#sinai

where the mountains meet the sea. 🏔️🌊

Fiord Club Resort & Spa. Nuweiba, Sinai, Egypt.

sinai's mountains behind you. the turquoise gulf of aqaba in front. silence, and a spa, and space to breathe.

the kind of quiet you can't find anywhere else.

curious? comment "Fiord."

Though a necessary part of God's unfolding plan, the Sinai legislation wasn't God's final word. As the biblical scholar N. T. Wright affirms,

"The Torah [law of Moses at Sinai] is given for a specific period of time, and is then set aside—not because it was a bad thing now happily abolished, but because it was a good thing whose purpose had now been accomplished."

This is the message of the New Testament book of Hebrews: the old Mosaic law and other Old Testament institutions and figures like Moses and Joshua were prefiguring "shadows" that would give way to "substance" and completion. Or, as Paul put it in Galatians 3:24, the law was a "tutor" for Israel to prepare the way for Christ.

1 -4 Sivan:  Israelites arrive at the Desert of Sinai. Moses briefly goes up the mountain where God tells him the Israelites are to be a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” Moses goes down and relates this to the people. The people reply: “We will do everything the Lord has said. Moses brings their answer back to God.  -Exodus 19:1-7. 

God tells Moses the people must consecrate themselves. 

-Exodus 19:20-22. 

5 Sivan: Moses builds an altar at the foot of the mountain, sets up twelve pillars representing the tribes of Israel and reads Sefer HaBrit (the Book of the Covenant) to the people. The people reiterate their commitment, stating: “All that God has spoken we will do and we will hear.” -Exodus 24:4-7. 

On Shavuot, 6 Sivan, God spoke the Ten Commandments to Moses and the Children of Israel. -Exodus 20. 

Next day, 7 Sivan…

God tells Moses to go up the mountain to receive the tablets of stone with the Ten Commandments that God Himself had written. God also gives Moses the core covenant laws. -Exodus 24 to Exodus 30. 

40 days later, on the 17th Tammuz, Moses comes back down the mountain, sees the Golden Calf and smashes the tablets. 

Back up the mountain. 

40 days later, on Yom Kippur, the Children of Israel finally receive the new tablets with the Commandments.