The Story Of How The The Story Of The Bible Became The Story Of People Of God V. The People’s Stay in (Joseph) and Delivery from Egypt (Moses)

I want to say at the outset that I need to acknowledge the help I have received in studying this material from former Professor Waldemar Janzen, who was a teacher at Canadian Mennonite Bible College when I attended there. The help I am referring to comes from the volume on Exodus he contributed to the Believers Church Bible Commentary. It is in our church library.

In his introduction he states that "Exodus is the heart of the Old Testament… in Exodus, God's double promise to give Abraham and Sarah descendants and land is beginning to be fulfilled.… God reveals for all time the divine name, Yahweh (the Lord), and fills that name with its central meaning: Savior and Lord.

In Exodus, the descendants of Jacob/Israel become a people with a special commission, established by the covenant relationship with Yahweh mediated through Moses at Mount Sinai.… Israel commits itself to a new life governed by the Torah… (and) introduces the form of worship that characterizes biblical religion and successors." (page 15)

Outline

Exodus 1:8-14; 2:1-25; 3:1-15; 4:17-20, 27-31; 6:1-9 God calls Moses to lead Israel back to the promised land

[Janzen, page 19: Anticipation 1. The Salvation of Moses (1:1-2:25)

      2. The Commissioning of Moses (3:1-7:7);

Realization 3. The Salvation of Israel (7:8-18:27)

        4. The Commissioning of Israel (19:1-48)]

1. The Salvation of Moses (1:1-2:25)

1:8-14 sets the stage for the next part of the story of The People of God. You will remember that at the end of Genesis (27:21), it could be understood that everyone in Egypt was rendered a slave to The Pharaoh because of the severe famine and the need to pay somehow for the grain they were given out of the storehouses Joseph had set up. Joseph had brought his family to Egypt to escape the famine and be with him. However, now this people has become so successful and numerous that the Egyptians are feeling threatened by them. They are now being ruled by a king who does not remember the circumstances of how The Children of Israel came to be in Egypt.

2:1-10 is the story of the birth and beginnings of the man, Moses, who would become the deliverer of the People of God from the slavery and oppression they were now experiencing under the Pharaoh. Ironically, it is the ruler's own daughter who receives this Hebrew boy whom he had ordered killed, and brings him up in the court at the King's expense. Why would she have done this? Would she have been a young woman rebelling against her father? In any case, it allowed Moses to grow up in the place where he would have become familiar with Royal life and protocols, the Egyptian language and perhaps even Egyptian writing. This was surely good preparation for when he came back to deal with the Pharaoh when God had called Moses to lead his people out of Egypt.

This story also points out again the important role that women are given in this record compared to their place in much of society in that day. Here, as in a number of other Bible stories, women take a prominent role as saviors of lives and situations. There are two midwives, Moses' mother and the Princess of Egypt that all play these rules here.

2:11-22 tells the story of Moses, seemingly accidentally killing an Egyptian who was mistreating a fellow Hebrew. Somehow, Moses knows of his origins, that he is Hebrew, not Egyptian, and begins to stick up for his brothers. We do read in Exodus 2:9-10 that Moses' mother was allowed to raise him until he was weaned. This could well have been until he was three years of age, by which time she could have taught him something about being a Hebrew that he may have dimly remembered. He escapes for his life to the land of Midian, gets married and has a child. Midian, for the record, was one of Abraham's descendants by his second wife Keturah.

Interestingly, the land on which he "settles (verse 15)" belongs to a priest. Whether that had some bearing on Moses choosing to settle here because he knew that we do not know, but the role of this man did figure significantly in the life of Moses and The People of God in the future. It also turns out in the future that it is Moses' tribe that becomes the priestly clan, the Levites. Who knows what he learned about these matters and perhaps even about God from this father-in-law.

In his escape from Pharaoh who wanted to kill him for this, we see a premonition of Moses own leading the Children of Israel to escape from Pharaoh who would have liked to see them all done away with. When can also see here that in Moses returning towards the land of his ancestors, he is being prepared for when he will come back to the same area leading The People of God through it.

2:23-25 - Here it is simply inserted in the story that the Israelites began to complain about their lot as slaves. We can assume that some of their prayers were directed to the God of their fathers as it states that "their cry for help rose up to God. God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob… and God took notice of them." That obviously sets up the story and gives us a clue that something is going to happen.

2. The Commissioning of Moses (3:1-7:7)

3:1-22 Moses meets God

Janzen page 20

"While tending the flocks, Moses gets close to Horeb, the mountain of God" where "he is stunned by a bush that burns but is not consumed." Moses goes near and is addressed by God who reveals his new name, Yahweh, identifies himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and that he remembers his covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, including the promise of the land to which he will now lead his people (page 23) and so now wants to free Israel from Egypt and lead them back to the land promised to Abraham with Moses' help.

1-6 Moses’ attention is attracted by what appears to be a burning bush. Suddenly, God calls to him out of this Bush and identifies himself as "the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob."

7-12 God explains why he is calling Moses. He says "I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I've heard their cry… I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey…" Furthermore, he tells Moses that "I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt."

White might God have chosen Moses for this task? If we think back to Moses’ childhood, and where he grew up, I think the answer can be fairly obvious. He grew up in the court of the Pharaoh, so he would have known the language, the rules and customs, possibly even his way around. He might even have known how to write in the manner of the Egyptians. In other words, if ever there was someone prepared to be a leader in that people who are otherwise slaves, the obvious choice would be Moses.

13-15 The authority by which this is happening.

It is not clear why Moses, in verse 13, asks whom he should say is sending him when God has already identified himself inverse six in the traditional language used so far in the Bible after the calling of Abraham. Perhaps, as they had done before and were to do many times yet in the future, the Children of Israel had turned to other gods, perhaps even those of the Egyptians, or back to the ones they had before Abraham began to worship the one true God. One can see how they might have done this, thinking that their God had abandoned them if they had become slaves. They were not in their own land and the laws were against them becoming a great nation, so they might have thought that the promises that Jacob and his descendants probably passed on were meaningless.

In any case, God answers with a new name which no longer ties him to a specific group of people. Perhaps we can see here a premonition of the fact that God wants his people to grow beyond the Hebrews. He also expands his self-description to something that could also be seen as larger than what a tribal God might be seen as. He tells Moses "I AM WHO I AM," which is translated The Lord, or Yahweh, and says, "Thus you shall say to the Israelites, I AM has sent me to you." Some scholars also say this could be translated "I am who I will be," emphasizing the future-oriented and active God, also one who is totally self-determined, as opposed to someone who just is, but could also be so at some other agent's behest. Then he does also identify himself as "the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob" but here is where he expands things saying that "this is my name forever, and this my title for all generations."