Shownotes
To the people of Israel, they may have felt like God's promises had come to nothing. All the while, though, God was doing amazing things and laying the groundwork for a spectacular rescue. Strap in for the first part of the amazing salvation story of Exodus.
The article on who the Pharaoh in Exodus is can be found here.
Dave's article from growingfaith.com can be found here.
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Transcripts
G'day and welcome to stories of a faithful God.
Speaker:I'm Dave Whittingham, your host.
Speaker:Thanks to everyone who joined us for the
Speaker:special Easter series.
Speaker:I know lots of you tuned in through that week.
Speaker:They were a bit different to our normal episodes, but I really enjoyed going back and
Speaker:looking at the amazing things that Jesus did.
Speaker:I have to confess, though, I also found it
Speaker:just a little bit frustrating.
Speaker:There was so much detail we couldn't cover.
Speaker:There's so much more gold to mine.
Speaker:There's never fear, though.
Speaker:Later in the year we're going to be jumping into one of the gospels to do a deep dive into
Speaker:the life of Jesus over that Easter series.
Speaker:I use the same episodes on this podcast and on
Speaker:stories of a faithful God for kids.
Speaker:The kids show is back to its regular program
Speaker:now.
Speaker:I cover the same passages there, but in
Speaker:shorter, bite sized chunks, and the language is more aimed at kids.
Speaker:If you want to get a feel for why I think hearing these stories is so important for kids
Speaker:and for adults, I've just had an article published on growingfaith.com.
Speaker:It's a christian parenting website.
Speaker:I'll put a link in the show notes.
Speaker:If you're interested, you can check out my article, but actually there are lots of
Speaker:articles there for christian parents and grandparents and carers to think about how we
Speaker:look after and raise our kids.
Speaker:Someone said to me the other day that after
Speaker:listening to a couple of the shows, they had all sorts of questions and they wanted to ask
Speaker:them, but weren't sure if they were allowed.
Speaker:Let me say I love your questions.
Speaker:If you have a question, please go to the contact page of faithfulgod.net comma.
Speaker:That's faithfulgod.net and send in your questions or corrections.
Speaker:If you think I've misunderstood a Bible passage, let me know.
Speaker:I'd love to hear what you think.
Speaker:I'd love to improve my understanding of God's
Speaker:word.
Speaker:You can also get in contact through the
Speaker:Facebook page, which is up and running now as well.
Speaker:Today we're starting a longer series than we've done before.
Speaker:We're going to be looking at the amazing story of Exodus, or at least the first 15 chapters.
Speaker:Exodus is the great salvation story of the Old Testament before Jesus came.
Speaker:If you wanted to look for the biggest, most spectacular example of God faithfully saving
Speaker:his people, you went to Exodus.
Speaker:All the while, though, this story is still
Speaker:looking forward to the even bigger salvation event that's coming in Jesus.
Speaker:Even in today's story, we're going to see some really strong links between the birth of Moses
Speaker:and the birth of Jesus.
Speaker:Let me ask you, before we get into it, though,
Speaker:do you ever feel like God isn't doing anything?
Speaker:Like he seems to have taken a few years or decades or centuries off?
Speaker:Do you get frustrated and want him to go faster?
Speaker:In today's passage, it might have felt to the people in it, like God isn't doing anything.
Speaker:Like he made some really big promises, but nothing's really happened with them.
Speaker:Like perhaps he's been unfaithful.
Speaker:When you step back, though, you can start to
Speaker:see that actually God's been faithfully doing things all along, even when people haven't
Speaker:noticed.
Speaker:And so, without further ado, I present to you
Speaker:our first exodus episode of stories of a faithful God. 3800 years.
Speaker:That's a long time, isn't it? Think of all the things that have happened in
Speaker:the last 3800 years.
Speaker:I mean, you can't really, can you?
Speaker:It's impossible to get our minds around all the events that have happened, all the people
Speaker:that have lived between then and now.
Speaker:It's so enormous that it's hard to even really
Speaker:see how there's any sort of connection between then and now.
Speaker:And yet roughly 3800 years ago, a man lived whose life is absolutely central to all of
Speaker:human history.
Speaker:He wasn't a powerful king or a great
Speaker:philosopher.
Speaker:He was a shepherd.
Speaker:I'm talking, of course, about Abraham.
Speaker:And although it might not feel like it, the
Speaker:fact that there are more than 1 billion people on the planet who claim to worship the God of
Speaker:the Bible, that all began with what God did for Abraham.
Speaker:Genesis, chapter twelve tells us that God called Abraham.
Speaker:He told him to leave his home and family and country and go to a new land there.
Speaker:God was going to give him things.
Speaker:He was going to give him and his descendants
Speaker:that land, the land of CANAaN.
Speaker:He was going to give abraham a huge family.
Speaker:God was going to bless him.
Speaker:And also through him, God was going to bless
Speaker:the entire world, the world that's been broken through sin and rebellion against God.
Speaker:God was saying, I'm going to fix things up through your family.
Speaker:Decades went past.
Speaker:By the time of his death, he was rich, he'd
Speaker:been blessed, but he only had one LegitImate son, IsAac.
Speaker:The only piece of land he owned was a field, which he used for a Burial plot.
Speaker:And almost the entire world had no idea who he was.
Speaker:And you might have been tempted to think, what's up with God's promises?
Speaker:What's he doing? But God was still working.
Speaker:He said to Abraham's son Isaac.
Speaker:Trust me, I'm going to make these promises
Speaker:happen.
Speaker:Isaac also became rich.
Speaker:He also didn't own much land.
Speaker:And he had two sons, but only one of them,
Speaker:JaCoB, was going to inherit the promises of God.
Speaker:But God was still working the next generation.
Speaker:Things seemed to be getting better and worse.
Speaker:Jacob, who was renamed Israel by God.
Speaker:That's why they're called the Israelites.
Speaker:They're all descended from the man Israel.
Speaker:He had twelve sons.
Speaker:That seems more promising.
Speaker:And yet the way he gets the sons and the way
Speaker:the sons treat each other is terrible.
Speaker:You have to wonder how on earth is God going
Speaker:to bless the whole world through this dysfunctional family?
Speaker:By the time of Jacob or Israels death, they werent even in Canaan anymore.
Speaker:Theyd all moved to Egypt where one of the sons, Joseph, had become the second in
Speaker:command.
Speaker:In a sense they were blessed, they were
Speaker:wealthy and important.
Speaker:In a sense, the family was growing bigger.
Speaker:There were 70 people in the family who moved to Egypt.
Speaker:Once you included wives and children, in a sense they were becoming a blessing to the
Speaker:world.
Speaker:God had saved all of Egypt from starvation
Speaker:through Joseph.
Speaker:And yet even then it all seemed so small and
Speaker:so insignificant.
Speaker:You could be tempted to think, is God
Speaker:faithful? Will he keep his promises?
Speaker:Can he do what he said he'd do? Exodus answers all those questions.
Speaker:All the events and people I've described so far are in the book of Genesis.
Speaker:And throughout that story, God's patient and slow.
Speaker:He makes tiny steps here and there.
Speaker:But in Exodus it's like everything becomes
Speaker:huge, like a tiny bomb that suddenly explodes in a massive way.
Speaker:The book starts by telling us the names of Israel's sons who went with him down to Egypt.
Speaker:Their families would eventually become the twelve tribes of Israel.
Speaker:There's Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah, Issachar, Zebulun and Benjamin, Dan and
Speaker:Naphtali, Gad and Asher.
Speaker:And Joseph was already there.
Speaker:Remember, when you add in all their families, there are 70 altogether.
Speaker:Now in the course of time, that whole generation died.
Speaker:But then God does something in Egypt.
Speaker:He puts the Israelites through a population
Speaker:explosion.
Speaker:Listen to the way it's described.
Speaker:The author basically says the same thing four times, just so you don't miss the point.
Speaker:Chapter one, verse seven, says.
Speaker:But the Israelites were fruitful, increased
Speaker:rapidly, multiplied and became extremely numerous so that the land was filled with
Speaker:them.
Speaker:Basically they're breeding like rabbits.
Speaker:This is great.
Speaker:This is God fulfilling the promise he made to
Speaker:Abraham.
Speaker:He'd said that the descendants of Abraham's
Speaker:family would be as many as the stars in the night sky.
Speaker:And this is what I'm talking about when I'm comparing Genesis to Exodus.
Speaker:Abraham had to wait 30 years for his one and only son.
Speaker:Now you blink and the population's increased.
Speaker:This is really exciting.
Speaker:But then a new king comes to power.
Speaker:A new pharaoh.
Speaker:Just a heads up.
Speaker:I'm not going to be talking about how all this
Speaker:links to what people know about the history of Egypt.
Speaker:I'm 100% confident that Exodus really is telling us history, and I want to focus on the
Speaker:important things God wants us to know.
Speaker:He doesn't tell us everything in the Bible,
Speaker:just what we need.
Speaker:If you are interested in exploring the wider
Speaker:history, though, I'll put a link in the show notes to a fascinating article by Christopher
Speaker:Eames or Ames.
Speaker:Sorry, I'm not sure which one it is.
Speaker:He goes through and looks at what we know about certain pharaohs and how the Bible story
Speaker:actually fits really neatly into it.
Speaker:But sticking with the Bible passage, verse
Speaker:eight says this new pharaoh is a king who doesn't know about Joseph.
Speaker:In other words, he doesn't know or understand just how much Egypt owes the Israelites.
Speaker:He doesn't see them as a blessing.
Speaker:He sees them as a curse.
Speaker:And so this is what he says in verse nine.
Speaker:He says to his people, look, the israelite
Speaker:people are more numerous and powerful than we are.
Speaker:Come, let's deal shrewdly with them.
Speaker:Otherwise they will multiply further.
Speaker:And when war breaks out, they will join our enemies, fight against us, and leave the
Speaker:country.
Speaker:Think about what's happening here.
Speaker:God's blessing the Israelites and making them multiply.
Speaker:And Pharaoh wants to stop that multiplication.
Speaker:Right from the start, we see that Pharaoh's
Speaker:hostile to God's plans.
Speaker:And you need to remember, the Egyptians
Speaker:thought of their king as a God.
Speaker:So already there's a divine battle going on
Speaker:between the God of Israel and the God or gods of Egypt.
Speaker:There's actually a huge irony in what Pharaoh says to the people.
Speaker:Look at what he's worried about.
Speaker:He's worried that they'll multiply further.
Speaker:He's worried that they'll join Egypt's enemies and fight against the Egyptians.
Speaker:And he's worried that they'll leave the country, which is a subtle acknowledgement
Speaker:that they actually do bring good things to the country.
Speaker:But by taking this stand against them, Pharaoh actually makes sure that all these things
Speaker:happen.
Speaker:The multiplication we'll see in a moment.
Speaker:But by being cruel to the Israelites, he drives them into the arms of his enemy, the
Speaker:God of Israel, who fights against Egypt.
Speaker:And then the Israelites will leave.
Speaker:Perhaps hes not as shrewd as he thinks he is.
Speaker:He doesnt know any of that yet, though.
Speaker:And so he picks a fight with the growing population of the Israelites, or Hebrews, as
Speaker:theyre also known.
Speaker:In round one, he makes his first move by
Speaker:making them into slaves.
Speaker:He puts taskmasters over them and gets them
Speaker:building a couple of supply cities.
Speaker:I guess the logic is they'll be working so
Speaker:hard, they won't have time for making babies.
Speaker:So does this stop God from blessing the
Speaker:Israelites? Well, actually, it has the complete opposite
Speaker:effect.
Speaker:Verse twelve tells us this.
Speaker:But the more they oppressed them, the more they multiplied and spread, so that the
Speaker:Egyptians came to dread the Israelites.
Speaker:Now, you might think that their dread would
Speaker:drive them to being kind to the Israelites, especially as there seemed to be more and more
Speaker:and more of them.
Speaker:But instead, the Egyptians doubled down.
Speaker:Verse 13 says they worked the Israelites ruthlessly and made their lives bitter with
Speaker:difficult labour in brick and mortar and in all kinds of fieldwork.
Speaker:They ruthlessly imposed all this work on them.
Speaker:So the slavery is getting worse, but it's not
Speaker:solving the problem.
Speaker:In fact, from the egyptian point of view, it's
Speaker:getting worse.
Speaker:Remember, Pharaoh has no idea about the power
Speaker:of God, the promises of God.
Speaker:He can't understand how this is happening.
Speaker:We know, though, that this is God's faithfulness at work.
Speaker:Well, now it's time for round two.
Speaker:If round one felt harsh, it's nothing to what
Speaker:the pharaoh comes up with.
Speaker:Next.
Speaker:He invites in the two hebrew midwives, shifra and pure, for a little chat.
Speaker:Now, if you think maternity wards are understaffed these days, just imagine what
Speaker:these ladies are going through.
Speaker:This isn't a lighthearted conversation that
Speaker:they've been invited to, though the king has some work for them, the work of genocide.
Speaker:Listen to the ruthlessness of what he tells them to do.
Speaker:In verse 16, he says, when you help the hebrew women give birth, observe them as they
Speaker:deliver.
Speaker:If the child is a son, kill him.
Speaker:But if it's a daughter, she may live.
Speaker:Isn't that horrific?
Speaker:It's the cold, hard calculation of mass slaughter.
Speaker:And remember the power of this king.
Speaker:This isn't a suggestion or a thought bubble.
Speaker:This is a command from a ruler who wields the power of life and death.
Speaker:You'd expect the midwives to be terrified.
Speaker:Naturally, they wouldn't want to do this, but
Speaker:if they don't do it, they could be killed.
Speaker:Well, Shifra and pur, they do fear someone,
Speaker:but it isn't pharaoh.
Speaker:They fear the one who's actually in charge of
Speaker:life and death, the one who gave life to these babies and who'll be really angry if someone
Speaker:takes that life away.
Speaker:They fear God.
Speaker:And this is going to come up time and time again throughout the Bible.
Speaker:When you truly fear God, you have nothing else to fear, because real fear of God drives you
Speaker:to obey God, which means you're on God's side.
Speaker:And if you're on God's side, well, who's
Speaker:stronger than God? And so we're told in verse 17.
Speaker:The midwives, however, feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt had told them.
Speaker:They let the boys live.
Speaker:You can imagine the frustration of the king as
Speaker:he calls in the midwives and asks them, why have you done this?
Speaker:And let the boys live.
Speaker:And I love their response.
Speaker:It's so cheeky.
Speaker:I don't know if all cultures enjoy this in the
Speaker:same way, but in Australia, we often love stories of people being cheeky to those in
Speaker:authority.
Speaker:I think at school, my entire education about
Speaker:World War one was how australian soldiers were cheeky to british officers.
Speaker:Listen to how these midwives explain to Pharaoh, ruler of united Egypt, the greatest
Speaker:superpower in the world, inheritor of the giant pyramids and the great Sphinx, commander
Speaker:of thousands of chariots.
Speaker:The king, who is said to be the living
Speaker:embodiment of a God.
Speaker:They say in verse 19, hmm, the hebrew women
Speaker:are not like the egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife can
Speaker:get to them.
Speaker:If that was true, you gotta wonder, why would
Speaker:they even be any midwives? This isn't a lie, where they're trying to hide
Speaker:what they've done.
Speaker:It's actually a blatant insult.
Speaker:Well, your egyptian women, they're pretty soft and weak.
Speaker:Our women are much tougher than that.
Speaker:Pharaoh's asked them to commit genocide, and
Speaker:because they fear God, they have spat it right back in his face.
Speaker:Of course, this could be a moment of huge danger for these ladies.
Speaker:Pharaoh could.
Speaker:Well, actually, pharaoh can't do anything
Speaker:because God's decided to bless these women.
Speaker:Listen to this, from verse 20.
Speaker:So God was good to the midwives, and the people multiplied and became very numerous.
Speaker:And since the midwives fear God, he gave them families.
Speaker:In round one, Pharaoh tried to be ruthless, but the more ruthless he was, the more God
Speaker:made his people grow.
Speaker:In round two, he tried to use the hebrew women
Speaker:to commit genocide.
Speaker:But again, God made the people grow, both in
Speaker:the whole nation, but also specifically for Shipra and pure pharaoh seems impotent to stop
Speaker:God faithfully keeping his promises.
Speaker:Just before we move on from this round two, I
Speaker:want to make one more comment about these ladies.
Speaker:I hope you notice how significant it is that we are told their names.
Speaker:The only women from ancient Egypt whose names were written down were either royalty or they
Speaker:are married to an important official.
Speaker:There are certainly no beautiful graves or
Speaker:mummies or inscriptions of the lowly midwives of a slave race.
Speaker:But here, God upends all that.
Speaker:Here, these women, Shifra and pure, are
Speaker:honoured both in their time, but also across thousands of years of history, because they
Speaker:feared and trusted him.
Speaker:Time for round three.
Speaker:This time, Pharaoh isn't going to rely on any Israelites.
Speaker:He goes to his own people.
Speaker:Verse 22 says this pharaoh then commanded all
Speaker:his people.
Speaker:You must throw every son born to the Hebrews
Speaker:into the nile, but let the daughters live.
Speaker:It's such a horrific command.
Speaker:So callous.
Speaker:I've got a problem.
Speaker:I'll just kill all the baby boys until the problem's solved.
Speaker:It's hard to read that without thinking of another king who thought in exactly the same
Speaker:way.
Speaker:This king, King Herod, lived about 1500 years
Speaker:later, at the first Christmas, he's told by the Magi from the east that a new king's been
Speaker:born.
Speaker:He's told by the priests that it must have
Speaker:happened in Bethlehem, because that's what the Old Testament says.
Speaker:And hes got a problem.
Speaker:I mean, it shouldnt be a problem.
Speaker:It should be a huge celebration.
Speaker:The saviour king of the worlds arrived.
Speaker:But King Herod, all hes thinking is, I cant have another king around here.
Speaker:Im the king.
Speaker:He doesnt know which baby this king is.
Speaker:And so he comes up with the same solution as pharaoh.
Speaker:Ill just kill all the baby boys.
Speaker:And so every boy under the age of two in
Speaker:Bethlehem is slaughtered.
Speaker:Every boy, that is, except the one Herod was
Speaker:trying to get.
Speaker:That boy Jesus, miraculously escaped and went
Speaker:on to become the great king and savior of the universe.
Speaker:Back in Egypt, the slaughter of the baby boys also heralds the arrival of a saviour in baby
Speaker:form.
Speaker:A saviour who the pharaoh also wont be able to
Speaker:destroy.
Speaker:After Pharaoh's horrific command, our focus
Speaker:shifts.
Speaker:We step out of the royal court and into the
Speaker:home of a hebrew family.
Speaker:They're a family in crisis.
Speaker:They're in a moment that would normally be a time of celebration, a time of great
Speaker:happiness.
Speaker:But the pharaoh's command has turned it into a
Speaker:moment of fear and terror.
Speaker:Chapter two verse one says now a man from the
Speaker:family of Levi married a levite woman.
Speaker:The woman became pregnant and gave birth to a
Speaker:son.
Speaker:When she saw that he was beautiful, she hid
Speaker:him for three months.
Speaker:Just for the record, I don't think that that's
Speaker:saying if she thought he was dog ugly she'd throw him in the river.
Speaker:I think it's describing a human experience that even though three and a half thousand
Speaker:years separate us, we can recognize this lady looks at her newborn baby and her heart melts
Speaker:within her.
Speaker:In that moment she knows that she's going to
Speaker:do everything she can to save her son.
Speaker:After three months, he's getting too big to
Speaker:hide at home.
Speaker:So she decides to hide him somewhere
Speaker:completely unexpected.
Speaker:Shes going to hide him in the Nile river.
Speaker:The place where babies are being thrown to their death is going to be for this boy a
Speaker:place of life.
Speaker:Thats just the first irony were going to see
Speaker:in this section.
Speaker:So verse three says, but when she could no
Speaker:longer hide him, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with asphalt and pitch.
Speaker:She placed the child in it and set it among the reeds by the bank of the Nile.
Speaker:Then his sister stood at a distance in order to see what would happen to him.
Speaker:Now just in case you have the Dreamworks movie Prince of Egypt in your head, please notice
Speaker:how different this is to that movie.
Speaker:In the movie, the mum sends the basket out to
Speaker:float down the Nile, praying to the river to deliver him somewhere safe.
Speaker:It's a kind of child abuse.
Speaker:I guess that's not what's happening here at
Speaker:all.
Speaker:The basket's hiding in the reeds.
Speaker:It's not moving anywhere.
Speaker:And the sisters hiding but on guard.
Speaker:Then disaster strikes.
Speaker:Remember, every Egyptian is a threat at this
Speaker:point.
Speaker:But the person who comes down to the river
Speaker:would seem to be one of the biggest threats.
Speaker:It's Pharaoh's daughter.
Speaker:You think that if anyone's on board with the king's plan of genocide, it'll be the people
Speaker:in his own home.
Speaker:And so you can feel the tension rise as we
Speaker:read from verse five.
Speaker:Pharaoh's daughter went down to bathe at the
Speaker:Nile while her servant girls walked along the riverbank.
Speaker:She saw the basket among the reeds, sent her slave girl, took it, opened it and saw him,
Speaker:the child.
Speaker:And there he was, a little boy crying.
Speaker:Remember, she's in the river or on the riverbank.
Speaker:She's standing at the place of execution for hebrew baby boys.
Speaker:All she needs to do as she holds this child is let go.
Speaker:And then we read the remarkable words.
Speaker:She felt sorry for him and said, this is one
Speaker:of the hebrew boys.
Speaker:As dangerous as this situation looks,
Speaker:ironically, God shaped the situation so that the baby is perfectly safe.
Speaker:Pharaoh's daughter is just the right egyptian to find him.
Speaker:Then the story gets even better.
Speaker:The sister's been watching all this, and she
Speaker:decides that there's a risk worth taking.
Speaker:From verse seven, we read.
Speaker:Then his sister said to pharaohs daughter, should I go and call a hebrew woman who is
Speaker:nursing to nurse the boy for you? Go. Pharaohs daughter told her.
Speaker:So the girl went and called the boys mother.
Speaker:Then pharaohs daughter said to her, take this
Speaker:child and nurse him for me, and I will pay your wages.
Speaker:So the woman took the boy and nursed him.
Speaker:Think about the irony here.
Speaker:This boy has been plucked from the place of execution by an egyptian princess.
Speaker:He's now being cared for by his own mum with royal protection and the mums being paid from
Speaker:the royal treasury.
Speaker:When Pharaoh dreamed up his genocidal scheme,
Speaker:I don't think that this was what he was picturing.
Speaker:And there's one more layer of irony to come, because after all this, when the boy becomes
Speaker:bigger, he doesn't keep living with the Hebrews.
Speaker:He doesn't even mix it in with the regular egyptian society.
Speaker:No, he actually gets adopted into the egyptian royal family.
Speaker:Verse ten says when the child grew older, she, his mum, brought him to Pharaoh's daughter and
Speaker:he became her son.
Speaker:She named him Moses because she said, I drew
Speaker:him out of the water.
Speaker:There's a couple of meanings of that name.
Speaker:Moses.
Speaker:Moses kind of sounds like the hebrew word that
Speaker:means to draw out, which makes sense because she's drawn him out of the water.
Speaker:That also looks forward to how God will use Moses to draw his people out of Egypt.
Speaker:But there's an egyptian meaning as well to that name.
Speaker:It's interesting that the pharaoh at the time was probably a guy named Thutmose III.
Speaker:But even if it wasn't him, this point still stands.
Speaker:The second half of the name Tutmos, that is, Mos, is basically the same egyptian word as
Speaker:Moses, and it has to do with birth, like bearing a child or bringing forth fruit.
Speaker:The first half of the name, Tut is the name of an egyptian God.
Speaker:So it relates that God to the birth of a child.
Speaker:Moses gets the second birth part of that name, but there's no egyptian God attached to it.
Speaker:At this stage of the story, Moses connection to any God isn't known.
Speaker:We have to watch this space to see how that's going to play out for the moment.
Speaker:He's going to continue growing up in the royal household until he becomes an adult.
Speaker:Lets take stock of where were up to.
Speaker:We are sitting in a really weird situation
Speaker:here in Exodus chapter two.
Speaker:On the one hand the Hebrews or Israelites have
Speaker:been enslaved and oppressed and murdered.
Speaker:And yet at the same time one of them has been
Speaker:adopted into the royal family.
Speaker:Moses grows up and it seems pretty clear that
Speaker:despite his upbringing, he knows where he's come from.
Speaker:He knows he's a Hebrew now, a fully grown man.
Speaker:He heads out and watches his people doing
Speaker:their slave labour.
Speaker:And it seems to rouse some really serious
Speaker:anger in his heart.
Speaker:He wants to save them, rescue them.
Speaker:This is what we read from verse.
Speaker:Eleven years later, after Moses had grown up,
Speaker:he went out to his own people and observed their forced labour.
Speaker:He saw an Egyptian striking a Hebrew, one of his people.
Speaker:Looking all around and seeing no one, he struck the Egyptian dead and hid him in the
Speaker:sand.
Speaker:This is pointing forward to a future time when
Speaker:Moses will be the savior, not just of one Israelite, but of the whole nation.
Speaker:But it looks forward to something else as well.
Speaker:We get to see something important in how at least one Israelite responds to Moses.
Speaker:So we read the next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting.
Speaker:He asked the one in the wrong, why are you attacking your neighbour again?
Speaker:Moses is doing a role he'll play in the future.
Speaker:He wants to unite the people and keep peace among them.
Speaker:But listen to the reply from this guy.
Speaker:See what he thinks of Moses in verse 14.
Speaker:Who made you a commander and judge over us? The man replied, are you planning to kill me
Speaker:as you killed the Egyptian? Notice that he doesn't take ownership of his
Speaker:own evil.
Speaker:He just attacks Moses.
Speaker:Who made you commander and judge? Actually, God's getting everything in place
Speaker:precisely to make Moses commander and judge.
Speaker:But the Israelites aren't going to be
Speaker:thankful, obedient followers.
Speaker:They're going to grumble and complain and
Speaker:fight him all the way.
Speaker:That's a few years off though.
Speaker:For now, Moses freaks out.
Speaker:He'd thought that no one had seen him kill the
Speaker:Egyptian, but now he realizes he's in trouble.
Speaker:We don't really know what Pharaoh thought
Speaker:about having this Hebrew in his home.
Speaker:The moviemakers certainly liked to make up all
Speaker:sorts of things about it.
Speaker:But we do see now that whatever royal
Speaker:protection he's had before, it can't stand up to what he's done.
Speaker:Remember the big fear of the Egyptians at the beginning of all this was that the Hebrews
Speaker:might fight against them.
Speaker:And now it's actually happening.
Speaker:So Pharaoh tries to kill Moses, but Moses manages to flee for his life and makes his way
Speaker:to the land of Midian.
Speaker:It's kind of hard to define where that is.
Speaker:The Midianites were nomadic people.
Speaker:Hes probably on the Sinai peninsula.
Speaker:But he could have even crossed further into the arabian peninsula later on.
Speaker:Of course, hell obviously certainly be on the Sinai peninsula at Mount Sinai.
Speaker:Whats really important, though, is that hes in an area of Midianites just like Israelites are
Speaker:descended from Israel.
Speaker:Midianites are descendants of Midian.
Speaker:And Midian was a son of Abraham, not through his wife Sarah, but through one of his
Speaker:concubines.
Speaker:So these people, they're a bit like distant
Speaker:cousins to the Israelites.
Speaker:Sometimes they're friendly distant cousins.
Speaker:Sometimes they're not friendly at all.
Speaker:In fact, it was Midianites who'd taken Joseph
Speaker:down to Egypt to sell him as a slave.
Speaker:Interesting that now as Moses leaves Egypt,
Speaker:he's back with these people.
Speaker:While hes in Midian, he sits down by a well.
Speaker:Now, wells in the Bible are a bit of an Easter egg, a kind of clue.
Speaker:Almost every time someone sits down by a well, they end up with a wife.
Speaker:It happened to Jacob.
Speaker:It happened for the guy sent to get a wife for
Speaker:Isaac.
Speaker:When Jesus sits down by a well, he meets a
Speaker:woman, and he doesnt marry her, but he does win her over into his kingdom.
Speaker:So, metaphorically, he gets the girl.
Speaker:In fact, the only person who fails at a will
Speaker:is the future king Saul.
Speaker:He meets a woman coming out to get water.
Speaker:He asks her if there's a prophet in the city.
Speaker:She says yes, and Saul just keeps walking.
Speaker:And that pretty much tells you everything you need to know about what a failure Saul will
Speaker:be.
Speaker:But that's a story for another time.
Speaker:Back to Moses.
Speaker:He sits down by this well.
Speaker:Then we're told that there's a guy who's a priest of Midian who has seven daughters.
Speaker:Seven is the number of perfection.
Speaker:So he has a perfect number of daughters.
Speaker:No sons, though, which causes problems for him.
Speaker:And these ladies come with their flocks to get water for the animals from the well.
Speaker:They do all the back breaking work of drawing the water out and putting it in the troughs.
Speaker:Just as they're ready to bring the animals over, though, some other shepherds arrive.
Speaker:They push the women aside, and they try to take advantage of all the work they've done
Speaker:again.
Speaker:Three and a half thousand years.
Speaker:Not much has changed.
Speaker:Thankfully, though, Moses once again steps
Speaker:into his role as a savior.
Speaker:He drives away the dodgy shepherds and waters
Speaker:the women's flocks for them.
Speaker:Then the women go home.
Speaker:Dont panic though.
Speaker:If youre worried that Moses hasnt got a wife
Speaker:at the well yet, the story isnt over.
Speaker:They go back to their dad, Reuel, whos really
Speaker:surprised that theyre home so early.
Speaker:I assume that what happened at the well with
Speaker:the shepherds is a fairly regular event.
Speaker:He asks them whats happened and they reply in
Speaker:verse 19, an egyptian rescued us from the shepherds.
Speaker:He even drew water for us and watered the flock.
Speaker:Now im sure Ruels excited that this guy has helped his daughters, but hes also really
Speaker:shocked that his daughters havent been hospitable to him.
Speaker:He cant believe theyve just left him out at the well, he says in verse 20.
Speaker:So where is he? Why then did you leave the man behind, invite
Speaker:him to eat dinner.
Speaker:They manage to find Moses and bring him back.
Speaker:He and Reuel spend time chatting and getting to know each other.
Speaker:And after a while Ruel invites him into his home.
Speaker:In fact, he invites him into his family, giving one of his daughters Zipporah in
Speaker:marriage.
Speaker:In other words, Moses settles down.
Speaker:He starts a family, he makes a new home for himself, it seems, though, he never forgets
Speaker:that he's an outsider.
Speaker:In verse 21, we read Moses agreed to stay with
Speaker:the man and he gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses.
Speaker:In marriage, she gave birth to a son who he named Gershom for.
Speaker:He said, I have been a resident alien in a foreign land.
Speaker:You might have noticed that names in the Bible are really important.
Speaker:People name their babies after something significant.
Speaker:My Bible footnote tells me that Gershom sounds like the phrase a stranger there.
Speaker:So just think.
Speaker:Every time Moses calls out to his son, he's
Speaker:reminded that he's an outsider.
Speaker:He actually has a different people, which in
Speaker:one sense is pretty cool because it's much better to be an israelite than a midianite.
Speaker:It's the Israelites who have the promises of God.
Speaker:But as we get to the end of chapter two, we're kind of left wondering what on earth's
Speaker:happened to the promises of God.
Speaker:Yes, the Israelites have grown in number, but
Speaker:they've also grown in suffering.
Speaker:They're stuck in slavery and in a foreign
Speaker:land.
Speaker:They haven't been given the land of Canaan
Speaker:that God promised them.
Speaker:Yet this guy Moses, who seems to have been
Speaker:perfectly placed to save them.
Speaker:Firmly established in the royal palace where
Speaker:he can really make a difference.
Speaker:He's been forced to flee and now he's settled
Speaker:down with a new people, a new family, with apparently no plans to return whatsoever.
Speaker:Why would he? He'll be killed by Pharaoh.
Speaker:What's happened to the promises of God? Well, just as we come to the end of this
Speaker:section, which is really the introduction to Exodus, we hear a remarkable little statement.
Speaker:It's remarkable for a couple of reasons.
Speaker:I'll read it out and then we'll talk about it.
Speaker:It starts in verse 23 and says, after a long time, the king of Egypt died.
Speaker:The Israelites groaned because of their difficult labour.
Speaker:They cried out and their cry for help because of the difficult labour ascended to God.
Speaker:God heard their groaning and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with
Speaker:Jacob.
Speaker:God saw the Israelites and God knew.
Speaker:Why is that remarkable? Well, firstly, it's remarkable for what the
Speaker:Israelites don't do.
Speaker:You see, they cry out for help, but they don't
Speaker:seem to cry out to God.
Speaker:Unlike other places in the Bible, there's
Speaker:nothing to indicate here that they're thinking about God at all.
Speaker:Perhaps they're just crying out in General.
Speaker:Perhaps they're crying out to the New phAraoh.
Speaker:Perhaps they're crying out to the egyptian gods.
Speaker:In the book of Joshua, Joshua tells the Israelites not to worship the egyptian gods
Speaker:like their ancestors did while they were still in Egypt.
Speaker:It seems like theyve forgotten who their helper is, who the God is who gave them great
Speaker:promises.
Speaker:Which makes the other half of this little
Speaker:Passage even more remarkable.
Speaker:Because God decides to save his people, not
Speaker:because of their request for help to him, not because they've suddenly turned back to him.
Speaker:Why does he act? It's because he's faithful.
Speaker:He made promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and he's going to keep those promises.
Speaker:The Passage describes this kind of full on experience of God.
Speaker:It says he heard, he remembered, he saw, he knew, he heard the cries of the Israelites.
Speaker:Even if they're not crying to him, he still hears their cries and has compassion.
Speaker:He remembers, he remembered his covenant or agreement with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Speaker:Don't think that that's saying he had forgotten the covenant.
Speaker:And suddenly he slaps his forehead and says, oh, man, I'm meant to be helping the
Speaker:Israelites.
Speaker:No, it just means that God's acting on the
Speaker:promises he's made.
Speaker:He hasn't forgotten them at all.
Speaker:And the way you know that is that all this time he's been laying the groundwork for their
Speaker:salvation.
Speaker:He saved Moses in the river.
Speaker:He sent along Pharaoh's daughter.
Speaker:Exactly the right person to keep him safe.
Speaker:He's made sure Pharaoh doesn't kill Moses and he's brought him into this family where he can
Speaker:have a safe place until God puts him into action.
Speaker:Which should be really comforting for us.
Speaker:When we think that God's not doing anything.
Speaker:God's always doing things.
Speaker:We just don't always see it.
Speaker:We heard that back in the episode on Elijah.
Speaker:Elijah thought he was the only follower of God
Speaker:left.
Speaker:And God said, actually I've kept 7000 others.
Speaker:God's been answering the cries of the Israelites from before they even cried out.
Speaker:God hears their cries and he knows.
Speaker:He knows exactly what he'll do.
Speaker:He knows exactly what actions to take.
Speaker:He knows exactly how he's going to save his
Speaker:people.
Speaker:But that's a story for next time.
Speaker:See you then.
Speaker:I want to thank everyone who's made this show
Speaker:possible with their generous support.
Speaker:If you want to keep hearing more of these
Speaker:stories, and if you want other people to hear about this great God, please consider
Speaker:supporting me financially if you're able.
Speaker:If you go to the support page of
Speaker:Faithfulgod.net comma, you can either give a one off donation or become a regular
Speaker:supporter.
Speaker:I want to keep this show free for anyone who
Speaker:cant afford it.
Speaker:So if you can, please help out.
Speaker:Theres a link to the support page in the show notes.
Speaker:Also on the website you can sign up for news and prayer points and you can find links to
Speaker:follow the show on Facebook, Instagram and X.
Speaker:Bye for now.
Speaker:And Pharaoh wants to stop that multiplication.
Speaker:And Pharaoh wants to stop that multiplication.
Speaker:That's a big word, isn't it?
