1.2. Chapter 02 - In Egypt - The Deliverer
Chapter 02 In Egypt — The Deliverer
(Read Exodus 5:1-23; Exodus 6:1-30; Exodus 7:1-25; Exodus 8:1-32; Exodus 9:1-35; Exodus 10:1-29; Exodus 11:1-10; Exodus 12:1-51; Acts 7:35-36; Hebrews 11:27-28)
1. FAILURES At the burning bush Moses had received an immediate mission that was perfectly clear: “Bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt” (Exodus 3:10). God had not concealed from him the obstacles he would face: “I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go, no, not by a powerful hand. I will stretch out my hand and smite Egypt with all my wonders which I will do in the midst thereof; and after that he will let you go” (Exodus 3:19-20). There in Midian God had even given Moses to understand that Pharaoh’s resistance would be terrible, compelling Him to take the extreme measure of killing his (Pharaoh’s) firstborn son.
Arriving in Egypt, Moses and Aaron gather all the elders of the children of Israel who accede to the message, bow their heads and worship (Exodus 4:29-31). Feeling quite encouraged, they go to Pharaoh and ask him to let the people go and celebrate a feast to the Lord in the wilderness. Pharaoh’s insolence soon reduces their courage, but they still try to say to him: “The God of the Hebrews has met with us: let us go, we pray thee, three days’ journey into the wilderness …” (Exodus 5:3). The royal rebuff is explicit: “Why do ye, Moses and Aaron, wish to have the people go off from their works?Away, to your burdens!”
Instead of alleviating the people’s burden, this first interview only makes it heavier still. Part of the Israelites must scatter about the country and gather the straw necessary to make brick; yet the same amount of bricks is required each day. Therefore, a reduced number of people must work all the more in order to fulfill the requirements. The officers of the children of Israel try to complain directly to Pharaoh without going through Moses and Aaron, but this only makes matters worse.
It is easy to understand Moses’ distress at that hour, one of the darkest in his life. The Lord has not delivered the people at all through him.On the contrary, the people are oppressed more than ever and those whom he wanted so much to serve reproach him severely. What should he do?Should he once more give up, leave the people to their fate, and return to Midian?
Moses is at the end of his resources. Nevertheless, his faith stands fast (Hebrews 11:27). In his deep distress he returns to the Lord (v. 22) and pours out before Him his affliction. Like so many times later on, he experiences the grace of his Lord who does not rebuke him. On the contrary, He reveals Himself still more to him. Is there not an important lesson for each of us to learn through the misfortunes, disappointments and trials of this life?One person works hard to pass an examination and yet fails. Another tends a loved one with great devotion, and yet this loved one is taken away by the Lord. Still another tries to bring a soul to Christ, but Satan seems to hold that soul still more firmly in his shackles. What is to be done? We must not yield to depression but rather pour out our supplications before God as the Psalmist did — and then rely on His grace. He will not fail to reveal Himself still more to the soul that seeks after Him, and He will carry the matter to its conclusion. At the beginning of Genesis, God had revealed Himself as the Creator: Elohim — Deity in the absolute. With the patriarchs He had assumed essentially the name of the Almighty — the one who meets all the needs of those who are pilgrims of faith and strangers on the earth. To Moses at this decisive hour, God reveals Himself as the Eternal God (Jehovah, or Yahweh) — the God of the covenant who looks after His people; the God who does not change and who acts in time according to what He is in Himself and not according to the merits of those favored ones on whose behalf He is operating (Exodus 6:2-8).
Having regained confidence in his mission, Moses goes back to the children of Israel, but they do not listen to him because of their heavy bondage. The Lord does not wait for another entreaty from His servant. He immediately strengthens his faith and orders him to go in and speak again to the king. Moses objects again: “The children of Israel have not heeded me. How then shall Pharaoh heed me, for I am of uncircumcised lips?” The Lord then gives Moses and Aaron commandments for the children of Israel, and for Pharaoh that he might let the people go out of Egypt (Exodus 6:10-13; Exodus 7:1-5).
Moses and Aaron, fully confident in God’s promises (for they “persevered, as seeing Him who is invisible”) go to the king. They acquire increasing boldness and authority during the entire time of the plagues upon Egypt, being strengthened in faith through the display of their God’s power. Moses increasingly gains the upper hand, being fully aware that he speaks in the name of the Lord who spreads out “his strong hand and his outstretched arm” in favor of His people.
2. WHO ARE THEY THAT SHALL GO?
(Exodus 8:25-28; Exodus 10:8-11; Exodus 10:24-26)
There are signs for the people of God, and plagues for the Egyptians as the judgments of God come down upon the land. Seven times Pharaoh hardens his heart (look it up for yourself), and seven times the Lord hardens the heart of Pharaoh.
Pharaoh begins to yield a little, however, so that the Lord might withdraw the poisonous dog-flies from the land, and proposes to Moses that they go and sacrifice to their God “in the land.” Immediately Moses answers: “It is not right to do so, for we would be sacrificing the abomination of the Egyptians to the LORD our God … We will go three days’ journey into the wilderness and sacrifice to the LORD our God as He will command us” (Exodus 8:26-27). This illustrates the first snare of Satan — that those who worship God do so in the world and as mixed with the world. How successful Satan has been in bringing about such a condition in Christendom: In many Christian congregations, probably in the most important ones, believers and unbelievers mix together in the same “religious service.” As to the leaders, some of them no longer have faith in the Word of God or in the redeeming work of the cross. In order to worship truly, a definite separation is necessary. There must be “the three days’ journey into the wilderness” — a picture of the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
Pharaoh, harassed by the successive judgments which ravage his country, later yields still more. He calls Moses and Aaron and precisely asks the following question: “Who are they that shall go?”
Moses answers: “We will go with our young and our old; with our sons and our daughters, with our flocks and our herds we will go” (Exodus 10:8-9).
This, however, is not the way in which Pharaoh understands it, and again he sets a new snare before the servants of God: “Go now, you who are men, and serve the LORD.” In some countries today young people can attend a Christian meeting only from the age of eighteen; in other countries one can present the gospel only to those over twenty-one. Even among Christians in countries which enjoy liberty, the enemy strenuously endeavors to induce parents not to take their children with them to the meetings; or he persuades them to think that attending Sunday School or other special meetings for the young is too taxing for them! The enemy’s tactics have not changed. He knows very well that youth is the favorable age to turn to the Lord, for then the entire life becomes oriented toward Him to be lived for Him.
Nehemiah 12:43 describes a day of worship and rejoicing when all the people — not only the men but also the women and the children — were happy to be gathered in the presence of the Lord. When on the other hand, it was a question of listening to the reading of the law, Ezra spoke “before the congregation, of men and women and all who could hear with understanding” (Nehemiah 8:2). Does this not teach us that we should all come to the worship meeting, including our children as soon as they are old enough to remain quiet? The oft-cited excuses about household chores and schoolwork should not prevent this. As for the meeting for Bible study where the Word of God is explained and studied, do not the Scriptures instruct us to bring along “all who could hear with understanding”? (Here understanding refers to natural intelligence, not the renewed intelligence which can exist only through conversion). In the face of Moses’ categorical refusal of his offer, and in order to avoid a further judgment of three days of darkness, Pharaoh devises still another solution. He says: “Go, serve the LORD; only let your flocks and your herds be kept back. Let your little ones also go with you” (Exodus 10:24). Moses, however, knows very well that if the flocks and herds are left behind, the heart of the people will be drawn back again to Egypt. Hence he answers: “You must also give us sacrifices and burnt offerings, that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God. Our livestock also shall go with us; not a hoof shall be left behind.”
Let us be careful to keep our hearts from clinging unduly to the material possessions which God has entrusted to us. They could become a hindrance to the worship which the Lord expects from us. As Luke 16:1-31 teaches, the “unrighteous mammon” is entrusted to our management, but our hearts should not become attached to it as a treasure. It must always remain at the Lord’s disposal to be used according to His will.
Because Moses himself had earlier refused the riches of Egypt and chosen the reproach of Christ, he now had all the more authority to urge the people to place everything that they had at the Lord’s disposal.
3. The Passover (Exodus 12:1-28; Hebrews 11:28) The Epistle to the Hebrews emphasizes that Moses celebrated the Passover “by faith.” His parent’s faith had been necessary to first hide him and then expose him on the river. Then at forty years old, his own faith was manifested through the choice that he made. Again he displayed this faith in “holding fast” in Egypt, despite the king’s anger.
Why was faith necessary for the Passover? Pharaoh had nothing to do with it. At this point it is not faith acting in the presence of the enemy or under difficult circumstances, but it is still the same faith. It was not the enemy but God that was to be faced in judgment. During the nine preceding plagues the people had remained spectators, and beginning with the fourth plague had actually been protected in the land of Goshen. But now the people must act — and this in accordance with the Word of the Lord to Moses. Faith was required as to what God had said. The people were just as guilty as the Egyptians, and even more so because their responsibility was greater. As other portions of Scripture reveal, they had indulged in idolatry in spite of some knowledge of the Lord; and in a considerable measure they had abandoned their God. If the destroying angel must pass through the land and kill all the firstborn, why should he spare the Israelites? After all, God’s justice acts without respect of persons.
Only the blood of a spotless victim — a type of One who would come later — was able to shelter the people from the judgment. The Lord reveals this to Moses and Aaron (Exodus 12:1-20), who in turn instruct the elders of Israel. Moses’ faith is an inspiring example: “The people bowed their heads and worshiped … and did as the Lord had commanded” (vv. 27, 28).
Abel’s sacrifice demonstrates that the blood of atonement was necessary to come near to God. Genesis 22:1-24 presents the thought of substitution: Abraham offered a ram as a sacrifice instead of his son. The offerings of Leviticus, through the placing of the offerer’s hand on the head of the victim, express the identification of the one approaching with the sacrifice. (In the sacrifice for sin, the offences of the guilty one pass onto the victim, whereas in the burnt-offering the merits of the victim are credited to the worshipper.) In the Passover, the individual appropriation of the sacrifice is perfectly stressed: “Every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household” (Exodus 12:3). Moses did not offer one lamb for the entire people; each family had to slaughter a victim, the blood of which was to shelter them. So it is in the gospel. Jesus is “the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world” (1 John 2:2). The value of His work in the sight of God enables God to offer His forgiveness to the whole world.
Other passages show just as clearly, however, that whereas the value of the sacrifice of Christ is sufficient for the whole world, only those who accept it through faith are made beneficiaries of His work. In Romans 3:1-31 the righteousness of God is manifested “toward all, and upon all those who believe.” Only those who believe are justified “through faith in His blood.” Likewise John 3:16 teaches that God loved the world, but only those who believe in the Lord Jesus have life eternal. John 1:12 says that those who receive Him are given the right to be called children of God. Romans 10:9 says that “if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” It is a matter of personally and individually accepting and confessing the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
According to the Passover instructions, the blood of the lamb is put on the two outside doorposts and on the lintel of each house. The family gathered inside the house eats the Passover lamb with the unleavened bread and the bitter herbs. The family does not see the blood and assess its value but the Lord does. He declares categorically: “When I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you” (Exodus 12:13). Likewise, the repenting sinner who comes to the Lord Jesus is unable to assess the value of His blood; God alone does that. It is because of this blood He forgives and receives. The one who receives the Word of God as being true finds his certainty in the declarations of God’s Word. He cannot explain it, but he knows that “the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). THE PASSOVER NIGHT
(Exodus 12:42) For Israel, the months began with each new moon; they were lunar months. Since the Passover took place on the fourteenth day of the month, the Israelites went out of Egypt on the full moon. In the evening they ate the lamb; their loins were girded; they were ready to leave. “At midnight … the LORDstruck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt … So Pharaoh rose in the night, he, all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where there was not one dead” (Exodus 12:29-30).
One can understand the bewilderment of the Egyptians, each one rushing out of his house and telling the sad news to his neighbor; and then hearing his neighbor reporting the same calamity. With Pharaoh at their head the Egyptians drive Israel out of the land. The people, according to the instructions of the Lord to Moses (Exodus 11:2-3) ask from the Egyptians silver and gold, a well-deserved compensation for all their years of hard work and bondage.
Throughout the night, from various parts of the land of Goshen, the columns get under way “according to their hosts.” Their immediate goal is to reach Rameses and Succoth. Six hundred thousand men on foot with their families, plus a mixed multitude that went up with them — from two to three million souls, beside all the cattle that accompany them.
What a moment for Moses! When he was forty years old, he had wanted to give his brethren “deliverance through his hand” and now the time has arrived. After the tension caused by the successive plagues and the drama of this eventful night, a new life was to begin. The Lord had displayed His power and fulfilled His promise. No doubt a feeling of deep gratitude was arising in the heart of His servant. Considering the problems which would soon assail him, what responsibility rested upon him! He had to lead this great multitude through the wilderness — a desert which he knew by experience — up to the promised land. The immense task that God had entrusted to him was just beginning.
THINKING THINGS THROUGH
1. Describe some of the discouragements and trials Moses faced as he went back to Egypt and talked with his brethren and with Pharaoh. Why did God allow these?
2. How does God deliver Moses and Aaron from their discouragements? What is the best way for us to get deliverance from our discouragements?
3. How would you apply to your own life the four compromises proposed by Pharaoh to Moses?
4. How did the passover differ from all the other plagues upon the land of Egypt? Does the passover have a personal application to your life?
5. Suppose yourself to be a firstborn son of an Israelite on the passover night. Describe in your own words the dramatic events of that night.