Egyptian Bondage and Deliverance

Exodus, Chapter 1

God says through his prophet Hosea, Hos. 11:1, "When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt." See also Matt. 2:15. There was a loving, divine purpose in the Egyptian residence of God's people. What was it? What did this period mean in the career of Israel?

Most obviously, it meant growth. From the "seventy souls," Ex. 1:5, that went down into Egypt with Jacob, there sprang up there a populous folk, large enough to take its place alongside the other nations of the world of that day. Observe the nature of the land where this growth took place. Egypt was a settled country, where the twelve developing tribes could be united geographically and socially in a way impossible in a country like Palestine. However oppressed they were, they nevertheless were secluded from the dangers of raids from without and of civil strife within — just such dangers as later almost wrecked the substantial edifice slowly erected by this period of growth in Egypt.

Egypt meant also for Israel a time of waiting. All this growth was not accomplished in a short time. It lasted four hundred and thirty years. Ex. 12:40, 41. Through this long period, which seems like a dark tunnel between the brightness of the patriarchs' times and that of Moses* day, there was nothing for God's people to do but to wait. They were the heirs of God's promise, but they must wait for the fulfillment of that promise in God's own time, wait for a leader raised up by God, wait for the hour of national destiny to strike. As Hosea, ch.ll:1 expresses it, this "child" must wait for his Father's "call." The Egyptian period left an indelible impression on the mind of Israel. It formed the gray background on which God could lay the colors of his great deliverance. It is because God knew and planned this that he so often introduces himself to his people, when he speaks to them, as "Jehovah thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage."

In the third place, this Egyptian period meant for Israel a time of chastisement. The oppression to which the descendants of Jacob were exposed, when "there arose a new king over Egypt, who knew not Joseph," Ex. 1:8, was so severe, prolonged, and hopeless, v. 14, that it has become proverbial and typical. Since every male child was to be put to death, v. 22, it is clear that the purpose of the Egyptians was nothing less than complete extermination. "It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth": if that be true, then the children of Israel derived good from the school of discipline in which they grew up. True, as we read their later story, we feel that no people could be more fickle. Yet there is no other nation with which to compare Israel. And it is very probable that no other nation would have been serious-minded enough even to receive and grasp the divine revelation and leading of Moses' and Joshua's time. God, who had "seen the affliction of his people," who had "heard their cry" and sent Moses to them to organize their deliverance, wrote forever on this nation's soul the message of salvation in a historical record. At the start of their national life there stood the story, which they could never deny or forget, and which told them of God's power and grace.

Exodus, Chapters 5 to 15

All this lay in Israel's experience in Egypt. The next lesson will tell of the character and work of the man whom God chose to be leader. The means by which Moses succeeded in the seemingly impossible task of marching a great horde of slaves out from their masters' country, was the impression of God's power on the minds of Pharaoh and his people. It was a continued, combined, and cumulative impression. Of course it could not be made without the use of supernatural means. We must not, therefore, be surprised to find the story in Exodus bristling with miracles. To be sure, the "plagues" can be shown to be largely natural to that land where they occurred. And the supreme event of the deliverance, the passage of Israel through the Red Sea on dry ground, was due, according to the narrative itself, to a persistent wind, Ex. 14:21, such as often lays bare the shallows of a bay, only to release the waters again when its force is spent.

Nevertheless, it is not possible to remove the "hand of God" from the account by thus pointing out some of the means God used to accomplish his special purposes. It was at the time, in the way, and in the order, in which Moses announced to Pharaoh the arrival of the plagues, that they actually appeared. This was what had its ultimate effect on the king's stubborn will. And when Israel was told to "go forward," with the waters right before them, and when the Egyptians were saying, "They are entangled in the land, the wilderness hath shut them in,' , Ex. 14:3 — it was just at that juncture that the east wind did its work at God's command; when Israel was over safely, it went down. Such things do not "happen." It made a profound impression on Israel, on Egypt, and on all the nations of that day; all united in accepting it as the work of Israel's God. Ex. 15:11, 14-16; Josh. 2:10.

The important point for the nation was to know, when Moses and Aaron came to them in the name of God, that it was their fathers' God who had sent them. On account of this need, which both the people and their leaders felt, God proclaimed his divine name, Jehovah (more precisely, Yahweh, probably meaning "He is," Ex. 3:14, 15), to Moses, and bade him pronounce the same to Israel, to assure them that he was "the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob," and thus what Moses came now to do for them was just what had been promised to those fathers long before. The passover night was the fulfillment of God's good word to Abraham. Ex. 13:10, 11. How that word went on and on toward more and more complete fulfillment will be the subject of the succeeding lessons.

QUESTIONS ON LESSON III

1. What advantages had Egypt over Palestine as the place for Israel to grow from a family into a nation?

2. What value was there for Israel in a negative time of waiting at the beginning of its history?

3. Compare the effect on Israel with the effect on a man, of passing through a time of difficulty while developing.

4. Name the ten "plagues of Egypt" in their order. How far can they be called "natural"?

5. If the east wind drove back the Red Sea, what did God have to do with Israel's escape from the Egyptian army?

6. Why should we not be surprised to find many miracles grouped at this stage of Bible history?

7. How did God identify himself in the minds of the people with the God of their fathers? What was his personal name?