Private parts...

[17th Angel]

Could I get an explination to this....

Exodus 20:26 reads..

"And you must not go up by steps to my altar, that your private parts may not be exposed upon it..."

What are the thoughts, views opinons of this scripture? christian/jewish points welcome of course What does YHWH mean here?

 

[wil]

Could I get an explination to this....

Exodus 20:26 reads..

"And you must not go up by steps to my altar, that your private parts may not be exposed upon it..."

What are the thoughts, views opinons of this scripture? christian/jewish points welcome of course What does YHWH mean here?

I like to read the whole text rather than the sound bite and leading upto it is concern over using finished, tooled stone for the alter as it would deface it. This brougt to mind a prudish nature of thought at the time, and not wanting to defile the stone with your private parts.

I also like to read differing versions/interpretations, most of which refer to nakedness and not private parts. As I read I thought about how alters of 'pagan' religions were used previously for sex acts at times and they could be avoiding this. And then I thought underwear was not used therefor they could be concerned about sacred space, but that sort of contradicted with Moses at the bush taking off his sandals for he was on sacred ground which could obviously have the same perspective...and then this translation popped up, The New International Readers Version

26 " 'Do not walk up steps to my altar. If you do, someone might see your naked body under your robes.'

 

[Dream]

As I read I thought about how alters of 'pagan' religions were used previously for sex acts at times and they could be avoiding this. And then I thought underwear was not used therefor they could be concerned about sacred space, but that sort of contradicted with Moses at the bush taking off his sandals for he was on sacred ground which could obviously have the same perspective

That is similar to what Robert Alter says in his commentary on the 5 books of Moses. He says that the priests wore linen garbs underneath and couldn't have been exposed, so his opinion is that the practice of not having steps precedes the linen trousers priests started wearing -- going back before to when sacrifices were done by local priests without linen underwear.

The preoccupation with keeping the nakedness hidden near the altar was very important, but not necessarily for the reasons we tend to think of it being important. Altar's commentary says the linens Aaron wore were 'Accouterments of office'. In Numbers 20:28, Aaron is about to die and Moses takes him and his son up the mountain and strips Aaron's linens off, putting them onto Aaron's son. He and the son, Eleazar, are the only ones who come back down the mountain. Why not have Eleazar take the linens off of Aaron and put them on himself, etc? The linens were themselves symbolically very important, and the nakedness symbolized some important concepts. I can think of several things Christian writers wrote that depend on this idea of covering and of linens.