I was reading this morning in Exodus 34 about some of the restrictions that God instructed Moses to put forward for the people of Israel. I was astounded at how different the text is in regards to what God told Moses, and what Moses told the people.
God: "Moses, tell the people they have six days to work, but they must rest the seventh day. I rested, so should they, they need to relax."
Moses: "Alright people, no working on the seventh day, or we will KILL you. Don't even light a fire that day. Or we will KILL you."
It seems to me that God's instructions were meant to be helpful, but Moses chose to represent God as angry or controlling. Moses seems to be putting conditions in there that are not reflected in the text concerning what God was instructing. Perhaps Moses was deciding for himself what the people needed to hear in order to get it right. I liken it to a father passing instructions to his youngest son, through his eldest son.
Father: "Son, your brother has a big test tomorrow, and I noticed he was getting distracted by his video game. Would you mind telling him that I would like to speak with him and make sure that he's ready for his test before he goes to bed?"
Son to brother: "Dad says he's super mad that you are wasting your time playing video games. He said you need to go talk to him about this and then go straight to bed. Oh and he's going to take away your video games, and possibly kill you."
We do this all the time, but I was very surprised to see it so blatantly presented in scripture.
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