Usually, I find studying Scripture with "first timers" refreshing but today it was frustrating. Maybe I was just crabby, coming off the grueling three-hour glucose test that consumed my morning.

The text was Exodus 16-18, with the problematic passage being 16:34, in which Aaron places the urn or jar of reserved manna "in front of the commandments"¹ to remind later generations of God's providence in the wilderness.

But, of course, the commandments are given in Exodus 20. I mean, we haven't even read about them yet in our serial progression through the book.

A couple of novices balked at the imperfect chronology, that the tablets do not yet exist in Exodus 16 for Aaron to place the jar next to. Tangentially, observance of the Sabbath was also raised as an apparent anachronism.

As to the Sabbath, our teacher suggested that the giving of the law was in some respects a gradual process, a conditioning - circumcision being a case in point - that culminates in the Sinai experience. So a few of the commandments do not come out of left field but are already guidelines and observances with which Israel is familiar.

I just thought, my goodness, if the uneven chronology of the Bible sticks in your craw, "there are greater things in heaven and earth ..." ... I mean, you ain't seen nothing yet!

¹ See footnote 7.