Exodus: The Lord and His PilgrimsSample

Obedience: a lesson learnt

We haven’t read 6:13–27, but these verses have a point to make. Their testimony is that Moses and Aaron are the same frail human clay they have always been; the revelation of Yahweh has given them a fresh awareness of him but left them unchanged. This is exactly the point. Amid all our human frailty we face life with our eyes on him, looking to him, expecting from him and relying on him. Hence we read the key verse (7:6) which will dominate the rest of the Exodus story: precise, detailed obedience. 

Moses is to do what Yahweh says and leave the outcome to him. This comprises doing something silly, like throwing a rod on the ground (v. 9); something seemingly pointless like killing a lamb (12:6); and something involving power beyond the human – calling for darkness (10:21). Yet Moses must just do what Yahweh says and leave the outcome to him – that’s how Israel escaped Egypt’s power and threat. It is what is called ‘the obedience of faith’ – whereas humanity says, ‘I can’t, so I won’t’, faith says, ‘I can’t, but he can, so I will.’ This was the Lord’s promise to Moses: ‘I have made you as God to Pharaoh’ (7:1). Though Pharaoh himself is ‘god’, Moses goes to him with the promise of equal stature! 

In 7:14 the narrative of the plagues begins to be carefully told: the first two dominate the ‘godlike’ Nile; three and four are united in kind; five and six are skin eruptions respectively on animals and humans; seven and eight destroy crops; and nine and ten, symbolically and then actually, express wrath against sin. Plagues 1, 4, and 7 begin at the river; 2, 5 and 8 begin in the palace; 3, 6 and 9 are unannounced. It may be that some of the plagues can be reasonably traced to ‘natural causes’, but they are all the judgmental acts of God designed to give Pharaoh and Egypt a prolonged period of probation. Each trial is a test of obedience and grace, holding back the ultimate judgment in hope of its being rendered unnecessary by repentance.

Reflection

According to James, we are placed no differently from Pharaoh. The tests of life are designed to implement spiritual progress (Jas. 1:2–4, 12–18).