On the fourteenth day of the first month the LORD’s Passover is to be held. – Numbers 28:16

Today’s Scripture Reading (November 14, 2018): Numbers 28

In Mythology, Sisyphus was the king of Ephyra, or what is now known as Corinth. Sisyphus thought himself to be wise. In fact, he valued his wisdom even over that of Zeus, the chief of the gods. Sisyphus’s pride was the root cause of his betrayal of Zeus and the conflict that the wise king had with the gods afterward. And there would seem to be no doubt that Sisyphus was wise. But his wisdom did not translate into power. And as a result, Zeus condemned Sisyphus to his own personal hell. Sisyphus’s punishment was that he was doomed to roll a rock up a steep hill, only to watch the stone roll back down again once it reached the top, and the Wise King of Ephyra had to start the process all over again, repeating the task for eternity.

The story of Sisyphus has been interpreted to echo the daily rising of the sun, which fades into the west only to start the process over again the next day, or a personification of the way that ocean’s waves continually rise and fall as they move across the face of the world’s seas. Plato, in his “Apology,” argues that Socrates looked forward to his time in the afterlife so that he could have a conversation with characters like Sisyphus. Socrates wanted to find out how wise these people really were, discovering who it was that were actually wise, and which of these mythical wise men thought they were wise when the truth was that they were not.

Sometimes reading through Numbers and Deuteronomy, we are reminded of the story of the Sisyphus. Moses repeats over and over again things that we have already heard or already know. Sometimes, it seems that reading these repetitive instructions of Moses resembles the task of Sisyphus and his rock all over again. We have already read about the command to celebrate the Passover elsewhere in the story of Moses. But there are two significant things that we need to understand in these words. The first is that thirty-eight years have passed since the first celebration of the Passover. Of those who were present at the first Passover, most have died. This is a new generation, one that maybe needs to be told again – and again – what it is that God expects of them. The second thing to keep in mind is that Moses understands that his life will end soon. This section of Numbers and the entire book of Deuteronomy form what are basically Moses’s last words to Israel. And so Moses repeats what it is that he, and God, consider to be important.

It is an open question, even with this repetition in the Torah, whether Israel had the wisdom to follow the repeated instruction of Moses, especially when it came to the Passover. There seem to be vast periods of time when the Passover was ignored in Israel. Which must make Moses feel even more like Sisyphus (and I know some Pastors who feel the same way). For all of his repetition, Israel still missed the point, and all that happened was that the rock rolled back to the bottom of the hill once again, waiting for someone to push it back up the steep slope one more time.  

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Numbers 29