Exodus 5.22–6.12
Exode 5 : 22 And Moses returned unto the LORD, and said, Lord, wherefore hast thou so evil entreated this people? why is it that thou hast sent me? 23 For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in thy name, he hath done evil to this people; neither hast thou delivered thy people at all.
Exode 6 : 1 Then the LORD said unto Moses, Now shalt thou see what I will do to Pharaoh: for with a strong hand shall he let them go, and with a strong hand shall he drive them out of his land. 2 And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am the LORD: 3 and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them. 4 And I have also established my covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, wherein they were strangers. 5 And I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel, whom the Egyptians keep in bondage; and I have remembered my covenant. 6 Wherefore say unto the children of Israel, I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with a stretched out arm, and with great judgments: 7and I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God: and ye shall know that I am the LORD your God, which bringeth you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. 8 And I will bring you in unto the land, concerning the which I did swear to give it to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; and I will give it you for an heritage: I am the LORD. 9 And Moses spake so unto the children of Israel: but they hearkened not unto Moses for anguish of spirit, and for cruel bondage. 10 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, 11 Go in, speak unto Pharaoh king of Egypt, that he let the children of Israel go out of his land. 12 And Moses spake before the LORD, saying, Behold, the children of Israel have not hearkened unto me; how then shall Pharaoh hear me, who am of uncircumcised lips?
Context
Exodus 3-4
Calling and sending of reluctant Moses: He just saw his own weak skills.
Ex 4:11 And the LORD said unto him, Who hath made man's mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the LORD? 12 Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say.
Exodus 5:1-21
Moses and Aaron facing the pharaoh
The oppression gets even harder
20-21 : "And they met Moses and Aaron, who stood in the way, as they came forth from Pharaoh: and they said unto them, The LORD look upon you, and judge; because ye have made our savour to be abhorred in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of his servants, to put a sword in their hand to slay us."
Moses turns to God after the complaints of the people of Israel.
Who is God?
Yaweh
Exodus 3:14 : “I AM THAT I AM” (Another translation: "I am: I am." Others understand: "I am who I am"; “I am who I will be”; "I am the one who gives existence.”) -> Yhwh : a form of the verb to be.
“According to the Hebrew Bible, Israel was constituted as a people during the revelation of Yahweh at Sinai. From its inception, Israel has been the people of one god: YHWH. If the history of Israel has been marked by periods of apostasy, it is only a question of distractions or negligence which has never called into question the unique bond between Yahweh and Israel.” WIKIPEDIA
Eternal
In the passage God repeats 5 times that he is the Lord (Eternal).
Eternity of God? An aspect of the infinity of God. He is outside of time, he has no beginning and no end. God crosses the generations.
2 Pet 3:8 ”But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”
Rev 1:8 “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty."
Rev 22:13 “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.”
Rev 21:6a “And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.”
Faithful
God passes through the generations: Exo 6: 3-4 “I revealed myself to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as the almighty God [...], I made a commitment by my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan ”
Patient and Good
Even though all the people and Moses (v4-5) blame Him a lot about the situation, He does not get angry, responds kindly and with the promise of deliverance.
Almighty and Omniscient
(he already knows everything)
Exo 6: 1 and 6: 6: God announces that he will deliver His People by his great power. He speaks in the future and not in the conditional because he is the one who decides all things.
What did God do?
He reveals Himself
Exo 6: 1 “The Lord said to Moses, Now you are going to see what I am going to do to Pharaoh.”
Exo 6: 3 “I revealed myself to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob”
The Lord made it clear to Moses what He planned to do, and before that He revealed Himself to the ancestors.
And even today, God reveals Himself to us through reading the Bible: His plan for mankind is clearly written for those who read and study with an open heart to receive revelation. (Jesus said in John 6:37: “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.”)
God also sends Moses to bring this revelation to His people. (v. 6) -> to us, He makes the grace to place spiritual leaders, elders in the faith in our church which God uses to transmit to us His message and His will.
He makes promises and He keeps them
God had promised Abraham to give him the great land of Canaan, and the promise continues to be valid for his descendants.
Exo 6: 4 “And I have also established my covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, wherein they were strangers. ”
If you look at the context, it looks like God is breaking His promise because for generations the Israelites were stuck in Egypt under harsh slavery.
But we see that God has never forgotten his promise:
Exo 6: 8: “And I will bring you in unto the land, concerning the which I did swear to give it to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; and I will give it you for an heritage: I am the LORD."
It takes us back to the greatest and greatest promise of God: the promise of a Savior. From the very beginning of mankind, when the first humans betrayed God by disobeying him, he had already planned a way to save us.
Gen 3:15: “and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. ” -> God speaks to Satan and already announces to him his defeat, that his head will be crushed by the descendant of Eve, who is Jesus.
Throughout the OT God used his prophets also to announce the coming of the Messiah, and it really came true:
Isaiah 53: 3-6 “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.”
God foresaw, before anything existed, that we would need a Savior. Because otherwise we would have had to endure the righteous wrath of God because of our dirty hearts, all the horrors that we all commit (in deeds, thoughts and words). But God promised that it would be through FAITH in the death and resurrection of Jesus that we would have salvation: reconciliation with him.
You can feel like the Israelites sometimes today. God promised that He would come back and take us with Him, that there will be no more evil, injustice or pain. He has promised that He will wipe any tears from our eyes and that we can finally live in His presence and we all look forward to that, but the Bible says God is never late.
2 Peter 3: 9: “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”
He delivers us so that we are His
Exo 6:6-7 “Wherefore say unto the children of Israel, I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with a stretched out arm, and with great judgments: and I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God: and ye shall know that I am the LORD your God, which bringeth you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.”
God said he was going to deliver his people in a mighty way and he did -> Exodus 7-14: the plagues of Egypt, the dry crossing of the Red Sea.
And he did it also for us, who were not his people: thanks to Jesus, we too, although we were not part of the chosen people (Israel) have access to the throne of the living God.
"I will take you for my people, and I will be your God."
But God does not deliver for nothing: it is to make us HIS people. The whole Bible speaks of the dynamic between God and humanity: humanity which sins all the time, which is unfaithful and in front of God who always initiates the first step towards it, God who corrects it, who redeems it, God who love it.
God really wants to have a relationship with us men, he wants us to be devoted to him, to always trust him and to obey him.
During the days of the Israelites, God always reproached them to not give their whole hearts to Him because they served other gods, idols. We criticize them easily, but so do we, even if we do not physically bow down to wooden statues, in our hearts there are often still idols: things, dreams, people who are much dearer to us than God. These things that we put in the place of God become a burden and make us slaves to them, they make us suffer, cause us to worry, cause us to sin, create in us an unhealthy dependence that can never satisfy us : God delivers us from all this if we rely on Him.
Mat 11:28-30 “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Mat 6:33 “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”
Deut 6:5 “Thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might."
Conclusion
What the text reveals to us about God:
Yaweh: the one who is, the one who exists independently of everything.
Eternal, out of time, he crosses the generations
Loyal
Patient
Good
All powerful
Omniscient
What the text tells us about what God did:
He reveals Himself
He makes promises and He keeps them
He delivers us so that we are His
Remembering the nature of God must prompt us to surrender ourselves completely to Him: it must convince us to want to do His will.
Jesus' sacrifice on the cross is more than enough to transform us and turn our hearts away from our idols.
God delivers us from the slavery of sin so that we can glorify Him and bring more souls to Him.
Moses was reluctant to the task of announcing what God wanted, but God has proven that He Himself does all the work (Exo 6: 1-8: He only uses the 1st person of the singular) and that we just have to obey and be grateful to be tools in the hands of the creator of the universe.
“God does not ask me to succeed, but to obey” - Philadelphe Delord
Questions
Regarding the text and what we have learned about God, how should we act?
God always speaks to us but sometimes like the Israelites in verse 9, we refuse to listen to him. What could be the reasons? And what practical means can be used to remedy this?
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