a sacred place that inspires awe
—While many people have seen the kitchen at the restaurant, only I was invited to visit the holy of holies, the special area where the chef creates his secret recipes.

Besides the Ten Commandments, God also gave Moses hundreds more commands and instructions. These included directions on how to build a portable tabernacle for worshipping God. Later, the Israelites built a temple in the capital city of Jerusalem, which became their place of worship. Both the tabernacle and temple included an inner room, called the “Most Holy Place,” the “Most Holy,” and the “Holy of Holies.” This room contained the ark of the Testimony, a box that held, among other things, the tablets with the Ten Commandments:

You are to hang this curtain under the clasps and bring the ark of the testimony in there behind the curtain. The curtain will make a division for you between the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place [the most holy—KJV]. (Exodus 26:33).

The name Holy of Holies in the Old Testament is a literal translation of a Hebrew phrase. In the Latin translation of the Bible, Holy of Holies is sanctum sanctorum. In modern English, sanctum sanctorum, inner sanctum, and simply sanctum are used to refer to a place where a person can go without fear of being bothered by others.

No one except the high priest could enter the Holy of Holies, and he could do so only once a year, on the “Day of Atonement.” On this holy day, he offered the blood of animals sacrificed for his own sins and for the sins of the nation.

Moses’ older brother Aaron was the first high priest, and all priests after him were his descendants. When God told Moses the duties of those in the priesthood, he called the priests “sons of Aaron” (Leviticus 21:1), and described the high priest as

The high priest—who is greater than his brothers, on whose head the anointing oil is poured, who has been ordained to wear the priestly garments. (Leviticus 21:10)

The high priest served a special role as mediator between God and man. Today, to say that someone is the “high priest of” something—such as a movement or idea—is to say that he is its leader or chief advocate, as in “the high priest of environmentalism.”

to speak critically about someone; to say a person’s name without giving the proper respect to him or his ideals
—Professor Smith was a great teacher. You are taking his name in vain when you say that he didn’t care about his students.

The third of the Ten Commandments that God gave to the Israelites on Mt. Sinai is

You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold guiltless anyone who takes his name in vain. (Exodus 20:7)

A more modern way of saying “take God’s name in vain” is “misuse God’s name.” This can include using his name to swear that something is true when it isn’t. Another way to misuse God’s name is to speak it in a disrespectful or thoughtless way. An example is when someone says, “God,” to show surprise, anger, disgust, etc. Probably the most common example of this today is Oh my God, which is used to take the place of phrases such as Uh oh, Oh no, or Wow. It is also written and spoken as the abbreviation OMG.

O my God is used in the Bible as a way of addressing God in prayer. For example, the prophet Ezra, with great respect, prayed,

O my God, I am ashamed and embarrassed to lift my face to you, my God! For our iniquities have climbed higher than our heads, and our guilt extends to the heavens. (Ezra 9:6)

Some people try to avoid using God as an exclamations by replacing it with such words as gosh, goodness, or golly. But some find even these substitute words offensive, while others think they sound childish or old fashioned.

basic rules or principles of an activity or situation
—Her ten commandments of friendship begin with “Thou shalt not disagree with me.”

Three months after leaving their captivity in Egypt, the Israelites came to the foot of Mt. Sinai. God told Moses to meet him at the top of the mountain, where he gave Moses two stone tablets containing the Ten Commandments:

You shall have no other gods before me.
You shall not [Thou shalt not—KJV] make for yourself a carved image. . . .
You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. . . .
Remember the Sabbath day to set it apart as holy. . . .
Honor your father and your mother. . . .
You shall not murder.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal. . . .
You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.
You shall not covet. . . . (Exodus 20:3,4,7,8,12-17)

Because most of the commandments begin with Thou shalt not in the King James translation, rules are sometimes called “thou shalt nots.”

unexpected good fortune
—The surprise bonus from my boss was manna from heaven.

To feed the Israelites on their journey through the wilderness between Egypt and Canaan, God gave them quail and a special bread, called “manna,” to eat. Manna comes from the Hebrew for What is it? because of the people’s first reaction to the bread when it miraculously appeared:

In the evening the quail came up and covered the camp, and in the morning a layer of dew was all around the camp. When the layer of dew had evaporated, there on the surface of the desert was a thin flaky substance, thin like frost on the earth. When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” because they did not know what it was. (Exodus 16:13-15)

The house of Israel called its name “manna.” It was like coriander seed and was white, and it tasted like wafers with honey. (Exodus 16:31)

to divide into two sections
—The crowd of people parted like the Red Sea and let the honored guest reach the stage.

The Egyptian army chased the Israelites who were escaping slavery in Egypt, trapping them on the shore of the Red Sea (or, according to some translations, the Sea of Reeds). God then saved them with a miracle:

Moses stretched out his hand toward the sea, and the Lord drove the sea apart by a strong east wind all that night, and he made the sea into dry land, and the water was divided. So the Israelites went through the middle of the sea on dry ground, the water forming a wall for them on their right and on their left. (Exodus 14:21,22)

After the Israelites were safe on the other side, God caused the water to return to its place, drowning the Egyptians who were chasing them.

A “parting of the waters” can be “a dramatic change, or an event that brings about a new direction” in actions, thoughts, perceptions, etc. It can also be “a dividing of people or opinions.”

The word exodus began as the Latin name for the Old Testament book that tells the story of the Hebrew people’s escape from Egypt. It comes from a Greek word meaning “a going out.” Today it is still used for the departure of a large group, as in mass exodus.

something in a very large number that swarms to a location, often causing destruction
—On the first day of the sale, the customers filled the store like a plague of locusts.

Because the pharaoh wouldn’t let the Israelites leave Egypt, God sent ten disasters, or “plagues,” on the Egyptians. The seventh plague was a terrible hail storm. The eighth was the “plague of locusts” (grasshoppers):

The Lord said to Moses, “Extend your hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts, that they may come up over the land of Egypt and eat everything that grows in the ground, everything that the hail has left.” So Moses extended his staff over the land of Egypt, and then the Lord brought an east wind on the land all that day and all night. The morning came, and the east wind had brought up the locusts! The locusts went up over all the land of Egypt and settled down in all the territory of Egypt. It was very severe; there had been no locusts like them before, nor will there be such ever again. They covered the surface of all the ground, so that the ground became dark with them, and they ate all the vegetation of the ground and all the fruit of the trees that the hail had left. Nothing green remained on the trees or on anything that grew in the fields throughout the whole land of Egypt. (Exodus 10:12-15)

Finally, God sent a tenth plague, in which an angel killed the first-born son in every Egyptian family. But the angel passed over the home of the Israelites, not harming them. Even now, this event is celebrated by Jewish people in the yearly Passover festival.

Following this last plague, the pharaoh told the Israelites to leave. But after they were gone, he changed his mind and chased them with his army.

not having the proper materials or methods to accomplish something
—Understanding a new language without learning its idioms is like making bricks without straw.

Obeying God’s command from the burning bush, Moses returned to his people in Egypt, but by that time a new pharaoh had taken the throne. Before telling him about his plan to lead the Israelites to Canaan, Moses requested that they be allowed to make a trip outside of Egypt to offer sacrifices to God. But the pharaoh refused and instead punished the Israelites by stopping their supply of straw, a necessary ingredient in their method of brick making. He told those in charge of the slaves,

You must no longer give straw to the people for making bricks as before. Let them go and collect straw for themselves. But you must require of them the same quota of bricks that they were making before. Do not reduce it, for they are slackers. That is why they are crying, “Let us go sacrifice to our God.” Make the work harder for the men so they will keep at it and pay no attention to lying words! (Exodus 5:7-9)

a place giving an abundance of good things
—Many people who move to the city thinking it is a land flowing with milk and honey soon realize that good-paying jobs are hard to find.

While speaking to Moses from the burning bush, God told him to return to Egypt to lead his people back to the Promised Land. He called it “a land flowing with milk and honey” because of the great amount of food and other blessings he would provide for them there. God said,

I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt. I have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. I have come down to deliver them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up from that land to a land that is both good and spacious, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the region of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. (Exodus 3:7,8)

When Moses asked God what his name was, God called himself “I am.” Then he used a name for himself that comes from the Hebrew for to be, meaning something like “the one who always is.” Today this name is often pronounced as Jehovah (based on the Hebrew spelling), but it is shown in most English Bibles as the LORD (or the Lord):

God said to Moses, “I am that I am.” And he said, “You must say this to the Israelites, ‘I am has sent me to you.’” God also said to Moses, “You must say this to the Israelites, ‘The Lord—the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you. (Exodus 3:14,15)

something that gives a clear direction for future actions
—Seeing the Mona Lisa in the Louvre was his burning bush. That’s when he decided to quit his job and work on his art full time.

One day, while Moses was taking care of some sheep in the desert, God got his attention by causing a bush to catch on fire. When Moses came close, God spoke to him:

The angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from within a bush. He looked—and the bush was ablaze with fire [the bush burned with fire—KJV], but it was not being consumed! So Moses thought, “I will turn aside to see this amazing sight. Why does the bush not burn up?” When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to look, God called to him from within the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.” (Exodus 3:2-4)

a person in unfamiliar surroundings
—When I arrived at the university campus from my small-town home, I felt like a stranger in a strange land.

The descendants of Israel, called Israelites, grew in number while they lived in Egypt. In fact, there came to be so many of them that the Egyptians became afraid. A new pharaoh, who didn’t know about Joseph, made them slaves, forcing them to work making bricks and laboring in the fields. He even told the midwives to kill the Israelites’ newborn baby boys. One of these babies was Moses, whose mother put him in a basket and hid him in the water near the shore of the Nile River. The pharaoh’s daughter found him, felt sorry for him, and raised him as her own son.

When Moses grew up, he was angry at how the Egyptians treated his people. After killing an Egyptian who was beating an Israelite, he ran away to the unfamiliar territory of Midian, where he met Reuel, the priest of that area.

Moses agreed to stay with the man, and he gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage. When she bore a son, Moses named him Gershom, for he said, “I have become a resident foreigner in a foreign land [a stranger in a strange land—KJV].” (Exodus 2:21,22)

The name Gershom sounds like the Hebrew for “an alien there.”