdles to keep God distant; they are the careful preparation of a home. And the mercy seat, where God promises to commune with Moses, points us forward to the greater mercy seat, where God in Christ has met us and made His dwelling with us.
Reflection
- Where in your life this week are you tempted to “follow a multitude to do evil”—to stay silent, shade the truth, or withhold help because it is easier than standing alone?
- God told Israel to rest the land and to refresh the stranger and the servant. What would it look like for you to build genuine rest and mercy into your ordinary schedule, trusting God to provide?
Prayer
Lord God of Israel, You who brought Your people out of Egypt and spoke to them from the mountain, teach us to obey Your voice in the small, daily things—in our speech, our business, our treatment of the stranger and the poor. Forgive us for the times we have followed the crowd instead of following You. Thank You for the mercy seat, where You promised to meet Your people, and for Jesus Christ, through whom You have drawn near to us. Make our hearts a willing offering, given not grudgingly but freely. Let us rest in Your provision, walk in Your truth, and live as those among whom You dwell, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.