Daily Wire co-founder Ben Shapiro and Dr. Jordan B. Peterson discuss using the Lord’s name in vain and the meaning of prayer in the newest episode of “Exodus,” now streaming on DailyWire+.
With a panel of nine renowned scholars, Peterson and Shapiro finish their reading of Exodus, the second book of the Bible, and explore the significance of the re-establishment of the covenant as well as the Israelites’ vision of the Promised Land. Part of the discussion focuses on the importance and practical applications of prayer.
“The verb ‘to pray’ in Hebrew is actually in the reflexive tense: ‘lehitpallel.’ It’s supposed to be something that acts on you,” Shapiro said. “The prayer is supposed to act on you; it’s not supposed to be something where you’re attempting to pry an answer out of God.”
Peterson added to Shapiro’s point, saying that prayer and thought are strongly connected, with thought emerging from prayer. “I really do believe that our capacity to think – and I’m thinking about this as an evolutionary biologist – actually emerged out of the domain of prayer, because thought seems to me to have a prayer-like structure.”
In a separate conversation on taking the Lord’s name in vain – the third of the Ten Commandments – Peterson says that throughout the discussion his view evolved on the Commandment. He originally said that people should not use the Lord’s name for justification of “tyrannical presuppositions.”
Peterson later adds to this, saying, “I also think there is likely an injunction against the casual use of the sacred, the casual reference – like touching the Ark of the Covenant by mistake. You should be careful when you’re treading near holy ground just as a matter of practice.”
Later in the discussion, Shapiro brings up Exodus 33 – when God tells Moses that He will put him in a “cleft in the rock” and cover him with His hand – and explains that the rock could represent the tablets of the Ten Commandments. God is revealing himself to Moses in a veiled way, because while Moses knows God is present, he doesn’t know what He is thinking, Shapiro explains.
“The God that is inscribed on the stone, the laws, they are the consequence, they’re the wisdom of history,” Peterson adds. “It is as if God has written them in stone with His fingers. These are the patterns of history. These are the fundamental elements of necessary social organization.”
Dr. Douglas Hedley, professor of philosophy at Cambridge University, emphasizes a point he made earlier in the series, saying that the vision of God is a “necessary condition” of a flourishing society and that a people will perish without this vision.
Peterson explains that all enthusiasm is filled with the spirit of God and is therefore positive emotion. “All positive emotion of the most intense sort – I don’t mean satiation and satisfaction, I mean hope and enthusiasm – that moves you forward is tied to a vision, because all positive emotion signals movement toward a valued goal.”
This is the sixth of eight new episodes in the series, exploring the importance of Exodus according to theological and literary scholars and showing why the book remains significant thousands of years after being written.
For a deep dive into the Ten Commandments and other important topics in Exodus, including the meaning and restrictions of “an eye for an eye.” You can watch previous episodes here.
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