When we lived in Canada, there was a month where it snowed every day. Not tons every day, but snow every day. And not just a flake every day, but several inches every day. Every day. To make things worse, there was already a foot or more of snow on the ground when our month of snow began so that by the end of the month, we didn’t have any place to put the new snow. We were flinging new snow over our heads with shovels that were forced to function like lacrosse sticks. The snowbanks that lined our driveway were so high, we looked like we lived in a cave. And driving out of the driveway onto the street was always an adventure (blow your horn first and then go in faith). There was so much snow! And it was beautiful.

Let’s face it, if you are going to pick seven of the most important and representative verses out of the Old Testament (that is 7 verses out of the roughly 23,144 verses of the 39 books of the Old Testament), you are going to have to pick a verse about creation, a verse about Abraham, a verse from the Psalms, a verse from the prophets and a verse from Moses (the other two are wild cards). Therein lies the problem. There is so much Psalms! There is so much Prophets. And there is so much Moses. Just try picking one verse to represent Moses from the four books that tell his story (Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy).  And while parts of Exodus and Numbers and all of Leviticus are not as beautiful as other sections, when you find a segment from these books that is beautiful, it is spectacular. How could you pick just one?

We are thinking through Christopher J.H. Wright’s short introduction to the Old Testament, The Old Testament in Seven Sentences (IVP Academic, Downers Grove, IL, 2019). It’s an engaging book that makes the reader think, and that is never a bad thing. Here’s the challenge: Can we pick seven sentences/verses from the whole Old Testament that would serve as representatives for the whole so that if you took hold of these seven, you would have a good grasp of the entire testament? For his first verse, Wright chose Genesis 1:1. For his second, he chose Genesis 12:3. And now, he wants to choose as his third, as his Moses verse, Exodus 20:2.

 

The Third Verse: Exodus 20:2—“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.”

 

Let’s get a quick feel for Wright’s chapter by looking at three quotes (my favorite three of the chapter).

“When God says that Israel is to be his priesthood in the midst of the nations, he means (among other things) that they will be for him to the rest of the nations what their priests are to them. Israel will be the people through whom God will make himself known to the world, and they will be the people through whom God will draw the world to himself. This definitive statement of Israel’s identity and role draws them as a people into the mission of God for the world; to be the vehicle of God‘s blessing to the nations.”

“One of the commonest ways that the Old Testament speaks about obeying God’s law is to ‘walk in the ways of the Lord.’ That means not only to do what God says, but also to follow God’s example—to follow in his footsteps, as it were. How did the Israelites know what their God Yahweh is like? By remembering what he has done. As we saw before, the exodus was the massive demonstration of the character of God—his love, compassion, faithfulness, and justice. If that is what God is like for Israel, that is what the Israelites must be like for others.”

“Where will you find this God in action? Where you might least expect: among the poor and needy, the family-less, the land-less, the home-less. Those are the ones Yahweh God cares for and provides for. Since that is what God is like, then our calling is to imitate him. We are to reflect what God looks like—doing what God wants to be done, acting in the world as God would act. It is a powerful principle, reflected in the teaching of Jesus himself. God’s law is given to help God’s people reflect God’s character.”

 

Reasons Why I Like Exodus 20:2 as One of the Top Seven Verses

What is not to like about this? Right off the bat, I would argue that it has the proper focus. Its focus is not on Moses or Israel or on a law. Its focus is on God: who he is and what he has done. This one verse speaks volumes about who God is, and you can’t pick a verse much better than that. Not only that, but it is also focused on God’s redemption. Here, we see how God has acted to redeem his people and has freed them from their slavery in Egypt. Until the cross, no one event pictured the greatness of God’s salvation better than the exodus from Egypt. Sixteen times in the Torah, we are reminded who the God of Israel is; He is the God who brought you out of Egypt. And if you needed one verse to paint the story of the exodus with a broad stroke—from the call of Moses to the Passover, from the clash with Pharoah to the crossing of the sea; from the ten plagues to the giving of the Ten Commandments—I am not sure you could do better than this one verse from Exodus 20.

And that also gives us another reason. This verse, while not a commandment, stands as the preface to the Ten Commandments; and without it, there would be no decalogue because, before any decree is stipulated, we need to know why we should obey it. God tells us why in this verse. Surprisingly, his answer is not because he is God and we are not and that, as his creation, we owe him our obedience. No. We give ourselves to God and to walk in his ways out of love and gratitude and a delight in his character. And when the great debates are in full swing between Paul and the doctrine of grace versus those who demand we follow a doctrine of works, isn’t it a comfort to know that the issue had already been solved. God says in Exodus 20:2 that it has always been about grace, not through the works of the law. Wright’s third verse is only 18 words long, but it covers a lot of ground; and it is all beautiful ground, holy ground.

 

Why I’m Not Wild About Exodus 20’s Inclusion as One of Our Seven Verses

It is not that I am opposed to Exodus 20:2 because I feel it is a great choice (although too many people today uncritically believe that our best response to God is to obey the Ten Commandments as opposed to Jesus’ two commands to love God and love others and, in so doing, emphasize law over love). The problem is that there are too many great choices! Here! Pick a verse, any verse, and I bet you can’t pick just one (and if you think my “sentence” is, in fact, several sentences, I’ve highlighted my sentence within my verses):

  • Exodus 3:13-14: Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I amhas sent me to you.’”
  • Exodus 6:6-8: “Therefore, say to the Israelites: ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment.I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. And I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am the Lord.’”
  • Exodus 19:4-6: “You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”
  • Leviticus 19:18: “Do not seek revengeor bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.”
  • Numbers 6:24-26: “The Lordbless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.”’
  • Deuteronomy 6:4-7: “Hear, O Israel: The Lordour God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.”
  • Deuteronomy 10:16-18: “Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff-necked any longer.For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing.”
  • Deuteronomy 30:11-14: “Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, ‘Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?’Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, ‘Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?’ No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.”

 Choosing only a single sentence from Moses that is meaningful, moving and memorable is like our snow that fine winter month in Canada. There is just too much snow! There are too many great choices.

 

My Conclusion About Exodus 20:2 as One of the Seven Verses

Let’s be honest. The verse you pick has a lot to do with what you want to emphasize. If you want to focus on God’s name, on who God is, then Exodus 3 is your choice. If you want to emphasize the tripartite promise (“I will be your God and you will be my people and I will dwell in your midst”), then Exodus 6 would be an excellent choice. If you want to highlight Israel’s (and our) calling in the world, you can’t do much better than Exodus 19. If you want to underscore the priority of loving the person God puts in your path, then Leviticus 19 ought to be at the top of your list. If you want to stress a verse that continues to bless people three-thousand years after it was introduced, then Numbers 6 is for you. If the Shema, with its call to love God with your whole being, drives you to worship, then Deuteronomy 6 is worthy of your selection. If the character of God is your focus, then Deuteronomy 10 is a great choice. And if you want to celebrate all that Jesus has done for us to give us new hearts, then Deuteronomy 30 stands head and shoulders above all the others.

For me, I love Deuteronomy and I find it hard to root my choice for a Moses verse from any other book, but Exodus 20:2 is very, very compelling. But there is one more verse that I haven’t mentioned yet, and it is from Deuteronomy and from the critical part of Deuteronomy. Moses stands on the cusp of the Promised Land and offers the people a choice: life or death, God or loss. These words move me every time I read them. Moses says in Deuteronomy 30:19-20:

“This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”

Now, that is a Moses verse among an avalanche of Moses verses! So, what do you think? Which one would you choose?