Exodus 2 - Introduction

The Birth And Growth of Moses As Yahweh's Future Deliverer (Exodus 2:1 to Exodus 4:26).

This section takes us from the birth of Moses to the commencement of his return from Egypt. This again takes on a clear pattern.

a The birth and deliverance of Moses and his establishment in Pharaoh's ‘house' (Exodus 2:1).

b Moses has to flee from Egypt and falls among friends in Midian and makes his home with the Midianites (Exodus 2:15).

c Conditions in Egypt worsen - God remembers His covenant with their fathers (Exodus 2:23)

d God appears to Moses in the sign of a flaming bush at the mountain of God (Exodus 3:1).

e Yahweh reveals Himself as Yahweh, the God of their Fathers, the ‘I am', with the promise of Deliverance (Exodus 3:6).

e Moses is therefore to go to the Elders of Israel and promise a glorious deliverance (Exodus 3:16).

d God gives to a reluctant Moses a further three signs (Exodus 4:1).

c The response of Moses worsens and Yahweh becomes angry and offers him Aaron as ‘his mouth' (Exodus 4:10).

b Moses leaves Midian for Egypt (Exodus 4:18).

a The renewal of Moses by deliverance from death and call to go to Pharaoh. Three sons are compared, Yahweh's firstborn (Israel), Pharaoh's firstborn, and Moses' Midianite son. Moses must choose whom he will serve (Exodus 4:21).

Note again the parallels. In ‘a' Moses is born, delivered and brought up in Pharaoh's household, in the parallel Moses' loyalty to Yahweh is renewed, he is delivered from death and he is to go to Pharaoh as his adversary. In ‘b' Moses flees Egypt and makes his home with the Midianites, in the parallel he leaves Midian and goes to Egypt. In ‘c' the situation in Egypt is worsening, but Yahweh remembers His covenant, and in the parallel Moses' relationship with Yahweh is worsening and Moses is forgetting the covenant. In ‘d' God gives Moses a sign in the flaming bush and the sign of the mountain of God, and in the parallel He give Moses three signs. And in ‘e' Yahweh reveals Himself as Israel's Deliverer, and in the parallel Moses is to take that deliverance to Israel.

Note for Christians.

The New Testament takes these historical accounts and applies their principles to the modern situation. For history is seen as a continual repetition of itself. Apart from Christ the world does not change. God offered man in the Garden the possibility of living for ever under the Kingly Rule of God. But man rebelled and chose his own way (Genesis 2-3). And from then on history consisted of the few who responded to God and pleased God, and the many who lived without concern for Him.

He then called out one, Abraham, who would found his own ‘kingdom of God' which would be brought into covenant with God (Genesis 12 onwards), and which would travel from place to place. But again it led to failure by man, and the kingdom eventually finished up in Egypt and became absorbed within it.

It is then offered here, in Exodus to Deuteronomy, through Moses, when the divinely perfect ‘seventy' are introduced (Exodus 1:5), with the final aim of establishing from their descendants God's Kingly Rule in Canaan, but from the beginning it is made clear that the people to whom He made this offer were unworthy. For having gone into Egypt which represented ‘the world' they had remained there and sought to become one with them. But ‘Egypt' is never a place with which men can be truly satisfied, and thus in this chapter we have seen them stirred from their lives of sin and unbelief by the sufferings that came on them, outwardly caused by their enemies, but underneath the surface caused by God, and as the book proceeds, there will be an offering to them of coming under the Kingly Rule of God in Canaan with all that could hinder removed. But Exodus to Judges is the tale of how they will fail to seize what God has offered them, so that it will only accepted by the few, and in the end they will go so far from God in compromise and sin that the prophets, despairing of them, predict the coming of the Kingly Rule of God in the future. But that it will come they are sure, for God has promised it. There will come an everlasting kingdom (Isaiah 9:6; Isaiah 11; Ezekiel 37:24).

And the New Testament reveals a similar picture. The Jews were waiting for the coming of the Kingly Rule of God promised by the prophets, but when it came in Jesus they rejected it and only the comparatively few responded. They failed to see that the Kingly Rule of God essentially consisted in responding to and obeying the King. Thus they rejected the King sent by God. And the result was that Kingly Rule of God was in the end offered through Jesus' Apostles to all in the world who would believe in Him and come to Him.

But did this mean that God had forsaken Israel? The answer lies in how God saw Israel. For God makes clear that the true Israel is composed of those who submit to His covenant and obey Him. In the words of Paul ‘He did not cast away His people whom He foreknew' (Romans 11:2), those who were faithful to Him. And all who would could come within the covenant as long as they were circumcised and became subject to His covenant requirements (Exodus 12:48). As to those who did not obey His covenant they had to be cut off from it and not be seen as His people (Exodus 32:33). Thus Abraham's foreign servants came within the covenant. There is no reason to doubt that the mixed multitude (Exodus 12:38) came within the covenant. In the days before Christ the Jews welcomed all proselytes into the covenant theoretically at least on equal terms with natural born Jews. And thus after the resurrection of Jesus those who rejected Him were cut off from the true Israel, and the Apostles went out to form the new congregation (ekklesia) of Israel as a result of Jesus' command (Matthew 16:18). That is why when the Gentiles began to respond the question arose as to whether it was necessary for them to be circumcised in order to become members of the Israel of God. The question was, how else could they be true proselytes in accordance with 12:48? And Paul's reply was not that they were not becoming Israel. Indeed he made clear that they were (Ephesians 2:11). It was that they were circumcised already, in the circumcision of Christ (Colossians 2:11; Colossians 2:13). In Christ all had been done in order for them to become the Israel of God, God's new creation (Galatians 6:12), without earthly ritual. Like the offerings and sacrifices, circumcision was done away with in Christ. Thus were Christians seen as entering under the Kingly Rule of God and as the true Israel of God. For if we are Christ's then are we Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise (Galatians 3:21).

In the New Testament this has a present and future aspect, as it also had with Jesus. In the present His Kingly Rule is enjoyed by God's true people in this world (Acts 8:12; Acts 19:8; Acts 20:25; Acts 28:23; Acts 28:31; Romans 14:17; 1 Corinthians 4:20; Colossians 1:13; Hebrews 1:8; Hebrews 12:28;), and in the future it will be a heavenly kingdom for all who are called by God in Jesus Christ (Act 14:22; 1 Corinthians 6:9; 1 Corinthians 15:24; 1 Corinthians 15:50; Galatians 5:21; Ephesians 5:5; 1Th 2:12; 2 Thessalonians 1:5; 2 Timothy 4:1; James 2:5; Revelation 11:15; Revelation 12:10). Yet the distinctions are not absolute and many verses in the second category include the thought of the present inheriting of the Kingly Rule of God (the Kingdom of heaven) for all who truly believe and respond to Him.

Thus can we apply these historical lessons to our own situation. We too live at a time when the Kingly Rule of God is subject to rejection by the many. We too know that in history God's offer was made and rejected because man would not receive it on God's terms, until it was distorted beyond all recognition. And why? Because men clung to ‘Egypt'. They wanted both God and Egypt and that was not possible, and so they chose ‘Egypt' and tried to call it the kingdom of God. But all through history, in spite of the pretence, for the outward church was no different from failing Israel and foolish Judaism, and it too rejected the Kingly Rule of God, replacing it with its own rule, God's work has gone on. Within the great churches that became monoliths and Egypts of their own, were always found the true believers who formed the true church, the living, invisible church, yet not really invisible, for it was visible by its life and faith expressed through the individuals who made up the whole. And in the end many broke out and formed churches of their own, only to fall into the danger of doing exactly as had been done before. Thus do all true believers constantly have to ‘come forth from Egypt', whether representing a failing church or a sordid world, and turn from love of them to the service of the living God, thus revealing themselves as members of the true Israel of God. In the words of John we are called to ‘love not the world, nor the things that are in the world. If any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the longings of the flesh, the longings for what is seen (of the eyes, that is, covetousness), and the arrogance and desire of position and status that bespeaks the vanity of life (the pride of life), are not of the Father but are of the world' (1 John 2:15). And the world consists not only of heady pleasures that destroy the soul, or the pride of self-seeking, but also of man's attempts at religion which avoid true faith in Christ and make him very satisfied with himself.

And this is not only true of the whole it is true of the part. Each individual has his own ‘Egypt' from which he must be rescued, for it is the tendency of man's heart to seek the pleasures of sin (Hebrews 11:25) and the vanity of the mind (Ephesians 2:3). When they are converted many still crave for Egypt. Thus when we see Israel suffering because of its folly in clinging to Egypt we can apply it to our own tendency to do the same. And when God brings persecution and suffering on His erring people we can see in it the picture of what happens to many of us, firstly in order to release us from ‘Egypt', and then in order to remove ‘Egypt' from us. We should be grateful for His correction. It is because He loves us and wants our love in return (Hebrews 12:5).

Most of Israel would in fact never really come out of Egypt, for while their bodies moved from it their hearts would always be there. That is why they subsequently failed again and again, ever longing for Egypt. And subsequently, and ironically, Canaan the chosen land itself became an Egypt for their children, because they had failed to cleanse it of its inhabitants and its follies. It became the continual source of its temptations. It was only the few who, like the prophets, ‘came out' and freed themselves, like the ‘seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal' (1 Kings 19:18). And so it is for us today.

Thus as we read these records we may rightly ask, what have they to say to us. What examples can we take from them? And apply these lessons to ourselves. Something which we will seek to do at the end of each chapter. For these things were written for our learning.

Here then we learn in chapter 1 that those who are different from others because of their faith in God will always suffer persecution in one way or another, even though it be only in the home or the workplace. They may find themselves welcome in ‘Egypt' for a time, but they will find that one day ‘Egypt' will not like the standards that they set, the demands that they make and the way that they behave, and persecution will follow. And like the midwives they must see in it the opportunity to stand firm for God and thus enjoy His blessing. And they must rejoice in it and recognise that it is helping to free them from love of ‘Egypt' which deadens the soul. For ‘tribulation works patient endurance, and patient endurance results in experience, and experience produces hope, and hope does not make us ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hears by the Holy Spirit Who is given to us' (Romans 5:3). Thus through the suffering do we experience the love of God, and through it His love possesses us too.

End of note.

The Call of Moses (Exodus 3:1 to Exodus 4:17).

What has gone before was preparatory to what follows. It is now that the main story of the book begins, which will take us from God's call to Moses, to the establishment of the covenant at Sinai and the erecting of God's earthly Dwellingplace, over a period of about two years.

But note the care that has been taken over the training of this man we see before us. He does not know it but he has been fully prepared by God. In Egypt he has been trained in statecraft and law, he has been involved with those who ran a great and powerful nation, and has no doubt had his share in the running of it. He has learned the discipline of power. But what is equally important in Midian he has been trained in desert lore. He now knew where water was to be found in the desert, he knew the secrets of the wilderness of Sinai, he knew the ways that led through that mountainous wilderness and which ways could take a multitude of people and which could not, and apart from his brother-in-law Hobab who was clearly famous for his desertcraft, whom he was able to call on for help (Numbers 10:29, Hobab would have done it for no one else), none was better aware of how to survive in that sometimes dreadful place. No one had been better trained and equipped to be a trek leader than he.