Exodus 3:8

I am come down to deliver them.

The world’s sorrow and Christ’s redemption

1. Christ came down from heaven.

2. Christ came at the call of the world’s sorrow.

3. Christ came to achieve the world’s moral freedom.

4. Christ came to destroy the kingship of sin..

5. Christ came to lead men into happiness.

6. Christ came to awaken holy agencies for the spiritual welfare of the race. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

Jehovah resents the oppression of the Church

1. Surely.

2. Speedily.

3. Continually.

4. Retributively. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

“I am come down”

God is said to descend.

1. In accommodation to a human form of speech.

2. To show judgment on the wicked (Genesis 18:1.).

3. Perhaps to indicate the situation of Egypt, which was a low country.

4. To indicate some notable event about to follow. Babel. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

“To bring them up out of that land”

1. Of bad rulership.

2. Of wicked companionship.

3. Of hostile religious influences.

4. Of servile bondage.

5. There are many countries in the world where it is dangerous for God’s people to reside. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

“Unto a good land, and a large”

1. Canaan was large compared with Goshen.

2. God exchanges the situations of His people for their good.

3. God does not intend His people to remain long the slaves of any earthly power.

4. The spiritual Israel will in eternity enter into the fulness of these words. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

“The Canaanites and the Hittites”

A disinherited people:--

1. Disinherited by God, as the Supreme Disposer of all territory.

2. As under a special (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

The Divine resolution

Here the absolute, free, unconditional grace of the God of Abraham, and the God of Abraham’s seed, shines forth in all its native brightness, unhindered by the “ifs “ and “buts,” the vows, resolutions, and conditions of man’s legal spirit. God had come down to display Himself, in sovereign grace, to do the whole work of salvation, to accomplish His promise made to Abraham, and repeated to Isaac and Jacob. He had not come down to see if, indeed, the subjects of His promise were in such a condition as to merit His salvation. It was sufficient for Him that they needed it. He was not attracted by their excellencies or their virtues. It was not on the ground of aught that was good in them, either seen or foreseen, that He was about to visit them, for He knew what was in them. In one word, we have the true ground of His gracious acting set before us in the words, “I am the God of Abraham,” and “I have seen the affliction of My people.” These words reveal a great fundamental principle in the ways of God. It is on the ground of what He is, that He ever acts. “i am,” secures all for “my people.” Assuredly He was not going to leave His people amid the brick-kilns of Egypt, and under the lash of Pharaoh’s taskmasters. They were His people, and He would act toward them in a manner worthy of Himself. Nothing should hinder the public display of His relationship with those for whom His eternal purpose had secured the land of Canaan. He had come down to deliver them; and the combined power of earth and hell could not hold them in captivity one hour beyond His appointed time. He might and did use Egypt as a school, and Pharaoh as a schoolmaster; but when the needed work was accomplished, both the school and the schoolmaster were set aside, and His people were brought forth with a high hand and an outstretched arm. (C. H. Mackintosh.)