By Jill Roberts and Michael Canalé
Does it amaze you as much as it does Michael and myself, that, rather than just acting with His limitless power to carry out His will on Earth, God chooses to act through mankind? After this week’s study, our already existing feelings regarding this will only have grown.
In Exodus, God’s goal was to liberate His People, the Israelites, from horrific slavery in Egypt, something which He entrusted to Moses and, reluctantly, to Moses’ brother and helper. Aaron. God’s final words to Moses before Moses left for Egypt were these:
“The LORD said to Moses, ‘When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do…This is what the LORD says, ‘Israel is my firstborn son, and I told you, ‘Let my son go, so he may worship me.’ But you refused to let him go; so I will kill your firstborn son.”
(Exodus 4:21-23) NIV
The importance of this passage for today’s study is that it makes clear that God explained the outcome before Moses had left Midian. God will never interfere with our free will but He knows, ahead of time, how mankind will exercise it. Since He knows this, why not let Moses just cut to the chase and go straight to what God knew will persuade the Pharaoh to release the Israelites? It is as Michael says,
“God is always teaching a lesson, whether it is for us in reading the Bible or in the people who inhabit Scripture as they live on the Biblical pages.”
Further, there are micro and macro lessons. God teaches both. For example, there is the micro lesson in the immediate
instructions for Moses to go to Egypt and as to what he should say to the Pharaoh. The macro lesson emerges as Pharaoh resists freeing the Israelites. It is the enormous lesson of the human heart in conflict with the authority of God.
So, as Michael goes on to state,
“God’s Word’s main reason to be, is to teach
mankind about God, other people and, always, about himself or herself. It always involves a lesson.”
These lessons will soon become very evident.
God also told Moses to contact the elders of the Israelites as his initial action in Egypt. Are these elders merely incidental, only small players in the lessons of God? Not at all. God is ALWAYS working every side and angle of a given circumstance. They, also, have lessons to learn, as we will see.:
“Moses and Aaron brought together all of the elders of the Israelites, and Aaron told them everything the LORD had said to Moses. (So, we can infer that they were even told that, ultimately, the Pharaoh would only relent after the death of the Egyptians’ firstborn sons). He also performed the signs before the people, and THEY BELIEVED. And when they heard that the LORD was concerned about them and had seen their misery, THEY BOWED DOWN AND WORSHIPED.”
(emphasis added)
(Exodus 4:29-31) NIV
Perfect! Aaron repeated the EXACT WORDS God instructed to be said, Moses performed every SIGN God gave him the supernatural power to perform, and the elders of the Israelites BELIEVED, BOWED DOWN AND WORSHIPPED. All was in place. As we quip today, “What could go wrong!”
Enter the Pharaoh into God’s lesson book:
“Afterward, (after the beautiful meeting between Moses, Aaron and the elders of the Israelites), Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, ‘This is what the God of Israel says, ‘Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the wilderness.”
Pharaoh said, ‘WHO IS THE LORD THAT I SHOULD OBEY HIM and let Israel go? I DO NOT KNOW THE LORD and I will not let Israel go.’
‘Then they (Moses and Aaron) said, ‘The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Now let us take a three-day journey into the wilderness to offer sacrifices to the LORD our God, OR HE MAY STRIKE US WITH PLAGUES OR WITH THE SWORD.”
(emphasis added)
Exodus 5:1-3) NIV
The phraseology is interesting. In words of appeasement rather than power, Moses and Aaron mention the consequences of God, plagues and the sword, but state that these disasters MAY strike US. When God instructed Moses, He said,
“But I KNOW that the King of Egypt (synonymous with the Pharaoh), will not let you go unless A MIGHTY HAND COMPELS HIM. So I will stretch out my hand and STRIKE THE EGYPTIANS with all the wonders that I will perform among THEM. After that, he will let you go.”
(emphasis added)
(Exodus 3:19-20) NIV
This Scripture makes it clear that words like “may” and “us,” were not what God had in mind. And, in fact, they were not persuasive:
“But the King of Egypt said, ‘Moses and Aaron, why are you taking the people away from their labors? ‘Get back to your work!’ Look, the people of the land are now numerous, and you are stopping them from working.”
(Exodus 5:4-5) NIV
From this, we can almost see the scene and it is a dramatic one! The elders of the Israelites and an unknown number of other Israelites are present with Moses and Aaron. But now, with the Pharaoh’s denial to free God’s People, there was undoubtedly great despair. Sadly, it would only grow. The Pharaoh’s cruelty was about to increase:
“That same day,” the Pharaoh took away the straw ordinarily given to the Israelites to make bricks. Yet, the daily quota of bricks stayed the same. When they were unable to meet this quota, they were beaten. (Exodus 5:6-8,16) NIV
Michael says,
“What goes on in the Bible are situations, especially in the Old Testament.”
This is exactly what happened here. The reactions were immediate. The elders of the Israelites begged the Pharaoh to reverse this edict. When he called them lazy, (Exodus 5:17) NIV, they reacted to this unbearable situation:
“When they left Pharaoh, they found Moses and Aaron waiting to meet them, and they said, ‘May the LORD look on you and judge you! You made us obnoxious to Pharaoh and his officials and have put a sword in their hand to kill us.”
(Exodus 5:20-21) NIV
This consternation spread to Moses and Aaron:
“Moses returned to the LORD and said, ‘Why, Lord, why have YOU brought trouble to this people…and YOU have not rescued your people at all.”
(emphasis added)
(Exodus 5:22-23) NIV
As Michael says, this is a “situation.”
God then reiterated that He would act against Pharaoh in such a way that this King of Egypt would literally drive the Israelites out his country. (Exodus 6:1) NIV
Was God impatient with Moses? Did He criticize his performance while with the Pharaoh? Did He decry Moses’ lack of faith in Him? The answer across the board is, “No.” In fact, it was just the opposite:
“God also said to Moses, ‘ I am the LORD. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, BUT BY MY NAME, THE LORD, I DID NOT MAKE MYSELF FULLY KNOWN TO THEM.“
(emphasis added)
(Exodus 6:2-3) NIV
These same verses in the Torah are even more easily understood:
“I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob with the name Almighty God, BUT WITH MY NAME YHWH, (YAHWEH) I DIDN’T BECOME KNOWN TO THEM.”
The love, the graciousness of God takes our breath away! Moses and the elders of the Israelites had fallen apart. Moses had accused God of not rescuing His People and God said to all of them, I’m going to reveal to you Myself and a special dimension to My name in a way so powerful that I withheld this knowledge from the likes of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob!
God told Moses to go back to the Israelites and to tell them,
“I AM THE LORD and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians…I will bring you to the land I swore…I will give it to you as a possession. I AM THE LORD.”
(emphasis added)
Exodus 6:6,8) NIV
Was there jubilation by Moses and the elders of the Israelites? Sadly…
“Moses reported this to the Israelites but they did not listen to him because of their discouragement and harsh labor.”
(Exodus 6:9) NIV
God again spoke to Moses:
“Then the LORD said to Moses, ‘Go, tell Pharaoh king of Egypt to let the Israelites go out of his country.”
(Exodus 6:11) NIV
Our very human and very weary icon, Moses, was out of gas:
“But Moses said to the LORD, ‘If the Israelites will not listen to me, why would Pharaoh listen to me, since I speak with faltering lips?”
Next week, we will explore God’s amazing response. This week, Michael leaves us with the encouragement we need after these negative responses to God. He says,
“In the Bible, you’re getting FRAGMENTS AND LESSONS from the fragments of their lives.”
Yes, these are fragments. The big picture will not elude us as we study Scripture together. And that big picture – well, God is writing it in love and in power. The big picture forecast is settled, great and coming up fast on the horizons of Scripture.
You two are amazing! The power of God exceeds all understanding. This, surely, is one of those times.
Are we open to those times in our lives when He is exceeding OUR understanding. Can we be silent and know that He is God? Wouldn’t that be great?
To teach, my calling. I am so happy that God is my teacher.