Exodus 05

Updated
2001-05-26; 14:31:18utc

The confrontation

After consulting with the elders of the people, Moses and Aaron asked for an audience with Pharaoh. Probably a small delegation of elders accompanied them.

About this Pharaoh The Pulpit Commentary says: "According to the bulk of modern authorities, and according to our own views of Egyptian history, this was Menephthah, the son and successor of Rameses II. Menephthah was a weak prince, whom events had favored, and who had been thus led to have an exalted opinion of himself. A great invasion of Egypt had occurred at the beginning of his reign, which had been met and completely repulsed, not by his own skill or valor, but by the skill and valor of his generals. Menephthah himself had pointedly avoided incurring any danger. He claimed to be in direct communication with the Egyptian gods, who revealed themselves to him in visions, and pleaded a distinct command of Phtah as preventing him from putting himself at the head of his army. Still, he counted as his own all the successes gained by his generals, and was as vainglorious and arrogant as if he had himself performed prodigies of valor. Such was the temper of the king before whom we believe that Moses and Aaron appeared."

The above analysis seems quite plausible. There is no doubt about Pharaoh's arrogance. Arrogance is often a cover-up for insecurity or lack of self-worth. This feature would explain Pharaoh's overreaction to the request.

Moses and Aaron present their cause with divine authority. "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the desert." Those words are probably a condensation of the more extended version that God gave to Moses before he arrived in Egypt. In ch. 4:22,23 God told Moses to say: "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." Most likely those words were spoken during this first audience. Moses and Aaron did not come to plead a cause, but to present God's case to the enemy. This was not a request but a confrontation. In the same way Jesus showed His authority over the demons He cast out. People recognized this authority, as we read: "The crowds were amazed at his teaching, because he taught as one who had authority.…"[ 1 ]

Moses and Aaron spoke in the Name of YHWH. "Thus saith the LORD God of Israel ...." (KJV). Pharaoh may have understood more than we would give him credit for. The Name Yahweh may have been new to him; the concept of a Lord of heaven and earth certainly was not. His daily devotion may have been to local deities, but the knowledge of the Almighty surely had not died at this point in history. Pharaoh may have thought it impossible that the Supreme Being would pay attention to a people the Egyptians used as their slaves. He probably considered Moses' claim to speak for Yahweh as a preposterous boast. We should not lose sight of the relationship between the Egyptians and the Israelites. For a nation of slaves to call upon the Most High and then claim to have received a revelation from Him was probably incredible in Pharaoh's eyes. God would have spoken to the important people first. A revelation of Yahweh to Israel would be highly insulting to Egypt.

Then there is the ludicrous contrast between their condition of slavery and their request for a feast. Not only did these people claim to have received a revelation from the God Who is above all, but they also pretended that God wanted them to have a feast with Him. He believed that these people should be emotional wrecks who should be able to talk about nothing but suffering and misery. And here God had invited them to a feast! This is the same kind of mockery that God had demonstrated in Bethlehem, where the Lord of glory was born in a stable and where His glory was revealed to a bunch of poor shepherds, the lowest cast of all, while the royal palace and the upper-ten were left out of the picture. This divine revelation must have grated on Pharaoh just as much as it did Herod.

A seventeenth century Dutch poet once said: "Heaven chooses that which is small. He who is born again in humility belongs to the heavenly generation."[ 2 ] God mocks human greatness, not because He does not love man, but because great men mock Him.

So Pharaoh answered: "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." As we said before, this question was fatal for him. Even if he had no personal knowledge, he should not have dismissed the request as he did. His master knew Who was talking and Pharaoh should have checked with him. James says: "You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that; and shudder."[ 3 ]

In a way, of course, Pharaoh spoke the truth when he said, "I do not know the LORD." He certainly did not know God in the sense pf which Jesus speaks in John's Gospel: "Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent."[ 4 ] But it seems impossible to me that the Egyptians of the second millennium before Christ would have lost every trace of knowledge of an Almighty God, the Creator. Four millennia later we discovered that the Stone Age tribes people of Irian Jaya (formerly Dutch New Guinea) still preserved knowledge of the Creator "Ugatame." If Balaam knew Him, why not Pharaoh?

So Pharaoh was defiant and refused the request offhand. This did not deter Moses and Aaron, who continued to explain that if Pharaoh would not willingly let the people go, he might lose them in a different way "with plagues or with the sword." Pharaoh should have paid attention to this point, because "the sword" would mean that his country could be invaded by an outside enemy. The Pulpit Commentary quotes Brugsch in History of Egypt which says: "The eastern frontier of Egypt was at this time very open to invasion, and was actually threatened by a vast army some ten or fifteen years later."

The request for a three-day journey into the desert was part of the mandate God had given to Moses in the previous chapter. We saw already that this implied a trip to Mount Sinai. Pharaoh must have understood the intent. The animal sacrifices the Israelites would make would include animals that were considered holy or divine by the Egyptians. It would be impossible to kill a holy cow of Egypt without repercussions from the Egyptian priests and probably from the population at large.

Pharaoh must have shouted his answer: "Moses and Aaron, why are you taking the people away from their labor? Get back to your work!" That his anger is based upon fear is clear from the following verse. It is almost a cry of despair when he says: "Look, the people of the land are now numerous, and you are stopping them from working." He surely must have regretted those words because they indicate that he was not in control of the situation. That is why he overreacted to the request and made his own situation more difficult. By hardening his heart he comes to the point where God hardens his heart.

All this means that Pharaoh put himself in a position of weakness, although his position should have made him the stronger one in this situation.

The empire strikes back! In vs. 6 - 9 we read that Pharaoh issued an executive order to withhold straw from the slaves, demanding that they gather it themselves, and that the daily quota continue to be filled. The Pulpit Commentary, quoting Canon Cook, says: "It has been estimated that by this change their labour was 'more than doubled.' " The straw, which must have been used to give consistency to the clay, was provided for them before. It seems that the labour required still left the Israelites some spare time. The Pulpit Commentary says: "They had been able, apparently, to cultivate their own plots of ground (Deut. xi.10), to raise crops of cucumbers, melons, leeks onions, and garlic (Num. xi. 5), to catch fish (ibid.), and attend public meetings (Ex. iv. 30,31) They had, in fact, had time which they could call their own. Now this was to be so no more." By making life impossible for the Israelites, Pharaoh gave them an effective weapon. Even those who would not have been too interested in leaving Egypt for Canaan would no longer be willing to stay.

This passage also indicates how efficient the Egyptians were in their exploitation of the Israelites. Every day the number of bricks produced was counted and written down. There was a set quota that had to be met. Efficiency was, evidently, not invented by the Germans. That is why Jesus, in the parable of the dishonest manager, uses a crook as an example. "For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light."[ 5 ]

Pharaoh's verdict is that the people of Israel are inclined toward religion because of laziness. Vs. 8 reads: "They are lazy; that is why they are crying out, 'Let us go and sacrifice to our God.' " Not even Pharaoh himself could have believed this, but it gives us an interesting insight in the way the devil thinks and operates. He knows that extreme fatigue is not conducive to fellowship with God. Since he tries to push people to the point of exhaustion, we need to be aware of this danger in order to protect our own spiritual life. There is no danger in hard work, but if we work to the point that our spirit is too exhausted to hear the voice of God, there is something wrong with our life. God had to deal with Elijah concerning this matter. We read that Elijah went into a depression, and God let him undergo a sleeping cure and afterwards a six-week trek to bring him to an experience with God so that he could again hear the voice of the Lord.[ 6 ] In our own lives, we are not always the master of our time, but even if we were, we would probably not always make the wisest decisions.

Pharaoh did not consider the Israelites to be human beings with souls that needed nourishment. He wanted to use their bodies to work. At the death camps in Nazi Germany the inmates were treated in the same manner. Those from whom some labor could be extracted were worked till they succumbed; those that gave no promise of productivity we herded to the gas chambers. Jesus correctly calls the devil "a murderer from the beginning."[ 7 ]

But, most of all, Pharaoh's order was a direct defiance to God. Dismissing the proclamation of Moses and Aaron, "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the desert,' " as "lies" was an act that went against what he must have known to be the truth. His guilt was much greater than is apparent on the surface.

In the verses 10 and 11 we read that the order was passed on to the people of Israel by the "slave drivers and the foremen." The slave drivers were Egyptians, but the foremen were chosen from among the Israelites. Initially the seriousness of the order did not penetrate. The people thought that the idea to withhold straw and require the same quota of bricks originated with the slave drivers. The foremen were beaten when the quota was not met. It wasn't until those men requested an audience with Pharaoh and heard the same thing from Pharaoh himself, that reality penetrated. And so the leaders of Israel turned to Moses and Aaron. If this is salvation, who wants to be saved. Moses and Aaron didn't have the answer, so they turned to the Lord.

If we preach salvation to people as the end of all their troubles, we mislead them and sin against the Lord. Life becomes harder after conversion, not easier. Unless we understand this, we will give up. We should never underestimate the enemy, but neither should we underestimate the power of God. Jesus emphasizes the hardship of those who hear the Gospel in the parable of the sower. In Matthew's Gospel we read about the seed of the Word: "Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. .... The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away."[ 8 ] Jesus' words imply that the Gospel and persecution go together. The seed that bore fruit did not yield a crop because there was no hardship, but it produced a good crop because the ground had been well prepared and broken up.

Moses brought a message of salvation, and the people enjoyed listening to it; but when the empire struck back, they blamed Moses and God. We have no trouble understanding this attitude. Very few young Christians escape the trap the evil one sets for us. We accept the Gospel; the devil strikes back and says: "You see what God does when you invite Him into your life!" Salvation is not easy. The door is small and the road is narrow. Unless we recognize the danger signs when there is no persecution, we easily end up where we do not want to go.

The people blamed Moses as the source of their trouble. He should have left them alone. The fact that they were slaves and that their children were taken from them and killed was, conveniently, forgotten for the time being. They said to Moses: "May the LORD look upon you and judge you! You have made us a stench to Pharaoh and his officials and have put a sword in their hand to kill us." What made them think that they were ever a sweet smell to Pharaoh and that he didn't intend to kill them.

Pharaoh's counter attack provoked a crisis in Moses' own heart. He did the only thing a child of God can do; he handed the matter back to God. We cannot say, though, that Moses was victorious in the way he dealt with this matter. But at this stage we could hardly expect that Moses' understanding would be sufficient to take the apparent defeat in stride.

It was not that God had not warned him. In ch. 3:19,20 God had told Moses: "But I know that the king of Egypt 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." And in ch. 4:21-23 we read that God says to him: "When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. Then say to Pharaoh, '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.' " God had told him what to expect, but when what was predicted happened, Moses was caught by surprise. Taking the Word of God seriously is a growing process. We have to learn to use the Word of God as a weapon, as Jesus did when Satan tempted Him in the desert. Moses had seen God as nobody else in his generation had, but he did not believe what God said.

Yet, there was something good and spontaneous in his reaction to the terror that was released over Israel. First of all, it did not leave him unmoved. The people to whom he had brought the message of salvation held him personally responsible for the increase in hardship and persecution. That seems a natural reaction. It does not show much spiritual understanding, but we understand why the people reacted this way. They saw both the cause and effect as coming from Moses. They did not even blame God, but Moses. Moses, however, knew that he was not to be blamed. He had only obeyed orders, so he put the blame at God's feet. He reproached God that there was a counter attack. God had promised salvation, but where was it?

Very often God is blamed for what the devil does in this world. "If God is love ...."; Moses says the same things that Job had said. We have to distinguish between the sources; otherwise, nothing will make sense.

But imagine the situation. Moses came with the promise of redemption of the people, and the next thing he knew was that some of them were beaten before his very eyes because of this message. Who would not be confused, and question: Where is God when it hurts? Why do not God's promises make sense?

Accepting the Gospel makes life harder, not easier, at least not in the short run. The perspective is important, but we are short sighted people. Does not the eternal God understand that we cannot see that far. But then, can't we believe God Who sees the end from the beginning?

[ 1 ] Matt. 7:28,29

[ 2 ] (Joost van den Vondel - "De hemel heeft het kleen verkoren. Al wie door ootmoed is herboren, is van het hemelse geslacht."

[ 3 ] James 2:19

[ 4 ] John 17:3

[ 5 ] Luke 16:8

[ 6 ] I Kings 19:4-18

[ 7 ] John 8:44

[ 8 ] Matt. 13:5,6,20,21