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Exodus 2

Gary Stedman on

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Introduction

The beginning of the Exodus narrative begins with the refusal of the King of Egypt to acknowledge Joseph (lit. “know Joseph”). Chapter 2 ends with God acknowledging Israel (lit. “know”). In between we find acts of faith: the midwives; Moses’ parents; Moses’ sister and Moses himself. Acts that spring from a life lived in the knowledge that God “knows the way of the righteous.”

We also find acts of rebellion: Pharaoh, taskmasters, the general populace and some Israelites. These acts spring from a refusal to acknowledge that which God acknowledges.

The Text

“So God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God acknowledged them” (Ex. 2:24-25).

Jocheved, and Miriam’s Faith (and Pharaoh’s Daughter?) (2:1-10)

Faith has consequences! Jocheved and Amram having acted in faith and now have a baby boy whom a nation have been mobilized to cast into the river. So, how do you react and what do you do? You put him in the river! How that is done reveals her Jocheved’s faith.

Miriam stands by to “know” what will happen to the boy. Miriam is not waiting out of curiosity, she is waiting in faith. She acts shrewdly, just like the midwives in ch.1, and Moses is restored to his mother before departing to Pharaoh’s household.

Moses’ Faith (2:11-14)

Moses having spent the vast majority of his life in Pharaoh’s household knows he is a Hebrew and that he will redeem Israel (Acts 7:23-25). By faith Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured as seeing Him who is invisible. (Heb 11:25-27)

Moses the Rejected Redeemer (2:11-14)

Moses defends his brethren and “supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand.” (Acts 7:25)

“Who made you a prince and a judge over us?” No answer is given to this Israelite’s question because it is already clear! God has made him prince and judge! This lack of awareness is striking in comparison to Jocheved and Miriam’s faith and understanding.

Moses fears and flees when he becomes aware that his killing of the Egyptian was “known.”

Moses in Midian, Israel in Egypt (2:15-21)

Moses settles down to a quiet life in exile. A man cast out of both “homes”: Egyptian and Hebrew. A stranger in a strange land. Having sons who are not born under a death sentence. Shepherding just as Israel’s sons used to do when they first arrived in Egypt. His credentials as Israel’s redeemer become less and less convincing as time passes.

Exodus 2:23-25

Meanwhile in Egypt… a wicked king dies and a cry goes up. God’s covenant with Abraham, hinted at in the beginning of Exodus 1, is mentioned explicitly. God has not forgotten, even when everything seems to point to that conclusion.

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The Fruitfulness of Israel

Gary Stedman on

The Text

“And a man of the house of Levi went and took as wife a daughter of Levi” (Exodus 2:1).

Introduction

The simplicity of this verse belies its significance in the context of the Exodus narrative. As we read on in the book of Exodus and other books in the Old Testament we find the simplicity of this introduction to the birth of Moses also disguises a narrative complexity that is the key to understanding its significance.

Context: Exodus 1

Exodus 1:1-1:6:
Paraphrase of Genesis 46:8 – 50:26. This introduction consciously picks up on the final chapters of Genesis and continues the story. Keeping the final chapters of Genesis in mind is therefore necessary as we read Exodus 1 and 2.

Exodus 1:7-22:
The fruitfulness of Israel and their subsequent subjugation by Egypt just as revealed by the Lord to Abraham in Genesis 15:13-15.

vv.11-22 from enslavement to infanticide. The failure of Pharaoh’s increasingly desperate attempts to frustrate God’s covenant promises to Abraham that Israel would flourish and leave Egypt for Canaan.

The Anonymous Marriage: Exodus 2:1

Verses 1 and 2 tell the story of a man marrying a woman who then conceives and gives birth to a son. There is nothing unusual about this storyline in Biblical narrative. It happens all the time. However, we have the unusual detail that both the parents and the baby are unnamed. We then read on to find in v.4 that the anonymous firstborn son has an anonymous sister (v.4), and then in v.10 the child is named by an Egyptian princess.

It is not until we get to Exodus 6:20 that we find out the parents names: Amram and Jocheved, but also we find out Moses has a brother, Aaron, and then in 7:7 we find out Aaron is the older brother. The genealogy in Numbers 26:59 then gives us the complete family tree: Amram and Jocheved have 3 children: Miriam, Aaron and Moses. Exodus 2:1-2 missed out the birth of two children. Why?

Understanding how Moses tell this story in Exodus 2 is therefore key to understanding the point he wants to make.

Opposition to Pharaoh and Faith in God

Pharaoh’s irrational rage towards Israel was met with simple, obedient faith. To surrender to the temptation to acquiesce in search of a quiet trouble-free life would result in greater destruction.

“By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden three months by his parents, because they saw he was a beautiful child; and they were not afraid of the king’s
command.” (Hebrews 11:23)

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Surveying the Text: Exodus

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Introduction

The three great themes of Exodus are the deliverance God brings to His people, the giving of the law, and the establishment of the tabernacle. There are other important themes as well, such as the recurring disobedience of the people. Remember as we work through the Bible, each book contributes to the grand theme of all Scripture, which is the redemption of God’s people, accomplished in the context of His reconciliation of all things in Heaven and on earth (Col. 1:20).

The Text

“And the Lord said unto Moses, Go on before the people, and take with thee of the elders of Israel; and thy rod, wherewith thou smotest the river, take in thine hand, and go. Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. And he called the name of the place Massah, and Meribah, because of the chiding of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the Lord, saying, Is the Lord among us, or not?” (Ex. 17:5–7).

Summary of the Text

What are the dates of the book? The book of Exodus begins with the death of Joseph (c. 1600 B.C.), but most of it centers on Israel’s encampment at the base of Mt. Sinai (c. 1440 B.C).

The first part of Exodus is simply narrative (Ex. 1-20), showing the deliverance from Egypt and culminating in the giving of the Ten Commandments. In chapters 21-24, we find a collection of assorted laws which amplify the Ten Commandments, and then the last part of the book concerns the building of the tabernacle (25-31). Woven throughout the whole thing we find the grumbling and disobedience of Israel.

The Definition of Israel

This is the book that defines Israel for us. There are three distinctives that set Israel apart from other nations. The first is their national deliverance from the tyranny of Pharaoh. They have ahistorical foundation as a people together. Second, on the basis of this deliverance, this exodus, God gives them His law as a sign of His grace to them. Note particularly the preamble to the Ten Commandments. God identifies Himself as the one who brought them out of the house of bondage, and so the law represents moral liberty. Third, God establishes His tabernacle in their midst so that His presence might be with them. This means that God delivered them, Godinstructs them, and God accompanies them.

If you look at the sweep from Genesis to Revelation, you notice the pattern—from Garden to Garden City. The biblical story summarized is Paradise, Paradise Lost, and Paradise Regained. The beginning of an Edenic reestablishment is seen in this book, when the tabernacle is built (an artificial mountain, an artificial Eden). Eden was on a mountain (four rivers had their headwaters there), and God walked with Adam and Eve there. Now cherubim again guarded the way to the mercy seat just as the way back to the tree of life was guarded.

In this book, God adopts Israel as His firstborn son (Ex. 4:22-23). The firstborn of Egypt are all slain, the firstborn of Israel are all spared, and Israel becomes the firstborn of God.

An Unlikely Deliverer

Moses began his career as a likely deliverer. Since God doesn’t work that way usually, He began by turning His likely savior into an unlikely one. When Moses was suitably unsuitable, YHWH appeared to him in the burning bush.

God loves cliffhangers. Throughout Scripture, He delivers His people at the very last moment, and in the Exodus, He does it for millions of people all at the same moment. Pharaoh’s chariots are at their back, and the Red Sea is lapping at their toes, and Moses was perhaps wondering what he had gotten himself into.

A “suitable” deliverance, according to our lights would have been for Moses to face down Pharaoh with an army at his back. Well, he did have an army there, but it was the wrong one.

Ten Plagues

The ten plagues that reduced that era’s great superpower to a smoldering ruin are interesting on various levels. The plagues are first aimed at the various gods of Egypt. Second, the plagues represent a “decreation” move—darkness instead of light, animals dying instead of being created, the first born destroyed instead of established. Third, the plagues provide a kind of counterpoint to the ways in which Israel disobeyed after their deliverance. “Because all those men which have seen my glory, and my miracles, which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have tempted me now these ten times, and have not hearkened to my voice” (Num. 14:22).

Grumbling and Complaining

Note the introduction of the grumbling motif into Scripture. After God had delivered the people wonderfully, it didn’t take them long to fall back into unbelief. Also mark the fact that you can only repent of grumbling—you can’t steer your way out of it. Look what happened when Aaron tried to “steer” the people’s apostasy in the golden calf incident. He tried to establish syncretistic worship, using an idol in a festival of YHWH. No good at all.

This is a realistic story of deliverance, not a hagiographic story of the bad guys drowned in the Red Sea, with the good guys wearing white bath robes, saying, “Lo!” and “Verily!” No, they were usually muttering in their tents with the Hebrew equivalent of razzum- scazzum.

Jesus in Exodus

The Exodus becomes a grand theme in Scripture for all manner of deliverance. It is a rich source of allusion for all subsequent biblical writers (Dt. 4:32-34). “And, behold, there talked with him two men, which were Moses and Elias: Who appeared in glory, and spake of his decease [hisExodus] which he should accomplish at Jerusalem” (Luke 9:30– 31).

With all this established, let us return to our text. The apostle Paul throws some additional light on it. “And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ” (1 Cor. 10:4). Christ was the Rock the people drank from, but this means He was also the Rock that Moses was commanded to strike.

They quarreled with Moses, and said he had to give them water. The word here would better be rendered as “lodged a complaint,” or “filed a suit,” or “laid a charge.” Meribah was Lawsuit City. They came first against Moses, but the real issue was whether God was with them or not.

The staggering thing here is not that the people brought a charge, indicting the Lord. The astonishing thing is that God accepted the indictment. Formal charges were filed. God said that Moses was to go in front of the people, with the elders of Israel accompanying him as witnesses. Take a particular rod, He said, the same one you used to turn the Nile to blood. God said that He would then stand before Moses on the Rock, identifying with it. Moses was then to take the rod ofblood, and strike the Rock, and water will flow from it. What flowed from the side of Christ when the Roman soldier struck Him with his spear? Water and blood (John 19:34).

What must the thirsty do? They must drink from the water that flows from Christ (John 7:38). But there is no water unless Moses strikes.

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