Let's start this study by remembering the time and the culture of God's people. Joseph, son of Jacob / Israel, who brought his people to Egypt during the famine is long forgotten. Exodus 1:8-11 tell us, "Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people, "Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, least they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land." Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens. They built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Raamses."
So let's all agree that Pharaoh has acquired a work force of slaves - almost two million (remember when they were "counted" only men were counted, not women and children).
But . . . to understand who this group of people are in this story, we have to go back to the Garden of Eden - when God gave them a promise of grace in the midst of the curse, promising that a descendant would one day come and do battle with the Serpent and put an end to evil. Genesis traces this promise of an offspring to God's call of one man and the growth of his family into the descendants of twelve sons, seventy people in all, who find themselves in Egypt because one of these sons, Joseph, has been put in charge of supplying grain in the midst of a worldwide famine. They carry with them the promise that God will bless all peoples in the world through this family.
At the beginning of Exodus we find this family four hundred years later, and we read: "The people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly, they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them." (Exodus 1:7)
Clearly these carriers of God's promises have gone from being welcomed guests of the pharaoh to becoming an abused slave-labor force. Pharaoh, an ancient version of Pol Pot, Stalin or Hitler, imagines a threat, and uses that imagined threat to justify his evil scheme plan A. He will turn these foreigners into slaves, oppressing them with labor so that the men will be kept away from their wives and will likely die young from overwork. In this way their population will decrease and the threat will be diminished.
Back in Genesis, when God cursed the serpent he said the he would "put enmity . . . between your offspring and her offspring" (Genesis 3:15). Here in Exodus we see the offspring of the Serpent, Pharaoh, the king of Egypt who wears a serpent on his crown, at enmity against the offspring of "the woman." Had this evil offspring's effort succeeded, had all the male children of the Hebrews been slain, the channel through which the Savior was to come would have been destroyed. BUT we discover in verse 12 that Pharaoh's plan A has clearly backfired: "The more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel." (Exodus 1:12)
This is no fluke; this is the sovereign work of the One who had made the promise that this family would become a numerous people.
Since plan A backfired, Pharaoh turned to plan B, instructing the midwives to kill the baby boys born to Hebrew women to keep them from growing up to be warriors. Why not the girl babies? Perhaps he assumed that the women would easily assimilate into the Egyptian population once the men were eliminated. But plan B failed also. So finally Pharaoh stopped hiding behind his secret strategies and went to plan C, moving from forced enslavement to secret suffocation to outright slaughter: "Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, "Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live." (Exodus 1:22).
Remember this when you study the first plague - where God turns the water of the River Nile to blood - the very same water that Pharaoh used to drown the Israelite baby boys.
- he wrote the first five books of the Bible.
- God said that he spoke to Moses clearly in a way he didn’t with other prophets (Numbers 12:5–8).
- Moses gave God’s people the law, which was all-important in Jesus’s day.
- In Moses' account of his own life - as one born under the threat of death - left the royal palace to identify with his suffering brothers - led his people out of slavery - we will see the shadow of Jesus who - left the halls of heaven to be born under Herod's murderous edict and lead his people out of their captivity to sin.
- In the unblemished lambs who died that first Passover night so that the firstborn son could live, we will see Jesus, God's firstborn, "the Lamb who was slain" so that we can live (Revelation 5:12).
- As we witness Moses leading his people through the waters of the Red Sea unscathed, we will see Jesus, who leads us through the waters of death into everlasting life.
- In the pillar of cloud and fire that guided God's people, the manna that fed them, and the rock that gushed with water for them to drink, we will see the light of the world, the bread of life, the living water - Jesus himself.
- As we listen to the law given by God on the mountain, we will hear its echo in the words of Jesus, who climbed up a mountain and spoke with authority about what it means to obey God from the heart.
- We will go over Moses' record of the design for the Tabernacle which God descended to dwell among his people, details that have no meaning apart from Jesus, who descended to dwell among His people.
- We will witness the establishment of the priesthood, those who were to be holy to the Lord and other sacrifices for sin. In the priest's clothing and ceremonies and sacrifices we'll see that Moses was preparing his people to grasp the Great High Priest, the Holy One of God, who offered himself as a once-for-all sacrifice.
- We'll follow Israel's forty years in the wilderness where they repeatedly disobeyed and rebelled, seeing the contrast between them and Jesus, the true Israel, who went out into the wilderness for forty days meeting every temptation with perfect obedience.
The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him. For this is what you asked of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, “Let us not hear the voice of the Lord our God nor see this great fire anymore, or we will die.”
The Lord said to me: “What they say is good. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put my words in his mouth. He will tell them everything I command him. (Deuteronomy 18:15-18)
Moses was a prophet in that he spoke for God to the people. God installed him as his first official prophet to Israel because they were too terrified to hear God speak directly to them.
Moses was also a great deliverer as he stood up to the greatest power in the world in his day and demanded that Pharaoh release his two-million strong slave labor force. By the power of God, he delivered his people out of slavery in Egypt - through the Red Sea - and led them for forty years in the wilderness. But . . . he could not deliver them into the Promised Land - he could only take them to the border. Moses could not go in - he forfeited that privilege by dishonoring God near the end of the journey in the wilderness (Numbers 20).
While we can look upon the punishment of these events as being harsh we are pointed back when Moses had set himself up as judge and deliverer of his people - when he saw an Egyptian beating an Israelite - he killed the Egyptian without being instructed to do so by the Lord. Now years later, once again he was trying to deliver God's people in his own way through his own strength - "playing God."
As we study Exodus, we recognize that the story is really about bondage to sin and deliverance through Christ. Let's think more about sin as bondage. Titus 3:3-7 tells us, "At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life."
Week 2 - As you read Exodus 1 - 4, put yourself in the shoes of some of the people in this story.
- Moses' parents
- Pharaoh's daughter
- Moses living in Pharaoh's house knowing he is a Hebrew
- Hebrew slaves who know Moses is Hebrew
- Moses as a shepherd over the sheep of his father-in-law
What are YOUR thoughts and reactions to seeing Jesus in these Old Testament books? We seen in this story that real freedom is not just freedom from slavery to sin, but freedom to worship, freedom to take upon yourself the yoke of Christ. Have you experienced freedom from bondage to sin and/or freedom to worship God by taking on the yoke of Christ?
Many people have a hard time with Old Testament stories in which they think God appears vengeful and unyielding. While it is hard for us to understand and accept, the Bible makes it clear that Pharaoh hardened his heart and also God hardened Pharaoh's heart. The word harden means to stiffen - so to harden your heart can mean to stiffen your resolve. It can also mean to make heavy or to weigh down so that it cannot be moved. So when we read that Pharaoh hardened his heart or that God hardened Pharaoh's heart, we understand that Pharaoh stiffened his resolve to defy God and determined that he would not change his position in regard to the Hebrews. One thing I never understood about the ten plagues of Egypt was that each plague was an attack on an Egyptian god. Being the "picture person" that I am <smile> I have found the following picture that explains this.
Would this have been difficult? They were instructed to take a lamb INTO THEIR HOME - then four days later, after everyone had become so fond of it - to slit its throat. Because we have the benefit of the entire story - it would be easy for us to sit here thinking that we know what we would have done. But . . . is this any different than so many people today finding it difficult to believe that blood shed on a cross two thousand years ago has any saving power for them? What do YOU think about the phrase "salvation through judgment"?
I find it interesting that from the very time of Moses up to the time of Jesus (and beyond) the Israelites celebrated the Passover each spring. People from all over the country would go to Jerusalem to sacrifice a lamb for the Passover feast. They understood the Passover and the purpose of it . . . but could they recognize, and accept, Jesus Christ as their Savior - their Passover Lamb? How about you???