God Sees the Plight of His People

Rob Merritt

Sermon • Submitted a year ago • Presented a year ago

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[Exodus 2:23-25]

Christian Standard Bible (Chapter 2)

23 After a long time, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned because of their difficult labor, and they cried out, and their cry for help because of the difficult labor ascended to God. 24 God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. 25 and God saw the Israelites, and God knew.

False starts and true beginnings

If we look at 2:11–3:10 we find four obvious sections:

1. Moses’ life in Egypt (2:11–15a);

2. his settlement in Midian (2:15b–22);

3. God’s ‘sudden remembrance’ (2:23–25);

4. and God’s self revelation to Moses (3:1–10).

The first two sections are all about Moses—in verses 11–15a there are sixteen verbs, and Moses is the grammatical subject of fourteen of them. In the second two sections, however, the action passes into the hands of God: it is he who ‘intervenes’ (24–25), and it is he who intrudes so abruptly, so disruptively, into the even tenor of Moses’ adopted role of shepherd (3:1–10). Thereby hangs a tale indeed!

It is not common for biblical narrative to draw lessons or stop to make moral comments. Yet the point to be made here and the conclusion to be drawn is obvious: in the work of God mere human effort, however well-intentioned, committed or influential, results in failure. The only way forward is (speaking reverently) to ‘mobilize God’ on our side. Seen in this light, 2:11–22 may be called ‘the way of failure’, and, by contrast, 2:23–25 bring us into ‘the place of effectiveness’.

What was it then that made all the difference for the people of God?

The wording of verse 23b is important—they (lit.) ‘moaned … shrieked … their call for help’ (niv, groaned … cried out … cry for help).

The decisive moment came, however, when the inarticulate moaning and crying-out became a prayer and their cry for help … went up to God (cf. 3:7).

Where time brought no relief and political change brought no improvement, prayer made the difference. If, as we said, when considered from a human standpoint, Moses’ precipitate action put back the moment of deliverance, then we must equally also say that when prayer was made, deliverance dawned (cf. Dan. 9:23).

The prayer of the people of God is the beginning of their deliverance because prayer brings God into the situation. The chapter ends with the highly significant declaration of God’s response to his people’s prayer:

God heard … God looked on [saw] … and was concerned [knew] (24–25).

The Message of Exodus: The Days of Our Pilgrimage (8. The Groan and the Cry)

It was prayer that made all the difference, even though there was no immediate change. That horrible dark curtain of suffering still hung over the people of God, Moses was still in Midian, and there was no gleam of heavenly light or discernible declaration from God that their prayer had been heard. The Israelites in Egypt had no public declaration from God that their prayer had been heard, they were still walking in darkness and seeing no light (cf. Isa. 50:10). We, however, see a different picture because the Lord uses his Word to lift the corner of the curtain for us. We are able to see what they could not, that when the prayer was made, the prayer was heard; the grim realities of the situation were registered, and God entered into fellowship with his people in their need and came down to deliver them. This is a straightforward demonstration of the effectiveness of prayer as echoed in Daniel 9:23, ‘As soon as you began to pray, an answer was given’ (cf. Jer. 33:1–3). It was prayer that made all the difference.

The Message of Exodus: The Days of Our Pilgrimage (Additional Notes)

Additional notes

The framework of Moses’ life is drawn from a variety of Scripture passages.

Acts 7:23 says he was forty years old when he left Egypt for Midian (Exod. 2:11), and

Acts 7:30 records he spent forty years in Midian, making him eighty when he returned to Egypt (Exod. 7:7),

and he then led Israel in the wilderness for another forty years (Num. 14:34; Deut. 8:2). This fits with Deuteronomy, which says he was 120 years old when he died (Deut. 34:7).

The neat parcelling of Moses’ life into three blocks of forty years suggests deliberate patterning, and Currid (vol. 1, p. 75) notes that forty is frequently a period of testing in the Bible (e.g. Gen. 7:17; 1 Sam. 17:16). This is not, of course, to question the Bible’s veracity but to take into account an allowable symbolic use of numbers and to suggest that Scripture may be more interested here in the quality of Moses’ life than its chronological span—certainly every part of his life was a time of testing par excellence. The comment in Deut. 34:7 on Moses’ exceptional vitality despite his great age suggests that the numbers are likely to be correct.

[Exodus 3:1-6]

Christian Standard Bible (Chapter 3)

Meanwhile, Moses was shepherding the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian. He led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. [Mentioned 15 times in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers] 2 Then the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire within a bush. As Moses looked, he saw that the bush was on fire but was not consumed. 3 So Moses thought, “I must go over and look at this remarkable sight. Why isn’t the bush burning up?”

4 When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look [when Moses had obeyed], God called out to him from the bush, “Moses, Moses!”

“Here I am,” he answered.

5 “Do not come closer,” he said. “Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” 6 Then he continued, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God.

Mount Horeb/Sinai

The Message of Exodus: The Days of Our Pilgrimage (1. The Mountain of God)

Mountains, especially Horeb, or Sinai as it is also known in the Old Testament, figure largely in the spiritual history of Moses.

Horeb makes its first appearance in the story here as the mountain of conversion or new beginnings, and in chapters 19 to 34

it is the mountain of revelation, the place of Moses’ seven ascents.

Beyond Horeb lies Mount Pisgah, which could be called Moses’ mountain of disappointment as it was from there that he viewed the land he had been forbidden to enter (Deut. 34:1).

Then, in the distant future there is the place of Jesus’ transfiguration, Moses’ mountain of homecoming (Matt. 17:1–3).

Meanwhile

The Message of Exodus: The Days of Our Pilgrimage (3. The Lord Takes Centre Stage)

‘God is not in our kind of hurry’. This does not indicate any delaying or dithering on God’s part. He wanted a shepherd for his people (Ps. 77:20[21]), so his chosen man had to learn.

Did Moses Know God was Working in His Life?

The Message of Exodus: The Days of Our Pilgrimage (3. The Lord Takes Centre Stage)

If he did, he does not tell us so, but he certainly had to learn the lesson of being faithful in the ordinary humdrum routine of everyday life.

Angel of the Lord

The Message of Exodus: The Days of Our Pilgrimage a. The Angel of the Lord

‘This Angel is not a created angel—He is Jehovah Himself in manifestation … identical with Jehovah, although also different.’ Angels in general, writes Davidson, can represent one aspect or another of the divine nature but ‘in the Angel of the Lord He is fully present.’

Burning Bush

The Message of Exodus: The Days of Our Pilgrimage (b. Holy Fire … Fiery Holiness)

When the Angel of the Lord came to Moses, he clothed himself in flames of fire from within a bush (2), and this linking of fire with God’s presence recurs throughout Exodus (13:21; 14:19; 19:18; 33:10; 40:38).

The first occurrence of the symbol of fire in a covenant setting can be found in Genesis when God made his covenant with Abram and signified his presence as (lit.) ‘an oven [with] smoke and a flashing of fire’ (Gen. 15:17).

Holiness

The Message of Exodus: The Days of Our Pilgrimage (ii. The Imagery of Fire)

Holiness endangers the sinner because the holiness of the Lord is not a passive attribute but an active force, embracing all that conforms to it (Ps. 24:3–4) and destroying all that offends (1 Sam. 6:19–20).

The trepidation humans feel before the Lord is not, therefore, the trembling of the lowly before the Almighty or the created before the Creator, but the fear of sinners endangered by holiness (Isa. 6:3–5). The biblical symbol of this perilous force of holiness is fire, and it pervades the book of Exodus. In particular, fire is the bracket (or ‘inclusio’) which provides a framework around the central narrative of Exodus. It starts with the fire in the bush (3:2) and ends with the fire on the mountain (19:18), and in each case the fire is linked with the separateness of the divine and the exclusion of the human as endangered.

Taking off Shoes - Holy Ground

The Message of Exodus: The Days of Our Pilgrimage iii. Approaching God

The point, therefore, of Moses taking off his shoes is a lesson in simple obedience: we should bow humbly to whatever God may require of us, rejoicing in the simplicity and effectiveness of his provision as he admits us to his presence.

[Exodus 3:7-15]

Christian Standard Bible (Chapter 3)

7 Then the LORD said, “I have observed the misery of my people in Egypt, and have heard them crying out because of their oppressors. I know about their sufferings, 8 and I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians and to bring them from that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the territory of the Canaanites, Hethites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. 9 So because the Israelites’ cry for help has come to me, and I have also seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them, 10 therefore, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh so that you may lead my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.”

11 But Moses asked God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

12 He answered, “I will certainly be with you, and this will be the sign to you that I am the one who sent you: when you bring the people out of Egypt, you will all worship God at this mountain.”

13 Then Moses asked God, “If I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what should I tell them?”

14 God replied to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM., This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you.” 15 God also said to Moses, “Say this to the Israelites: The LORD, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is my name forever; this is how I am to be remembered in every generation.

Verses 7-8

7 Then the LORD said, “I have observed the misery of my people in Egypt, and have heard them crying out because of their oppressors. I know about their sufferings

8 and I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians and to bring them from that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the territory of the Canaanites, Hethites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.