Moses Came Down from the Mountain

During last week's show "Up" with Chris Hayes on MSNBC, where the major topic for the day was basically "the coin", Hayes wondered aloud more or less why the opponents of government "debt" securities take such an opposition to the concept of government securities issuance, if there is not some sort of strange "moral" objection to prosperity and economic success, so he asks Prof. Kelton if there are any "limits" involved in this process and of course Dr. Kelton responds that there are REAL limitations but not financial ones... here is a quote from the transcript:

HAYES: Here`s my question for you, what are the limits then? Because  I think the thing that -- in some ways, the moral subtext of the deficit conversation is this debate about virtue, right? Virtue and kind of  licentiousness, right?
That we were -- that we run wild, right? That Moses went up to the mountain and we went crazy with the golden calf and then he came back down bringing the kind of Lord`s vengeance, right? And now, we`re going to like -- now, we`re going to get good again. And that getting good, that virtue is paying -- is reducing the deficit and paying the debt.

And you`re telling me, no, you can just be licentious all the time.
There are no limits on the behavior. We can spend as much as we want and tax as little as we want.

KELTON: Of course. I didn`t say that at all. No. There are limits.
Of course, there are limits on how much you can spend. The limits are on the real side of the economy, though, not on the financial side. And what we`re so accustomed to hearing is we can`t afford it. We can`t afford it.  It`s always the financial side.

OK, I think Hayes question might have been a softball for Prof. Kelton which she of course proceeded to smash 450 feet out of the stadium.

But Hayes inquiry here reminded me of rhetorical questions Mike used to ask on his show, where Mike would seek to understand what was it with these people where they just seemingly cannot accept the concept of economic prosperity?  Or like my friend J.D. Alt asked me a while back: "why are people so reluctant to want to hear the good news?".

So you see this question come up in a lot of people's minds like it did with Hayes here.

It's like the "debt doomsday" crowd wants humanity to suffer, you even see this lately where some zealous GOPers seem to indicate that an emergent recession would be "good for us" or some nonsense.

This is hard to understand.

Well anyway Hayes referred to Exodus where "Moses went up the mountain" and came down  to chaos and had to administer discipline of sorts but Hayes equates "debt" to the pagan rituals that Moses returned to and Hayes is off the mark here but no worries.

However Hayes does bring up Exodus, which in fact does reveal much not about "debt", but those three so-called precious metals; gold, silver and copper which we see often used as coinage or what some may term "money" in human economies throughout history; fortunately not any longer.

No mention of the metal platinum of course in Exodus ;)

Let's take a look at what Exodus does in fact tell us about what events transpired "when Moses came down from the mountain":

We'll pick this up in Exodus right before the final plague, with the people of Israel still in Egypt:

"One final contagion shall I bring on Pharaoh and Egypt; afterward he will drive you from this place.... speak in the ears of the people that they should ask, each man of his associate and each woman of her associate, articles of silver and articles of gold.  And Yahweh gave the people grace in the eyes of the Egyptians..." Ex 11

It seems that God facilitated gifts of gold and silver from the Egyptians to the Israelites just before they were to leave Egypt.

After much travel and travails, the Israelites come into the wilderness at the base of the mountain.  God calls Moses to the summit of the mountain and gives Moses the law for Israel.  Among which was this mandate:

"You shall not make anything beside Me:  no elohim of silver, or elohim of gold shall you make for yourselves."

And this mandate:

"If you obligate My people, the humble among you, with silver, you shall not be as a money lender to him; you shall not impose interest on him."

So here we have a  prohibition on certain use of these two metals.

Now Moses is called up the mountain again by God to get the stone tablets and some further instructions to receive from the people an offering of gold, silver and copper, and some other materials.  Then, Moses is given some instructions for the construction of a sanctuary which he is to construct out of the materials provided via this offering.

"From every man whose heart is willing shall you take My heave offering...: gold, silver and copper"  Ex 25

Further very detailed instructions are provided for construction of the sanctuary:

"...You will overlay it; with pure gold inside and outside... a flange of gold roundabout...cast four rings of gold for it.... make poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold...you will make two cherubim of gold.... You will make a lampstand of pure gold... the connections shall be made of silver, their hooks of silver.... the pegs shall be made of copper.... " Ex 27

This goes on and on.  Very detailed instructions on the construction of this sanctuary and specification of the use of gold, silver and copper.  Exodus has tremendous detail on this. Great detail and it goes on and on, and identifies many uses for these metals in the construction of this sanctuary.

God gives Moses the tablets; but in the mean time down at the bottom of the mountain:

"The people saw that Moses was tardy to descend from the mountain.  So the people assembled themselves against Aaron and said to him: Rise! Make for us an elohim who shall go before us, for this Moses , the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we know not what has become of him."

"Then Aaron said to them:  Tear off the pendants of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons and your daughters, and bring them to me.... He took the gold from their hands and formed it with a graving tool and made of it a molten calf..... And the people sat to eat and drink, and they rose to make fun."

(Excuse the paraphrasing please): At this point God knows what they are doing at the bottom of the mountain and implies that He would like His anger to grow hot against them and "finish them", but Moses talks Him out of it though Moses is unaware of what is going on.  Then Moses now comes down off the mountain, sees what they are doing and Moses himself gets angry and flings the tablets and breaks them.

"Then he took the calf which they had made, burned it with fire and ground it until it was pulverized; he winnowed it upon the surface of the water and made the sons of Israel drink it." Ex 32

It seems that this gold, which is non-toxic, after drinking it would then be excreted from their bodies in fine form and broadcast across a wide area and reintroduced into the ground from whence it came.  Probably irretrievable I would think.  I wouldn't go looking for it after where it ended up anyway but then again I am not a metal-lover so I guess you never know.

Moses complains to Aaron that he let things get out of hand while he was gone, and Aaron responds that the people are "unbridled" (interesting word...), and suggests leniency.  Aaron explains that the people thought something happened to Moses and Aaron explains:

"I said to them:  Anyone who has gold tear it off yourself.  So they gave it to me, and I fling it into the fire, and this calf came forth." Ex 32

Then Moses takes further action:

"Then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said: Whoever is for Yahweh come to me!  So all of the sons of Levi gathered themselves to him; and he said to them:  Thus says Yahweh Elohim of Israel:  Each man place his sword on his thigh, cross over and return from gate to gate in the camp. Each man kill his brother and each man kill his associate and each man his near friend.  The sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses, and there fell of the people in that day about three thousand men." Ex 32

Seems perhaps Moses enlisted the Levites to kill all of those who gave up their gold earrings or jewelry and thus participated in providing their gold for the creation of the calf while physically identifying themselves as they were then without gold jewelry and could be easily identified.

To summarize at this point, Moses took the gold from the calf and made the Israelites drink it in powdered form to get rid of it, and then had the ones who donated their gold earrings for the construction of the calf sought out and killed.

Then, Moses sought out a new donation of gold, silver and copper from the people to be used in the construction of the sanctuary in accordance with the instructions he had previously received from God at the top of the mountain.

"Now the whole congregation of the sons of Israel went forth from before Moses, then every man whose heart prompted him entered, and everyone whose spirit made him willing brought.... every article of gold... a heave offering of silver and copper... " Ex 35

As far as the account in Exodus where "Moses comes down from the mountain" being applicable to the concept of "debt" or prosperity, or guilt or anything else, those issues don't have anything to do with what the scripture reveals; other than the detail where the law forbid the concept of interest being imposed with silver debts among the Israelites.

Exodus indicates that gold and silver were first distributed among the people while in Egypt, then used to identify idolators among the people who were then killed after their gold was effectively confiscated and scattered for eternity, then significant other amounts of these so-called "noble metals" were received from the people in offerings which were then used in the construction of the sanctuary in accordance with God's instructions.

These three metals gold, silver and copper look like dark and dangerous stuff to play around with.  I'm thankful that we have somehow reached the point where our current law here in the U.S. authorizes the use of an alternative metal, platinum, within our monetary system that we ourselves can designate the value of via the authority of our laws of our own civil government.