In the course of those many days, the king of Egypt died, and the children of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up to God because of the bondage.
Parallel Translations
-
In the course of those many days, the king of Egypt died, and the children of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up to God because of the bondage.
-
And it came to pass in process of time, that the king of Egypt died: and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage.
-
And it came to pass in the course of those many days that the king of Egypt died; and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage.
Cross-references (22)
Passages linked to Exodus 2:23 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Genesis 18:20-21 Yahweh said, “Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous, I will go down now, and see whether their deeds are as bad as the reports which have come to me. If not, I will know.”
- James 5:4 Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you have kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of those who reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Armies.
- Exodus 3:7-9 Yahweh said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey; to the place of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite. Now, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to me. Moreover I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them.
- Exodus 22:22-27 “You shall not take advantage of any widow or fatherless child. If you take advantage of them at all, and they cry at all to me, I will surely hear their cry; and my wrath will grow hot, and I will kill you with the sword; and your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless. “If you lend money to any of my people with you who is poor, you shall not be to him as a creditor. You shall not charge him interest. If you take your neighbor’s garment as collateral, you shall restore it to him before the sun goes down, for that is his only covering, it is his garment for his skin. What would he sleep in? It will happen, when he cries to me, that I will hear, for I am gracious.
- Deuteronomy 26:6-7 The Egyptians mistreated us, afflicted us, and imposed hard labor on us. Then we cried to Yahweh, the God of our fathers. Yahweh heard our voice, and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression.
- Acts 7:30 “When forty years were fulfilled, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in a flame of fire in a bush.
- Genesis 16:11 Yahweh’s angel said to her, “Behold, you are with child, and will bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael, because Yahweh has heard your affliction.
- Nehemiah 9:9 “You saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt, and heard their cry by the Red Sea,
- Psalms 12:5 “Because of the oppression of the weak and because of the groaning of the needy, I will now arise,” says Yahweh; “I will set him in safety from those who malign him.”
- Psalms 18:6 In my distress I called on Yahweh, and cried to my God. He heard my voice out of his temple. My cry before him came into his ears.
- Isaiah 19:20 It will be for a sign and for a witness to Yahweh of Armies in the land of Egypt; for they will cry to Yahweh because of oppressors, and he will send them a savior and a defender, and he will deliver them.
- Genesis 4:10 Yahweh said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries to me from the ground.
- Exodus 4:19 Yahweh said to Moses in Midian, “Go, return into Egypt; for all the men who sought your life are dead.”
- Deuteronomy 24:15 In his day you shall give him his wages, neither shall the sun go down on it; for he is poor and sets his heart on it; lest he cry against you to Yahweh, and it be sin to you.
- Judges 10:11-12 Yahweh said to the children of Israel, “Didn’t I save you from the Egyptians, and from the Amorites, from the children of Ammon, and from the Philistines? The Sidonians also, and the Amalekites, and the Maonites, oppressed you; and you cried to me, and I saved you out of their hand.
- Psalms 107:19-20 Then they cry to Yahweh in their trouble, he saves them out of their distresses. He sends his word, and heals them, and delivers them from their graves.
- Acts 12:23-24 Immediately an angel of the Lord struck him, because he didn’t give God the glory. Then he was eaten by worms and died. But the word of God grew and multiplied.
- Exodus 7:7 Moses was eighty years old, and Aaron eighty-three years old, when they spoke to Pharaoh.
- Numbers 20:16 When we cried to Yahweh, he heard our voice, sent an angel, and brought us out of Egypt. Behold, we are in Kadesh, a city in the edge of your border.
- Psalms 81:6-7 “I removed his shoulder from the burden. His hands were freed from the basket. You called in trouble, and I delivered you. I answered you in the secret place of thunder. I tested you at the waters of Meribah.”
- Matthew 2:19-20 But when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, “Arise and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel, for those who sought the young child’s life are dead.”
- Isaiah 5:7 For the vineyard of Yahweh of Armies is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for justice, but, behold, oppression; for righteousness, but, behold, a cry of distress.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (20 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
Private notes
Saved on this device only — never synced or sent anywhere.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain God humbleth his by afflictions, that they should cry…
God humbleth his by afflictions, that they should cry unto him, and receive the fruit of his promise.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Exo 2:23 And it came to pass in process…
Exo 2:23 And it came to pass in process of time, that the king of Egypt died: and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage.
Ver. 23. Sighed by reason of the bondage.] They had changed their masters, but not their miseries; αει το παρον βαρυ, but seldom comes a better. Job’s "stroke was heavier than his groaning." {Job 23:2}
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain In process of time; Heb. in those many days,…
In process of time; Heb. in those many days, viz. in which he lived or abode there, i.e. after them. In is put for after here, as it is Num 28:26; Isa 20:1; Mar 13:24, compared with Mat 24:29; Luk 9:36. After forty years, as appears by comparing Exo 7:7, with Act 7:30.
The king of Egypt died; and after him one or two more of his sons or successors, and the rest who sought for Moses’s life, Exo 4:19.
Read full note →
The children of Israel sighed, because though their great oppressor was dead, yet they found no relief, as they hoped to do.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain Here is, 1. The continuance of the Israelites' bondage…
Here is, 1. The continuance of the Israelites' bondage in Egypt, Exo 2:23. Probably the murdering of their infants did not continue; this part of their affliction attended only the period immediately connected with the birth of Moses, and served to signalize it. The Egyptians now were content with their increase, finding that Egypt was enriched by their labour; so that they might have them for slaves, they cared not how many they were. On this therefore they were intent, to keep them all at work, and make the best hand they could of their labour. When one Pharaoh died, another rose up in his place that was governed by the same maxims, and was as cruel to Israel as his predecessors. If there was sometimes a little relaxation, yet it presently revived again with as much rigour as ever; and probably, as the more Israel were oppressed the more they multiplied, so the more they multiplied the more they were oppressed. Note, Sometimes God suffers the rod of the wicked to lie very long and very heavily on the lot of the righteous. If Moses, in Midian, at any time began to think how much better his condition might have been had he staid among the courtiers, he must of himself think this also, how much worse it would have been if he had had his lot with brethren: it was a great degradation to him to be keeping sheep in Midian, but better so than making brick in Egypt. The consideration of our brethren's afflictions would help to reconcile us to our own. 2. The preface to their deliverance at last. (1.) They cried, Exo 2:23. Now, at last, they began to think of God under their troubles, and to return to him from the idols they had served, Eze 20:8. Hitherto they had fretted at the instruments of their trouble, but God was not in all their thoughts. Thus hypocrites in heart heap up wrath; they cry not when he binds them, Job 36:13. But before God unbound them he put it into their hearts to cry unto him, as it is explained, Num 20:16. Note, It is a good sign that God is coming towards us with deliverance when he inclines and enables us to cry to him for it. (2.) God heard, Exo 2:24, Exo 2:25. The name of God is here emphatically prefixed to four different expressions of a kind intention towards them. [1.] God heard their groaning; that is, he made it to appear that he took notice of their complaints. The groans of the oppressed cry aloud in the ears of the righteous God, to whom vengeance belongs, especially the groans of God's spiritual Israel; he knows the burdens they groan under and the blessings they groan after, and that the blessed Spirit, by these groanings, makes intercession in them. [2.] God remembered his covenant, which he seemed to have forgotten, but of which he is ever mindful. This God had an eye to, and not to any merit of theirs, in what he did for them. See Lev 26:42. (3.) God looked upon the children of Israel. Moses looked upon them and pitied them (Exo 2:11); but now God looked upon them and helped them. (4.) God had a respect unto them, a favourable respect to them as his own. The frequent repetition of the name of God here intimates that now we are to expect something great, Opus Deo dignum - A work worthy of God. His eyes, which run to and fro through the earth, are now fixed upon Israel, to show himself strong, to show himself a God in their behalf.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain And it came to pass in process of time…
And it came to pass in process of time that the king of Egypt died,.... According to Eusebius, Orus reigned in Egypt when Moses fled from thence, and that two more reigned after him, Acenchres and Achoris, who both died before the deliverance of the children of Israel; but according to Bishop Usher (b), this was the same king of Egypt under whom Moses was born, and from whose face he fled, who died in the sixty seventh year of his reign, Moses being now sixty years of age, and having been in the land of Midian twenty years; and it was about twenty years after this that he was called from hence, to be the deliverer of his people; for things are often put close together in Scripture, which were done at a considerable distance. And the intention of this notice of the death of the king of Egypt is chiefly to show that it made no alteration in the afflictions of the children of Israel for the better, but rather the worse:
and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage; the severity of it, and its long duration, and seeing no way for their escape out of it:
Read full note →
and they cried, and their cry came up unto God; they not only sighed and groaned inwardly, but so great was their oppression, that they could not forbear crying out aloud; and such was the greatness and vehemency of their cry, that it reached up to heaven, and came into the ears of the Almighty, as vehement cries are said to do, whether sinful or religious; see Gen 18:20.
by reason of the bondage; which may either be connected with their "cry", that that was because of their bondage; or with the "coming" of it unto God, he was pleased to admit and regard their cry, because their bondage was so very oppressive and intolerable.
(b) Annal Vet. Test. p. 19. A. M. 2494.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain The king of Egypt died - And after him,…
The king of Egypt died - And after him, one or two more of his sons or successors. And the children of Israel sighed by reason of bondage - Probably the murdering of their infants did not continue, that part of their affliction only attended the birth of Moses, to signalize that. And now they were content with their increase, finding that Egypt was enriched by their labour; so they might have them for their slaves, they cared not how many they were. On this therefore they were intent, to keep them all at work, and make the best hand they could of their labour. When one Pharaoh died, another rose up in his place, that was as cruel to Israel as his predecessors. And they cried - Now at last they began to think of God under their troubles, and to return to him from the idols they had served, Ezek. xx, 8. Hitherto they had fretted at the instruments of their trouble, but God was not in all their thoughts. But before God unbound them, he put it into their hearts to cry unto him. It is a sign God is coming towards us with deliverance, when he inclines us to cry to him for it.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 23. In process of time - the king…
Verse 23. In process of time - the king of Egypt died] According to St. Stephen, (Ac 7:30, compared with Ex 7:7), the death of the Egyptian king happened about forty years after the escape of Moses to Midian. The words ויהי בימים הרבים ההם vayehi baiyamim harabbim hahem, which we translate And it came to pass in process of time, signify, And it was in many days from these that the king, &c. It has already been remarked that Archbishop Usher supposes this king to have been Ramesses Miamun, who was succeeded by his son Amenophis, who was drowned in the Red Sea when pursuing the Israelites, but Abul Farajius says it was Amunfathis, (Amenophis,) he who made the cruel edict against the Hebrew children.
Some suppose that Moses wrote the book of Job during the time he sojourned in Midian, and also the book of Genesis. See the preface to the book of Job, where this subject is considered.
Read full note →
Sighed by reason of the bondage] For the nature of their bondage, See Clarke on Ex 1:14.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Exo 2:23. The king of Egypt died — And,…
Exo 2:23. The king of Egypt died — And, after him, one or two more of his sons or successors. And the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage — Probably the murdering of their infants did not continue; that part of their affliction only attended the birth of Moses, to signalize that. And now they were content with their increase, finding that Egypt was enriched by their labour; so they might have them for their slaves, they cared not how many they were. On this therefore they were intent, to keep them all at work, and make the best hand they could of their labour. When one Pharaoh died, another rose up in his place, that was as cruel to Israel as his predecessors. And they cried — Now at last they began to think of God under their troubles, and to return to him from the idols they had served, Eze 20:8. Hitherto they had fretted at the instruments of their trouble, but God was not in all their thoughts. But before God unbound them, he put it into their hearts to cry unto him. It is a sign God is coming to us with deliverance when he inclines us to cry to him for it.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain In process of time - Nearly forty years Act…
In process of time - Nearly forty years Act 7:30. This verse marks the beginning of another section. We now enter at once upon the history of the Exodus.
Their cry came up unto God - This statement, taken in connection with the two following verses, proves that the Israelites retained their faith in the God of their Fathers. The divine name, “God,” אלהים 'ĕlohı̂ym, is chosen because it was that which the Israelites must have used in their cry for help, that under which the covenant had been ratified with the Patriarchs (compare Jam 5:4).
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Died in the year of the world 2494. His…
Died in the year of the world 2494. His successor, Amenophis, treading in his footsteps, was drowned 19 years afterwards. (Usher.)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain the king of Egypt died: and the children of…
the king of Egypt died: and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage--The language seems to imply that the Israelites had experienced a partial relaxation, probably through the influence of Moses' royal patroness; but in the reign of her father's successor the persecution was renewed with increased severity.
Next: Exodus Chapter 3
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain INCREASED OPPRESSION OF ISRAEL, Exo_2:23-25.
INCREASED OPPRESSION OF ISRAEL, Exo_2:23-25.
23. In process of time — Literally, After many of those days.
Read full note →
The king of Egypt died — [This king has been with good reason believed to be Remeses the Great, who reigned sixty-seven years and must have been almost a centenarian at his death. His reign was long enough to have covered the entire forty years of Moses’ sojourn in Midian, and also a considerable portion of his previous life in Egypt. Well might his death have been spoken of as occurring after many of those days! Great interest has been added to this history by the discovery, in 1881, of the mummies of most of the kings of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth dynasties, including the embalmed body of this great “Pharaoh of the oppression.” These bodies are now in the Bulaq Museum, Cairo, and photographs of their faces have been carried into many lands.]
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 23a (J). The death of the king of Egypt,…
23a (J). The death of the king of Egypt, the Pharaoh of v. 15. The notice is intended to explain how it became possible for Moses to return to Egypt (see Exo_4:19).
in the course of those [many] days] the days of Moses’ sojourn in Midian. It seems that ‘many’ must be a redactional addition. Moses to all appearance married Zipporah not long after his arrival in Midian; and ‘according to J the Pharaoh must have died very soon after the birth of Gershom; for Gershom in Exo_4:20; Exo_4:25 is represented as still quite young. J, therefore, did not picture Moses as remaining long in Midian. That is only the representation of P, according to whom (Exo_7:7) Moses is 80 years old when he treats with Pharaoh. If Moses was 30 (or 40) years old when he fled from Egypt, he would thus have remained in banishment 50 (or 40) years. This, however, agrees as well with the ‘many’ of v. 23a, as it agrees badly with the representation of J (Exo_4:20; Exo_4:25). Dillm. will therefore be right in regarding this ‘many’ as a redactional addition’ (Bäntsch).
Read full note →
23b–25 (P). The sequel in P to Exo_1:14. God hears, and takes notice of, the cry of the oppressed Israelites.
23b. bondage] as Exo_1:14 (EVV. service), also P.
their cry for help (שַׁוְעָתָם) came up, &c.] cf. 1Sa_5:12 Heb.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (23) in process of time.—Heb., in those many days.…
(23) in process of time.—Heb., in those many days. As Moses was now eighty years old (Exo_7:7), and only forty when he quitted Egypt, the Pharaoh from whom he fled must have reigned above forty years. Between the commencement of the eighteenth and the close of the nineteenth dynasty, two kings only seem to have reigned so long as this—Thothmes III. and Rameses II. Our choice of the Pharaoh from whom Moses fled thus lies between these two.
The children of Israel sighed.—Or, “groaned.” They had perhaps expected that a new king would initiate a new policy, or, at any rate, signalise his accession by a remission of burthens. But the new monarch did neither.
Read full note →
Their cry came up unto God.—“Exceeding bitter cries” always find their way to the ears of God. The existing oppression was such that Israel cried to God as they had never cried before, and so moved Him to have compassion on them. The miraculous action, begun in Exodus 3, is the result of the cries and groans here mentioned.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Vers. 23-25. DEATH OF THE PHARAOH FROM WHOM MOSES…
Vers. 23-25. DEATH OF THE PHARAOH FROM WHOM MOSES FLED CONTINUANCE OF THE OPPRESSION OF ISRAEL-ISRAEL"S PRAYERS GOD"S ACCEPTANCE OF THEM. After a space of forty years from the time of Moses" flight from Egypt, according to the estimate of St. Stephen, (Act_7:30) which is not, however, to be strictly pressed, the king whose anger he had provoked Rameses II, as we believe died. He had reigned sixty-seven years about forty-seven alone, and about twenty in conjunction with his father. At his death, the oppressed Israelites ventured to hope for some amelioration of their condition. On his accession, a king in the East often reverses the policy of his predecessor, or at any rate, to make himself popular, grants a remission of burthens for a certain period. But at this time the new monarch, Menephthah I, the son of Rameses II, disappointed the hopes of the Israelites, maintained his father"s policy, continued the established system of oppression, granted them no relief of any kind. They "sighed," therefore, in consequence of their disappointment, and "cried" unto God in their trouble, and made supplication to him more earnestly, more heartily, than ever before. We need not suppose that they had previously fallen away from their faith, and "now at last returned to God after many years of idolatrous aberration" (Aben Ezra, Kalisch). But there was among them an access of religious fervour; they "turned to God" from a state of deadness, rather from one of alienation, and raised a "cry" of the kind to which he is never deaf. God therefore "heard their groaning," deigned to listen to their prayers, and commenced the course of miraculous action which issued in the Exodus.
(This section is more closely connected with what follows than with what went before, and would better begin ch. 3. than terminate ch. 2.)
Read full note →
In process of time. Literally, "in those many days. " The reign of Rameses II was exceptionally long, as previously explained. He had already reigned twenty-seven years when Moses fled from him. (Exo_2:15) He had now reigned sixty-seven, and Moses was eighty! It had seemed a weary while to wait. The children of Israel sighed. If the time had seemed a weary while to Moses, how much more to his nation! He had escaped and was in Midian they toiled on in Egypt. He kept sheep they had their lives made "bitter" for them "with hard bondage, in molter, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field". (Exo_1:14) He could bring up his sons in safety; their sons were still thrown into the river. No wonder that "an exceeding bitter cry" went up to God from the oppressed people, so soon as they found that they had nothing to hope from the new king.
Ver. 23. Death comes at last, even to the proudest monarch.
Rameses II left behind him the reputation of being the greatest of the Egyptian kings. He was confounded with the mythical Sesostris, and regarded as the conqueror of all Western Asia, of Ethiopia, and of a large tract in Europe. His buildings and other great works did, in fact, probably excel those of any other Pharaoh. His reign was the longest, if we except one, of any upon record. He was victorious, by land or sea, over all who resisted his arms. Yet a time came when he too "went the way of all flesh." "It is appointed unto all men once to die, and after that the judgment." After eighty years of life and sixty-seven of regal power, the Great Rameses was gathered to his fathers. Of what avail then was all his glory, all his wealth, all his magnificence, all his architectural display, all his long series of victories? Could he plead them before the judgment-seat of an all-righteous God? He could not even, according to his own belief, have pleaded them before the tribunal of his own Osiris. A modern writer says that every stone in the edifices which he raised was cemented with the blood of a human victim (Lenormant, "Manuel d"Histoire Ancienne," vol. 1. p. 423). Thousands of wretches toiled incessantly to add to his glory,and cover Egypt & Ntilde; with building, obelisks, and colossi, which still show forth his greatness. But what is the result of all, what advantage has he gained by it? On earth, he is. certainly not forgotten; but History gibbets him as a tyrant and oppressor & Ntilde; one of the scourges of the human race. In the intermediate region where he dwells, what can be his thoughts of the past? what his expectations of the future? Must he not mourn continually over.his misspent life, and unavailingly regret his cruelties? The meanest of his victims is now happier than he, and would refuse to change lots with him.
HOMILIES BY J. ORR
Vers. 23-25. The hour of help.
1. It was long delayed.
(1) Till tyranny had done its worst.
(2) Till the last hope of help from man had disappeared.
Improvement may have been looked for at death of king.
1. It came at last.
1. When the bondage had served its ends.
2. When the people, in despair of man, were crying to God.
2. When it did come
1. The man was found ready who was to bring it.
2. God was found faithful to his promise. J.O.
HOMILIES BY D. YOUNG
Vers. 23-25. A groaning Israel and an observant God.
I THERE WAS SIGHING AND CRYING YET NO REAL PRAYER. There was no supplication for help, no expression of confidence in a helper; seeing there was no real sense of trust in One who could keep, and therefore no possibility of real expectation from him. These Israelites did not wait as they that watch for the morning, sure that it will come at last, (Psa_130:6) but rather as those who say in the morning, "Would God it were even!" and at even, "Would God it were morning!". (Deu_28:67) Their right attitude, if only they had been able to occupy it, was that which Jesus is said to have occupied. (Heb_5:7) They should have offered up prayers and supplications along with their strong crying and tears to him that was able to save them. But the God who had been so near to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, seemed now removed to a distance. No one appeared with whom the Israelites in their despair could wrestle until they gained the blessing of deliverance. And thus it has been in every generation, and still continues. The misery of the world cannot be silent, and in it all the saddest feature is, that the miserable have no knowledge of God, or, if they have, it is a knowledge without practical use. They are without hope in the world, because they are without God in the world. They go on groaning like a sick infant that neither knows the cause of its trouble nor where to look for help. And in the midst of all this ignorance, Jesus would lead men to true prayer to intelligent and calm dependence upon God for things according to his will.
II NOTICE THE REASON GIVEN FOR THE SIGHING AND CRYING. They sighed by reason of the bondage. Bodily restraint, privation, and pain in these lay the reasons for their groaning. Their pain was that of the senses, not that of the spirit. Little wonder then that they were not susceptible to the presence of God. Contrast their painful experiences with those recorded in the following Psalms, 32, 38, 39, 51, 119, 136. Jesus made it evident by his dealings with many of those who came to him that the bulk of men, like the Israelites of old, are sighing because of some temporal bondage. They think that pain would vanish, if only they could get all sensible comforts. The poor man thinks what a comfort wealth and plenty must be, yet a rich man came to Jesus, still unsatisfied in spite of his wealth, and was obliged to go away again, sad, because of what Jesus had said, deeply disturbed and disappointed; and all because he had great possessions. There was no chance of doing much good to Israel, as long as they were sighing simply because of the bondage. The pain of life which comes through the senses would sink into a matter, of superficial insignificance, if only we felt as we ought to do the corruption and danger which come through sin. We should soon come to the true remedy for all our pains, if only we learnt to cry for the dean heart and the right spirit.
III THOUGH THE SIGHING AND CRYING DID NOT AMOUNT TO A REAL PRAYER, YET GOD ATTENDED TO IT. God made allowance for the ignorance of the people. He knew what was wanted, even though they knew not. The father on earth, being evil, has to make the best guess he can at the interests of his children; our Father in heaven knows exactly what we want. God does not expect from the ignorant what can only be presented by those who know him; and he was about to deal with Israel so that they might know him. And first of all they must be made to feel that Egypt was in reality a very different place from what it appeared to Jacob and his sons, coming out of famine-stricken Canaan. The time had long past when there was any temptation to say, "Surely Egypt is better than Canaan; we shall be able to take our ease, eat, drink, and be merry." There had not only been corn in Egypt, but tyrants and taskmasters. We have all to find out what Egypt really is; and until we make the full discovery, we cannot appreciate the nearness of God and profit by it. God can do much for us when we come to the groaning-point, when the dear illusions of life not only begin to vacate their places, but are succeeded by painful, stern, and abiding realities. When we begin to cry, even though our cry be only because of temporal losses and pains, there is then a chance that we may attend to the increasing revelations of the presence of God, and learn to wait upon him in obedience and prayer. Y.
HOMILIES BY G.A. GOODHART
Vers. 23-25. As in streams the water is attracted to and swirls round various centres, so here the interest of the narrative circles about three facts. We have
I THE KING"S DEATH. Who the king was may be uncertain. Some say Aahmes I see Canon Cook, in "Speaker"s Commentary;" others, Rameses II see R. S. Poole, In Contemporary Review," March, 1879. What he had done is sufficiently evident. Confronted with an alien people, of whose history he knew little and with whom he had no sympathy, he had treated them with suspicion and cruelty. Walking by sight he had inaugurated a policy which was sufficiently clever but decidedly unwise; he had hatched the very enmity he dreaded, by making those whom he feared miserable. Nevertheless, he, personally, does not seem to have been the loser in this life. He left a legacy of trouble for his successor, but probably to the last he was feared and honoured. Such lives were to the Egyptians, and must still be, suggestive of immortality. If evil can thus,prosper in the person of a king, life must indeed be a moral chaos if it end with death and there be no hereafter. "The king of Egypt died:" what about the King of Heaven and Earth?
II THE PEOPLE"S CRY. The inheritance of an evil policy accepted and endorsed by the new king. Results upon an oppressed people:
1. Misery finds a voice. "They sighed a half-stifled cry, which however gathers strength; "they cried. " Forty years of silent endurance seeks at length relief in utterance. The king"s death brings the dawn of hope; the first feeling after liberty is the cry of anguish which cannot be suppressed. Such a cry, an inarticulate prayer which needed no interpreter to translate it an honest and heartfelt prayer of which God could take cognizance.
2. The voice of misery finds a listener. The cry was a cry with wings to it it "came up unto God." Too many so-called prayers have no wings, or at most clipped wings. They grovel on the earth like barn-yard fowls, and if they chance to pick up solace, it is, like themselves, of the earth earthy. Winged prayers, even when winged by sorrow, go up, and for a time seem lost, but they reach heaven and find harbour there.
III GOD"S RESPONSE.
1. Attention secured and the covenant remembered. God had not been deaf before, nor had he been forgetful of his promise. For practical memory, however, there must be a practical claim upon that which is remembered. So long as the people are indifferent, their indifference suspends the fulfilment of the covenant. All the while God, by permitting the tyranny, had been stirring up their memory that they might stir up his. When they are aroused, he shows at once that he is mindful.
2. The children of the covenant beheld, and respect paid to theirnecessities. So far, God had looked upon a people of slaves, trying hard to make themselves content with servitude. Now that misery has aroused them to remember who and what they are, he sees once more the children of Israel offspring of the wrestling Prince. People have to come to themselves before God can effectually look upon them. Content with servitude, he sees them slaves. Mindful of the covenant, he sees them as children. God is ready to help them directly they are ready to claim and to receive help from God.
Application: Evil in this world often seems to triumph, because men submit to it, and try to make the best of it, instead of resisting it. The general will not fight the foe single-handed; in the interest of those who should be his soldiers, he must have them ready to fight under him. When we realise our true position, then God is ready at once to recognise it. Indifference, forgetfulness, delay, all really due to man, God the deliverer only seems to be that which man the sufferer is. G.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Sighed by reason of the bondage.
Exo_2:23-25
Sighed by reason of the bondage.
Read full note →
The bondage of the Israelites
The Israelites were to be a witnessing nation--a nation in which the worship of the true God was to be maintained, while other nations were sunk in idolatry; and the revelation which God gave of Himself preserved, while all the worm was sunk in grossest darkness; and the humane principles of the Divine law, not only taught, but practised, in a world where injustice and violence and cruelty were rampant. And it requires no very acute or penetrating discernment to perceive how their experience under the Egyptian bondage was likely to conduce to the fulfilment of their mission.
I. It was an illustration to them of the treatment which the church might expect from the world, fitted to promote in them the isolation which it was necessary they should maintain. Egypt was the world in its best state. They saw in her an illustration of what the intellect and muscle of man may accomplish when his heart is alienated from God. She was a learned and powerful nation, great in war and advanced in art. The Israelites were thus brought in contact with the world in its best and most attractive form, and thereby taught, by bitter experience, what treatment they might expect from the world, and what relation to it it behoved them to sustain.
II. In another way their bondage experience would tend to the same result, by promoting that mutual sympathy which is the necessary bond of national life. Great troubles and great deliverances shared in common have the effect of fusing into one body those who before were only an aggregate of individuals without any uniting tie.
III. But there was yet another end to be served by their bondage--the teaching and practice of the humane principles of the divine law, in the face of the oppression and violence and cruelty which were then prevalent throughout the world. (W. Landels, D. D.)
The king dying, the people suffering, God reigning
I. The king dying.
1. He was despotic in his rule. Unmoved by human suffering.
2. He was vindictive in his temper.
3. He was altogether out of sympathy with the providential arrangements of God. And now he dies. The despot meets with the conqueror. He must appear before the God whose authority he has tried to dethrone. The folly--woe--eternal ruin of sin.
II. The people suffering.
1. Their suffering was tyrannic. Freedom lost. Spirit broken.
2. Their suffering was intense. Sighed.
3. Their suffering was long continued.
4. Their suffering appealed to the Infinite.
Suffering should link our souls to God. It should be an inspiration to prayer.
III. God reigning.
1. God reigns, though kings die. Wisdom of trusting only in the Infinite.
2. God reigns, though men suffer. Realize the Divine Rulership.
3. God reigns in harmony with His covenant made with the good.
The Divine will is not capricious, but benevolent in design, and continuous in operation. Let every nation and family have a covenant with God. Lessons:
1. Do not despond in times of affliction.
2. Afflictions are designed to bring us into harmony with the requirements of Gods covenant for our good.
3. It is the purpose of God to work the freedom and welfare of men. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
Lessons
1. Oppressors may die, and yet persecution not die with them.
2. Cries to heaven are often extorted from Gods persecuted children.
3. If men want freedom, they cannot do better than direct their attention to God. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
Death indiscriminating
Death is so dim-sighted and so blundering-footed that he staggers across Axminster tapestry as though it were a bare floor, and sees no difference between the fluttering rags of a tatterdemalion and a conquerors gonfalon. Side by side we must all come down. No first class, second class, or third class in death or the grave. Death goes into the house at Gads Hill, and he says, I want that novelist. Death goes into Windsor Castle, and he says, I want Victorias consort. Death goes into Fords Theatre, at Washington, and says, I want that President. Death goes on the Zulu battle-field, and says, I want that French Prince Imperial. Death goes into the marble palace at Madrid, and says, Give me Queen Mercedes. Death goes into the almshouse, and says, Give me that pauper. Death comes to the Tay Bridge, and says, Discharge into my cold bosom all those passengers. Alike! Alike! By embalmment, by sculptured sarcophagus, by pyramidal grandeur, by epitaphal commemoration, by mere intoxicated wake or grander cathedral dirge, we may seem to give a caste to the dead, but it is soon over. I took out my memorandum.book and lead-pencil in Westminster Abbey a few weeks ago, and I copied a verse that it would interest you to hear:--
Think how many royal bones
Sleep within these heaps of stones;
Here they lie--had realms and lands--
Who now want strength to stir their hands.
(T. De Witt Talmage.)
God heard.
The bitter cry of Israel heard
I. Salvation begins with a sigh. Until a sinner is weary of sin, it is of no use to bring the tidings of redemption to him.
II. God hears the groanings of poor sinners. Psa_18:6; Psa_34:6; Psa_77:1; Joe_2:32; Joh_6:37.
III. He sees our afflictions and knows our sorrows.
IV. He remembers his covenant. (G. F. Pentecost, D. D.)
God remembered, remembers
At last they remembered God and His promises. They thought of their ingratitude towards Him and towards Moses, and they began to sigh after God. This was what God was waiting for in order to show them mercy. He was waiting for their humiliation, their return to Him, their aversion to Egypt, their fervent prayers. It is to this frame of mind that God wishes to bring His children when He corrects them, and leaves them for a time in the hands of the wicked. You will find immediately afterwards, in the following verses, four expressions, which describe the goodness of God towards this unhappy people. God heard their groaning; and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them. Remark that the name of God is repeated four times in these verses, as if to express with greater force the free grace and sovereignty of His merciful dealings with the Israelites. It was not because of their merits that He had pity upon them, any more than it is because of ours that He sends His gospel to us who have broken His law, neglected Him, and insulted Him by our ingratitude. But to us He calls, and says, Come unto Me, that ye may have eternal life. (Prof. Gaussen.)
God hears the cry of His suffering children
My little boy has three calls. He opens the study door and calls, Papa. I pay no attention to him because I know it is merely to attract notice. Again he comes throwing the study door open, and running in, he calls, Papa, look here, I have something to show you. I know by his call that he is really in earnest, and I turn to share in his joy. He has still another call; when he is in the garden he may meet with an accident; in a quick and distressed voice he calls, Papa. I know by the call that my child is in trouble, and I am out of the house in an instant, and by my boys side, doing what I can to help him. In like manner God deals with us. We sometimes call to Him, scarcely meaning anything by our call, and never looking for or expecting a reply. Then, again, we wish to call the Lords attention to some unexpected joy or pleasure which we have received. He listens to us because He delights to share in all that concerns us. But, dear friends, how quickly the Lord will come to the call of one in distress! He knows all the different calls of His children, and specially those in trouble, for has He not promised, Call upon Me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee. (D. L. Moody.)
.
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain Exodus 2:23 -Exodus 3
CHAPTER III.
THE BURNING BUSH.
Read full note →
Exodus 2:23 -Exodus 3
"In process of time the king of Egypt died," probably the great Raamses, no other of whose dynasty had a reign which extended over the indicated period of time. If so, he had while living every reason to expect an immortal fame, as the greatest among Egyptian kings, a hero, a conqueror on three continents, a builder of magnificent works. But he has only won an immortal notoriety. "Every stone in his buildings was cemented in human blood." The cause he persecuted has made deathless the banished refugee, and has gibbeted the great monarch as a tyrant, whose misplanned severities wrought the ruin of his successor and his army. Such are the reversals of popular judgment: and such the vanity of fame. For all the contemporary fame was his.
"The children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried." Another monarch had come at last, a change after sixty-seven years, and yet no change for them! It filled up the measure of their patience, and also of the iniquity of Egypt. We are not told that their cry was addressed to the Lord; what we read is that it reached Him, Who still overhears and pities many a sob, many a lament, which ought to have been addressed to Him, and is not. Indeed, if His compassion were not to reach men until they had remembered and prayed to Him, who among us would ever have learned to pray to Him at all? Moreover He remembered His covenant with their forefathers, for the fulfilment of which the time had now arrived. "And God saw the children of Israel, and God took knowledge of them."
These were not the cries of religious individuals, but of oppressed masses. It is therefore a solemn question to ask How many such appeals ascend from Christian England? Behold, the hire of labourers ... held back by fraud crieth out. The half-paid slaves of our haste to be rich, and the victims of our drinking institutions, and of hideous vices which entangle and destroy the innocent and unconscious, what cries to heaven are theirs! As surely as those which St. James records, these have entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. Of these sufferers every one is His own by purchase, most of them by a covenant and sacrament more solemn than bound Him to His ancient Israel. Surely He hears their groaning. And all whose hearts are touched with compassion, yet who hesitate whether to bestir themselves or to remain inert while evil is masterful and cruel, should remember the anger of God when Moses said, "Send, I pray Thee, by whom Thou wilt send." The Lord is not indifferent. Much less than other sufferers should those who know God be terrified by their afflictions. Cyprian encouraged the Church of his time to endure even unto martyrdom, by the words recorded of ancient Israel, that the more they afflicted them, so much the more they became greater and waxed stronger. And he was right. For all these things happened to them for ensamples, and were written for our admonition.
It is further to be observed that the people were quite unconscious, until Moses announced it afterwards, that they were heard by God. Yet their deliverer had now been prepared by a long process for his work. We are not to despair because relief does not immediately appear: though He tarry, we are to wait for Him.
While this anguish was being endured in Egypt, Moses was maturing for his destiny. Self-reliance, pride of place, hot and impulsive aggressiveness, were dying in his bosom. To the education of the courtier and scholar was now added that of the shepherd in the wilds, amid the most solemn and awful scenes of nature, in solitude, humiliation, disappointment, and, as we learn from the Epistle to the Hebrews, in enduring faith. Wordsworth has a remarkable description of the effect of a similar discipline upon the good Lord Clifford. He tells--
"How he, long forced in humble paths to go,
Was softened into feeling, soothed and tamed.
"Love had he found in huts where poor men lie,
His daily teachers had been woods and rills,
The silence that is in the starry sky,
The sleep that is among the lonely hills.
"In him the savage virtues of the race,
Revenge, and all ferocious thoughts, were dead;
Nor did he change, but kept in lofty place
The wisdom which adversity had bred."
There was also the education of advancing age, which teaches many lessons, and among them two which are essential to leadership,--the folly of a hasty blow, and of impulsive reliance upon the support of mobs. Moses the man-slayer became exceeding meek; and he ceased to rely upon the perception of his people that God by him would deliver them. His distrust, indeed, became as excessive as his temerity had been, but it was an error upon the safer side. "Behold, they will not believe me," he says, "nor hearken unto my voice."
It is an important truth that in very few lives the decisive moment comes just when it is expected. Men allow themselves to be self-indulgent, extravagant and even wicked, often upon the calculation that their present attitude matters little, and they will do very differently when the crisis arrives, the turning-point in their career to nerve them. And they waken up with a start to find their career already decided, their character moulded. As a snare shall the day of the Lord come upon all flesh; and as a snare come all His great visitations meanwhile. When Herod was drinking among bad companions, admiring a shameless dancer, and boasting loudly of his generosity, he was sobered and saddened to discover that he had laughed away the life of his only honest adviser. Moses, like David, was "following the ewes great with young," when summoned by God to rule His people Israel. Neither did the call arrive when he was plunged in moody reverie and abstraction, sighing over his lost fortunes and his defeated aspirations, rebelling against his lowly duties. The humblest labour is a preparation for the brightest revelations, whereas discontent, however lofty, is a preparation for nothing. Thus, too, the birth of Jesus was first announced to shepherds keeping watch over their flock. Yet hundreds of third-rate young persons in every city in this land today neglect their work, and unfit themselves for any insight, or any leadership whatever, by chafing against the obscurity of their vocation.
Who does not perceive that the career of Moses hitherto was divinely directed? The fact that we feel this, although, until now, God has not once been mentioned in his personal story, is surely a fine lesson for those who have only one notion of what edifies--the dragging of the most sacred names and phrases into even the most unsuitable connections. In truth, such a phraseology is much less attractive than a certain tone, a recognition of the unseen, which may at times be more consistent with reverential silence than with obtrusive utterance. It is enough to be ready and fearless when the fitting time comes, which is sure to arrive, for the religious heart as for this narrative--the time for the natural utterance of the great word, God.
We read that the angel of the Lord appeared to him--a remarkable phrase, which was already used in connection with the sacrifice of Isaac (Gen_22:11). How much it implies will better be discussed in the twenty-third chapter, where a fuller statement is made. For the present it is enough to note, that this is one pre-eminent angel, indicated by the definite article; that he is clearly the medium of a true divine appearance, because neither the voice nor form of any lesser being is supposed to be employed, the appearance being that of fire, and the words being said to be the direct utterance of the Lord, not of any one who says, Thus saith the Lord. We shall see hereafter that the story of the Exodus is unique in this respect, that in training a people tainted with Egyptian superstitions, no 'similitude' is seen, as when there wrestled a man with Jacob, or when Ezekiel saw a human form upon the sapphire pavement.
Man is the true image of God, and His perfect revelation was in flesh. But now that expression of Himself was perilous, and perhaps unsuitable besides; for He was to be known as the Avenger, and presently as the Giver of Law, with its inflexible conditions and its menaces. Therefore He appeared as fire, which is intense and terrible, even when "the flame of the grace of God does not consume, but illuminates."
There is a notion that religion is languid, repressive, and unmanly. But such is not the scriptural idea. In His presence is the fulness of joy. Christ has come that we might have life, and might have it more abundantly. They who are shut out from His blessedness are said to be asleep and dead. And so Origen quotes this passage among others, with the comment that "As God is a fire, and His angels a flame of fire, and all the saints fervent in spirit, so they who have fallen away from God are said to have cooled, or to have become cold" (De Princip., ii. 8). A revelation by fire involves intensity.
There is indeed another explanation of the burning bush, which makes the flame express only the afflictions that did not consume the people. But this would be a strange adjunct to a divine appearance for their deliverance, speaking rather of the continuance of suffering than of its termination, for which the extinction of such fire would be a more appropriate symbol.
Yet there is an element of truth even in this view, since fire is connected with affliction. In His holiness God is light (with which, in the Hebrew, the very word for holiness seems to be connected); in His judgments He is fire. "The Light of Israel shall be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame, and it shall burn and devour his thorns and his briers in one day" (Isa_10:17). But God reveals Himself in this thorn bush as a fire which does not consume; and such a revelation tells at once Who has brought the people into affliction, and also that they are not abandoned to it.
To Moses at first there was visible only an extraordinary phenomenon; He turned to see a great sight. It is therefore out of the question to find here the truth, so easy to discover elsewhere, that God rewards the religious inquirer--that they who seek after Him shall find Him. Rather we learn the folly of deeming that the intellect and its inquiries are at war with religion and its mysteries, that revelation is at strife with mental insight, that he who most stupidly refuses to "see the great sights" of nature is best entitled to interpret the voice of God. When the man of science gives ear to voices not of earth, and the man of God has eyes and interest for the divine wonders which surround us, many a discord will be harmonised. With the revival of classical learning came the Reformation.
But it often happens that the curiosity of the intellect is in danger of becoming irreverent, and obtrusive into mysteries not of the brain, and thus the voice of God must speak in solemn warning: "Moses, Moses, ... Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground."
After as prolonged a silence as from the time of Malachi to the Baptist, it is God Who reveals Himself once more--not Moses who by searching finds Him out. And this is the established rule. Tidings of the Incarnation came from heaven, or man would not have discovered the Divine Babe. Jesus asked His two first disciples "What seek ye?" and told Simon "Thou shalt be called Cephas," and pronounced the listening Nathaniel "an Israelite indeed," and bade Zaccheus "make haste and come down," in each case before He was addressed by them.
The first words of Jehovah teach something more than ceremonial reverence. If the dust of common earth on the shoe of Moses may not mingle with that sacred soil, how dare we carry into the presence of our God mean passions and selfish cravings? Observe, too, that while Jacob, when he awoke from his vision, said, "How dreadful is this place!" (Gen_28:17), God Himself taught Moses to think rather of the holiness than the dread of His abode. Nevertheless Moses also was afraid to look upon God, and hid the face which was thereafter to be veiled, for a nobler reason, when it was itself illumined with the divine glory. Humility before God is thus the path to the highest honour, and reverence, to the closest intercourse.
Meantime the Divine Person has announced Himself: "I am the God of thy father" (father is apparently singular with a collective force), "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." It is a blessing which every Christian parent should bequeath to his child, to be strengthened and invigorated by thinking of God as his father's God.
It was with this memorable announcement that Jesus refuted the Sadducees and established His doctrine of the resurrection. So, then, the bygone ages are not forgotten: Moses may be sure that a kindly relation exists between God and himself, because the kindly relation still exists in all its vital force which once bound Him to those who long since appeared to die. It was impossible, therefore, our Lord inferred, that they had really died at all. The argument is a forerunner of that by which St. Paul concludes, from the resurrection of Christ, that none who are "in Christ" have perished. Nay, since our Lord was not disputing about immortality only, but the resurrection of the body, His argument implied that a vital relationship with God involved the imperishability of the whole man, since all was His, and in truth the very seal of the covenant was imprinted upon the flesh. How much stronger is the assurance for us, who know that our very bodies are His temple! Now, if any suspicion should arise that the argument, which is really subtle, is over-refined and untrustworthy, let it be observed that no sooner was this announcement made, than God added the proclamation of His own immutability, so that it cannot be said He was, but from age to age His title is I AM. The inference from the divine permanence to the living and permanent vitality of all His relationships is not a verbal quibble, it is drawn from the very central truth of this great scripture.
And now for the first time God calls Israel My people, adopting a phrase already twice employed by earthly rulers (Gen_23:11, Gen_41:40), and thus making Himself their king and the champion of their cause. Often afterwards it was used in pathetic appeal:--"Thou hast showed Thy people hard things,"--"Thou sellest Thy people for nought,"--"Behold, look, we beseech Thee; we are all Thy people" (Psa_60:3, Psa_44:12; Isa_64:9). And often it expressed the returning favour of their king: "Hear, O My people, and I will speak"; "Comfort ye, comfort ye My people" (Psa_50:7; Isa_40:1).
It is used of the nation at large, all of whom were brought into the covenant, although with many of them God was not well pleased. And since it does not belong only to saints, but speaks of a grace which might be received in vain, it is a strong appeal to all Christian people, all who are within the New Covenant. Them also the Lord claims and pities, and would gladly emancipate: their sorrows also He knows. "I have surely seen the affliction of My people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; and I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey." Thus the ways of God exceed the desires of men. Their subsequent complaints are evidence that Egypt had become their country: gladly would they have shaken off the iron yoke, but a successful rebellion is a revolution, not an Exodus. Their destined home was very different: with the widest variety of climate, scenery, and soil, a land which demanded much more regular husbandry, but rewarded labour with exuberant fertility. Secluded from heathenism by deserts on the south and east, by a sublime range of mountains on the north, and by a sea with few havens on the west, yet planted in the very bosom of all the ancient civilisation which at the last it was to leaven, it was a land where a faithful people could have dwelt alone and not been reckoned among the nations, yet where the scourge for disobedience was never far away.
Next after the promise of this good land, the commission of Moses is announced. He is to act, because God is already active: "I am come down to deliver them ... come now, therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth My people." And let this truth encourage all who are truly sent of God, to the end of time, that He does not send us to deliver man, until He is Himself prepared to do so, that when our fears ask, like Moses, Who am I, that I should go? He does not answer, Thou art capable, but Certainly I will go with thee. So, wherever the ministry of the word is sent, there is a true purpose of grace. There is also the presence of One who claims the right to bestow upon us the same encouragement which was given to Moses by Jehovah, saying, "Lo, I am with you alway." In so saying, Jesus made Himself equal with God.
And as this ancient revelation of God was to give rest to a weary and heavy-laden people, so Christ bound together the assertion of a more perfect revelation, made in Him, with the promise of a grander emancipation. No man knoweth the Father save by revelation of the Son is the doctrine which introduces the great offer "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest" (Mat_11:27-28). The claims of Christ in the New Testament will never be fully recognised until a careful study is made of His treatment of the functions which in the Old Testament are regarded as Divine. A curious expression follows: "This shall be a token unto thee that I have sent thee: When thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain." It seems but vague encouragement, to offer Moses, hesitating at the moment, a token which could take effect only when his task was wrought. And yet we know how much easier it is to believe what is thrown into distinct shape and particularised. Our trust in good intentions is helped when their expression is detailed and circumstantial, as a candidate for office will reckon all general assurances of support much cheaper than a pledge to canvass certain electors within a certain time. Such is the constitution of human nature; and its Maker has often deigned to sustain its weakness by going thus into particulars. He does the same for us, condescending to embody the most profound of all mysteries in sacramental emblems, clothing his promises of our future blessedness in much detail, and in concrete figures which at least symbolise, if they do not literally describe, the glories of the Jerusalem which is above.
A NEW NAME.
Exo_3:14. Exo_6:2-3.
"God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and He said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you."
We cannot certainly tell why Moses asked for a new name by which to announce to his brethren the appearance of God. He may have felt that the memory of their fathers, and of the dealings of God with them, had faded so far out of mind that merely to indicate their ancestral God would not sufficiently distinguish Him from the idols of Egypt, whose worship had infected them.
If so, he was fully answered by a name which made this God the one reality, in a world where all is a phantasm except what derives stability from Him.
He may have desired to know, for himself, whether there was any truth in the dreamy and fascinating pantheism which inspired so much of the Egyptian superstition.
In that case, the answer met his question by declaring that God existed, not as the sum of things or soul of the universe, but in Himself, the only independent Being.
Or he may simply have desired some name to express more of the mystery of deity, remembering how a change of name had accompanied new discoveries of human character and achievement, as of Abraham and Israel; and expecting a new name likewise when God would make to His people new revelations of Himself.
So natural an expectation was fulfilled not only then, but afterwards. When Moses prayed "Show me, I pray Thee, Thy glory," the answer was "I will make all My goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord." The proclamation was again Jehovah, but not this alone. It was "The Lord, the Lord, a God full of compassion and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy and truth" (Exo_33:18-19, Exo_34:6, R.V.) Thus the life of Moses, like the agelong progress of the Church, advanced towards an ever-deepening knowledge that God is not only the Independent but the Good. All sets toward the final knowledge that His highest name is Love.
Meanwhile, in the development of events, the exact period was come for epithets, which were shared with gods many and lords many, to be supplemented by the formal announcement and authoritative adoption of His proper name Jehovah. The infant nation was to learn to think of Him, not only as endowed with attributes of terror and power, by which enemies would be crushed, but as possessing a certain well-defined personality, upon which the trust of man could repose. Soon their experience would enable them to receive the formal announcement that He was merciful and gracious. But first they were required to trust His promise amid all discouragements; and to this end, stability was the attribute first to be insisted upon.
It is true that the derivation of the word Jehovah is still a problem for critical acumen. It has been sought in more than one language, and various shades of meaning have been assigned to it, some untenable in the abstract, others hardly, or not at all, to be reconciled with the Scriptural narrative.
Nay, the corruption of the very sound is so notorious, that it is only worth mention as illustrating a phase of superstition.
We smile at the Jews, removing the correct vowels lest so holy a word should be irreverently spoken, placing the sanctity in the cadence, hoping that light and flippant allusions may offend God less, so long as they spare at least the vowels of His name, and thus preserve some vestige undesecrated, while profaning at once the conception of His majesty and the consonants of the mystic word.
A more abject superstition could scarcely have made void the spirit, while grovelling before the letter of the commandment.
But this very superstition is alive in other forms today. Whenever one recoils from the sin of coarse blasphemy, yet allows himself the enjoyment of a polished literature which profanes holy conceptions,--whenever men feel bound to behave with external propriety in the house of God, yet bring thither wandering thoughts, vile appetites, sensuous imaginations, and all the chamber of imagery which is within the unregenerate heart,--there is the same despicable superstition which strove to escape at least the extreme of blasphemy by prudently veiling the Holy Name before profaning it.
But our present concern is with the practical message conveyed to Israel when Moses declared that Jehovah, I AM, the God of their fathers, had appeared unto him. And if we find in it a message suited for the time, and which is the basis, not the superstructure, both of later messages and also of the national character, then we shall not fail to observe the bearing of such facts upon an urgent controversy of this time.
Some significance must have been in that Name, not too abstract for a servile and degenerate race to apprehend. Nor was it soon to pass away and be replaced; it was His memorial throughout all generations; and therefore it has a message for us today, to admonish and humble, to invigorate and uphold.
That God would be the same to them as to their fathers was much. But that it was of the essence of His character to be evermore the same, immutable in heart and mind and reality of being, however their conduct might modify His bearing towards them, this indeed would be a steadying and reclaiming consciousness.
Accordingly Moses receives the answer for himself, "I AM THAT I AM"; and he is bidden to tell his people "I am hath sent me unto you," and yet again "JEHOVAH the God of your fathers hath sent me unto you." The spirit and tenor of these three names may be said to be virtually comprehended in the first; and they all speak of the essential and self-existent Being, unchanging and unchangeable.
I AM expresses an intense reality of being. No image in the dark recesses of Egyptian or Syrian temples, grotesque and motionless, can win the adoration of him who has had communion with such a veritable existence, or has heard His authentic message. No dreamful pantheism, on its knees to the beneficent principle expressed in one deity, to the destructive in another, or to the reproductive in a third, but all of them dependent upon nature, as the rainbow upon the cataract which it spans, can ever again satisfy the soul which is athirst for the living God, the Lord, Who is not personified, but IS.
This profound sense of a living Person within reach, to be offended, to pardon, and to bless, was the one force which kept the Hebrew nation itself alive, with a vitality unprecedented since the world began. They could crave His pardon, whatever natural retributions they had brought down upon themselves, whatever tendencies of nature they had provoked, because He was not a dead law without ears or a heart, but their merciful and gracious God.
Not the most exquisite subtleties of innuendo and irony could make good for a day the monstrous paradox that the Hebrew religion, the worship of I AM, was really nothing but the adoration of that stream of tendencies which makes for righteousness.
Israel did not challenge Pharaoh through having suddenly discovered that goodness ultimately prevails over evil, nor is it any cold calculation of the sort which ever inspires a nation or a man with heroic fortitude. But they were nerved by the announcement that they had been remembered by a God Who is neither an ideal nor a fancy, but the Reality of realities, beside Whom Pharaoh and his host were but as phantoms.
I AM THAT I AM is the style not only of permanence, but of permanence self-contained, and being a distinctive title, it denies such self-contained permanence to others.
Man is as the past has moulded him, a compound of attainments and failures, discoveries and disillusions, his eyes dim with forgotten tears, his hair grey with surmounted anxieties, his brow furrowed with bygone studies, his conscience troubled with old sin. Modern unbelief is ignobly frank respecting him. He is the sum of his parents and his wet-nurse. He is what he eats. If he drinks beer, he thinks beer. And it is the element of truth in these hideous paradoxes which makes them rankle, like an unkind construction put upon a questionable action. As the foam is what wind and tide have made of it, so are we the product of our circumstances, the resultant of a thousand forces, far indeed from being self-poised or self-contained, too often false to our best self, insomuch that probably no man is actually what in the depth of self-consciousness he feels himself to be, what moreover he should prove to be, if only the leaden weight of constraining circumstance were lifted off the spring which it flattens down to earth. Moses himself was at heart a very different person from the keeper of the sheep of Jethro. Therefore man says, Pity and make allowance for me: this is not my true self, but only what by compression, by starvation and stripes and bribery and error, I have become. Only God says, I AM THAT I AM.
Yet in another sense, and quite as deep a one, man is not the coarse tissue which past circumstances have woven: he is the seed of the future, as truly as the fruit of the past. Strange compound that he is of memory and hope, while half of the present depends on what is over, the other half is projected into the future; and like a bridge, sustained on these two banks, life throws its quivering shadow on each moment that fleets by. It is not attainment, but degradation to live upon the level of one's mere attainment, no longer uplifted by any aspiration, fired by any emulation, goaded by any but carnal fears. If we have been shaped by circumstances, yet we are saved by hope. Do not judge me, we are all entitled to plead, by anything that I am doing or have done: He only can appraise a soul a right Who knows what it yearns to become, what within itself it hates and prays to be delivered from, what is the earnestness of its self-loathing, what the passion of its appeal to heaven. As the bloom of next April is the true comment upon the dry bulb of September, as you do not value the fountain by the pint of water in its basin, but by its inexhaustible capabilities of replenishment, so the present and its joyless facts are not the true man; his possibilities, the fears and hopes that control his destiny and shall unfold it, these are his real self.
I am not merely what I am: I am very truly that which I long to be. And thus, man may plead, I am what I move towards and strive after, my aspiration is myself. But God says, I AM WHAT I AM. The stream hurries forward: the rock abides. And this is the Rock of Ages.
Now, such a conception is at first sight not far removed from that apathetic and impassive kind of deity which the practical atheism of ancient materialists could well afford to grant;--"ever in itself enjoying immortality together with supreme repose, far removed and withdrawn from our concerns, since it, exempt from every pain, exempt from all danger, strong in its own resources and wanting nought from us, is neither gained by favour nor moved by wrath."
Thus Lucretius conceived of the absolute Being as by the necessity of its nature entirely outside our system.
But Moses was taught to trust in Jehovah as intervening, pitying sorrow and wrong, coming down to assist His creatures in distress.
How could this be possible? Clearly the movement towards them must be wholly disinterested, and wholly from within; unbought, since no external influence can modify His condition, no puny sacrifice can propitiate Him Who sitteth upon the circle of the earth and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers: a movement prompted by no irregular emotional impulse, but an abiding law of His nature, incapable of change, the movement of a nature, personal indeed, yet as steady, as surely to be reckoned upon in like circumstances, as the operations of gravitation are.
There is no such motive, working in such magnificent regularity for good, save one. The ultimate doctrine of the New Testament, that God is Love, is already involved in this early assertion, that being wholly independent of us and our concerns, He is yet not indifferent to them, so that Moses could say unto the children of Israel "I AM hath sent me unto you."
It is this unchangeable consistency of Divine action which gives the narrative its intense interest to us. To Moses, and therefore to all who receive any commission from the skies, this title said, Frail creature, sport of circumstances and of tyrants, He who commissions thee sits above the waterfloods, and their rage can as little modify or change His purpose, now committed to thy charge, as the spray can quench the stars. Perplexed creature, whose best self lives only in aspiration and desire, now thou art an instrument in the hand of Him with Whom desire and attainment, will and fruition, are eternally the same. None truly fails in fighting for Jehovah, for who hath resisted His will?
To Israel, and to all the oppressed whose minds are open to receive the tidings and their faith strong to embrace it, He said, Your life is blighted, and your future is in the hand of taskmasters, yet be of good cheer, for now your deliverance is undertaken by Him Whose being and purpose are one, Who is in perfection of enjoyment all that He is in contemplation and in will. The rescue of Israel by an immutable and perfect God is the earnest of the breaking of every yoke.
And to the proud and godless world which knows Him not, He says, Resistance to My will can only show forth all its power, which is not at the mercy of opinion or interest or change: I sit upon the throne, not only supreme but independent, not only victorious but unassailable; self-contained, self-poised and self-sufficing, I AM THAT I AM.
Have we now escaped the inert and self-absorbed deity of Lucretius, only to fall into the palsying grasp of the tyrannous deity of Calvin? Does our own human will shrivel up and become powerless under the compulsion of that immutability with which we are strangely brought into contact?
Evidently this is not the teaching of the Book of Exodus. For it is here, in this revelation of the Supreme, that we first hear of a nation as being His: "I have seen the affliction of My people which is in Egypt ... and I have come down to bring them into a good land." They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. Yet their carcases fell in the wilderness. And these things were written for our learning. The immutability, which suffers no shock when we enter into the covenant, remains unshaken also if we depart from the living God. The sun shines alike when we raise the curtain and when we drop it, when our chamber is illumined and when it is dark. The immutability of God is not in His operations, for sometimes He gave His people into the hand of their enemies, and again He turned and helped them. It is in His nature, His mind, in the principles which guide His actions. If He had not chastened David for his sin, then, by acting as before, He would have been other at heart than when He rejected Saul for disobedience and chose the son of Jesse to fulfil all His word. The wind has veered, if it continues to propel the vessel in the same direction, although helm and sails are shifted.
Such is the Pauline doctrine of His immutability. "If we endure we shall also reign with Him: if we shall deny Him, He also will deny us,"--and such is the necessity of His being, for we cannot sway Him with our changes: "if we are faithless, He abideth faithful, for He cannot deny Himself." And therefore it is presently added that "the firm foundation of the Lord standeth sure, having" not only "this seal, that the Lord knoweth those that are His,"--but also this, "Let every one that nameth the name of the Lord depart from unrighteousness" (2Ti_2:12-13, 2Ti_2:19, R.V.).
The Lord knew that Israel was His, yet for their unrighteousness He sware in His wrath that they should not enter into His rest.
It follows from all this that the new name of God was no academic subtlety, no metaphysical refinement of the schools, unfitly revealed to slaves, but a most practical and inspiring truth, a conviction to warm their blood, to rouse their courage, to convert their despair into confidence and their alarms into defiance.
They had the support of a God worthy of trust. And thenceforth every answer in righteousness, every new disclosure of fidelity, tenderness, love, was not an abnormal phenomenon, the uncertain grace of a capricious despot; no, its import was permanent as an observation of the stars by an astronomer, ever more to be remembered in calculating the movements of the universe.
In future troubles they could appeal to Him to awake as in the ancient days, as being He who "cut Rahab and wounded the Dragon." "I am the Lord, I change not, therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed."
And as the sublime and beautiful conception of a loving spiritual God was built up slowly, age by age, tier upon tier, this was the foundation which insured the the stability of all, until the Head Stone of the Corner gave completeness to the vast design, until men saw and could believe in the very Incarnation of all Love, unshaken amid anguish and distress and seeming failure, immovable, victorious, while they heard from human lips the awful words, "Before Abraham was, I AM." Then they learned to identify all this ancient lesson of trustworthiness with new and more pathetic revelations of affection: and the martyr at the stake grew strong as he remembered that the Man of Sorrows was the same yesterday and today and for ever; and the great apostle, prostrate before the glory of his Master, was restored by the touch of a human hand, and by the voice of Him upon Whose bosom he had leaned, saying, Fear not, I am the First and the Last and the Living One.
And if men are once more fain to rend from humanity that great assurance, which for ages, amid all shocks, has made the frail creature of the dust to grow strong and firm and fearless, partaker of the Divine Nature, what will they give us in its stead? Or do they think us too strong of will, too firm of purpose? Looking around us, we see nations heaving with internal agitations, armed to the teeth against each other, and all things like a ship at sea reeling to and fro, and staggering like a drunken man. There is no stability for us in constitutions or old formul¾--none anywhere, if it be not in the soul of man. Well for us, then, that the anchor of the soul is sure and steadfast! well that unnumbered millions take courage from their Saviour's word, that the world's worst anguish is the beginning, not of dissolution, but of the birth-pangs of a new heaven and earth,--that when the clouds are blackest because the light of sun and moon is quenched, then, then we shall behold the Immutable unveiled, the Son of Man, who is brought nigh unto the Ancient of Days, now sitting in the clouds of heaven, and coming in the glory of His Father!
THE COMMISSION.
Exo_3:10, Exo_3:16-22.
We have already learned from the seventh verse that God commissioned Moses, only when He had Himself descended to deliver Israel. He sends none, except with the implied or explicit promise that certainly He will be with them. But the converse is also true. If God sends no man but when He comes Himself, He never comes without demanding the agency of man. The overruled reluctance of Moses, and the inflexible urgency of his commission, may teach us the honour set by God upon humanity. He has knit men together in the mutual dependence of nations and of families, that each may be His minister to all; and in every great crisis of history He has respected His own principle, and has visited the race by means of the providential man. The gospel was not preached by angels. Its first agents found themselves like sheep among wolves: they were an exhibition to the world and to angels and men, yet necessity was laid upon them, and a woe if they preached it not.
All the best gifts of heaven come to us by the agency of inventor and sage, hero and explorer, organiser and philanthropist, patriot, reformer and saint. And the hope which inspires their grandest effort is never that of selfish gain, nor even of fame, though fame is a keen spur, which perhaps God set before Moses in the noble hope that "thou shalt bring forth the people" (Exo_3:12). But the truly impelling force is always the great deed itself, the haunting thought, the importunate inspiration, the inward fire; and so God promises Moses neither a sceptre, nor share in the good land: He simply proposes to him the work, the rescue of the people; and Moses, for his part, simply objects that he is unable, not that he is solicitous about his reward. Whatever is done for payment can be valued by its cost: all the priceless services done for us by our greatest were, in very deed, unpriced.
Moses, with the new name of God to reveal, and with the assurance that He is about to rescue Israel, is bidden to go to work advisedly and wisely. He is not to appeal to the mob, nor yet to confront Pharaoh without authority from his people to speak for them, nor is he to make the great demand for emancipation abruptly and at once. The mistake of forty years ago must not be repeated now. He is to appeal to the elders of Israel; and with them, and therefore clearly representing the nation, he is respectfully to crave permission for a three days' journey, to sacrifice to Jehovah in the wilderness. The blustering assurance with which certain fanatics of our own time first assume that they possess a direct commission from the skies, and thereupon that they are freed from all order, from all recognition of any human authority, and then that no considerations of prudence or of decency should restrain the violence and bad taste which they mistake for zeal, is curiously unlike anything in the Old Testament or the New. Was ever a commission more direct than those of Moses and of St. Paul? Yet Moses was to obtain the recognition of the elders of his people; and St. Paul received formal ordination by the explicit command of God (Act_13:3).
Strangely enough, it is often assumed that this demand for a furlough of three days was insincere. But it would only have been so, if consent were expected, and if the intention were thereupon to abuse the respite and refuse to return. There is not the slightest hint of any duplicity of the kind. The real motives for the demand are very plain. The excursion which they proposed would have taught the people to move and act together, reviving their national spirit, and filling them with a desire for the liberty which they tasted. In the very words which they should speak, "The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, hath met with us," there is a distinct proclamation of nationality, and of its surest and strongest bulwark, a national religion. From such an excursion, therefore, the people would have returned, already well-nigh emancipated, and with recognised leaders. Certainly Pharaoh could not listen to any such proposal, unless he were prepared to reverse the whole policy of his dynasty toward Israel.
But the refusal answered two good ends. In the first place it joined issue on the best conceivable ground, for Israel was exhibited making the least possible demand with the greatest possible courtesy--"Let us go, we pray thee, three days' journey into the wilderness." Not even so much would be granted. The tyrant was palpably in the wrong, and thenceforth it was perfectly reasonable to increase the severity of the terms after each of his defeats, which proceeding in its turn made concession more and more galling to his pride. In the second place, the quarrel was from the first avowedly and undeniably religious: the gods of Egypt were matched against Jehovah; and in the successive plagues which desolated his land Pharaoh gradually learnt Who Jehovah was.
In the message which Moses should convey to the elders there are two significant phrases. He was to announce in the name of God, "I have surely visited you, and seen that which is done unto you in Egypt." The silent observation of God before He interposes is very solemn and instructive. So in the Revelation, He walks among the golden candlesticks, and knows the work, the patience, or the unfaithfulness of each. So He is not far from any one of us. When a heavy blow falls we speak of it as "a Visitation of Providence," but in reality the visitation has been long before. Neither Israel nor Egypt was conscious of the solemn presence. Who knows what soul of man, or what nation, is thus visited today, for future deliverance or rebuke?
Again it is said, "I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt into ... a land flowing with milk and honey." Their affliction was the divine method of uprooting them. And so is our affliction the method by which our hearts are released from love of earth and life, that in due time He may "surely bring us in" to a better and an enduring country. Now, we wonder that the Israelites clung so fondly to the place of their captivity. But what of our own hearts? Have they a desire to depart? or do they groan in bondage, and yet recoil from their emancipation?
The hesitating nation is not plainly told that their affliction will be intensified and their lives made burdensome with labour. That is perhaps implied in the certainty that Pharaoh "will not let you go, no, not by a mighty hand." But it is with Israel as with us: a general knowledge that in the world we shall have tribulation is enough; the catalogue of our trials is not spread out before us in advance. They were assured for their encouragement that all their long captivity should at last receive its wages, for they should not borrow[6] but ask of the Egyptians jewels of silver, and gold, and raiment, and they should spoil the Egyptians. So are we taught to have "respect unto the recompense of the reward."
FOOTNOTES:
[6] So much ignorant capital has been made by sceptics out of this unfortunate mistranslation, that it is worth while to inquire whether the word "borrow" would suit the context in other passages. "He borrowed water and she gave him milk" (Jdg_5:25). "The Lord said unto Solomon, Because thou hast borrowed this thing, and hast not borrowed long life for thyself, neither hast borrowed riches for thyself, nor hast borrowed the life of thine enemies" (1Ki_3:11). "And Elijah said unto Elisha, Thou hast borrowed a hard thing" (2Ki_2:10). The absurdity of the cavil is self-evident.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Exo_2:23; Exo_2:25
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Exo_2:23; Exo_2:25
THE KING DYING, THE PEOPLE SUFFERING, GOD REIGNING
Read full note →
Whether this king was the same as the one mentioned in Exo_1:8 is uncertain. Probably he was the Pharaoh from whom Moses fled. This new king was the Pharoah of the Exodus. On his accession the Children of Israel had reason to hope for a change in their oppressed condition, in which hope, however, they were bitterly disappointed. They renewed their earnest prayers for deliverance and God heard them.
I. The King dying. Review the moral character of this monarch:—
1. He was despotic in his rule. He encouraged a wholesale system of slavery. He employed every possible agency for the entire subjection of Israel He was unmoved by human suffering.
2. He was vindictive in his temper. He sought to slay Moses—Moses was the adopted son of his royal daughter—he was an inmate of the palace. Pharaoh would therefore be interested in him—would regard him with more than ordinary affection. Yet, because he killed an Egyptian, he seeks his death—not that he cared so much about the death of one of his subjects—He was animated by the passion of revenge.
3. He was altogether out of sympathy with the Providential arrangements of God. Did he enslave the Israelites?—They were the chosen people of Jehovah. Did he seek the death of Moses?—He was the representative of an oppressed nation, and an instrument appointed for the accomplishment of the purposes of Heaven. The rule of Pharaoh was thus altogether out of harmony with the moral history of the persons and events with which it had to do, and was counter to the authority of God. Yet this man dies. The despot meets with his conqueror. The revengeful is met by one who is heedless of the threat of passionate temper. The man who has contended with the Divine providence must leave the scene of his hopeless conflict, and intricate confusion, to appear before the God whose authority he has sought to dethrone. What an awful thing to die under such circumstances. How completely wicked men—no matter what their station in life—are in the hand of God. The folly—the woe—the eternal ruin of sin. A king in this world may be a lost spirit in the next.
II. The People Suffering. (Exo_2:23.)
1. Their suffering was tyrannic. “By reason of the bondage.” They had lost their freedom. They were made to work beyond their strength. The heroic tendencies of their nature were subdued—They were broken spirited by the injustice—the pain of slavery.
2. Their suffering was intense. “And the Children of Israel sighed.”
3. Their suffering was long continued.
4. Their suffering appealed to the Infinite. “And their cry came up unto God,” The suffering of the universe in all its speciality and collective woe is known—and appeals to God—it pleads for the mitigation of its pain—the removal of its grief. Suffering should link our souls to God—it should be an inspiration to prayer—then it will ultimately merge into the highest freedom. It is the delight of heaven to work the freedom of human souls.
III. God reigning. (Exo_2:24.)
1. God reigns though kings die. Pharaoh died—God is eternal—the folly of trusting in kings—the wisdom of trusting in the Infinite. Pharoah thought more about his own reign than of God’s. That kingdom is the strongest—the purest—the happiest, which makes the Divine reign the basis of its legislation. The Israelites thought more of the kingship of Pharoah, than of Jehovah—the grandeur of the former was seen—its power was felt—the Divine King was invisible—God had to educate the heart of the people to Himself. Now the nation is crying to heaven for release.
2. God reigns though men suffer. The Israelites were in bondage—in grief—yet God reigned. It is sometimes difficult when we are in sorrow—perplexed—oppressed, to realise the Divine Rulership. It must be realised by faith, God rules above to stay the fury of impious monarchs—to protect the injured—to sustain His Church—to soothe the pain of the world. He will ultimately remove the Pharoah—the trouble of a pious soul.
3. God reigns in harmony with His covenant made with the good. “And God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.” He had entered into a covenant with the Father of the Faithful, to give his posterity an inheritance in the land of Canaan. In his seed all nations were to be blessed. Four hundred years had passed. God had not forgotten. The time of deliverance is near. The benefit of a pious ancestry—their piety has a tendency to work our freedom. The Divine will is not capricious; it is in harmony with settled principles; it has respect to moral character—to past distinguished service; it is benevolent in its design—continuous in its operation. Let every nation—every family—have a covenant with God. Learn—
1. Do not despond in times of affliction.
2. Afflictions are designed to bring us into harmony with the requirements of God’s covenant for our good.
3. It is the purpose of God to work the freedom and welfare of men.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Exo_2:23. God makes succession of times—of rulers—to serve the welfare of His Church.
Time appears long to the sorrowful when deliverance is delayed.
Oppressors may die, and yet persecution not die with them.… Cries to heaven are often extorted from God’s persecuted children.… If men want freedom they cannot do better than direct their attention to God.
Exo_2:24. There is a pitch of oppression which will not fail to awaken the wrath of heaven.
This last is a precious scripture. My soul, put a note upon it. No sigh, no groan, no tear of God’s people can pass unobserved. He putteth the tears of His people in His bottle. Surely, then, He can never overlook what gives vent to these tears, the sorrows of the soul. Our spiritual afflictions Jesus knows, and numbers all. How sweet the thought! The spirit maketh intercession for the saints, with groanings which they cannot utter. And do, my soul, observe the cause of deliverance. Not our sighs, nor our groanings, nor our brokenness of heart; not these, for what benefit can these render to a holy God? But God hath respect in all to His own everlasting covenant. Yes, Jesus is the all in all of the covenant. God the Father hath respect to Him For His sake, for His righteousness, for His atoning blood, the groanings of His people find audience at the mercy seat, and also obtain redress. [Dr. Hawker.]
God’s ear is close to the strong cries of His oppressed people.
Secret groans are as audible with God as loud cries.
God hears when creatures think Him deaf.
Covenant remembrance with God is covenant performance.
Exo_2:25. God hath ears, and memory, and eyes, and knowledge to help His people.
The sons of Israel are looked on, and regarded when they pray to God.
God’s inspection of His oppressed is a comfortable visitation.
ILLUSTRATIONS
Exo_2:23. The Romans, in a great distress, were put so hard to it, that they were fain to take the weapons out of the temples of their gods to fight with them; and so they overcame. And this ought to be the course of every true Christian, in times of public distress, to fly to the weapons of the Church, prayers and tears. The Spartan’s walls were their spears, the Christian’s walls are his prayers. His help standeth in the name of the Lord, who hath made both heaven and earth [Callamy’s Sermon].
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain The Lord Resolves to Deliver Israel
The Lord Resolves to Deliver Israel
v. 23. And it came to pass: in process of time that the king of Egypt died, the Pharaoh on whose account Moses had found it necessary to flee; and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage. This was many days, about forty years, after the flight of Moses. The oppression of the children of Israel continued also under the new Pharaoh, and since they had hoped for some relief, their crying arose to heaven with all the greater fervency.
Read full note →
v. 24. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. He had, of course, never forgotten it, but He took occasion to reflect and to act upon it.
v. 25. And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them. He looked into the case and was constrained to interfere in behalf of His people. When God’s hour of deliverance has come, He always sees to it that the temptation is speedily brought to a close.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 They did this because of their sorrow and misery.…
groaned
They did this because of their sorrow and misery. AT: "sighed deeply"
Read full note →
their pleas went up to God
The cries of the Israelites are spoken of as if they were a person and were able to travel up to where God is. AT: "God heard their pleas" (See: Personification)
God called to mind his covenant
This was a customary way of saying God thought about what He had promised. AT: "God remembered his covenant" (See: Idiom)
translationWords
king
Egypt
Israel
servant
labor
God
covenant
Abraham
Isaac
Jacob
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.