Exodus 6:13-27 – The significance of names

One thing many Christians do is this: whenever they come to any genealogical account in the Bible, they would skip reading that portion of Scriptures. Why? Because they contain a list of many unfamiliar names that are hard to pronounce. Some words in the list kept being repeated and that would make the reading of the account repetitive, boring, and dull. Many have thought that there is nothing to learn from such genealogical accounts. But we all need to know this, that all scriptures including the accounts of the genealogies are written by God’s inspiration. And hence, according to 2 Timothy 3:16-17 they are “…profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.”

We must acknowledge that God would never have so many of the people and families recorded in the Scriptures if He had thought that they are unimportant. The reason there are so many records of Genealogies underscores the importance of these accounts. They show us how accurate the Bible is. They provide glimpses of truth concerning the character of God. The records of genealogies actually prove that Jesus of Nazareth is truly the Messiah whom God had promised to send. Furthermore, when we read such records, we are also given models on what we should or should not do if we want to please God. In that sense, these accounts are truly practical examples for our Christian walk.    

Here in Exodus 6:14-27, we are provided a brief summary of three families – The families of Reuben, Simeon, and Levi. Of the three members of Israel’s family, Levi’s family is given more detail because of Moses and Aaron. Here God identifies and points them out to us readers. So, let us come to it with the perspective that this record is more than just a list of unfamiliar names except for a few. Let us gear our minds and be ready to accept something that God wants us to learn. Scanning through the list, we must conclude that many of the names seem unfamiliar and ordinary. This proves that God can use very ordinary and seemingly unknown people. Should any one of us feel insignificant, we should take heart from this list of unfamiliar people. God uses unknown and ordinary people for His extraordinary purpose. We may not think too much of who and where we are now. But we must know that God has placed us exactly where we are to impact some people’s lives for eternity. We should learn to have a better perspective of ourselves and our position in God.

A name has significance. Every name tells us something about a person. Parents always name their children from what they had experienced during the birth of their children or the circumstances that surround their children’s birth. Here are a few examples: Jochebed was the mother of Moses. Her name means “God’s glory.” The parents probably had hope that God would ultimately break through gloriously in the lives of His people. Eleazar means “God has helped” and Elkanah means “God has created.”  The parents of these two probably trusted God and knew that whatever they were going through, and the future of their sons laid in the hand of God. So, they named their children to remind themselves and their children that God has helped and God has created them. Time and space do not permit us to deal with them one by one. It sure would be challenging for us to individually study the names of the people of God. So that through the study, we can see the hand of God shaping the history of redemption. And through such a study, we will surely be led to acknowledge that Jesus Christ is truly the great High Priest of our faith.

Exodus 6:6-12 – Be assured that we are His redeemed

Central to the whole rescue operation of the children of Israel was the LORD, the great I AM. It was to Moses that He first revealed this name. He is the self-existing God, ever-present God, the one who has no beginning or end. He was there before the beginning of time and will be there at the end of it. Now in Moses’ discouragement, God brought him back to this reality again. It was important for Moses to know who he or Pharaoh was dealing with, despite Pharaoh’s adamance and his stubborn refusal to acknowledge His sovereignty and bow to His demands. Despite the intensified oppression, neither the Israelites or us, His people today, should forget that we all belong to Him. He had made a covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and would never renege on His promise. As this message was for Moses, the Pharaoh and the oppressed Israelites, it is also for us who have experienced His love through the Lord Jesus Christ. He was the reason for their existence, and will also be the reason for ours.

For that matter, we must also never forget that He is our sovereign God and nothing is outside of His control. He wanted Moses and the Israelites to know that no matter how desperate the situation might seem, He was still in control. This same truth is for us, that no matter what we are going through, He, the great “I AM”, is still very much in control. Like Moses, we must remember that at the beginning, in the midst or at the end of every difficult encounter in life, He was there, is here now and will always be with us, no matter what. What a great heartening thought! The answer to all our problems is in Him. The truth is this: at the heart of it all, He wants us to live a God-centred life. Knowing God and walking with Him is the most important thing. This is a call for us to place all our trust in Him even in the midst of all difficult times.

From Exodus 5:6-8, two words “I will” appear seven times. God asked Moses to say to His discouraged people, promising them with these words: “I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from their bondage. I will also redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments. Then I will take you for My people, and I will be your God; and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will bring you to the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it to you for a possession; I am the Lord.”  

What was God saying in these seven ‘I will’s? Four clear truths emerge. He would not only be their liberator but also would be their redeemer. And He would adopt them as His own people and would also give a land for their inheritance. God’s intention is the same for us through Christ. He liberates and redeems us. Then He adopts us and grants us an eternal possession. But we mustn’t respond like the Israelites. In verse 9 when Moses spoke all these to the children of Israel, they wanted nothing of it. God said to them seven times, “I will” but they stubbornly said to God, “I won’t.”  Why? They were discouraged because of Pharaoh’s cruel bondage. Herein is a lesson for us. When God says to us, “I will” never respond with an “I won’t.” Don’t ever let discouragement or despondency force you to do this. For this is His promise, “I am the Lord”  

Sadly, verses 10-12 describe Moses’ hesitation. So here in Egypt, he repeated the same thing he said to God at Horeb, when told to go and tell Pharaoh to let God’s people go. The reason for Moses seems obvious. He was not only rejected by Pharaoh but also by his own people, already. How much different would it be this time around? If His own people wouldn’t listen to him how much more could he expect from Pharaoh? These were probably some thoughts that had raged in his mind. Perhaps like Moses, some of us are at the point of giving up. Let us not let despondency or discouragement trip us up. He still says to us “I am the LORD and I will liberate and redeem you. I have adopted you not as my servants but my sons and daughters. I still have an eternal inheritance for you in Christ.” What a glorious God we have! So be still and know that He is God!

Exodus 6:1-5 – Always keep the goal of our journey in focus

Haven’t we all engaged in a project, hoping to improve a situation but the result we experienced not only did not turn out as we wanted but rather worsened the situation? That was exactly how Moses must have felt. He had hoped that the people of Israel would be granted the pilgrimage he came to seek for them. He had hoped that they would be able to go into the wilderness to offer their worship to the LORD. Moses should have known better not to expect too much from Pharaoh, for after all God had warned him to expect resistance from the king. God had warned him that the king needed to be compelled before he would send the children of Israel away in a hurry. But we all know that knowing before things become worst is one thing, but experiencing it would be quite another. We all knew that Pharaoh had had it good for a good forty years. He had had people whom he so ably organized into bonds. And they did his bidding and built his great monuments at no cost. So, when Moses and Aaron turned up with the request, he became more aggressive and made greater unreasonable demands of the people.

It took a great while for God to convince Moses why he needed to do what he had done. The LORD literally went through a great length to bring him to a point where he finally agreed to take on the assignment. Moses probably could accept if Pharaoh wouldn’t grant his request immediately. But to have the people that he came to set free turned on him was more than he could take. But what could he expect from a people who had been oppressed? To have greater oppression was not what they had bargained for. Without a doubt, Moses’ assignment was right smack at the center of God’s will. He should have a smooth and unhindered path, right? Wrong, Things went awfully wrong for him. The people blamed him for their plight. Moses, however, did the right thing by coming to God and downloaded his disappointment on Him. He sought the answer from God. And that’s what we should do when we cannot understand what we are going through. There is no point berating the people who seek to help us. It is pointless to blame God.

In the first five verses of Exodus 6, we see God reaffirming His intention for His people. He said in verse 1, “Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh; for under compulsion he will let them go, and under compulsion, he will drive them out of his land.” And He went on further to remind Moses that He had a covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob though, at the point of cutting the covenant, He did not reveal His covenant name, the LORD to them. And God was not about to renege on His word. He had no intention to leave the people in their mournful condition for He had heard their cries and saw their plight.  Furthermore, He had promised to bring them into their land as He had promised.

God’s timetable for our life may not always dovetail into what we have hoped for. Like the children of Israel, God knows that we all need to develop patience. We all need to be able to take a long-term view of God’s plan for our life and not allow hardship on the way to destabilize our trust in Him. We must learn to keep our eyes focused on the larger scheme of God’s plan and know that He will never fail. Like Jesus, we keep our eyes on the end-goal. He came to set us free to worship Him and that’s the ultimate. Stay on it no matter what! 

Exodus 5:10-23 – What to do when we face a troubles

The situation for the Israelites became worst. It was as if they had been thrown from the frying pan into the fire. And it all seemed to start after Moses and Aaron sent by God said to Pharaoh, “Thus said the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘Let My people go that they may celebrate a feast to Me in the wilderness.’” It was bad enough that they should be made to build Pharaoh’s extravagant monuments, now they had to make bricks and to make them without given the material. As it was already, they were being treated harshly. But with Moses and Aaron’s request, the hardship dished out to the Israelites picked-up to a point of intense cruelty. They were expected to make bricks without given the required material. The quota was not reduced even though they were not given any straw. We can imagine the frantic Israelites moving all over the land desperately looking for stubble and straw. Isn’t the action of Pharaoh much like what sin will do to us? It will make demands on us far more than we are willing to pay and hold us longer than we are willing to stay.  

The unreasonableness of Pharaoh was beyond endurance. This can be seen in the despondency of the Israelites. There came a point when they could endure no longer that they even took the courage to complain to Pharaoh. They wanted to know how could they make bricks when the taskmasters refused to give them straw. They were begging to be treated reasonably. Their question was how could they ever meet their daily quota when they were given no straw? Their pleas received no sympathy from Pharaoh. The insufferable monarch even accused them of being lazy. He turned their request to go on a pilgrimage to worship God into an accusation. He insisted that they were making excuse for their laziness. It then dawned upon the foremen who came to Pharaoh that the way they were treated was not just a glitch in an administration, it was a decree from the cruel king. From this, we can see that it’s pointless to seek leniency from one who decrees the cruelty. A spiritual lesson to glean here is that we should not expect our load to be lessened when we comply with Satan’s demand. In reality, the more we comply with sin’s demands, the deeper we will find ourselves entrenched in its demands.

Verses 19-21 describe how quickly the foremen came to Moses and Aaron and found the pair waiting for them. The first things they did was they began to accuse them bitterly and blame them for the cruel treatment dished out to them by Pharaoh and his taskmasters. They even called upon the LORD to judge the two of them for making them odious in the sight of the king. What Moses and Aaron did was far from delivering them, but instead gave Pharaoh a reason to make their life more miserable. The foremen’s reaction towards Moses and Aaron reflects for us what people would do when they are confronted by a bad situation. Many would blame their spiritual leaders without considering that what they were experiencing could possibly be the hand of God preparing the circumstance for them to experience a great breakthrough. When we learn to factor God in our life, even in the worst of circumstances of life, we don’t become unhinged so easily. We must hold steady and realized that in everything God is working out something for our good.

In what way could they oppressed people respond better? Verses 22-23 give us a clue. They could be like Moses and Aaron and bring their heartaches to God. They could be honest with God and even tell Him their difficulty. But to rent at their spiritual leaders was uncalled for. Moses and Aaron were only acting as God had told them to. This is a lesson for us. The right approach when we face any hardship is to first seek God, and let bring our trouble to Him. We should not resort to murmuring and complaining. We can be honest with our feeling before God. For there is nothing that He does not know. It is never right to react by accusing our leaders for our misfortune in life. One thing know is this: God is faithful, with every trial, He knows exactly how to bring us out of the pain. We can take our pain to God in prayer and trust Him!        

Exodus 5:1-9 – Belief or resist - The choice is ours to make

Moses, together with Aaron, came to Pharaoh and spoke on God’s behalf. They came to the pagan king saying, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Let My people go that they may celebrate a feast to Me in the wilderness.’” The first thing we notice about this demand is that the Israelites were God’s own people. He called them “My people.” They were His precious sons and daughters and thus the most appropriate activity for them was to worship their Father God. For us, whom God has also adopted as His sons and daughters through Christ, worship is also the reason for our being. As the first statement of the Westminster shorter catechism so say, “The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.” Worship is extolling and glorifying God for who He is. That must be our chief end in life.

Moses’ actions provide the clue that he had silently but surely proven to be a changed man. Ordinarily, he would be petrified to come before Pharaoh. But now with renewed confidence, he approached Pharaoh and make such a demand, not even fearing for his own life. Here he stood assertively before the most powerful man of his time and demanded the release of God’s people. Moses had indeed made progress. From the fearful, diffident person that he was, he had now become unflinchingly self-assured of his place in God. Being Christ’s followers, this must also be the experience for us too. It is alright to experience apprehension when we start our journey with God. But as we progress with Him, nothing should hold us back from courageously taking our position in Him.  

Pharaoh was defiant. His reaction to the demand of Moses and Aaron was “Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and besides, I will not let Israel go.”  This king had no regard for God and he couldn’t care less. And he was not about to listen to a God he did not know. He was going to resist Him all the way. But little did he know that it was God who was setting up the perfect moment for Him to display His power. Pharaoh is a typical image of an unbeliever. He resisted God like every unbeliever would. He placed himself on the throne of his life, just like what every person without God would do. His words, “Who is this God that I should listen to Him” is what everyone who places himself on the throne would feel. They want to rule their own lives and make their own decisions. But we know better who can take charge of our life best. It is better to yield and trust God than to resist and defy. Pharaoh discovered this later to his own detriment.  

The root problem confronting Pharaoh was a spiritual one. His question was not only “Who is this God?” But also “Why should I obey Him?” At the heart of all resistance to God is the issue of unbelief. Isn’t this true of everyone who refuses to acknowledge God? Pharaoh’s unbelief had been multiplied so many times in the lives of people who couldn’t care about this true God. People who refuse to acknowledge God will always resist Him no matter what. This king of Egypt typifies for us what every unbelieving person would do. Not only would they resist God but they would not allow others to follow God. His assertion was “why should I let the Israelites go and worship God?” He was not about to believe and he would do all he could to prevent others from believing. 

Pharaoh was a vicious person. He not only refused to accede to the request of Moses and Aaron, but he also became more spiteful. He took it out on the people. He had no regard for human life. Everyone was a pawn in his hand. And he ordered that the Israelites be given hard labor. They were expected to make more bricks without giving more material. This is being unreasonable. When threatened, isn’t this what an oppressor would do? Two outcomes when we are confronted by God – yield totally to Him or be dismissive just because we do not know His ways. No one can stand still when confronted by the living God. We can move toward faith, and that must be our choice. If not, we will shrink in unbelief. 

Exodus 4:27-31– God deserves our total adoration

Reading these last five verses of Exodus 4 assures us that God always fulfills what He says. We can see that everything He told Moses came to pass. Be it his meeting with Aaron in the wilderness, the acceptance, the belief of the elders of Israel and the three signs that he was told to do to authenticate his calling. All it required was for Moses to do what he was instructed. And he did. Nothing can prevent what God had said from happening. That’s our sure hope in the journey with Him.

Earlier, God told Moses that Aaron was going to be in the wilderness and he was to go and meet him there. Here in Exodus 4:27, God also worked on Aaron and told him to go out and meet his brother, Moses, at the mountain of God, which presumably was Horeb. There they had a heartwarming meeting and Aaron was kept apprised of all that God had instructed Moses to say and do. Once this was done, together they made their way to Egypt and met the elders of Israel. There Aaron as Moses’ spokesman began. He told the elders of all that Moses had seen and heard. Then Moses performed the three signs, the snake, the leprous hand and the blood. On seeing the signs, every elder believed as God had told Moses. Come to think about it, the fear Moses had about the people not believing in him was needless. They did not even ask a question but wholeheartedly accepted Moses. He spent so much time with God back and forth, giving excuses and imagining what would happen. Every fear of his proved to be unfounded. And as God said, the people believed him without even a whimper.   

Here’s a word about fear, it can make us spend needless energy. It is the result of a failure to trust God and His word. Have you noticed that like Moses, most of our struggles always happen during decision-making time? When we are choosing and deciding whether to follow God, that’s when we often have to grapple. Once we have made up our mind to just act as God has instructed, we find everything just falls into place. This is when we find to our delight, that obeying and glorifying God is indeed the best thing to do in life.

So right there in Egypt, long before the liberation had begun, it must have dawned upon the elders of Israel that their prayers did not go in vain. God indeed had heard their cries and seen their miseries. So, with renewed hope, they bowed down and worshipped God. Nothing can be more appropriate in the light of all that God had begun to do. They now could see that God indeed deserved to be worshipped, revered and honored. This is the same God whom we now worship. He is sovereign and He has the whole world in His hand. There is not a single thing concerning His people, we included, that He does not know or will not do something about. This God desires our worship. The best decision we will ever make and must make is to bow to worship Him and Him alone.

Exodus 4:21-26 – Let’s align our conscience and responsibility

God has set in motion natural laws so that the universe can operate normally day to day. But there will be times when He will break into a circumstance and with a miracle, change the order and make life better for someone or some people. In the earlier verses, we saw how Moses was granted three signs to convince him of God’s ability to deliver the people. He was asked to throw the staff he held in his hand and when he did so, it became a snake. And when he was told to catch it by the tail, it turned back into a snake. He was told to put his hand into his breast under his clothes, that hand was immediately inflicted with leprosy. When he put it in again the second time, that hand inflicted by leprosy was healed immediately. The third sign God gave him was by turning the water of the River Nile into a river of blood. Moses was told to perform the same signs not only to convince the Israelites but also to harden the heart of Pharaoh. Verse 23 gives us an indication of what the final outcome of Moses’ rescue operation would be. Here we learn something about signs and wonders. They are given to authenticate God’s ownership of everything and to help convince people of the reality of God. They are not given for showmanship. Signs and wonders are given to show that God is sovereign and He has control over everything.

Next, we must deal with Pharaoh’s hardened heart. Was it God who had hardened his heart or was it Pharaoh himself who had hardened his own heart? If it was God, it would seem unfair to Pharaoh. It would appear as if he did not have a choice for it was God who had hardened his heart and infringed on his free will. The simple answer is this: God had simply facilitated the hardening of his heart which Pharaoh himself had initiated. He repeatedly refused to go along with God to a point where his own conscience had become rendered incapable to respond to God. This can happen to us too. When God shows us something totally wrong in our life and we persistently refuse to deal with it. When that happens once too often, our conscience will so harden that we will be rendered incapable to respond to God. The best prevention is always to trust and obey God immediately.  

In verses 24-26, we see an incident where God disciplined Moses. It calls attention to the needs of God’s servant and his family to be in covenant obedience to God. One of God’s sign for His covenant people was circumcision. Moses apparently did not circumcise his son. So, God came that night and threatened to take away His life. His wife, Zipporah immediately could identify the root of the problem. So, she took matters into her own hand, circumcised their elder’s son and save Moses from the divine discipline. The way she went about it so grudgingly implies that she could be the one resisting the rite at first. This is a lesson for us fathers. We must set our home aright if we desire to be effective in ministry. As heads of our home, we are responsible to set our home in order. God will hold us accountable for the orderliness of our home. Nothing should absolve us from our duty to lead the home God’s way. This is one duty we must not renege. Remember, private victory must precede public victory. An orderly home is where we must start if we are to be effective instruments to demonstrate God’s power to the world.