Water to Gate

Morales’s The Tabernacle Pre-Figured is an insightful study of the “cosmic mountain ideology” in the Bible, which Morales understands in terms of a progress through the dangerous waters of chaos to the mountain of the Lord’s house for the purpose of worship.

At points, though, Morales collapses and conflates when it would be better to distinguish. For instance, he characterizes the garden of Eden as the “holy of holies” that was set at the “top” of the cosmic mountain of creation (75). But the garden was not at the top of the mountain; water arose in Eden and then flowed down through the garden and from there to the four corners of the world. I suspect it’s a mistake to distinguish a “holy” from a “most holy” place in the original creation, but there is a distinction between lower and higher and the garden is not at the highest point. That suggests that Adam’s original condition, exalted as it was, was provisional, a step in an elevation that would have gone further.

Similarly, Morales has a lot of illuminating things to say about “gate liturgies”: Adam’s removal from Eden is a “gate liturgy in reverse,” an expulsion through the entry way on the east of the garden; from the time of Eden, sacrificial rituals were all gate liturgies, as worshipers passed through the fiery sword of the cherubim into the presence of God. But Morales at times brings water ordeals and gate rituals into too close a proximity. Israel’s water passage from Egypt didn’t immediately lead into the land that was the holy mountain of the Lord (Exodus 15); the water ordeal was separated from a second water passage that involved entry into the land. In the rites of cleansing from corpse defilement (Numbers 19), there are two washings, on the third and on the seventh days, and it’s only after both that the cleansing rite is completely. First the water, then the gate, or so it seems.

And that, in turn, suggests a theology of initial and final justification. Water ordeals justify by divine intervention, by divine rescue; David doesn’t swim his way out of the mighty waters, but is grabbed by God. But gate rituals are about righteousness in practice: Who may ascend to the hill of the Lord? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted his soul to vanity nor sworn deceitfully, etc. The water rite brings the person to the mountain; but then there is a final justification according to works that finally qualifies him to enter the presence of God.