Tag: Exodus

Morning Musing: Exodus 7:1-5

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“The Lord answered Moses, ‘See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and Aaron your brother will be your prophet. You must say whatever I command you; then Aaron your brother must declare it to Pharaoh so that he will let the Israelites go from his land. But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart and multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt. Pharaoh will not listen to you, but I Will put my hand into Egypt and bring the military divisions of my people the Israelites out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment. The Egyptians will know that I am the Lord when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the Israelites from among them.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

There are some folks who just like to fly by the seat of their pants. Most, though, are much more comfortable having some sort of a plan. And, the bigger the task, the more detailed the plan should be. In the case of Moses and the Israelites, they were getting ready to undertake the biggest task they could imagine. They were going to take on the most powerful man in the world and eliminate his source of slave labor. And, their initial attempt to get started had not gone well. Fortunately, God had a plan. He lays that plan out here one more time in step-by-step detail. Let’s talk through what we see here.

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Morning Musing: Exodus 6:28-30

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“On the day the Lord spoke to Moses in the land of Egypt, he said to him, ‘I am the Lord; tell Pharaoh king of Egypt everything I am telling you.’ But Moses replied in the Lord’s presence, ‘Since I am such a poor speaker, how will Pharaoh listen to me?'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

We tend to revere certain people who have achieved what we determine to be great things. Part of this is totally understandable. When someone has done something we can’t do, we are impressed by that. Part of this is a leftover from the Fall and our sinful nature. It’s easier to look to people we can see than to a God we can’t. Most religions do this regularly and lean into it. Christianity has certainly been guilty of this over its history. Yet it is the one religion that doesn’t find any support for this in its founding documents. The Scriptures are clear over and over again that people are not great; God is. Let’s talk about why this matters so much.

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Morning Musing: Exodus 6:20, 26-27

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“Amram married his father’s sister Jochebed, and she bore him Aaron and Moses. Amram lived 137 years. . .It was this Aaron and Moses whom the Lord told, “Bring the Israelites out of the land of Egypt according to their military divisions.” Moses and Aaron were the ones who spoke to Pharaoh king of Egypt in order to bring the Israelites out of Egypt.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Every culture has ways of identifying who its elite members are. Today we give preference to graduates of certain universities. People who are publicly known for embracing certain social positions and who are also graduates of those same schools (although it’s hard to imagine many of their graduates come out not embracing those positions given how hard they work to indoctrinate their students into their worldview) can establish themselves even more firmly. But the most consistent way we have historically identified the best and brightest is by their family name. Names like Clinton, Bush, and Kennedy carry a lot of cultural clout. Just before we get into the real action of our story, the author stops to give us Moses’ credentials. Let’s talk about what’s going on here and why it matters.

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Morning Musing: Exodus 6:6-9

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“‘Therefore tell the Israelites: I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from the forced labor of the Egyptians and rescue you from slavery to them. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and great acts of judgment. I will take you as my people, and I will be your God. You will know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from the forced labor of the Egyptians. I will bring you to the land that I swore to give Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it to you as a possession. I am the Lord.’ Moses told this to the Israelites, but they did not listen to him because of their broken spirit and hard labor.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Have you ever been presented with a golden opportunity that you passed up because you just didn’t have the energy to take it? There are occasionally times in life when something comes along that looks incredible, but we don’t jump on it for one reason or another. Sometimes those reasons are good and understandable. Sometimes the people around us think we are certifiably insane for passing up on whatever it was. God, through Moses, was making some pretty incredible promises to the people of Israel here. Yet because Pharaoh had so broken their spirits, they wouldn’t believe any of it was really true. Let’s dig in a bit to what is going on here, and talk about staying encouraged when things seem bleak.

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Digging in Deeper: Exodus 6:2-5

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“Then God spoke to Moses, telling him, ‘I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty, but I was not known to them by my name ‘the Lord.’ I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land they lived in as aliens. Furthermore, I have heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are forcing to work as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

When a school gets an educational path right, everything you learn builds on what came before it. I’ve talked before about a very specific experience of that I had when I was getting my chemistry degree. My senior-level chem professor sat us down on the first day of class and said we were going to spend the semester learning why everything we had learned before wasn’t correct. He was being mostly tongue-in-cheek. What he meant was that we were going to spend the semester building on the foundation of what we had learned before in ways that made it hard to recognize some of what we had originally been taught. This is something God does throughout the Scriptures and especially here in the story of the Exodus. Let’s pause on this little section to see how He is doing this here.

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