Exodus 03

Updated
2001-05-26; 14:31:08utc

5. The Call ch. 3:1-4:17

a. God's Revelation of Himself ch. 3:1-10

In the first verse of this chapter we find Moses going routinely through his daily chores. He has become an old and lonely man. We should try to picture this man, who had grown up in the refinement and sophistication of Pharaoh's court. Forty years of communion with sheep do something to a man's initiative and vitality. By this time Moses must have given up the ambitions of his life to be the man of God's choice to deliver His people. God calls him when his own ambitions are dead.

Apparently Moses was not involved in a large operation. We do not read that he had a group of shepherds under him, since the flock he kept must have been small enough to be handled by a single man. As we witness Moses in the different stages of his life, first coming out of the palace, later on the back side of the desert, we can say: "How low can you get!" Moses would probably have agreed.

Regarding the term "father-in-law," The Pulpit Commentary says: "The word 'father-in-law' is of much wider application, being used of almost any relation by marriage. Zipporah uses it of Moses in ch. iv. 25, 26; in Gen. xix. 12, 14, it is applied to Lot's 'sons-in-law.' Its application to Jethro does not prove him to be the same person as Reuel, which the difference of name render improbably. He was no doubt the head of the tribe at this period, having succeeded to that dignity, and to the priesthood, when Reuel died. He may have been either Reuel's son or his nephew."

The name given to the Sinai mountain as "the mountain of God" was, probably, given in retrospect. There is no reason to believe that the place was an existing sanctuary.

When Moses came to a dead end, he has the most spectacular experience a human being can have: an encounter with God. Moses obviously knew about God through the history of his people. How intimately he knew God personally we do not know. Up to this point Moses may have had very little idea what he purpose in this world was to be. People who do not know God do not know the meaning of their existence. Ironically, when Moses learned what this meaning, or purpose was, he did not like it! But first, let us look at the revelation of the Person of God to this human being in the desert.

God is omnipresent. He had always been with Moses, not only in this desert but before and at his birth, in the water of the Nile when Moses was put in the basket, and in Egypt in the palace,. But Moses had never been aware of God's presence until this point in his life.

Now he sees a bush on fire, but the fire does not burn up the bush. Fire decomposes and as such it is an instrument of death. God and death are incompatible. God is the God of life. He is Life. So the bush that God created does not die when He touches it. The phenomenon draws Moses' attention. He is used to death, but here he sees something that should burn and die, but it doesn't. He goes to investigate, but he gets more than he bargained for. It is one thing to want to acquire knowledge and to look into religion in that context, but it is quite another thing to meet God. Moses is deeply shaken at the realization of the holiness of God. The encounter turns him around completely. It makes him a different man.

The Person Who appears is called "the angel of the LORD." In the rest of this chapter He is identified with God Himself. Most Bible commentators agree that this angel is not a created being, but the Second Person of the Trinity, our Lord Jesus Christ before His incarnation. A comparison between Isaiah 6 and John 12:40,41 lends Biblical credence to this supposition.

Moses is drawn to the bush out of mere curiosity. He isn't looking for a spiritual experience. Yet, it isn't until Moses moves in God's direction that God calls him. It would be wrong to build a theological theory about the way God calls people upon this particular incident. There are cases in the Bible where God calls people who apparently have had no previous inclination toward religion. Abraham and Gideon could be mentioned. But we do not know anything about Abraham's previous life in Ur. Of Gideon we read that he was aware of the fact that God had revealed Himself in history before. Generally speaking it seems that there are usually some preparatory workings of God's Spirit in the life of persons whom He calls for certain tasks.

The burning bush was the turning point in Moses' life. Yet, in retrospect, as Moses got to know God better, he must have realized that God had been present in his life before. Without God's hand upon the little basket in the Nile he would have perished. Even when he "thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them,"[ 1 ] he was not completely mistaken.

My life was turned around during a Youth Retreat in Holland in 1950. Before that time I thought I was a Christian, but I did not know Christ. After my conversion, I started to realize that God had already been at work in my life. Such a realization does in no way diminish the revolutionary aspect of a conversion, but it puts it in the right perspective. Very often the Holy Spirit besieges the citadel of our heart until we are starved out and surrender.

Moses' call was as clear as any call can be. God called his name twice, "Moses, Moses!" Moses answers the call with "Here I am." Up to this point the dialogue does not differ from any human communication. Moses is intrigued, but he does not realize with whom he is dealing, or rather who is dealing with him. When the Word of God comes to a human being, it changes him. Jesus says that when the Word of God comes to people it makes them "gods."[ 2 ] When God descended upon the thorn bush, His presence turned the spot into holy ground. How much more will people, who were created in God's own image, be changed when God comes to them and speaks to them.

There is a difference, though, between mere material, a dead piece of ground, and a living human being. The transformation of the ground was instantaneous, the transformation in humans is gradual. The difference is in the human will which almost invariably puts up resistance. Moses' resistance is very obvious.

When we approach earthly monarchs, we have to observe the proper etiquette. One does not speak with royalty as with common people. The protocol to be observed when dealing with God is much more rigorous. God gives Moses two commands which should govern his behavior in His presence. First, he is not allowed to come close; secondly, he must take off his sandals. The distance to be kept is for Moses' own protection. Going too close and seeing too much of God's glory might have killed Moses. In ch. 33:20 God says to Moses: "You cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live." The sacrifice of Jesus on the cross has changed this all. With our sins forgiven by His blood and our lives covered with His righteousness, "we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus."[ 3 ] And Paul even says in Second Corinthians: "And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit."[ 4 ] This glorious privilege we have as New Testament Christians carries with it the danger that we become immune to God's holiness. Our eyes can become so blinded that we do not see the glory any longer. May God keep us from that curse.

Secondly, Moses is told to take off his sandals. It is customary in the East to take off shoes and sandals before entering a house. The reason for this is not a very flattering one. In Indonesia houses in a rural setting have no indoor plumbing. People use outhouses which are polluted and messy. They wear sandals to go outside, but upon entering the house those sandals and their pollution are left outside in order to keep the house clean. I do not think this is the reason for God's command to Moses. God's holiness cannot be polluted by human refuse. God wanted Moses' bare skin to actually contact His holiness in order to be transformed by it. On the one hand, Moses had to be protected from God's holiness by not going too close, and on the other hand, he had to touch it.

God reveals Himself to Moses as "the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob." I see no reason to interpret "your father" any other way than literally, that is "I am the God of your father Amram." After all it was through his father that Moses was a member of his people. We know nothing about Amram, but God identifies Himself with this man in the same way as with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

It is one thing, Moses discovered, to know about God from your father and another to meet God face to face. Children have the tendency to put their spiritual and cultural heritage in a category by itself: something only vaguely related to the real life they are facing. Many children feel they have to hack their own way through the jungle of life. Young people often stick together in this operation, without realizing that the ground they are covering had been covered before by previous generations. God wants His children to be aware of their heritage. Israel had to keep the memory of the facts of salvation alive. Most people do not know what to do with their own history until they focus upon God, receive His revelation and see the perspective. For Moses this was a crisis experience. "At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God."

In verses 7-10, God tries to share His burden about the people of Israel with Moses as part of his call. It turns out that God is infinitely more concerned about the people than Moses is.

God's thoughts and feelings are described in human terms for the benefit of Moses. It is hard for us to imagine what goes on in the mind of the eternal God. God wants us to know, however, that our thoughts and feelings are a reflection of His. God knew about the misery and suffering of His people centuries before. He mentions to Abraham that his descendants will be mistreated and suffer in a land that is not their own.[ 5 ] Israel's redemption was part of God's eternal plan of salvation. So in that sense of the word, God has not "seen" and "come down" as if He just discovered what was going on. But God wants Moses to see conditions as He sees them and to feel what He feels about the condition of people who are in bondage.

God's emotions about the condition of man are as far removed from our superficial reactions to suffering as time is from eternity. Jesus shared the depth of His feelings with His disciples. We read: "When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, 'The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.' "[ 6 ] The same feelings are expressed in John's Gospel: "Do you not say, 'Four months more and then the harvest'? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest." God wants us to "open our eyes and look at the fields."[ 7 ]

Where the NIV says "I am concerned about their suffering," the KJV and RSV probably give a better rendering by saying "I know their sorrows" and "I know their sufferings." God is concerned about human suffering because He has been a partaker of it. The Word became flesh. He partook of our human nature in our fallen bodies and suffered all the consequences of sin during His life on earth and at His awful death on the cross. He knows torture by experience. It is true that when God spoke to Moses Jesus' body had not gone through all of this in time and space, but for the eternal God that made no difference. The Lamb was slain before the foundation of the world.

God further says to Moses: "I have come down to rescue them." Here again, must more is implied than appears from the words. Salvation for mankind rests on the fact that God has come down. The deliverance of Israel from Egypt required that God Himself leave His heavenly glory and come to earth, not just to force Pharaoh to let God's people go, but to pour out His own life on earth for this salvation. The Exodus would have been impossible without the Passover lamb. Pharaoh had no inkling what was going on. His brazen statement in ch. 5:2: "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," shows that he talked without knowing. But the Prince of Darkness, his master, must have had some idea that God was going to the limit and farther in order to rescue His people. He probably understood that more and worse judgment was in store for him in the future.

Surely, Moses had very little idea at this point of the importance of the moment. Undoubtedly, he was familiar with the promise to Abraham in "To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates; The land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites." He must have known those words as a part of his people's heritage. Whether they had any practical meaning for him is doubtful. After all, the promise was about four hundred years old, about twice as ancient as the Constitution of the United States of America.

Not all of the inhabitants of Canaan God mentioned in the promise to Abraham are mentioned here. The Pulpit Commentary says about this: "The enumeration of the nations of Palestine here made is incomplete, five only of the ten whose land was promised to Abraham (Gen. xv. 19-21) being expressly mentioned. One, however, that of the Hivites, is added. We may suppose that they had succeeded to the Kenizzites or the Kadmonites of Abraham's time. The only important omission is that of the Girgashites, who hold their place in most other enumerations (Gen. x. 16: xv. 21; Deut. vii. 1; Josh. iii. 10; xxiv. 11, etc.), but seem to have been the least important of the 'seven nations,' and are omitted in Judg. iii. 5. ('Girgashites' is introduced in the Samaritan version and the Sept.)"

The Exodus of Israel from Egypt and their conquest of Canaan was part of a complex plan of God, not only for the redemption and rehabilitation of His people and the establishment of a point of reference on earth for His revelation, but also a judgment upon the sin of the people of Canaan. We have seen before that, for centuries, there were pockets of true religion in Canaan. Melchizedek knew God. Some of Abraham's friends may have worshipped God in truth; Abimelech of Philistea had some contorted knowledge. But even in Abraham's days, corruption had gotten to the point that God could not tolerate it any longer, as was the case in Sodom and Gomorrha. But God told Abraham that punishment of the whole nation would have to wait several centuries. "In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure."[ 8 ]

If we cannot see Israel's conquest of Canaan in this context, as a divine mandate to punish the sins of the nations, of the same order as the flood in the days of Noah, it would be nothing but a senseless genocide. Israel's conquest was justified by God, as we see in Joshua where God defeats the kings of Canaan by raining meteorites upon them and letting the sun stand still at Joshua's request.[ 9 ]

So God's plan of redemption for Israel is part of a scheme that spans the ages. It is also an image of the ultimate redemption and judgment at "the Day of the Lord" which is to come.

Then comes the ultimate call: "So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt." This call comes to Moses as the shock of his life. Of the old vision from forty years ago, nothing is left. As far as spiritual ambitions are concerned, Moses is a dead man. The only thing in him that is still alive is his resistance. Moses argues five times with God.

He tries to convince God that He is calling the wrong person. In ch. 3:11 he counters the call by saying: "Who am I?" In ch. 3:13 he tells God to imagine the situation in Egypt. Nobody will believe that he has had a divine revelation. In ch. 4:1 he basically repeats the same argument: Nobody will believe me. In ch. 4:10 he comes back to his first excuse; his own person, and he points out to God his handicap: "Slow of speech and tongue." Finally, in ch. 4:13 he flatly refuses the call.

The amazing thing is that Moses feels that he will not be able to stand up against Pharaoh, but he does not hesitate to argue with the Almighty. Moses' first reaction was in ch. 3:11 - "Who I am?" There is a sense in which the question is quite appropriate. It is the most fundamental question anyone can ask at any time. But it is the presence of God that stimulated the question more than anything else. Sin has erased the defining lines of our existence. Only the presence of God, in Whose image we are molded, brings back the realization that we are derived from His being and related to His Person.

But it isn't in this sense that Moses is asking himself the question. Moses uses it as an excuse. He puts himself on the basis of his insufficiency to prove to God that God does not know him and does not understand the situation. Otherwise God wouldn't use him for such a task. In this attitude of Moses, there traces of realism and humility. In his self-evaluation he finds himself insufficient. But then the requirement never was that he would act on the basis of his own resources. Moses could have quoted Paul: "Who is equal to such a task?"[ 10 ] Paul answers his own question, where God answers Moses': "Our competence comes from God."[ 11 ] This is the deepest lesson any Christian can learn.

It is propaganda from hell that made us lose the sense of our identity. It is only in God's presence and in fellowship with Him that we become what we are. And we are much more than we suspect. The key to self-discovery is in obedience. Jesus said: "Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me."[ 12 ] D.L. Moody heard someone say: "The world hasn't seen yet what God can do through a man who is wholly dedicated to Him." Moody answered: "By the grace of God, I want to be that man!" At this point Moses says: "I will not!"

There comes a point in Moses' life where he understands clearly what the grace of God has done in his life. We read in Numbers: "Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth."[ 13 ] What other attitude could one have in the presence of the Lord?! In another instance, however, he completely forgot who he was. Later we read: "He and Aaron gathered the assembly together in front of the rock and Moses said to them, 'Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?' Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank. But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, 'Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.' "[ 14 ]

The root of our rebellion against God may be deeply buried in our life; it does not die until we do. And we appear to be clever in manipulating it. We can use it to obey or to refuse, to elevate ourselves or to humble ourselves. Paul wraps the whole complex of the elements together under the term "the flesh."

Here Moses says to God, "I am not big enough for the job." And God answers: "True, but I am!" God's answer to our inability is, "I will be with you."

This promise should have closed the conversation and finished the matter, but it did not. Sin has made us worse than blind. Jesus assures us: "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, And teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."[ 15 ] We act as if it does not make the slightest difference.

The problem with the presence of God is that it is not visible to the naked eye. The writer to the Hebrews says about Moses: "he persevered because he saw him who is invisible."[ 16 ] And Peter quotes David by saying: "'I saw the Lord always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken."[ 17 ]

The Lord is with us and there is a way to know it, but it is not by means of sensual experience. It is through a faculty we possess, but which needs development. We can see Him only with the eye of our soul. Or, as C.S. Lewis says in his book with the same title: "How can we meet the Gods face to face, till we have faces?"[ 18 ]

The sign God promised Moses is not what we would call a sign. God didn't think that Moses needed a physical token to remind him that God had spoken to him. He would never afterward doubt his senses and think that he had been hallucinating. When God speaks to you, you know it. Gideon asked for a sign. We read in Judges how Gideon brought the angel of the Lord some food and then, when he realized Who had talked to him, he was afraid he would die.[ 19 ] Thomas thought he needed confirmation with physical signs, but when he saw the risen Lord, he received an assurance that went beyond any confirmation by the senses.[ 20 ] Our senses are not robust enough to face the ultimate reality of God's presence. We either fall down and worship or we flee, only to find out that there is no place to hide.[ 21 ]

When God speaks about a sign He speaks about the ultimate reality of His presence for all the people of Israel. "You will worship God on this mountain." "You" is plural.

The call of the Lord is always linked to His presence. God never calls us and then He sends us out in the cold. When God says to Moses: "So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt," He also says: "I will be with you." In the same way Jesus says: "Therefore go .....And surely I will be with you always."[ 22 ] Obeying God's call means following the Lamb wherever He goes.[ 23 ] God goes always before us. We are not leading, but following.

In spite of the fact that Moses shows signs of genuine humility when he says: "Who am I?" the assurance of God's presence makes no real impact on his mind. He keeps his eyes on himself instead of on God; hence his continuing objections to his call. God's assurance should have finished the matter, but it did not. We should say, fortunately not; because God answers Moses' second objection with one of the greatest statements of the whole Bible.

It sounds like an academic question that the Israelites would ask for the Name of God. What Moses is actually saying in vs. 13 is: "Who am I speaking with?" We can hardly suppose that Moses had any doubts himself. Moses plays a very dangerous game. Asking for God's Name means asking for His character. To ask that question with ulterior motives, in a dishonest way, can be very dangerous. Pharaoh asked: "Who is the LORD that I would obey Him?" (ch. 5:2). The question cost him his life. Moses' motives are not fundamentally different from Pharaoh's. He asks for God's Name in order to avoid obeying the call. Yet God answers him seriously. God takes all our questions seriously, even the ones we do not intend to be taken seriously. "I AM WHO I AM."

Adam Clarke comments here: "I AM THAT I AM. Eheyeh asher eheyeh. These words have been variously understood. The Vulgate translates, 'I am who I am.' The Septuagint, 'I am he who exists.' The Syriac, the Persic and the Chaldee preserve the original words without any gloss. The Arabic paraphrases them, 'The Eternal, who passes not away.' As the original words literally signify 'I will be what I will be'; some have supposed that God simply designed to inform Moses that what He had been to His fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, He would be to him and to the Israelites; and that He would perform the promises He had made to his fathers by giving their descendants the Promised land. It is difficult to put a meaning to these words; they seem intended to point out the eternity and self-existence of God."

Jesus explains the content of the Name best in John's Gospel, where He speaks of the Father having "life in Himself."[ 24 ] All created life is dependent upon an outside source for its existence. God is self-existent in His un-created life. He is the source of life, according to David: "For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light."[ 25 ] Jesus also identified Himself with the "I AM." Not only do we read in the Gospel of John the seven I AM's - but in John, He makes this astounding statement: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am."[ 26 ] The Jews were so afraid to use the expression "I am" for fear of using "The Name of the Lord in vain" that they refrained from saying the words. In reading the Tetragrammaton YHWH they substituted "Adonai" for "Yahweh." The Name YHWH, Yahweh or Jehovah is not easily defined. In Smith's Bible Dictionary we read: "The true pronunciation of this name, by which God was know to the Hebrews, has been entirely lost, the Jews themselves scrupulously avoiding every mention of it ...."

The fact that the Name is used throughout the Pentateuch should not be seen as a problem. Accepting the fact that Moses is the author, we recognize that he did not write the book of Genesis before God's revelation to him in ch. 3:14. The first mention of YHWH is in Genesis. "The LORD God"[ 27 ] is the English translation of YHWH Elohim. The choice of LORD, which is only distinct from Lord by its capitalization is very unfortunate. Jehovah God, as the RSV translates it, has at least the merit of making a distinction. To cut up the Pentateuch according to the use of the name in Jehovist and Elohist sources, as the Higher Criticism tried to do, is sheer speculation.

Actually it is too bad that one gets so easily sidetracked at the reading of this verse, which is one of the peaks of revelation. It has been said that all theology starts with Exodus 3:14, the revelation of God to Moses and to us as the I AM. Our own existence is a mystery to us. We do not understand ourselves because we do not understand existence. We make progress if we grasp the fact that we are because HE IS. Standing at the edge of his life and looking into the abyss of death, contemplating the possibility of suicide, Hamlet said: "To be or not to be, that is the question." God gives the answer to Moses in saying "I AM." How God's "I AM" has its bearing upon our existence is revealed in Jesus' words to John in Revelations: "I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades."[ 28 ]

There is an infectious exuberance in Jesus' words: "And behold I am alive for ever and ever." Jesus speaks as a man. Speaking as God He could not say, "I was dead." Jesus says to John, "Look what the Eternal 'I AM' did to this created body!" The joy of it is explosive. It begins with God saying to Moses: "I AM" and the end result will be that we will be like Him, because we will see Him as He is.[ 29 ]

It sounds so simple, "I AM." There is nothing more fundamental. It is too simple for us to grasp. At the same time it is not mere existence, but existence to the uttermost. God is "I AM" in the infinite eternal sense of the word; limitless quantity and limitless quality.

"I AM WHO I AM" also indicates that God can only be compared with Himself. He is incomparable. He can only be measured by His own standards. Anything or anybody put next to God for comparison is always measured by Him, never the other way around. Nobody can judge God. I believe that is the theme of the book Job. The confrontation between God and Satan in which Job is caught is incidental. The real issue is the Person and character of God. Once Job acknowledges God as the Creator, he is healed. God is, first of all, God and then Redeemer. That is the message Moses receives. We tend to reverse the order because we do not start to know God until we are redeemed. It is after we have been taken hold of by Jesus Christ that we want to take hold of Him, as Paul says in Philippians.[ 30 ]

In spite of the depth of this revelation, Moses remains unimpressed. It isn't until much later that he will say: "Now show me your glory" (ch. 33:18).

We do not know how much Adam, in his sinless state, grasped of the Person and character of God. The fact that there was a Tree of Life, of which he never ate, would indicate that he had not come to a place of spiritual maturity when he ate of the tree that had been forbidden. Once he fell into sin, his ability to understand died completely. In Moses' case we see how hard it is, even for the omnipotent God to penetrate the death in man's soul. Although Moses was afraid to look at God, he was much more overawed by the finite power of Pharaoh than by the eternal power of the living God. Sin makes us lose touch with reality.

In the rest of this chapter, God shows Moses, with infinite patience, what will happen when he arrives in Egypt. First, he has to talk to the elders and then they will go, as a committee, to Pharaoh and present him with a proposal which is a test-case. But first of all, Moses has to identify to the people that YHWH is the source of his mission and that He is the God of history: their history.

We cannot read these verses without making mention of the way Jesus quoted them: "But about the resurrection of the dead; have you not read what God said to you, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? He is not the God of the dead but of the living."[ 31 ]

Moses is sent to the house of death that is to Egypt, with this message of life. In our thinking, history is what happened to the dead. God's history is "Heilsgeschichte," history of salvation from death. If God is the God of history, He is, according to Jesus' words, in the first place, the God of Life.

Secondly, He is the God of promise. That is why Paul can say: "For no matter how many promises God has made, they are 'Yes' in Christ. And so through him the 'Amen' is spoken by us to the glory of God."[ 32 ] Israel had to understand not only Who God is, but also the intrinsic value of His promise to them. The exodus from Egypt and entrance into Canaan was not a hastily conceived plan of convenience. It was a plan drawn up in eternity, part of an eternal covenant that included the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

"This is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation" (vs. 15). Not every generation experiences sensational facts of salvation. It took two generations to bring Israel out of Egypt into Canaan. The third generation, which was born in Canaan started to forget immediately what happened to their ancestors. When Aaron's grandson, Phinehas was still priest,[ 33 ] we read: "In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit."[ 34 ] God wants His Name to be remembered by every generation. But man looks only at himself when he comes into the world. He is too proud to look behind him to see where he came from; and if he does, it is with derision and with the notion that the fathers didn't know a thing. There is very little hope for people who do not read history.

God wants Moses to impress upon the people of Israel that what is happening to them is a link in the chain of history that began with the call to Abraham to leave Ur and live in Canaan as a stranger and then the conquest of Canaan and its inheritance by Israel. Now it is important for man to see where his place in the plan of God is and to surrender to the Lord in order to fit into this place. Very few people do this. Our life span is short, and it is very hard for us to see beyond the limits of our life back into history and forward into eschatology. Consequently, we have very little notion of the slot we fit into. This is complicated by our own ambitions. Paul's injunction is generally applicable: "For everyone looks out for his own interests, not those of Jesus Christ."[ 35 ]

Moses caught that vision, so did Joshua and David and the apostle Paul. But the only one who fully knew who He was and why He had come is our Lord Jesus Christ. He never got bogged down in the details and difficulties of His life on earth. Every instance was judged in the light of eternity. Although, for obvious reasons, we cannot fully emulate His example, we can keep it in mind and come back to it. Solomon says: "Where there is no vision, the people perish."[ 36 ]

Moses was to unfold the whole of God's plan so people would know why they were leaving and where they were going. Christians should know this too.

Moses is assured by God that this time the people will recognize God's call upon his life. Moses had been rebuffed forty years earlier and had, evidently, never completely overcome his failure. Now things are different. God had said: "I will be with you." Therefore the people would accept God's encounter with Moses as a revelation to the whole nation of Israel. Otherwise they would never say: "The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us" (Vs.18).

It sounds as if the proposal to Pharaoh was to be a test-case. "Let us take a three-day journey into the desert to offer sacrifices to the LORD, our God." According to Adam Clarke, however, the distance from Goshen to Sinai could be covered in three days by normal travel over the shortest route. So there was no deception in the proposal.

Also Pharaoh's refusal is predicted. So the Israelites would have no reason to lose heart when things would get worse instead of better. The series of miraculous plagues is announced, although the content of the plagues was not revealed, only the end result. Israel knew that the enemy would not give up without a struggle. It would become more obvious that their struggle was "not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."[ 37 ] Although the Lord tells them clearly, in ch. 12:12, that the judgment is upon "all the gods of Egypt," I do not think this fact ever penetrated the heart of the people of Israel. They never understood who the real enemy was. Had their eyes been open to the spiritual issue, they would have reacted differently, but they remained in bondage even after they gained their liberty.

Finally, the Lord revealed to Moses that the general populace of Egypt would sympathize with the cause of Israel and that the people would receive payment for their slave-labor. God would not allow them to leave Egypt empty handed. They did not leave as slaves and paupers but as free people, well dressed and well provided for. Most of all, they would have enough silver, gold and jewels to build the tabernacle, and enough to bring sacrifices to the Lord. The sad thing is that they gave their first sacrifice of gold for the Golden Calf. Everything God told Moses here is a clear picture of our salvation in Jesus Christ.

[ 1 ] Acts 7:25

[ 2 ] John 10:34,35

[ 3 ] Heb. 10:19

[ 4 ] II Cor. 3:18

[ 5 ] Gen. 15:13-16

[ 6 ] Matt. 9:36-38

[ 7 ] John 4:35

[ 8 ] Gen. 15:16

[ 9 ] Joshua 10:11-14

[ 10 ] II Cor. 2:16

[ 11 ] II Cor. 3:5

[ 12 ] John 12:26

[ 13 ] Num. 12:3

[ 14 ] Num. 20:10-12

[ 15 ] Matt. 28: 18-20

[ 16 ] Heb. 11:27

[ 17 ] Acts 2:25

[ 18 ] C. S. Lewis – Till we have faces

[ 19 ] Judges 6:17-24

[ 20 ] See John 20:26-28

[ 21 ] See Rev. 20:11

[ 22 ] Matt. 28:19,20

[ 23 ] Rev. 14:4

[ 24 ] John 5:26

[ 25 ] Ps. 36:9

[ 26 ] John 8:58 (KJV).

[ 27 ] Gen. 2:4

[ 28 ] Rev. 1:18

[ 29 ] I John 3:2

[ 30 ] Phil. 3:12

[ 31 ] Matt. 22:31,32

[ 32 ] II Cor. 1:20

[ 33 ] Judges 20:28

[ 34 ] Judges 21:25

[ 35 ] Phil. 2:21

[ 36 ] Prov. 29:18 (KJV)

[ 37 ] Eph. 6:12