The Impossibility of Evacuation: Desperate

Transcription

1 The Impossibility of Evacuation: Desperate Summary and Goal Moses first encounter with Pharaoh resulted in harsher treatment and heavier burdens for Israel. Looking solely at their circumstances, the Israelites had every reason to believe that God had abandoned them, even though nothing could have been further from the truth. Our hope and confidence can never be in the outcome of our situations, but in the calling God has placed on our lives. We must trust He is in control regardless of what we see. Main Passages Exodus 5:1-23 Session Outline 1. Confronting Pharaoh and the Harsh Result (Exodus 5:1-14) 2. Israelite Foremen Respond to Harsh Workload (Exodus 5:15-18) 3. Moses Confrontation and Reaction (Exodus 5:19-23) Theological Theme Obediently following God s calling is not always an easy, trouble-free path. When God begins to work, circumstances may initially deteriorate. However, that doesn t mean God s sovereignty is compromised in any way. Christ Connection Like Jesus, as Moses was obedient to God, he faced persecution and difficulty. The victory was not always evident to human eyes. Missional Application Jesus promised that the world would oppose believers as they were obedient to God s leading. Living faithfully means encountering opposition and difficulty; believers are to remain obedient nevertheless. 55 Leader Guide

2 Historical Context of Exodus Purpose To record the events of Israel s deliverance from Egypt and development as a nation Author Moses Date Written B.C., approximately the same as Genesis Where Written In the desert during Israel s wanderings, somewhere in the Sinai peninsula Setting Egypt. God s people, once highly favored in the land, are now slaves. God is about to set them free. Key Verses 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, and I know about their sufferings Therefore, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh so that you may lead My people, the Israelites, out of Egypt. Exodus 3:7,10 Key People Moses, Miriam, Pharaoh, Pharaoh s daughter, Jethro, Aaron, Joshua, Bezalel Key Places Egypt, Goshen, Nile River, Midian, Red Sea, Sinai Peninsula, Mount Sinai Special Features Exodus relates more miracles than any other Old Testament book and is noted for containing the Ten Commandments. Date of My Bible Study: 56

3 5 Session Plan The Impossibility of Evacuation: Desperate For Further Discussion Describe the person in your life who has most significantly struggled with discouragement after acting faithfully to what God called them to do. How did you encourage or interact with them? What would you say was the greatest source of their discouragement? Introduction How would you explain the connection between blessing and obedience? What biblical examples support your definition? In this week s passage, Moses encountered increased rejection as that harshness of the Egyptian oppression also increased. Because this occurred as a result of Moses faithfulness, Moses experienced a significant crisis of faith in his own right. Examining the passage carefully is corrective to many tendencies to believe that faithfulness to God, particularly in difficult circumstances, results in a supernatural smoothing of opposition. Moses experience did not remotely reflect such a skewed view of following God. Instead, Moses faithfulness immediately resulted in greater opposition. 1. Confronting Pharaoh and the Harsh Result (Exodus 5:1-14) After an unspecified amount of time, Moses and Aaron went to see Pharaoh. Pharaoh s response indicated that he did not know who Yahweh was. The verbiage Moses and Aaron used made it clear that the intent was for Israel to leave and not come back. Pharaoh, then, logically utilized the tactic that had kept Israel in check for decades harsh labor. If oppressive labor was enough to keep them quiet for the generations prior, increasing the oppression would restore the peace and squash the apparent civil disobedience. How do you reconcile your faithful following of God with the occasional rejection or mockery that it brings with it? Give an example. Who in your life regularly encourages you to live faithfully, particularly when there is a negative or antagonistic reaction to your faith? How do they encourage you most effectively? 57 Leader Guide

4 2. Israelite Foremen Respond to Harsh Workload (Exodus 5:15-18) The situation for Israel had deteriorated at a lightning pace from hopefulness at the arrival of Moses to unspeakable desperation immediately after the first encounter with Pharaoh. The second visit to Pharaoh was made by the foremen, not by Moses and Aaron.Pharaoh made it clear to the foremen why they were being punished. Their worship of Yahweh was the cause of this new persecution. What would you say is the most difficult part of trusting God when situations in your life reach a point that there is no discernible source of help? Why do you think so? How do you discern when someone is attacking you because of your faith versus simply being a vicious person in general? What traits help you to discern the difference? 3. Moses Confrontation and Reaction (Exodus 5:19-23) Fresh off of their traumatizing encounter with Pharaoh, the foremen venomously launched into an attack against Moses. Reading the words carefully, the reader notices that the foremen essentially asked for God to condemn Moses. Marking a pattern that would characterize his ministry going forward, Moses did not respond to his accusers. Instead, he took the complaint of his plight to the Lord. Moses was wondering if this had all been for nothing, as the people of God were no better off than they were when he met with God at the burning bush. When the foremen came out from their meeting with Moses, they blamed him for their troubles. Why do you think the human inclination to blame others is so strong? Was Moses really the one to blame? For Further Discussion Who are you actively encouraging toward faithfulness in responding to God s leading? It could be a friend trying to be a gospel influence at the workplace, a parent of a child that is struggling with understanding God, or a family member that is struggling with habitual sin. The possibilities are limitless. How can you be a voice of encouragement to them this week? For Further Discussion Describe a time when God did not move as quickly as you thought He would. How did that impact your spiritual life then? How does it impact your life now? How do you think God wants to use your testimony of that for the benefit of others? How do you typically respond when someone s actions have caused you undeserved distress? Does it change anything when you remember that God is sovereignly working in your life in the midst of it all? Conclusion Where do you see God most actively challenging you during this season of life? What is He calling you to do that seems overwhelming, or even risky? How do the previous opportunities in your journey to be faithful in difficult seasons help you say yes to God now? Session 5 58

5 Expanded Session Content 5 The Impossibility of Evacuation: Desperate ACCESS TO PHARAOH It may seem unbelievable that Moses and Aaron were even granted an audience with Pharaoh. After all, they were part of the despised people group that was enslaved. They had zero value to Pharaoh other than as laborers. Many preachers and teachers have supposed that Moses was able to gain an audience because of his upbringing in the palace. However, this would be unlikely with this new Pharaoh. If the new Pharaoh was unaware of Moses to the point that it was safe for him to return to Egypt without being hunted for the murder of his youth, then he would be equally unaware that Moses had significant ties to the royal family. Instead, the customary expectation of kings in that culture was that they were to make themselves available to all people groups, regardless of class or status even if they were slaves coming to confront the king. This is an incredible departure from the culture of power in the modern world, so it can be difficult to understand. Introduction One of the greatest myths about following God s leadership being in God s will, as some frequently refer to it is that when believers are following God closely, everything will turn out just fine. The only problem with that myth is that it s impossible to defend it biblically. A survey of the Bible will reveal a long line of obedient servants of God who repeatedly found themselves dropped down into pits (Joseph) or dried out cisterns (Jeremiah), thrown to lions (Daniel) or doomed to be burned (Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego), hunted (David), shunned or ostracized (all of the prophets at one point or other), and even executed (Jesus, most notably). Still, there is something natural in human thought that connects obedience with blessing. In fact, the more formidable the opposition to faithfulness, the greater the expectation of blessing when the route of faithfulness is chosen. A faith crisis occurs, then, when faithfulness only leads to matters worsening. When the result of faithfulness is exhaustion, discouragement, or exclusion instead of any perceptible victory, it is tempting to wonder if God forgot the ones He called. When you read the list of biblical figures who faced enormous difficulty in the midst of their faithful obedience, how does that impact your theology of who God is? Why do you think that is so? Describe the person in your life who has most significantly struggled with discouragement after acting faithfully to what God called them to do. How did you encourage or interact with them? What would you say was the greatest source of their discouragement? How would you explain the connection between blessing and obedience? What biblical examples support your definition? 59 Leader Guide

6 Session Summary In this week s passage, Moses encountered increased rejection as that harshness of the Egyptian oppression also increased. Because this occurred as a result of Moses faithfulness, Moses experienced a significant crisis of faith in his own right. Examining the passage carefully is corrective to many tendencies to believe that faithfulness to God, particularly in difficult circumstances, results in a supernatural smoothing of opposition. Moses experience did not remotely reflect such a skewed view of following God. Instead, Moses faithfulness immediately resulted in greater opposition. 1. Confronting Pharaoh and the Harsh Result (Exodus 5:1-14) After an unspecified amount of time, Moses and Aaron went to see Pharaoh. A careful reading of the text, however, would make two significant departures from God s instruction evident. First, Moses and Aaron s initial plea to Pharaoh contained several details that were not specifically identical to what God told them to say. One of the greatest comforts to Moses during his call narrative was that God would tell him what to say in the presence of Pharaoh. However, when he finally arrived in the presence of Pharaoh, Moses varied from his divine instruction. Second, Moses was instructed to first go to the Israelite elders, whom God would cause to believe Moses, and then take the elders with him to Pharaoh. There is no mention of the elders ever going with Moses and Aaron to talk to Pharaoh. While Moses rejection by Pharaoh should not be blamed on these differences, since they were foretold by God, it was indicative of future problems for Israel in being able to adhere to God s leading. Pharaoh s response indicated that he did not know who Yahweh was. While it is certain that Pharaoh employed a sarcastic, arrogant inflection as though dismissive of Yahweh, Pharaoh did not have a robust understanding of Yahweh until the plagues. It is highly likely that Pharaoh did not know who Yahweh was, which is why Moses included the descriptor, the God of the Hebrews. After all, many of the Israelites, after 430 years of slavery, needed to be reminded who their God was. Still, the verbiage Moses and Aaron used made it clear that the intent was for Israel to leave and not come back. Pharaoh, then, logically utilized the tactic that had kept Israel in check for decades harsh labor. If oppressive labor was enough to keep them quiet for the generations prior, increasing the oppression would restore the peace and squash the apparent civil disobedience. Nervous Elders In an attempt to exonerate Moses from the apparent disobedience in bringing the elders along with him, Jewish tradition explains the elders absence as due to their loss of nerve. They intend to go with Moses but, on the way, they lose nerve and drop out one by one. This tradition is obviously aimed at exonerating Moses, i.e., he did take the elders with him, but they reneged on their own account. Peter Enns, The NIV Application Commentary on Exodus, pg. 152 Session 5 60

7 How do you reconcile your faithful following of God with the occasional rejection or mockery that it brings with it? Give an example. Who in your life regularly encourages you to live faithfully, particularly when there is a negative or antagonistic reaction to your faith? How do they encourage you most effectively? Crying Out to God The phrasing in verse 15 is a deliberate hearkening back to the moment in Exodus when God declared to Moses that He was about to move on behalf of His people. When the Israelites cried for help to Pharaoh, the wording is of the same variety as the cries of the people that God heard them crying out from their misery in slavery. The point of the echo as Moses wrote Exodus was to underscore the fact that God was faithful, even in the midst of circumstances that seemed to indicate the opposite. The people were continuing to cry out, with increased intensity, and God was still moving on their behalf even if they did not perceive it. Pharaoh positioned himself, through his response, to be an intentional opponent of God. While his understanding of who Yahweh is was in its infancy, Pharaoh nevertheless viewed the God of Israel as a rival that must be defeated. In keeping with the ancient Near East mindset, the best way to prove superiority over a nation s god was to enslave and oppress that god s people. Therefore, the cruelty toward the Israelites was elevated to the degree that their work was not impossible to accomplish. The punishment for not accomplishing the work was severe beatings. If the intent of the enslavement four centuries earlier was to control the population of Israel, this new level of torture was meant to break and eradicate them. 2. Israelite Foremen Respond to Harsh Workload (Exodus 5:15-18) The situation for Israel had deteriorated at a lightning pace from hopefulness at the arrival of Moses to unspeakable desperation immediately after the first encounter with Pharaoh. Such was their desperation that the Israelite foremen threw themselves on the mercy of a man who had already demonstrated himself as merciless. The second visit to Pharaoh, then, was made by the foremen, not by Moses and Aaron. When the pleas were made to Pharaoh, his response was dripping with cruelty and mockery. First, he referred to them as lazy or slackers, insinuating that they were not working at all. Certainly calling a slave people slackers can be intended only to viciously ridicule those who were already dangerously close to death. As if that were not enough, Pharaoh took the matter one step further and leveled the accusation at the foremen that the impossibly cruel new standards were actually a punishment they brought upon themselves. What would you say is the most difficult part of trusting God when situations in your life reach a point that there is no discernible source of help? Why do you think so? How do you discern when someone is attacking you because of your faith versus simply being a vicious person in general? What traits help you to discern the difference? 61 Leader Guide

8 Pharaoh made it clear to the foremen why they were being punished. They came asking why he was destroying his own workers when they were already trying to carry out his tyrannical wishes. His answer, after calling them slackers, was that the root of their laziness was their desire to go sacrifice to Yahweh. Their worship of Yahweh was the cause of this new persecution. Significantly, the manner in which Pharaoh presented the matter was by repeating what Moses had said. The people were familiar with what Moses was going to say, so when they heard the words that led to their life-threatening misery, they were given a new target to set their vengeful resentment on. 3. Moses Confrontation and Reaction (Exodus 5:19-23) Pharaoh s reiteration of the new productivity expectations for the Israelite slaves drove home the certainty of the threat. In writing Exodus, Moses used a great deal of repetition in this part of chapter 5 to emphasize the crushing weight of the impossible daily task. So, too, did the repetition in conversation with Pharaoh and their Egyptian overseers emphasize the reality of certain daily failure and its equally certain consequences. Moses and Aaron were waiting for the Israelite foremen to come out from their meeting with Pharaoh presumably to offer support. Fresh off of their traumatizing encounter with Pharaoh, the foremen venomously launched into an attack against Moses. Reading the words carefully, the reader notices that the foremen essentially asked for God to condemn Moses. Taking note and judging were specific actions that would have identified Moses as one in special need of judgment for wrongdoing. The accusations were a significant exaggeration, as the Israelites had been a stench in the nostrils of numerous Pharaohs over the last four centuries. Still, Moses obedience to God s sending him did escalate the expressed enmity between Pharaoh and Israel. Placing a sword in the hand was an idiomatic phrase that essentially meant that Moses had brought about every factor needed for the Israelites to be destroyed. These accusations, then, were filled with equal parts anguish and hate. WORSHIP VS. WORK Throughout the encounter with Pharaoh, even throughout the plagues, there is a Hebrew wordplay that intensifies the interaction between Pharaoh and Yahweh, through Yahweh s called representative, Moses. The root for the word for worship is the same as the root for the word for worship/serve. So when Moses requests to go worship God, the request is nearly identical to going to work for God. This obviously created an oppositional stance for Pharaoh, who retaliates by making the people work for him, which is nearly identical to the phrase for worship him. This point is lost on English readers, but extremely intentional in the way that Moses wrote Exodus. This is not simply about keeping this Israelite for himself, Pharaoh is contending with God for the place of ultimate prominence in the lives of the Israelites. When the foremen came out from their meeting with Moses, they blamed him for their troubles. Why do you think the human inclination to blame others is so strong? Was Moses really the one to blame? How do you typically respond when someone s actions have caused you undeserved distress? Does it change anything when you remember that God is sovereignly working in your life in the midst of it all? Session 5 62

9 Marking a pattern that would characterize his ministry going forward, Moses did not respond to his accusers. Instead, he took the complaint of his plight to the Lord. In the complaint he lodged to God in verse 22, Moses had forgotten, apparently, that God clearly told him that Pharaoh would refuse. God foretold the hardness of Pharaoh s heart. Yet whatever Moses envisioned when he learned of Pharaoh s stubbornness, it did not include such vindictive cruelty. From the contents of his prayer, Moses revealed that he anticipated God s rescue of His people occurring quickly, with no delays or setbacks. Yet what he experienced was a prolonged amount of time, indicated by the phrase, ever since I went in to Pharaoh, in which the situation only worsened. Moses was wondering if this had all been for nothing, as the people of God were no better off than they were when he met with God at the burning bush. Conclusion Chapter 5 ends with no happy conclusion. There is no moment in which everything miraculously turned around and all of a sudden all of the difficulty finally made sense. The chapter ends with Moses, in essence, asking God when He is finally going to move on behalf of Israel. While the close of chapter 5 can leave modern readers feeling dissatisfied and incomplete, the interactions therein include several important lessons for understanding what life with God is like. First, God s timing for His redemptive work only occasionally lines up with our preferred timing. In those moments when alignment is not a reality, we are quick to wonder if God forgot about us, if He doesn t care about us, or even if He isn t real in extremely desperate situations. While our tendency is to use God s relatively immediate, discernible response to our needs as a confirmation of His favor, God s working in our lives does not have our comfort as His primary concern. God s glory is the primary concern, which is a lesson that is critical for believers to understand. When we become frustrated because His timing seems slow to us, we can rest assured that the resolution, whenever it comes, will be in the timing that will bring the greatest glory to God. Second, obedience to God s leading in our lives is not a magic trick. What that means is that, even when we are faithful in the face of daunting circumstances, our faithfulness does not guarantee that God will move in a certain way. It is beyond the capability of creation to make its Creator do anything. Most Christians would never dream that they would do such an audacious thing, but there still remains that unspoken but very real link between faithfulness and anticipated result. There are only two guaranteed results from the believer s faithfulness to God s calling: a) God will be pleased that the believer followed His instruction with a humble spirit, and b) the believer will receive the blessing of being a part of God s redemptive 63 Leader Guide

10 work in the world. Other blessings aside from these two may indeed occur, but only these two are certain. Third, when God calls us to speak for Him, we must speak for Him. God still calls His people to speak on His behalf to the world, just as He did Moses. Just like Moses, in many instances, His people have great hesitation in doing so due to timidity, a sense of inferiority or inadequacy, or even certain rejection. However, it is crucial to remember that, also just like Moses, when we speak for God, God is the one that empowers the response. Sometimes there will be rejection or mockery. Sometimes the response will be dismissive in orientation. Still other times, the response will be a warmed and softened heart that has been prepared by the Holy Spirit to respond to the message God has called us to speak. Regardless of the response, however, the response itself is not our responsibility. The response is God s responsibility. The believer s responsibility is to humbly and faithfully obey the promptings that God places on our hearts in those moments that are fertile for the gospel. When the believer is faithful to speak, he or she can rest in the knowledge that God is working, even if it s in an unexpected manner. Who are you actively encouraging toward faithfulness in responding to God s leading? It could be a friend trying to be a gospel influence at the workplace, a parent of a child that is struggling with understanding God, or a family member that is struggling with habitual sin. The possibilities are limitless. How can you be a voice of encouragement to them this week? Where do you see God most actively challenging you during this season of life? What is He calling you to do that seems overwhelming, or even risky? How do the previous opportunities in your journey to be faithful in difficult seasons help you say yes to God now? Describe a time when God did not move as quickly as you thought He would. How did that impact your spiritual life then? How does it impact your life now? How do you think God wants to use your testimony of that for the benefit of others? Prayer of Response Pray that God will fortify the members of your group for those seasons in which following Him is difficult. Pray that they will trust God, even when the ways in which He works are not easily detected. Session 5 64

11 Additional Resources The Sovereignty of God by AW Pink Is God Really in Control? Trusting God in a World of Hurt by Jerry Bridges The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment by Jeremiah Burroughs For Next Week Session Title --The Faith of Evacuation: Promise Main Passages --Exodus 6:1-13 Session Outline 1. God Reminds Moses of the Covenant (Exodus 6:1-5) 2. God Sends Moses Back to the Israelites (Exodus 6:6-9) 3. God Sends Moses and Aaron Back to Pharaoh (Exodus 6:10-13) Memorize Later, Moses and Aaron went in and said to Pharaoh, This is what Yahweh, the God of Israel, says: Let My people go, so that they may hold a festival for Me in the wilderness. Exodus 5:1 65 Leader Guide

12 Extended Commentary Exodus 5:1-23 With Chapter 5 the encounters with Pharaoh begin. Three key themes of those encounters are included already in these verses (5:1-14): the demand made by Yahweh, and quoted prophetically by Moses and Aaron, that my people be allowed to leave Egypt to worship me in the wilderness (vv. 1, 3); Pharaoh s resistance, showing no sufficient fear of Yahweh (vv. 2, 4); and Pharaoh s stubbornness, shown in either doing nothing or doing the opposite of what Yahweh demanded (vv. 4-14, in this case resulting in even harsher conditions for the Israelites). These themes, represented in various explicit and implicit ways, and with varying degrees of emphasis, persist through chap. 11. Thus at this point in Moses narrative, the reader is exposed only to Pharaoh s initial resistance and stubbornness, which, fierce from the start, did not abate even as the plagues were unleashed and grew ever more severe. Nothing less than the tenth plague, the alreadypredicted (4:22-23) death of the firstborn (chap. 12) would break the intransigence of Pharaoh, his advisors, and the Egyptians in general. Until then, as this pericope invites us to appreciate, the Israelites not only would not make progress toward freedom, but they would actually suffer more harsh oppression as a result of their God s demands on their behalf. The reader must not lose sight of the identity of the combatants. It is easy to assume that the contest for Israelite deliverance was between Moses and Pharaoh, or between Israel and Pharaoh, or between Israel and Egypt. It was none of these. Rather, it was between Yahweh and Egypt s gods, the pharaoh being a devotee of, representative of, and human focal point for those gods. 5:1 Afterward is a simple way to cover the indeterminate time Moses wishes to bridge in order to get right to the story of the initial encounter with Pharaoh. Mark s frequent right afterward (euthus) has the same sort of narrative purpose. It might be thought unusual that Moses and Aaron would have the right to see the great king personally. After all, they were members of a hated and suppressed people group. The reason probably was not related to Moses long-past status as an Egyptian princeling but rather to a right of audience with a monarch in the traditional legal system of much of the ancient world. Kings were seen as expected to be available to the lowliest and greatest alike, a requirement that Israel s prophets used regularly, often in highly critical, confrontational ways and sometimes even with the purpose of denouncing the king s own personal behavior. Here is the first actual use in the Bible of the prophetic messenger speech formula Thus says the Lord. In 4:22 Moses was taught this form in advance of the Session 5 66

13 requirement to use it; now he and Aaron did indeed use it. In this instance the God of Israel is added in definitional apposition to explain to Pharaoh who Yahweh was. Later prophets also added the terra, following in the footsteps of Moses, the paradigm prophet. Pharaoh would surely have recognized the messenger speech form, judging from its regular use in the Amarna Letters. Without the addition of the God of Israel he might at first have assumed that Yahweh was some minor king or leader of the Israelites rather than their God since the name was otherwise new to him. Moses used the messenger speech formula Thus says the Lord regularly in his confrontations with Pharaoh during the plague stories but otherwise only one other time in Exodus, when God through him commanded the Levites to attack Israelite idolaters (32:27). The formula is never found in the Pentateuch outside of Exodus. God s demand that his people be allowed to hold a festival to him in the wilderness (NIV desert ) recalls 3:18 (q.v.). In the style of Near Eastern requesting favors, the initial request was purposefully stated in a modest way, although what was really being sought was much more: full permanent departure. 5:2 The theme of Pharaoh s not knowing Yahweh follows a certain progression, especially from this point to the end of the plague accounts. Pharaoh started out not knowing who Yahweh was in the sense of not recognizing the name Yahweh, and then thereafter he obviously recognized the name but did not realize who Yahweh really was, and then finally, before it was all over, he knew very well who Yahweh was and was sorry that he had to find out the hard way. In other words, there are two meanings to Who is the Lord? (1) Who are you talking about? I don t recognize that name. (2) What makes you think I would care about obeying Yahweh? The latter usage is found, for example, in Prov 30:9 ( Or I shall be full, and deny you, and say, Who is the Lord? / or I shall be poor, and steal, and profane the name of my God [NRSV]). Thus when Pharaoh said further, I do not know the Lord, he was employing in concept the second sense of Who is the Lord? namely, to take the Lord seriously ). In comparison to the pharaoh who did not know Joseph (1:8), we now read of a pharaoh who did not know Yahweh. Moses and Aaron had received their first refusal, as God had predicted, and there would be many more. 5:3-5 In saying, The God of the Hebrews has met with us (v. 3), Moses and Aaron used Hebrews rather than Israelites in accordance with the common practice of identifying themselves to foreigners. Most of what they said to Pharaoh was word for word what they were told to say in 3:18, with the added statement or he may strike us with plagues or with the sword, presumably their way of assuring Pharaoh that they were deadly 67 Leader Guide

14 serious about obeying the Lord and that obedience was not something about which in their minds there was any option. Ironically, it was the Egyptians, not the Israelites, who would eventually be struck with plagues (the ten) and the sword ( sword being a standard OT synecdoche for defeat and death in battle, which the Egyptians experienced at the Red Sea [chaps ]). Plague and sword are two of the famous three expressions summarizing all the various curses of God against his enemies. It is possible that by his statement Why are you taking the people away from their labor? the king meant to suggest only that Israelites had been shirking work ever since, or at least recently as a result of, being organized by Moses and Aaron into the beginnings of a resistance movement. Reports had surely reached him of Israelite work stoppages and slowdowns (some of which may have been related to their newfound worship of the true God as referred to in 4:31). However, since the Hebrew imperfect verb form employed here in context can convey not merely why are you taking the people away? but equally as likely why would you take the people away? it is probable that Pharaoh also was verbalizing the implications of what he understood they were asking for in the name of their God an actual physical departure from the site of work. At any rate, it is clear from v. 5 ( the people of the land are now numerous, and you are stopping them from working ) that most or all Israelites may at that moment not only have stopped work but amassed somewhere to await the report from the encounter at the palace and perhaps to pray for the immediate success of that encounter, an optimistic expectation in light of the more arduous process we know God was planning (Cf. 3:19; 4:21). Pharaoh s language in v. 5 carries an overtone of the Egyptian xenophobic paranoia described in 1:9-14, where the dangerously large population of the Israelites (as seen from the Egyptian point of view) resulted in a longterm plan to suppress them by heavy labor. Here the population, even larger (1:12), must according to the logic of that long-term Egyptian plan be even more suppressed by even more labor. Accordingly, Pharaoh took control, as his office and training dictated, and next proposed a workload increase that made perfect sense from the point of view of the agreed-upon Egyptian remedy for a large, potentially hostile Israelite population. 5:6-9 The remedy proposed by the king was predictable: if work was the way to keep the Israelites quiet and obedient (a method that had worked well for decades), more work was the way to restore quiet and obedience. According to 1:14, the forced labor burden on the Israelites was related mainly to brick making ( brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields ). Presumably the work in the fields was not originally focused on gathering the straw for the bricks but on planting, tending, and Session 5 68

15 harvesting crops. The Egyptians must have used some other group for the straw. Now, ratcheting up the workload, Pharaoh ordered the Israelites to gather their own straw. From the reader s point of view, however, if the old attempt to keep down the Israelite population growth and aspirations for freedom failed (1:12), there was little chance that this greater oppression would turn the tide in favor of Egypt and against Israel. The slave drivers were likely Egyptian; the foremen were clearly Israelite (Cf. 5:14-15, 19). Thus immediately ( that same day ) upon hearing Yahweh s demands on him on behalf of his people, Pharaoh showed his contempt by making his demands on Yahweh s people the same brick output as previously, with a greatly increased supply problem relative to the straw. In 3:18 and 5:3 the Israelites are quoted as asking for permission to offer sacrifices to [Yahweh] the Lord. Here Pharaoh characterized their request as a desire to sacrifice to our God, leaving out the name Yahweh. He had not forgotten the divine name, which he used in v. 2 and would mention readily again until 8:8, when in desperation he needed Moses prayer to Yahweh to relieve the plague of the frogs. Rather, this omission subtly and efficiently conveys the impression of Pharaoh s disdain for Yahweh who was to him in effect merely the god these people worship. To him, Yahweh s words were not valid; they were just lies. This is ever the view of the nonbeliever: God s words are lies that keep you from conforming to the expectations of the world you live in and from enjoying life on your own terms (a concept that began early in human history, according to Gen 3:4). 5:10-14 The Israelites had believed in the Lord, and Moses and Aaron had faithfully spoken his word to Pharaoh, but things got worse rather than better. Surely this relatively detailed account of the increased workload and the suffering it engendered makes a principal point: God s people must not assume that carrying out his commands will increase their own comfort. Of course, Moses had been forewarned that Pharaoh would be resistant (3:19; 4:21), but the severity and breadth of the suffering his resistance would cause the Israelites was not explicitly stated; it is likely that Moses, Aaron, the Israelite foremen, and the Israelites in general were caught unprepared for a punitive workload increase. What Pharaoh required was not simply that the Israelites themselves start gathering and chopping straw, a job previously done by others. Rather, I will give you no straw means that they could not have any or grow any of their own no straw ( teben) at all was to be provided them not by others, not by their own hand (v. 10). What they then had to do, according to v. 12, was go everywhere. looking for stubble to serve as a 69 Leader Guide

16 substitute for straw. Straw is preserved plant stalks from the more rigid long-stalk grains and vegetables. Straw comes from those plants that are harvested but whose stalks are inedible to humans and/or animals. Stubble is the very short remaining stalks of plants after harvesting: the bit between the root and where the reaping scythe or sickle cut the plant. It was only a relatively poor substitute for straw, making the process of producing suitable bricks much harder, but it also was much harder to gather from harvested fields even when the season is right (requiring careful, tedious hand pulling and cutting) as compared to the purposely preserved (and usually bundled) straw and was almost hopelessly difficult to gather in the off season. As Job said, referring to a fruitless endeavor, Will you frighten a windblown leaf and pursue dry chaff? (Job 13:25 NRSV). The fact that the Israelites under the new rules simply could not meet their brick quotas is not surprising: Pharaoh had made the task virtually impossible. When the foremen, even under the penalty of being beaten, could not get the people to produce any more bricks (vv ), the situation was obviously intolerable. It is not surprising that an anguished appeal to Pharaoh for relief followed (vv ), even though such an appeal was essentially an act of desperation, presumably having little chance of success. 5:15-21 This section of the story contains several repetitions of information already known from prior verses in the chapter. The repeated material reinforces the severity of the problem confronting the Israelites. Its special emphasis lies in its focus on the rejection of the appeal and the hopelessness of the Israelites: when Pharaoh said, You will not be given any straw, yet you must produce your full quota of bricks, the Israelite foremen realized they were in trouble (vv ). Thus the situation had transformed from one of hopefulness and faith (4:31) to resentment and doubt. Why? Because of Pharaoh s intransigence. He clearly is portrayed here as unyielding, determined to put the Israelites in their place, suggesting that the Israelites were going to need something much stronger than words to convince him to change his mind. As v. 20 indicates, Moses and Aaron did not attempt to return to the royal court to handle this appeal, suggesting that they saw no hope in it or realized that they would not have been welcome. Pharaoh was the final court of appeal, the equivalent of the supreme court of his country. Thus his final verdict had been rendered to Moses and Aaron already, and they may even have been barred from seeing him so soon again on essentially the same issue. Someone else, however, might have had the opportunity to address the king on the topic of the impossibility of fulfilling a royal edict (making a full quota of bricks without straw) under the court rules of that time, and it was perhaps thus that the Israelite foremen tried themselves to appeal Session 5 70

17 the penalty assigned in response to Moses and Aaron s representation of Yahweh s demand. When the bad news was delivered and the foremen had left the court and found Moses and Aaron outside (by all appearances, waiting in order to be supportive), the resentment and frustration engendered by their defeat at court boiled over into an angry accusation at the two brother leaders ( You have made us a stench to Pharaoh and his officials and have put a sword in their hand to kill us, v. 21). It is noteworthy that the foremen did not state that they had lost faith in Yahweh. Apparently they had not actually overthrown their newfound faith. They apparently thought, however, that Moses and Aaron could not have properly represented the case or handled it well and thus had disobeyed Yahweh ( May the Lord look upon you and judge you! ). Behind this rebuke appears to be the conviction that Moses and Aaron needed judgment because the nation s God, Yahweh, would not have let such a thing happen without his will having been thwarted by these leaders. The presumption that a good God never lets dangerous or harmful events happen to his people, false as it has always been, is a very old belief. 5:22-23 The wording Moses returned to the Lord is not a reference to his going to any particular location (as if there were already some sort of tent of meeting erected or as if he went back to Sinai) but to Moses leaving the scene of the encounter with the furious foremen and taking his own discouragement privately to God in prayer. The wording could also be translated Moses turned to the Lord, which is the more common translation of šûb in descriptions of prayer. His repeated refrain, brought trouble upon this people, is attributed to God as the ultimate cause and Pharaoh as the immediate cause. The foremen had blamed Moses and Aaron; Moses now blamed God. Moses apparently was genuinely dismayed by what had happened. He had been told to anticipate pharaoh s stubbornness, but he had not anticipated cruel retribution against the Israelites themselves as a result of his mission ( Is this why you sent me? ). Ever since I went to Pharaoh suggests what 5:10-14 implies: that a considerable time had elapsed between Pharaoh s rejection of the request to leave Egypt and this point in time time taken by the publication of the new, harder requirement, by the desperate attempts to meet it, by the failures, by the process of beatings that followed the failures, and by the foremen s appeal. By concluding his prayer with you have not rescued your people at all, Moses showed what he had actually been thinking: that God s promised deliverance would occur relatively quickly and would not involve setbacks or disappointments. From a literary point of view, Moses was telling 71 Leader Guide

18 this story on himself. That is, writing for the wildemess generation and beyond (see Introduction), Moses included a detail that shows how he himself was unreasonably impatient for God s deliverance. The wilderness generation and all that had succeeded it had a similar tendency, and what Moses eventually leamed, all believers have had to learn for themselves: God s timing only sometimes coincides with our expectations, and his idea of the hardships we need to go through only sometimes coincides with our idea of how much we can take. Session 5 72