List Moses’ several objections to what God was asking him to do. Identify examples in yourself of similar hesitancy in responding to God’s call.
| EXODUS 5–7 | Week 4, Day 5 |
When Moses and Aaron come before Pharaoh in the name of the Lord, Pharaoh answers, “Who is the LORD, that I should heed him . . . ? I do not know the LORD” (5:2). Pharaoh’s answer is in the essential secular voice, one that denies any divine right except its own.
So Pharaoh flexes his muscle (“I’ll show them who’s king around here!”), and Moses finds himself caught between a resentful people and the commands of the Lord. No wonder he pleads, “Why did you ever send me?” (5:22).
God reassures Moses, reminding him that the ancestral revelation to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is coming to an even more wonderful focus now, and that the covenant (one of the wondrous words of Scripture) is indeed remembered. But the Israelites cannot hear Moses “because of their broken spirit and their cruel slavery” (6:9). The harshness of life can make us dull to even heaven’s assurance.
Now the grand dialogue begins between Pharaoh, on the hand of strength, and Moses and Aaron, on the side of weakness. Moses is warned that there will be a hardening of Pharaoh’s heart, but even this warning is insufficient when the full degree of that hardening shows itself. The encounter begins with an almost playful show of power, Aaron’s miraculous rod, a demonstration that Pharaoh’s magicians easily imitate, though they are bested when Aaron’s rod consumes theirs. When the water is changed to blood, however, we know the full battle is engaged.
PRAYER: Give me the grace, dear Lord, to stand with those who are broken in spirit by some slavery of life; in Christ. Amen.
God reassured Moses by reminding him of his ancestral faith line—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Take a few moments to record names from your faith heritage.
| EXODUS 8–10; PSALM 29 | Week 4, Day 6 |
The series of plagues follows a pattern of somewhat predictable disaster in the way each leads into another. The blood is followed by frogs in the land, and their rotting stench by gnats; then swarms of flies, followed by a plague of the livestock. So it goes, through boils, hail, locusts, and then thick darkness.
And always, a pendulum swinging in Pharaoh’s soul. He repents, then rejects his own repentance. Sometimes the Scripture reports that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and at other times that Pharaoh himself hardened Pharaoh’s heart. Which is it? And how do we reconcile the idea of God hardening someone’s heart? Charles Wesley found it easy to understand:
“There needed, Lord, no act of thine,
If Pharaoh had a heart like mine:
One moment leave me but alone,
And mine, alas, is turned to stone.”
It seems to me there is always this fierce inner struggle between our self-will and the Voice that calls us. The Voice is sometimes pleading, sometimes insisting, sometimes fierce, but always wanting us. Destruction, as a last resort, is chosen by the victim, not by God.
The “darkness that can be felt” (10:21) is symbolic even while it is real, as it portrays the terror of the human soul that is absent from God and in rebellion against the Eternal.
PRAYER: Please give me a heart that is always tender toward you and your purposes, for my sake and yours; through Christ my Lord. Amen.
What conclusions do you draw when you ponder God’s hardening Pharaoh’s heart, Pharaoh’s hardening his own heart, and Charles Wesley’s poem interpreting the story from his own experience?
| EXODUS 11–12; PSALM 30 | Week 4, Day 7 |
The Passover, Moses and Aaron understood, was to be “the beginning of months” (12:2). Many contemporary Jews who do not identify themselves as being religious nevertheless celebrate Passover; its roots are deep not only in their national heritage but also in the individual psyche. For the Egyptians it was a night of disaster and judgment, but for the Jews a night when they saw the power of God manifested on their behalf.
Thus it was a “day of remembrance” to be celebrated “throughout your generations” (12:14). A casual reader may find the many details tedious, but this exactness was intended to underline the gravity of this day above all days.
The Christian church, from its beginning, has found some of its roots in this same event. The first celebration of the sacrament of Communion came in the setting of the Passover meal (Luke 22:14-18). Any number of details from Exodus 12 have carried over into the hymns and liturgical language of Christians. Most important of all, Jesus Christ is identified as our Passover Lamb (1 Corinthians 5:7), the One who died that we might escape the eternal death angel.
I suspect that the Passover celebration is most poignant for those Jews who have a vivid sense of what God did for their ancestors in Egypt, just as Holy Communion means the most for those Christians who realize how profoundly they have been saved from sin. Those who know how much they have been forgiven are the most grateful for the divine gift.
PRAYER: Dear Lamb of God, may I never forget your death for me. Amen.
List the various elements and details that were to be part of the Passover celebration.
Prayer Time
Let us confess our sins daily with some deeper levels of insight, trying to understand what qualities in us are behind our perhaps relatively harmless deeds.
How the Drama Develops GENESIS 46—EXODUS 12
Israel’s sense of nationhood comes into full development in these chapters. It begins with Jacob’s address to his sons: “Gather around, that I may tell you what will happen to you in days to come” (Genesis 49:1). The language is sometimes descriptive of the son himself, but often of the role of the descendants as part of a nation—for example, Zebulun as “a haven for ships,” Dan as a judge of the people, and Asher as a source of agricultural provision. And as both Jacob and Joseph die, there is a sense of nationhood and of place; they are not to be buried in Egypt, but their bones are to be carried to the land promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (49:29-33; 50:25).
Then the Egyptians played a major role in developing Israel’s sense of family. The children of Israel were already isolated by their feeling of uniqueness; but when Egypt, in fear, made them into a nation of slaves, that uniqueness was hardened into passions of identity and loyalty. And the more fiercely the government sought to destroy the people, the more they must have been driven to feelings of national pride.
Out of and back into this maelstrom comes Moses. What a remarkable story! First he is destined to infant execution, then saved to be raised in luxury and opportunity. Then, prepared for a unique role of leadership, he instead becomes a fugitive and remains such during the years ordinarily seen as the best years of one’s life.
Then he enters into the monumental years of his ministry as liberator, leader, and lawgiver. We see him in these chapters as he and his brother Aaron engage Pharaoh and