Exodus - Lesson 7

Dr. Carmen Imes 
Exodus 
OT605-07
Introduction to Pharoah
Lesson Transcript

So, we have traveled with Moses across the wilderness back to Egypt, and in Chapter 5, he encounters Pharaoh and confronts him for the first time. It's interesting that he has a confrontation with Pharaoh that does not involve any of the signs that God gave him to do. We don't have any of the signs and wonders yet, either the signs given to Moses at Sinai or the ones that will unfold after that.

What we have here first is just a bald confrontation, and we get Moses' demand and Pharaoh's response, and Pharaoh's response is going to provoke the series of signs and wonders. So, as we dig into Chapter 5, we're going to see Pharaoh in his natural state. We're going to see what matters to Pharaoh and how he thinks about the Hebrews, and it's very illuminating.

So, we'll pick it up in Chapter 5, verse 1. So, I've mentioned in a previous session that let my people go might not be the best way to translate the Hebrew phrase, which uses the verb shalach, which is to send. So, really, this is send my people away. Moses is looking for not just a passive acquiescence, but an active commissioning for Pharaoh to say, instead of working for me, go work for Yahweh.

So, this is the first time we have a request for Pharaoh to send the people away. We're going to have the same phrase, the same demand, seven times in Exodus, which is a nice biblical number. There's lots of sevens in Exodus.

This is the first of seven occurrences, and we learn several things in this context. First of all, we learn the purpose of sending them away. First of all, we learn the purpose of them going.

They're going to hold a festival to Yahweh in the wilderness. We also learn the length of time that they're requesting, a three day journey. Now, it's not entirely clear whether the three days is one way or round trip.

So, are they asking for a seven day absence to be able to get there, have a festival and get back? Or is three days an unspecified kind of short length of time, like give us a vacation so we can do this festival? That's not clear, but the three days will come in to play later in the signs and wonders when we see the plague of darkness that lasts for three days. The purpose is also specified further in verse three, let us take a three day journey to offer sacrifices to Yahweh our God. So, the festival that they're going to have is going to involve sacrifices.

Now, the festival here is the first time we see the word hog in Exodus and a hog is a festival to Yahweh. They're going to have the festival of the Passover even before they leave Egypt. But once they get to Mount Sinai, they're going to learn about the other parts of the festival calendar that they're invited into as a people.

What's most fascinating to me about this short scene is the threat that they articulate to Pharaoh. We have to go do this. Yahweh has asked us to do this and we better do it lest he strike us with plagues or with the sword.

The mention of plague foreshadows the plagues that will come on Egypt when Pharaoh refuses to let the people go. And the sword foreshadows the killing of the firstborn. Although we don't see the word sword there, particularly the idea that we could die, we could be liable to death if we don't obey Yahweh.

Pharaoh should be paying close attention to this. The Pharaoh's job, the way a Pharaoh did his job was to do the will of the gods. And these people are expressing that Yahweh has made demands on them.

And it's so fascinating that that Pharaoh doesn't want to let them go because he doesn't want to let he doesn't want to lose their labor. And yet if they don't go and Yahweh punishes them for not going with a plague or sword, he's going to lose even more labor permanently. So he really ought to be letting the people go for a short time to take a respite and to meet with their God so that he doesn't lose the labor force entirely.

And we're seeing here how unreasonable and illogical Pharaoh is. We already talked in one of the opening sessions about Pharaoh's response, who is Yahweh that I should listen to his voice by sending Israel away? I don't know Yahweh. And furthermore, I will not send Israel away.

And this is the challenge he's throwing down the gauntlet. He says he doesn't know Yahweh. And so the signs and wonders are going to introduce Yahweh to him incrementally.

He's going to little by little come into contact with God and find out what it means that Yahweh is making this demand of him. In the next few verses, we see the backlash that comes after Moses and Aaron have made this request and it's rebuffed by Pharaoh. So we have a series of sentences in verses four and five that have a really interesting symmetry to them.

So the king of Egypt said, why, Moses and Aaron, are you freeing the people from their work? Go back to your burden bearing. And then Pharaoh said, you made them rest from their burden bearing. So you can see how those two statements by Pharaoh seem kind of parallel to each other.

In both cases, he's accusing them of doing something that keeps the people from their work. And at the center between them, sandwiched between these two statements, is the statement, go back to your burden bearing, which shows Pharaoh's main concern, get back to work. That's all you're good for.

It's interesting to zero in and notice the two words that are in bold on the screen. So the word freeing in Hebrew that they have freed the people from their work is the word paro. So it's the verbal form or para from which we get Pharaoh, the name Pharaoh

So Moses and Aaron are pharaohing the people from their work. They're releasing the people, which is what Pharaoh ought to be doing. But he isn't.

So he first notices that. And then in his second accusation, he says, you made them rest using the word Shabbat from which we get the word Sabbath. So you stopped them from their work.

And I don't want you to stop them. This is precisely what Pharaoh's unwilling to do. He's unwilling to free them from their work and he's unwilling to give them any rest, not even a three day vacation so that they can serve their God.

Pharaoh has already claimed ignorance of Yahweh, and we see in this story how his ignorance of Yahweh leads inevitably to oppression. The way of the world is to oppress and exploit others. This is the burden of the curse that's come on on the earth after Adam and Eve's rebellion that humans would dominate each other, exploit each other and and be marked by greed.

And Pharaoh is living into that instead of lining up with God's way of doing things. So that same day, Pharaoh gave this order to the slave drivers and overseers in charge of the people. You are no longer to supply the people with straw for making bricks.

Let them go and gather their own straw, but require them to make the same number of bricks as before. Don't reduce the quota. They're lazy.

That's why they're crying out, let us go and sacrifice to our God. Make the make the work harder for the people so they keep working and pay no attention to lies. This is, of course, not what Moses and Aaron were hoping for.

It gets worse before it gets better. And this is an awkward time for everybody involved because the people were so excited. We saw at the end of chapter four that when the elders of Israel heard that God had heard their cries and was coming to rescue them, they believed and they bowed down and worshipped.

But now when the demand is being made for them to be released, it doesn't work. In fact, it just makes their job harder. And so they want nothing to do with Moses and Aaron.

Pharaoh mentions a particular quota that they have to still meet the same quota that they made before. And I mentioned this when we saw this image in a previous session, this image of brick making slaves who are brick making in Egypt. And you can see the man who's measuring the stack of bricks with his some kind of measuring tool to see whether the quota is being reached.

It's interesting how Pharaoh phrases his response, let them go, which is exactly what we want him to say. Let them go and worship Yahweh. But instead, it's let them go and gather stubble.

Stubble is the ingredient that's necessary in making bricks. It's the leftovers after the harvest. So after the straw harvest, there's just little bits of pieces that are difficult to collect.

And those would have been swept up and gathered to be mixed into the mud. When you mix the stubble, a straw, into the mud, it has a chemical reaction with the mud, and it prevents crumbling and cracks. So it gives a kind of stability to the bricks so that they don't deteriorate.

The mud bricks that were made with stubble and dried in the sun would have been used to build homes and storage buildings. Even the palace would have been made of mud brick. The buildings that were made of stone were temples.

And so temples were the the height of Egyptian building projects and homes were considered more dispensable, disposable. They were using less expensive materials to make them. And of course, it's very much less expensive when you force someone to make them for you.

So picking it up in verse 10, then the slave drivers and the overseers went out and said to the people, this is what Pharaoh says. I will not give you any more straw or stubble. Go and get your own stubble wherever you can find it.

But your work will not be reduced at all. So the people scattered all over Egypt to gather stubble to use for straw. I want to pause here to notice two things.

First of all, the people scattered, which is precisely what Pharaoh was worried about. He was worried about losing the Hebrews and having them leave. And now he's sending them away.

But he's sending them throughout the land of Egypt. They're going to have to look here, there and everywhere to find enough stubble to meet the demands of Pharaoh. This time of year would not be an ideal time to gather stubble because you need to gather it right after the harvest.

That's the only time it's available. So if he's refusing to provide it from his storehouses, it's going to be difficult to find the straw that they need. And what's what's interesting here is that they have to go throughout the land of Egypt to find the stubble and the signs and wonders that we're going to see will affect the entire land of Egypt.

They're they're going to be felt throughout the land of Egypt. So the extent of oppression is also the extent of God's judgment. That's clear from how the narrator tells this story.

The slave drivers kept pressing them, saying, complete the work required of you for each day, just as when you had straw. This is a particular phrase that will come up again later in Exodus. Which is a way of saying the stuff for each day.

So here they have a quota that they're supposed to meet each day. And when the Israelites get into the wilderness, we'll find that God provides manna for them enough for each day. Using the same phrase, quite a contrast between Yahweh and Pharaoh.

Verse 14, and Pharaoh's slave drivers beat the Israelite overseers they had appointed demanding, why haven't you met your quota of bricks yesterday or today as before? So they're not only providing less, but they're now humiliating the people and harming them because they're unable to keep up the same pace that they had. Notice that there are Israelite overseers. So these are Hebrews who've been elevated over their fellow Hebrews to oversee the work.

And they answer to the Egyptian overseers, but they're one tier down. And now there's going to be conflict in all these different levels of leadership. So the Israelite overseers went and appealed to Pharaoh.

Why have you treated your servants this way? Your servants are given no straw, yet we're told, make bricks. Your servants are being beaten, but the fault is with your own people. Tell them to give us straw.

And Pharaoh's response is, lazy, that's what you are? Lazy. That is why you keep saying, let us go and sacrifice to Yahweh. Now get to work.

You will not be given any straw, yet you must produce your full quota of bricks. Calling them lazy is a classic case of blame shifting and gaslighting. Here, the man responsible for their suffering is now going to make it seem like they it's all their fault.

They're the reason this isn't going well. He's mischaracterizing them as lazy when the problem is really that he has made their lives untenable. He's made their jobs impossible to complete.

This is the same kind of dynamic we see in any kind of power imbalance where there's exploitation going on. The one in power tries to keep the power, and in order to do that, they make it seem like those under them are the problem. It's so ironic that he says, now get to work, because the phrase here is, go serve, go work, which is exactly what Pharaoh will eventually say when he finally relents and sends the people, go serve Yahweh.

Here, he's telling them, go serve me, go get to work and do the job that I've given you to do. The Israelite overseers realized they were in trouble when they were told you are not to reduce the number of bricks. Required of you for each day.

When they left Pharaoh, they found Moses and Aaron waiting to meet them. And they said, may Yahweh look on you and judge you. You have made us obnoxious to Pharaoh and his officials and have put a sword in their hand to kill us.

So now there's bad blood between the Israelite overseers and Moses and Aaron who are trying to set them free. They're like, hey, this was better before you got here. It's now worse.

And poor Moses, this was not, it's not his fault that it has gotten worse, but they're now complaining that their job has even become more impossible than it was before. And now they're not on board. They tell Moses that they've become obnoxious or stinky to the Egyptians.

And we're going to see the stink come back to haunt the Egyptians as the signs and wonders unfold. So keep that in mind. Moses then turns and complains to Yahweh and he uses very, very specific language, very vivid language in his complaint.

So he says to God, why, Lord, have you brought trouble on this people? It's interesting. He says Lord here, not the name Yahweh that we sometimes see and that we usually see in our Bibles as the word Lord in all caps. This is not God's personal name.

This Lord here is Adonai, Master. He's not using God's personal name. Knowing God's personal name and being sent back to Egypt is not going so well.

So he says, why, Master, why, Lord, have you brought trouble on this people? Is this why you sent me? Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble on this people and you haven't rescued your people at all. That's what I was expecting, but it is not turning out. This is, again, strong language.

He's saying, why did you ever send me here? And although it looks like the end of the road for Moses and it seems hopeless and impossible, this is exactly where God wants his people at this moment. So now let's look at God's response. It's in chapter six, verse one.

There's an unfortunate chapter break right here because their conversation is mid-thought. Yahweh said to Moses, now, now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh. Because of my mighty hand, he will let them go.

Because of my mighty hand, he will drive them out of his country. So God has everyone right where he wants them. The reality of their oppressive situation and the absolute intractability of Pharaoh, his unwillingness to bend and the despotic way that he is ruling.

That's what God wants everyone to see very clearly so that he can demonstrate his power and so that he can show how different he is from Pharaoh. There's some ambiguity in this verse about the mighty hand. It's not clear in Hebrew whose hand is mighty.

And Moshe Greenberg is a Jewish commentator who says this passage is exquisitely ambiguous because the rest of Exodus is going to make clear who has the mighty hand. It's going to be Yahweh, but we don't know that yet. And here it's, by a mighty hand, he will let them go.

So in Hebrew, it doesn't say because of my mighty hand, it's by a mighty hand, he will let them go. So whose mighty hand? Is he going to let them go with a strong hand or is God's hand going to force him to do it? We see a similar ambiguity in chapter three, verse 19, when God says to Moses, but I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless a mighty hand compels him. In Hebrew, it's a little bit more ambiguous.

The king of Egypt will not let you go except with a strong hand. And again, it's not clear whose hand is strong. Is it going to be Pharaoh having a strong hand to send them away? Or is he going to be forced by someone else's strong hand to do the sending? And I think the narrator wants us to come into this kind of watching for who's going to have the stronger hand.

And we'll see that it's Yahweh who has a strong hand and an outstretched arm. There's an actual break now in the Hebrew grammar between what we've read in chapter five, it goes up through six, one, and then verse two starts kind of a new section, but we'll continue on here as it continues in our English Bibles. And we're going to see God's response to this feeling of hopelessness that has come over Moses, Aaron, the Israelite overseers, and all of the Israelite workers.

God also said to Moses, I am Yahweh. And we're set up for this new reintroduction of God's name because Moses has just refused to use God's name. Lord, Adonai, Master, why have you brought trouble on us? And now Yahweh says, I am Yahweh.

I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as God Almighty. But by my name, Yahweh, I did not make myself fully known to them. I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan where they resided as foreigners.

Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the Israelites whom the Egyptians are enslaving, and I have remembered my covenant. We talked a bit already about the revelation of God's name back in chapter three of Exodus, but I want to revisit that question here because this is another clue to the puzzle. So here God is saying he appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty, as El Shaddai, and then we have this strange sentence, but by my name, Yahweh, I did not make myself fully known to them.

So there are three possible ways to understand this. Is this a different literary source than Genesis? So Genesis knows about the name Yahweh, but this source in Exodus doesn't know the name Yahweh, and is that why God is speaking here as if his name has not been known? That's what many scholars suggest. Or was the name Yahweh later added to Genesis to clarify that the God who was working and relating with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob really is Yahweh who's now introduced himself by name? So this really is a new revelation of the name, but the stories in Genesis were updated.

I'm going to pause here to say why I think this doesn't quite work. I don't think the source theory works at all either, but here, this would work if it's only the narrator who's using the name Yahweh in Genesis, and we could say the narrator later updated the name, but we have record of Yahweh's own speech to his people, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, where he introduces himself as Yahweh to them. So Genesis 15, verse seven, he says to Abram, I am Yahweh who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans.

So it seems a bit of a stretch to say that was inserted later. That seems, that doesn't sit well with me. If you have a high view of scripture and you believe in inerrancy, which I do, then to have a later narrator putting words on God's mouth that he didn't actually say to Abram seems problematic.

Another example of divine speech using the divine name is in chapter 28, verse 13, I am Yahweh, the God of your father, Abraham, and the God of Isaac. This is Yahweh speaking to Jacob on his way back into the land. So here again, we have the divine self-disclosure using the divine name.

So that doesn't seem like an obvious place for a scribe to just have updated it. But maybe most persuasively is chapter four of Genesis, verse 26. Seth also had a son and he named him Enosh.

At that time, people began to call on the name of Yahweh. Not just people began to pray, but they began to call on the name of Yahweh. So from the perspective of Genesis, the name Yahweh is already known.

So many scholars come to Exodus six, verse three, conservative scholars, and they would say, okay, well, I'm not comfortable with just saying this as a different source, and I don't quite think it works to say that Yahweh's name was added later to Genesis. So maybe the best solution is to say that the people in Genesis, the patriarchs didn't fully understand Yahweh. So the emphasis is on fully.

So by my name Yahweh, I did not make myself fully known to them. So they knew my name Yahweh and they knew a bit about me, but I'm about to show them a lot of things about me. This is also possible.

I think there's another solution that I find more persuasive, and that is that maybe we've mistranslated this sentence, but just lingering on this third option for a moment, I feel like to say that the patriarchs didn't fully understand Yahweh and they didn't know Yahweh the way this generation is going to know him is a bit of a slap in the face or an undercutting of the very real and vibrant relationship they had with Yahweh. Abram and Yahweh have whole conversations. They've entered into deep fellowship.

God has revealed things in visions to him. He's made promises to him. He's provided a son.

So I feel like it downplays the patriarch's relationship with Yahweh to focus on them not fully understanding Yahweh. Nobody fully understands Yahweh, but I would say their experience of Yahweh is at least as robust as what we see for the Exodus generation. So I'm intrigued by a fourth possibility, and that is that this is a mistranslation of verse three.

Desmond Alexander is a biblical scholar who has suggested this translation instead. So I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and Jacob as God Almighty, but my name is Yahweh. Did I not make myself known to them? So it turns the statement into a question and he unpacks the grammatical reasons why this works.

The word order suggests that this should be a question rather than a statement. And the context and these possible contradictions in theme also lend itself to this way of understanding the verse. I haven't seen widespread acceptance of Alexander's way of translating this, but I think it's worth considering.

It's a newer proposal. And so you can go dig into his commentary on Exodus if you want to see more of his reasons. We have in chapter six, verses six through eight, one of the most beautiful speeches that Yahweh ever makes in scripture.

We have a series of seven statements by God, seven I will statements in which he indicates how much he is committed to the flourishing of his people. So let's read this together. Therefore say to the Israelites, I am Yahweh.

We're going to have an I am Yahweh at the beginning and at the end of this paragraph that is bracketing seven I will statements. And here they are. I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.

I will free you from being slaves to them. And I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. I will take you as my own people and I will be your God.

Then you will know that I am Yahweh, your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians and I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am Yahweh.

Right in the center of this series of seven I will statements is I will take you as my people and I will be your God. And together these two statements form what is often called the covenant formula. This mutual obligation, this relationship of mutual loyalty between God and his people.

It's two sided. They are, they belong to him and he belongs to them. There's a, there's an exclusive loyalty between them.

It's a beautiful thing. There's one other statement I want to zero in on that I think is especially rich. And that is the statement about redemption where he says, I will redeem you with an outstretched arm.

The word redeem is the Hebrew word ga'al and it's a technical term that refers to buying back a relative from slavery. So if somebody falls on really hard times and they're unable to pay their bills and they have to sell themselves as a servant to one of their neighbors, then a close relative's responsibility is to buy them back so that they can be free from their slavery. We've seen in Exodus 4.22 that Yahweh calls Israel his firstborn son.

And in 4.25 that Zipporah declares Yahweh to be her blood relative. These are statements that lend itself to this idea that Yahweh is here identifying himself as Israel's closest kin. He is the one who's appointed to redeem them from slavery, to buy them back.

Now in this case, rather than paying Egypt to release Israel because the slavery is unjust and should not be, God will issue judgment on Egypt rather than pay Egypt. In fact, the Egyptians will pay the Hebrews on their way out of Egypt. We have another echo of this in chapter 7 verse 4 where God says, then I will lay my hand on Egypt and with mighty acts of judgment I will bring out my divisions.

And in chapter 12 verse 12, we have a statement that God will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. So this is not just here, it's peppered throughout the signs and wonders narratives. This is such a beautiful speech and I just can't imagine how much it would mean to the people.

To me, it feels touching and moving just to read it, but it is met with deep discouragement. We're told Moses reported this to the Israelites, but they didn't listen to him because of all their discouragement and harsh labor. In Hebrew, the word discouragement is technically shortness of breath.

They're short, they're dispirited or short of breath. This could imply that they're impatient, that they're disgusted and they have no time for a God who's going to make these kinds of promises and not follow through. The word is used or that phrase is used in that sense in Micah 2 verse 7 and Proverbs 14 29.

It's possible that's what it means here, but it could also just connote their exhaustion and discouragement. They have been scrambling all over the nation to find enough stubble to make bricks that will not crumble in the sun and they are so exhausted from this work. They do not have time to listen to empty promises.

This is something that we can see in our own lives when someone is tired and discouraged and if they've had their hope disappointed again and again, they're less likely to listen to promises. I was just watching a show with my family last week, The Anne with an E, which is a remake of the Anne of Green Gables story, and Anne runs away at the beginning of season one. She runs away from Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert and from the orphanage and is trying to be out on her own.

And Matthew comes after her to bring her back. They've tried to send her back to the orphanage, but she disappears. And when he finally tracks her down, he says, Anne, we want you.

We want you in our family. And Anne's response is, don't talk to me about that. I don't want you bringing me back and then you're just going to throw me out on the street again the moment I disappoint you.

She would rather not go back than go back with the possibility of being sent away again. And we have that kind of dynamic here where it's like, don't talk to me about how you're going to deliver me because I can't handle that ongoing disappointment over and over again. But what's most beautiful about this is that their lack of faith in God and their lack of enthusiasm does not derail God's plan.

We see that it continues on in verse 10 as if nobody said anything. The Lord said to Moses, go tell Pharaoh king of Egypt to let the Israelites go out of his country. So right on the heels of this discouraging response, God just gets on with business.

This is really good news for you and me because sometimes we lack faith in God and we lack enthusiasm and we're not sure if God is going to make good on his promises. But God's promises do not depend on us, they depend on him. And so even if we're in a period of discouragement, we're not in danger of derailing God's plan.

God will carry out the promises that he made with or without our participation. And here, God isn't just going to save the ones who are on his side and who are excited, he is going to save all of the Hebrews. He's giving them time to come around.

By the time they leave Egypt, they will be on board and he will be able to rescue them.