“The Israelites acted on Moses’s word and asked the Egyptians for silver and gold items and for clothing. And the Lord gave the people such favor with the Egyptians that they gave them what they requested. In this way they plundered the Egyptians.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the things we have to keep in mind when engaging with the Scriptures is that they were written a long time ago. A very long time ago. They feature stories and people and cultures which were vastly different from our own. The kinds of assumptions they made about what was okay to do and what wasn’t, about what kinds of behaviors were normal and which weren’t can occasionally seem utterly alien to us. This is one of those stories. Let’s talk briefly about what’s going on here, and why it nonetheless reveals something important about God’s character to us.

Let me get just a bit political out of the gate here. Woodrow Wilson was a terrible President. Beyond the fact that his wife effectively (and illegally) ran the government in his place when he had a stroke while in office and refused to resign or otherwise relinquish power during his recovery, and beyond the fact of his utter disdain for the Constitution as it was written making his oath to protect and defend it a farce, and even beyond the fact that he was terribly racist, at the end of World War I, he allowed England and France to construct the Treaty of Versailles to effectively plunder and punish the German people, setting the stage for the even more horrendous atrocities of World War II. Who knows how history might have gone, but a little less barbarous nationalism from those two nations could have left us with a very different world.

In the aftermath of World War II, though, we seem to have learned our lesson. Once we had secured the total surrender of Germany and Japan (and Italy, though they never represented the threat the other two did), rather than punishing them for what they had unleashed on the world and on us as a nation, we led the way in helping them rebuild. Instead of defeated, but intractable foes who were thereafter a constant and ongoing threat, we came away with two allies whose friendship mostly continues through to today. We have mostly followed this same pattern in the aftermath of all the wars we have fought in since. The friendship we sought with the new leadership hasn’t always worked or lasted, but we tend to do our best to leave the nations we have fought against better than how we found them (not to mention cleaning up the mess we made for them). We are by no means perfect on that record, but the intention is largely there.

Today, while there is undoubtedly an active black market for treasures and trinkets that might once have been considered the spoils of war, doing something like plundering a defeated nation is pretty much unthinkable to us as a culture. So, when we encounter passages like this one where the people of Israel not only plundered their enemies, but were directed in their plundering by God Himself, it makes for a pretty bitter pill to swallow. How could the God revealed to us in Christ as loving and patient and gentle and kind and compassionate be the same God who directed Israel to plunder the Egyptians, adding a layer of insult to the injuries they had already suffered at His hand?

The answer to that question isn’t perhaps as satisfying as concluding that it isn’t actually the same God, or that this was all on Israel and didn’t actually come from God. God really did command the Israelites to effectively plunder the Egyptian people on their way out of town. As we have talked about before, this was in fulfillment of His promise to Abraham more than 400 years earlier. But why would God make that kind of a promise in the first place? Hadn’t Egypt already suffered enough?

Asking that kind of question reveals that we’re looking at this in the wrong way. When we ask that kind of question, we are looking at this through the lens of our culture today. We are assuming on the Israelites (and ancient peoples more generally) an operating framework that is roughly similar to our own. We are assuming on them an understanding of God and His character that is roughly similar to our own. Neither of these are good assumptions. Ancient peoples generally and the ancient Israelites in particular were vastly different from us on all of these points and more.

So then, what do we make of a story like this one? We take it as a reminder of the patience and graciousness of our God. Does plundering a defeated foe really reflect His character? Through the lens of what we find revealed in the New Testament, we have to conclude that it doesn’t. But if the end of World War I teaches us anything, it is that this mindset of, “I’ve beaten you and now I get to take what is yours,” was something that stuck around human cultures for a very long time. If it was still hanging on in the early 20th century A.D., it was definitely in place in the 15th century B.C. In other words, when Israel defeated Egypt – even though the victory belonged entirely to their God and not to anything they did – they were going to plunder them. That was simply how nations operated. What we find here, though, is God meeting the people where they were, putting some limitations on what they might have done on their own, and getting them pointed in a direction more reflective of His character than they were before.

In normal circumstances, the kind of slave revolt Israel managed to achieve against the Egyptians would have been violent and incredibly bloody. Empowered by their victory, the formerly enslaved people would have been eager to revisit on their defeated foes the horrors of what they had experienced when the tables were turned. They would have wreaked absolute havoc on them. There would have been plundering and raping and pillaging and burning of cities and wanton murder in the streets. It would have been ugly. Really ugly. But it also would have been normal because that’s what people have always done in those situations.

But not this one. God basically told the Israelites to sit back and watch while He did all the work. Then, once the victory was secured and it was time for the normal plundering-fest to commence, God told them to ask nicely and moved in the hearts of the Egyptians to be favorably disposed to giving gladly. Now, the favor mentioned in v. 35 would very likely have been motivated by their sheer terror of the Israelites and their God at that point, but the outcome was the same either way. What normally would have been violent and chaotic turned out to be nothing more than a peaceful exchange. And then, nearly all of the plunder was ultimately used in the construction of the tabernacle, and didn’t enrich the people themselves at all. In other words, God took the people from where they were, and moved them a little closer to where He was.

This is how He has always operated with us. He is God. He has every right and more than enough power to simply force us to reflect His will and character in our lives. But He doesn’t. He reveals Himself slowly and in bits small enough for us to digest. He consistently meets us where we are and gently shepherds us in the direction of His character. He never forces Himself or demands. He woos and waits. Now, this patience won’t last forever. There is a time coming when all decisions will be final. But until that day arrives, our God is gentle and kind as He patiently shapes us to more and more reflect who He made us to be. He is like a woodcarver who knows just how much pressure He needs to create a work of art. He did it here with Israel. He still does it with us today. Thanks be to God for His patience and grace.