God Being a Bit OCD About Stones
I thought Exodus was fussing over a pointless detail; then the rule became uncomfortably personal
Lately, I’ve been opening the Bible with genuine excitement. I’m following a Bible in a Year programme and most mornings, I begin with the hopeful suspicion that something special and personal is waiting for me in the day’s readings; a verse I have never noticed or an image that suddenly makes sense. Perhaps even one of those grand revelations that leaves me staring into the middle distance, cradling my coffee with a pensive expression, briefly convinced that I’ve become the sort of Christian who actually understands Leviticus.
That particular morning, the programme gave me Exodus 19–20, Leviticus 13 and Psalm 74.
In a spectacularly anticlimactic turn, Leviticus 13 presented me with an extended tour of skin complaints: swellings, rashes, white hairs, raw flesh, bald patches and priests carrying out what appeared to be tediously repetitive inspections. As if the dermatological incidents had not provided enough excitement, the chapter then broadened its horizons and treated me to a deep-dive into contaminated clothing and an almost forensic exploration of mould and mildew. I understood the broad point - protecting the community, recognising disease and maintaining Israel’s laws around cleanliness - although, by that point, my spiritual enthusiasm had started developing a slight rash of its own.
I laboured through, switched to Exodus and arrived at the Ten Commandments, where things felt reassuringly - if a little tediously - familiar. No murder, stealing or adultery; honour your parents; do not covet your neighbour’s possessions. Yada yada yada! All vitally important, of course, yet I had heard them often enough to become a little too comfortable with it all. I was reading the words in a semi-engaged manner, while privately congratulating myself for already knowing all this stuff inside out. The disappointment of a relatively underwhelming Bible reading morning began to settle reluctantly in my chest.
Then, near the end of the chapter, came an instruction about building an altar:
“If you make me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stones, for if you wield your tool on it you profane it.”
Exodus 20:25
Oh, lovely! Another weird and pointless ancient rule to round off a wholly uninspiring morning, I sarcastically pondered to myself. Why would God, who had just arrived on Sinai with thunder, fire, smoke and enough drama to terrify an entire nation, suddenly develop OCD about someone giving a rock a tidy little finish? Surely a neat altar would be preferable to a pile of jagged rocks anyway. Smooth the edges, level everything properly, perhaps add a tasteful feature wall; give the Lord something worthy of appearing on Grand Designs: Wilderness Edition. Nice! Respectful!
On the verge of writing the whole session off as one of those days when the Bible simply refuses to cooperate, I found myself looking up the word hewn.
The real meaning hit me like a train.
The previous day, I had posted on Substack about the pressure I had created for myself through projects intended to glorify God: a memoir, a poetry book, a podcast, photography, Bible projects. My enthusiasm had tipped into overload. I had written that I was building a shrine to productivity instead of an altar of worship; less than twenty-four hours later, the Bible handed me a warning about overworking the stones of an altar.
My stones of productivity were being hewn to within an inch of their lives.
I had been cutting, polishing and arranging every offering, desperate to make it beautiful enough, productive enough and worthy enough. Somewhere in all that craftsmanship, the marks of my own ambition had begun to cover the thing I claimed to be building for God.
That apparently pointless rule had reached out from the pages of Exodus and answered something that had been tormenting me just the previous day. I had opened the Bible that morning wondering whether anything would speak to me; somewhere between the rashes, the mildew and the oddly specific stonework guidelines, I realised that the Bible had been reading over my shoulder the whole time.
Praise God for His Word!
