Exodus 1-4
Exodus 1-4
The initial scenes of the book of Exodus were predicted in Gen 15; just after God instituted the Abrahamic covenant, the text records:
“Then the LORD said to Abram, ‘Know this for certain: your offspring will be strangers in a land that does not belong to them; they will be enslaved and oppressed 400 years. However, I will judge the nation they serve, and afterwards they will go out with many possessions. But you will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a ripe old age. In the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure” (vv. 13-15).
By the time of Ex 1 the expansion of Abraham’s lineage in Egypt had become so great that they caused the Pharaoh trepidation (1.7-9; cf. Gen 46.27), and he attempted to enforce an infant massacre. At the outset of the second book of the Scripture it is clear that God’s faithfulness to His promises does not always yield peace and prosperity for His people (cf. 1 Cor 4.9-13; 2 Tim 3.12)! Yet, the chapter foreshadows God’s dominance over the Pharaoh, and the Hebrew population expanded even further (vv. 15-22).
As the story progresses, special emphasis is given to one member of the emerging population of Israelites: a Levite named Moses (ch 2). Interestingly, the text offers few details regarding the Egyptian environs Moses enjoyed in his youth. Rather the biblical author wishes to point up the fact that—despite being raised in Pharaoh’s house—he did not lose appreciation for his own people (2.11-12; cf. Heb 11.24-26). While the account of Moses as a murderer shows his frailty and sin, it does more; Moses had an acute sense of justice, a desire to deliver his oppressed kin—and that uniquely qualified him as God’s agent of deliverance. But, as is the case with many novice leaders, Moses’ excessive zeal resulted in a time of training in humility and dependence upon God. The drama of the early chapters of Exodus take a dramatic turn when it was revealed that the Pharaoh wanted Moses executed for the crime of murder (2.15). The latter portion of ch 2 and the first part of ch 3 describe events that took place over an extended period of time, and two elements of the plot were occurring simultaneously: God felt compassion as He heard the cry of His people (2.23-25), and Moses was developing as a shepherd (3.1).
The account of Moses at the burning bush is one of the more famous in the biblical story (ch 3). The miracle of a burning bush should not overshadow what God said to Moses there. God revealed that He is the God of Moses’ father, and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (v. 6). Two ideas are outstanding: Moses needed no introduction to the patriarchs (it is assumed that Moses knew of these men), and God identified Moses with the covenant family. God reminded Moses that He had heard the cry of His people, and now desired to fulfill the land-promise originally made to Abraham (vv. 7-8; cf. Gen 12.1-3, 15.1-21)—and had chosen Moses to intercede before the Pharaoh and lead Israel out of Egypt (vv. 9-10).
The remainder of Exodus 3-4 records Moses’ peevish and fretful nature—so dissimilar to the courage and zeal displayed in 2.11-14. However, despite the fact that we who are timid can find encouragement in the faint-hearted leader, the reader’s attention here should not be on Moses’ excuses for not going to the Pharaoh, but God’s self-revelation to Moses:
- He is the eternal God—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (3.14-15). He is the God who made promises of land and lineage to a specific people and, as one recognizes throughout Genesis, no threat is proficient to frustrate Him
- Accordingly, to redeem His people God would frustrate Pharaoh by employing all natural phenomena—and in chapter 4 Moses received an advanced screening of what God could do
Finally in a spirit of humility, Moses gathered his family and left Midian for Egypt. Then the LORD instructed him:
“When you go back to Egypt, make sure you do in front of Pharaoh all the wonders I have put within your power. But I will harden his heart so that he won’t let the people go. Then you will say to Pharaoh: This is what the LORD says: Israel is My firstborn son. I told you: let My son go so that he may worship Me, but you refused to let him go. Now I will kill your firstborn son!” (Ex 4.21-23)
While these chapters provide believers with much encouragement in their own right, when followed down the storyline of Scripture one notices that they set the stage for the ‘days of fulfillment’ in the coming of Messiah. The LORD told Abraham, “Know this for certain: Your offspring will be strangers in a land that does not belong to them; they will be enslaved and oppressed 400 years. However, I will judge the nation they serve, and afterwards they will go out with many possessions” (Gen 15.13-14). In the infancy narratives of Matthew’s Gospel—when King Herod was planning to eliminate the potential threat of the newborn ‘King of the Jews,’ after the Magi had left Joseph and Mary and baby Jesus in Bethlehem—Matthew records that:
“An angel of the Lord suddenly appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, ‘Get up! Take the child and His mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you. For Herod is about to search for the child to destroy Him.’ So he got up, took the child and His mother during the night, and escaped to Egypt. He stayed there until Herod’s death, so that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled: ‘Out of Egypt I called My Son’” (Mt 2.13-15; cf. Hs 11.1; Ex 4.21-23)
God called Israel—as a nation—His son, and later sent His Son in the flesh; both sought temporary refuge in Egypt and were then delivered. For Matthew, Mary and Joseph’s flight to Egypt was no accident, nor was it a matter to be overlooked; Jesus, the fulfillment of the promise to Israel, had come!
*For a complete list of references, please see scripturestoryline.com