Week 5, Part 2—Exodus 1-12

The book of Exodus begins with a story that is familiar to almost everyone that went to Sunday School as a child: THE EXODUS. This is when the people of Israel (finally) left their life of slavery behind in Egypt and set out to a victorious life in the Promised Land. (Okay, not really. More on that later.) 

We meet Moses, who is the major player in the next four books of the Bible. Moses is the first leader of the children of Israel, and there is probably more written in the Bible about him than any other person, except Jesus--and maybe Paul.

Here’s a redux of the first 12 chapters of Exodus. The Hebrews are growing great in number in Egypt. Pharaoh fears that they will overpower the Egyptians, so he asks the Hebrew midwives to kill all the male children. (Ha.) They obey God rather than Pharaoh, and God blesses them. One baby boy, Moses, is smuggled out of his home in a basket and finds his way down the river to Pharaoh’s daughter, who adopts him despite the fact that he is Hebrew. 

Moses grows up in the palace but kills an Egyptian when he sees him beating one of the Hebrews. Moses runs away and lives in the desert of Midian for 40 years. God hears the voice of his peoples’ suffering and tells Moses via burning bush that he needs to go back to Egypt to bring the Hebrews out of Egypt and into the Promised Land. Moses argues. God wins.

Pharaoh is not fond of the idea of releasing 600,000 slaves. Ten plagues ensue: the water of the Nile is turned to blood; frogs come up and get into EVERYTHING; gnats fly in and get into everything ELSE; flies show up and bother everyone again; livestock catch diseases; people and livestock break out on boils; hail destroys many of the crops; locusts destroy the remaining crops; darkness “that can be felt” (10:21) hangs over Egypt for three days; the firstborn in every family dies--except in the houses that are marked by the blood of the Passover Lamb (foreshadowing, anyone?).

After this final blow (for even Pharaoh loses his son) he lets the people go--and he even asks Moses and his brother Aaron to “bless me also.” Perhaps Pharaoh is beginning to see something in this Hebrew God after all (but probably not, as we will see next week). The Hebrews pack their unleavened bread and get out of town as quickly as 600,000 people can.

What strikes me as I read this again is the fact that God has His name all over these people. Literally. The words LORD and GOD appear more than TWO HUNDRED times (combined) in these 12 chapters. He is making Himself known to the Israelites; He is claiming them as His people and He is declaring that He, and He alone, is their God. He is all over these pages, writing His name on their hearts. They leave Egypt with instructions to remember the Passover night, to remember the night of their salvation and to pass on the story to their children.

Do we do this with stories of our faith as well?