Essentials of Exodus - Lesson 2

The book of Exodus is a story of God rescuing his people from slavery. Everybody knows that. But what many people don't realize is that the book of Exodus actually has two rescue stories side by side.

And these two rescue stories have all sorts of cool parallels. So we have the rescue of Moses followed by the rescue of the Israelites. And the parallels between them help us to know how to interpret different sections of the book.

So think about the parallels here. Moses, as an infant, is under threat of death by Pharaoh. His mother saves him by putting him in the reeds in the river.

Then he's drawn out and rescued from that watery place. Later, he's under threat of death from Pharaoh again. He flees across the wilderness.

He ends up at Mount Sinai, where he encounters God's presence on the in a very dramatic way. And God tells him, go, I'm sending you back to Egypt. He commissions him for service.

And then that kicks off the second rescue story, where the whole nation is under threat of death by Pharaoh. And God rescues them by bringing them through the sea of reeds. They cross the wilderness.

They end up at Mount Sinai, where they experience God's self-revelation in all its glory. And what would we expect to happen next? If it matches the first story, then what we would expect next is God to commission them into his service. And in fact, that's exactly what he does.

And that's right at the part where we get to the Old Testament law. And most of us as Christians do not think of Old law as something that Israel did to carry out God's mission. We tend to think of the law as here's what the Israelites had to do to get saved.

And we don't need that anymore because we've got Jesus and we're saved by grace through faith. But that's not actually how it worked, is it? God did not come. God did not send Moses to the border of Egypt with two stone tablets to tell them, Hey guys, good news.

I can get you out of here as long as you can prove to me that you have kept all of these rules. And those of you who've kept the rules I'm going to rescue. And those of you who haven't, well, work on it, clean up your life.

Maybe I'll come back around again and you'll have a turn. That's not what he does. He rescues everyone without doing an audit on their homes to find out if they've got any idols.

He brings them to Mount Sinai. God says, you are my people, my treasured possession. You're a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

Now here's how I want you to live. And the law is the how to live now that you've been made God's people. It's not how to become God's people.

And so when we see the two rescue stories side by side and kind of watch the narrative logic, it helps us know what to do with the old Testament law. And it helps to clarify what it's doing and what it's not doing for the people of Israel. There are all sorts of things that we could say about these early chapters.

One of the big questions in the story of the rescue of Moses is the question of his identity. Who is he and where does he belong? And that's also the, the question God is answering for the people as a whole. When they show up at Mount Sinai, who are they and where do they, to whom do they belong? They belonged to Pharaoh, but they are going to belong to Yahweh.

And he, as he places his claim on them, it shapes their sense of identity. So let's think about Moses for a moment, because this rescue of Moses is so fascinating. You know that he's born to a Hebrew mother.

He's from the tribe of Levi, but within months he's put in the river and drawn out by the daughter of Pharaoh, grows up in an Egyptian household. How old is he when he flees to Midian? We don't know, but he, when he arrives in Midian, he marries a Midianite woman and becomes enfolded in a Midianite community. There are some clues that Moses isn't sure where he fits.

He's having identity issues. So for example, when he, when he goes out, the narrator tells us in chapter two, one day after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. Now this is the narrator talking.

We don't know if Moses knows that these are his people. Did his adoptive mother tell him you're actually a Hebrew or did she not? Was that like kept on down low? We're not sure, but the narrator's letting us know that Moses is watching his own people and he sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people, looking this way and that and seeing no one. He killed the Egyptian and hit him in the sand.

The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew? And the man said, who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian? Then Moses was afraid and thought what I did must have become known. So already in this scene, he's not being received by the Hebrews and he's no longer safe among the Egyptians because Pharaoh tries to kill him.

So, so Moses flees to Midian and he ends up at a well where he comes to the rescue of these female shepherdesses and waters their flock. Now in the book of Genesis, when a man shows up at a well, by the end of the scene, he's married. That's how it works in the book of Genesis.

So when Moses shows up at a well, we would expect he's about to get married. And in fact he is. But there's a missing element in the other stories of a man who shows up at a well, they introduce themselves and Moses apparently doesn't because when the women go to talk to their father, they tell him an Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds.

So they ascribe an identity to him as an Egyptian, but Moses doesn't say it. At least it's not recorded that he says that he's an Egyptian. So, you know, there was something about him, maybe his accent, maybe his clothing, maybe he just looked like an Egyptian.

Then when he marries the daughter of Reuel, Zipporah, verse 22 says Zipporah gave birth to a son and Moses named him Gershom, which is a compound word in Hebrew meaning foreigner there. And he says, because I have become a foreigner in a foreign land. And it's not clear what he means by this.

Does he mean he feels like a foreigner in Midian? That's fair. He is a foreigner in Midian. Or does he mean, is he thinking back to that moment in Egypt where having been raised in the royal household as a son of privilege, he becomes a foreigner to the Egyptians when they try to kill him? Or is he, did he grow up knowing he was really a Hebrew, but the Hebrews don't want to have anything to do with him.

And so he became a foreigner to them. He doesn't really belong anywhere. Nobody fully adopts him.

So it's remarkable to me that the moment that God encounters Moses, he resolves the question of Moses' identity. In chapter three, he's tending the flock of his father-in-law, the priest of Midian and appears at the Mountain of God. It's here called Horeb, later called Sinai.

Probably either Horeb is the region and Sinai is the mountain or the name Horeb switches to Sinai later because the bush that's flaming and not burning up is a Sinai bush. So probably the name of the bush then catches on with the name, they renamed the mountain after the bush, Sinai, Sinai. Anyway, he walks over to see the bush and God calls to him from within the bush, Moses, Moses.

And Moses says, here I am. Do not come any closer. God said, take off your sandals for the place where you are standing is holy ground.

And then he said, I am the God of your father, which is a little bit different than how God usually introduces himself. He quite often says this phrase, but he says, usually I'm the God of your fathers, plural. Here it's singular.

I am the God of your father. Moses probably has three of them. This doesn't really narrow it down, like which one, which that's precisely what he's trying to figure out.

Who am I and where do I belong? But God says, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. And I love the way that in one moment, God identifies which deity is speaking. Moses would have been familiar with many deities having grown up in Egypt where, you know, you can get a whole big fat book of all the deities of Egypt that they worship.

So who's talking out of the bush? How would you know? But not only is it clarifying who's talking to him, it's the God of Abraham, but he says, I'm the God of your father, which means he's also clarifying where Moses belongs. And in the same moment, Moses discovers his identity through God's self-revelation. And I actually think that's always how it works.

If we want to know who we are, we can't know ourselves fully outside of knowing the one who made us and the one who tells us who we are. We can go on our own side quest to try to figure it out, but until we come face to face with the God of Abraham, we don't really know. So God clarifies his identity here.

If we fast forward to chapter 19, we see that when Israel shows up at the mountain, the very first thing that God says to them is this, chapter 19, verse 3, this is what you are to say to the descendants of Jacob and what you are to tell the people of Israel. You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt and how I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. Now, if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations, you will be my treasured possession.

Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. They're finding out at the mountain who God is and what his intentions are for the world and also who they are and how they fit into these purposes. So they're his kingdom of priests, a holy nation, God's treasured possession.

So in both in both rescue stories in the book of Exodus, we have some identity negotiation, some figuring out who I am and who we are. And we also have tests. There's tests of allegiance for Moses as God commissions him to go back to Egypt.

And Moses is not that interested in going. Um, it's interesting. Right after God introduces himself, he says, I have, this is chapter three, verse seven.

I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers. And I am concerned about their suffering.

And if I'm Moses right now, I'm feeling pretty good. Like, oh good. Someone else noticed there was a problem back there in Egypt.

I tried to take care of it and it didn't work, but I'm glad God's going to do something about that. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey, the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them.

So now go, I'm sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites out of Egypt. And at this moment, Moses is still, even though he's just heard he belongs to the Hebrews, he's still having some identity issues. And he says, who am I? Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt? And I love the way God responds because he could have at this point answered with a list of his qualifications.

Well, Moses, think about it. You are a Hebrew. You speak Egyptian.

You grew up in the palace, so you probably understand diplomacy. You read and write. You've been living out here in the wilderness.

You know how to find food and water. Like you are actually uniquely qualified for this job. But that is not how God responds.

He doesn't get out Moses' CV and start reading his qualifications. He says in response to his question, who am I that I should go to Pharaoh? God says, I will be with you. I will be with you.

And that's the only qualification Moses needs is the presence of God with him. And that's going to be a big theme throughout the book of Exodus is God's presence. And it's God's presence among us that makes us who we are in both individually and collectively as God's people.

This will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you. When you've brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain. This is a kind of a test.

It's not the kind of sign I would have liked at this point if I were Moses. Here's the sign that it's really me that I'm talking to you after you've obeyed me and you've been successful and you bring the people back, you'll end up here again, which means you won't get the sign fulfilled until you obey first. It's not like a proof that it's going to happen.

It's sort of a glimpse of what the future might look like, but it still requires Moses to go through this challenging obedience. And Moses is still not so sure about this. And so he goes through several more objections.

Well, suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, the God of your fathers has sent me to you. Notice he's not quite identifying himself with them. He doesn't say the God of our fathers has sent me to you.

He says, the God of your fathers has sent me to you. He's, I don't know if he's just nervous about them being like, why are you including yourself in us? Like you don't, you're not one of us. You don't belong.

Or if he's still not sure he belongs. And they asked me, what is his name? Then what shall I tell them? And here God reveals his name to Moses. There's debate about whether his name was already known before this or not.

Is this the revelation to Moses for the first time? Or is it the revelation to everybody for the first time? The problem with it being the revelation to everybody is that we've got it multiple times throughout the book of Genesis already. So you could say, well, that's the narrator connecting the dots for us and letting us know that this is Yahweh. But you also have recorded speech of Yahweh using Yahweh's own name with the people.

So that feels a little bit less plausible to me. It seems to me that this is the moment where Moses is encountering God. He's finding out God's name and he ends up telling Moses, Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob has sent me to you.

This is my name forever. The name you shall call me from generation to generation. Notice he tells Moses to assemble the elders, to give them this message from God.

The elders are going to listen. Then they're going to go to the king and they're going to request a three-day journey into the wilderness to offer sacrifices to Yahweh. This is a test, a test of Pharaoh to see how unreasonable he is.

They're not asking to be set free permanently. They're asking for a three-day vacation, for a religious festival. And if Pharaoh won't even give them that, that shows you what a hard-hearted and heavy-hearted Pharaoh he really is.

That he is, he's beyond unreasonable with his workers. And then God says, but I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless a mighty hand compels him. And there's that language again, where God's beginning to borrow Pharaoh's own language to describe what he will do to them.

So I will stretch out my hand and strike the Egyptians with all the wonders that I will perform among them. And after that, he will let you go. I will win this fight.

In chapter four, Moses has several more objections about going. He says, what if they don't believe me or listen to me and say, Yahweh did not appear to you. And Yahweh says to him, what is that in your hand? A staff, he replied.

And Yahweh says, throw it on the ground. And he threw it on the ground and it became a snake and he ran from it. And then Yahweh said to him, reach out your hand and seize it by the tail.

So Moses reached out and took hold of the snake and it turned back into a staff in his hand. So this is a sign so that they may believe that Yahweh, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has appeared to you. This too is a beautiful moment where God does not hand Moses a magic wand.

He says, what is that in your hand? It's an ordinary staff of a shepherd. And that's all he needs to do God's will. He already has everything he needs in his hand.

Sometimes we think that we're inadequate, that we don't have what it takes to obey God, but he's already provided everything we need to do the job. Flipping ahead to verse 10, Moses has another objection. Pardon your servant, Lord.

I've never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you've spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue. In Hebrew, it says I'm heavy of mouth, which is actually, this is not just him saying, I don't like speaking in front of people.

I get nervous. This is him saying, I have a diagnosable disability. And that disability feels to him like it would disqualify him.

So he's had lots of identity issues already. He's not been sure where he belongs and God's tried to reassure him. And now we're getting to another layer of his identity.

He's disabled, and he feels like that will disqualify him. And God says, who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, Yahweh? Now go, the NIV says, I will help you speak and will teach you what to say. In Hebrew, it says, now go, I will be with your mouth, which is to say, God already said, I will be with you.

And he says, yeah, but my mouth doesn't work. And God says, I'll be with your mouth. I will be with your mouth.

So Moses at this point could say, okay, God hasn't made mistakes. He made me this way on purpose. He knows my weaknesses and vulnerabilities, and I don't need to, I don't need to worry about this.

But throughout this entire scene, Moses is looking at himself. He's very self-focused. Who am I that I should do this? But I have this issue, but what am I going to say? What am I going to do? He's not yet looking at God and saying, you will be with me.

Well, then I'll have enough. I'll have everything I need. You're the one who made me.

You gave me this staff. You're giving me all that I need. Moses has not gotten through his thick skull yet.

And Moses says, pardon your servant, Lord, please send someone else. And then God is angry. Not because Moses has a need or a weakness, but because he's refusing and failing to trust God.

This is a test, a test of his allegiance, a test of his obedience. And so God is angry. He says, what about your brother, Aaron, the Levite? I know he can speak well, and he is already on his way to meet you.

And he will be glad to see you. I love this because Moses is thinking he's introducing to God. Oh, there's a little hiccup in your plan.

Cause you know, my mouth doesn't work. And God says, Aaron is already on his way to meet you, which is to say, I made your mouth. I know your weak areas.

And I've already, I already have a plan in motion to support you in the way that you need support. And if you would have just trusted me, I could have surprised you with Aaron, but here you are complaining. He says, you shall speak to him and put words in his mouth.

I will help both of you speak and will teach you what to do. He will speak to the people for you. And it will be as if he were your mouth and as if you were God to him.

So Moses isn't God, but when in terms of prophecy, God speaks to a prophet and the prophet speaks to the people. So now we've got God speaking to Moses who speaks to Aaron, who speaks to the people. So if Aaron's like the prophet, Moses is now being like God to him.

He's relaying the message that Aaron should communicate. So all through this story, we have these tests of allegiance. Will Moses obey? He has lots of objections.

He never actually says, okay, I'll go, but God prevails over him. And he goes. And then, and when we think about the second rescue story, the rescue of Israel, there's lots of testing and identity negotiation happening for them as well.

Um, in chapter 19, where God has told them they're his treasured possession, kingdom of priests, holy nations, holy nation. Um, God speaks through Moses to the people, all the things God has commanded him to speak. And then it said, the people respond together.

We will do everything Yahweh has said. So they agree. And Moses brings their answer back to the Lord.

And in verse nine, the Lord said to Moses, I'm going to come to you in a dense cloud so that the people will hear me speaking with you and will always put their trust in you. And then there's a test. He says to put limits around the mountain, don't go up on the mountain.

This is sacred space. It's not safe for you to get that close to the presence of God. And all the people are supposed to go home and prepare themselves abstain from sexual activity, wash their clothing.

They need to be in a state of ritual purity before they enter the presence of God. And, and the, the test is, are they going to obey these instructions? And sure enough, they, uh, they approach the mountain standing at the foot of the mountain. And when God appears on the mountain and warns them again, not to come closer, it says in chapter 20, verse 18, when the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain and smoke, they trembled with fear.

They stayed at a distance and said to Moses, speak to yourself and we will listen, but do not have God speak to us, or we will die. Moses said to the people, do not be afraid. God has come to test you so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.

The people remained at a distance while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was. So he's testing them. Will you keep my commands? And here they recognize his holiness.

They recognize that they're unqualified to enter his presence. And they ask for Moses to mediate on their behalf. I take this to be passing the test.

They recognize the state they're in. They recognize their need for mediation. And this affirms Moses as the authorized representative of God.

There are others who see this differently, who think that this was a mistake and they should have eventually gone up the mountain to be in the presence of God. But to me, it seems like this is very positively portrayed that they did the right thing. It's not that they'll never be able to be in the presence of God directly, but they aren't ready yet.

There's not a tabernacle yet. There aren't sacrifices yet. They need to hear God's law and they need to learn how to please him.

So chapters 1 and 2, the rescue of Moses. Chapters 3 and 4, the mission of Moses, which we've just discovered, kind of worked our way through. Chapters 5 through 19 are the lengthy rescue of Israel.

It takes a while to make the point with Pharaoh and to get the people out. And then they go through this training and testing in the wilderness and as they approach the mountain. And then in chapters 20 through 40, we have the discovery of their vocation as the people who will bear God's name among the nations, represent God to everyone else.

And the experience of having God's presence that starts up on top of the mountain, it comes down to live among them in the tabernacle. So they collectively, collaboratively build this tabernacle and God comes to dwell in their midst. These are the two rescue stories.

We've only scratched the surface on the number of parallels between them. So many things that are really fun. Do you notice in the first rescue story, who's doing the rescuing? It's women who do the rescuing in the first story, right? It's the midwives.

It's the mother of Moses. It's the daughter of Pharaoh. It's the sister of Moses.

It's the servant of a Pharaoh's daughter who all conspire together to save him. And the same verbs that are used in the story to describe what they do, like the daughter of Pharaoh sees the basket in the reeds. Let's just turn there in chapter 2. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it.

She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying and she felt sorry for him. Then if we fast forward to the end of chapter 2, we hear the Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God.

God heard their groaning, remembered his covenant, looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them. We have this in multiple places where it's where the the verbs that are used to describe God's concern over the distress of the Israelites match what it says about the daughter of Pharaoh who hears and shows concern for the distress of the baby in the basket. And so we have two rescue stories side by side and the women in the first story help us to anticipate what God is like and how he will respond to his people in the second story.

Miriam is at the beginning of the first story of rescue on the bank. She takes her stand on the banks of the Nile to observe her brother and watch over him. But then she with the people of Israel at the end of the second rescue story takes her stand on the banks of the on the shores of the sea and then leads the people in celebration for the work of rescue that God has done.

So we have Miriam in both places strategically helping us to see the parallels between these two rescue stories. So much we could talk about but this is a taste for you of the the literary design of the whole book that's just brilliant. And in the next session we'll begin to unpack some of the key themes of the book as they emerge.

Any questions? I got Miriam in there. It's just so cool. In our Bibles it's called the Red Sea that they cross to get into freedom, but in Hebrew it's always the Sea of Reeds which helps with the parallel between putting Moses in the reeds and then they pass through the Sea of Reeds.

It's another another literary parallel. It sounds like Moses went through quite a range of emotions and struggle with identity and even being raised in Pharaoh's household and then to being in the wilderness. After that it's and the whole identity shift with that too that would have been really a swing.

Yeah one shift in his identity that I didn't talk about is the end of chapter four and there's more on that I believe in the longer course that I have on Exodus. But at the end of chapter four Moses is finally obeying and headed back to Egypt and God tries to kill him on the way. It's a very strange few verses.

And his wife Zipporah to the rescue. We've got another woman rescuing Moses just to bracket off his story. He's rescued by women at the beginning and the end.

And this I think has to do with identity because God has said to Moses say to Pharaoh this is what Israel is my firstborn son and I told you let my son go so he may worship me but you refuse to let him go so I will kill your firstborn son. So it's a pitting of God's firstborn son Israel against Pharaoh's firstborn son in Egypt. Moses having grown up in an Egyptian household is on his way back to give a message to both communities but he apparently is out of compliance with the one covenant regulation that they have which is to circumcise.

And so he has not actually made clear that his family belongs to this group that they are Yahweh's firstborn son which means he's going back and putting himself and his family at great risk. Also he can't lead the people where he hasn't been himself. So it where he's not willing to go himself.

So they circumcise their son and that seems to resolve the problem and he goes on his merry way to Egypt. But I think that moment is a moment of reckoning. Okay we've talked about this do you know you're a Hebrew? And if you know you're a Hebrew then you need to act like it or this is not going to work.

So there's a high standard for him as a leader but it's also part of that identity negotiation and I'm sure there was a lot of emotion involved in that scene as well. So you have this whole idea of Moses his identity you know being whether he's Egypt whether he's Hebrew all of that also relating to his family seeing his mother Pharaoh's daughter all of that. So then we're introduced to Aaron who sort of seems to come out of the blue.

So is Aaron part of his Egyptian family part of his Hebrew family like how do you know that? Yeah so Aaron is his biological brother in his Hebrew family according to chapter six. We get a genealogy in chapter six that introduces Aaron and this is again a place where the literary design is really fascinating because the genealogy kind of pops out of nowhere and on either side of it is a repeated scene. So verse 10 of chapter six Yahweh says to Moses go tell Pharaoh king of Egypt to let the Israelites go.

But Moses said if they won't listen to me why would Pharaoh listen to me since I speak with faltering lips? Genealogy. And then it was this Aaron and Moses to whom the Lord said bring the Israelites out of Egypt by their divisions. They were the ones who spoke to Pharaoh king of Egypt about bringing the Israelites out of Egypt the same Moses and Aaron.

Now when Yahweh spoke to Moses in Egypt he said to him I am Yahweh tell Pharaoh king of Egypt everything I tell you. But Moses said to Lord since I speak with faltering lips why would Pharaoh listen to me? What are we doing here? Why are we having this like same song second verse? You know same as the first. I think this is a literary framing device called resumptive exposition where we just went on a rabbit trail for a genealogy but I want you to know that we're back to the same topic again by picking up the same thing but it tells us the purpose for the genealogy.

So Moses is worried about his speech impediment and he wonders how God's going to resolve that. So then we get a genealogy that is not the whole all 12 tribes of Israel. It's focused specifically on the tribe of Levi and the family of Moses and Aaron and once that's clarified then we zoom back out again and continue the story.

So the one God provided is from the same family the tribe of Levi which will then later qualify him to be the high priest. But you're right he comes out of nowhere and how does Moses even know this is his brother? I don't know. I mean God says in chapter four like as if you know what about your brother Aaron the Levite? How does Moses know he has a brother Aaron the Levite? It's possible that he grew up being able to visit his biological family and that he knew about him.

We're just not told. I have many many questions and I'm definitely going to the breakout session with Moses in heaven to ask them all.