13
a strategy of sequential reading, of starting at the beginning and reading the text in
order to the end. The placement of law within narrative conforms (at least in
part) the reading of law to the conventions of narrative.
27
Several places show how the existence of the narrative affects the reading of the law.
a. Introductory Cultic Laws in the Decalogue and Book of the Covenant. For instance, the
narrative context makes sense of the fact that both the Decalogue and the book of the covenant
begin with cultic regulations (Exod 20:3-11; 20:23-26). Cultic laws that pertain directly with
Israels relating to God make perfect sense in the context of Israels establishing a covenant
relationship with God (Exodus 19, 24). The laws about images and altars in Exod 20:22-26 relate
to the surrounding narrative by giving important instruction on how Gods presence could be
experienced within the covenant in the future, and it thus prepares for the building of the altar at
the consummation of the covenant in the narrative of Exod 24:4.
28
The narrative context also affects the reading of particulars. Exod 20:22b states, "You
yourselves have seen how from the sky I have spoken with you." This is a double allusion: First
there is an allusion to Exod 19:18-19 "Mount Sinai was all in smoke because Yahweh descended
upon it in fire .... Moses would speak and God would answer him with thunder." There is no
contradiction between Exod 20:22's "from the sky" and Exodus 19's indication that God spoke
from the mountain, as a simplistic reading might suggest;
29
rather, "from the sky" means "from
the mountain whose top is in the sky." The people at the base of the mountain would be looking
skyward when they looked to the top of Sinai. Second, there is probably also an allusion to the
Decalogue. As T. D. Alexander observes, the words "I have spoken with you" can be connected
27
Watts, Reading Law, 29.
28
T. D. Alexander, "The Composition of the Sinai Narrative in Exodus XIX 1-XXIV 11," VT
49.1 (1999): 5-6.
29
E.g., J. Philip Hyatt, Exodus (New Century Bible; Greenwood, South Carolina: Attic Press,
1971), 224-225.