Exodus: The Lord and His PilgrimsНамуна

Why don’t you do what you’re told?

I think we would have to say that initial success (4:29–31) goes to Moses’ head. He had had a sharp experience, in 2:12–22, that ‘the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God’ (Jas. 1:20), but obviously the lesson has not quite gone home. He certainly acts as if he thinks he is on a roll, bouncing into Pharaoh’s presence with strident demands (Ex. 5:1)! This is not what he was told to do (3:18). If we compare 3:12 with 5:1–2 we see it is all a multiple error: the wrong delegation (Moses and Aaron, 5:1, not Moses and the elders, as specified in 3:18); the wrong approach (an authoritarian ‘Thus says the Lord God of Israel …’, v. 1); the wrong terminology (‘Israel’ instead of ‘the Hebrews’, which would have been familiar to Pharaoh); the wrong request (liberation instead of three-day permission); and a nonnegotiable demand (‘Let … go’), rather than a negotiating position (‘three days’). And all this is stated in the name of ‘the Lord’, Yahweh, a God Pharaoh had never heard of. 

Once more, of course, we are not told what would have happened, we only know that, by disobeying, Moses brings his people into unwanted suffering (vv. 6–19), and his mission into disrepute (vv. 20–21). Even the ground Moses had initially gained when the Israelites put their trust in him (4:31) is lost (5:21). But even when Moses tries to revise his approach (v. 3), he complicates the issue with his own addition: a threat of the sword (5:3) is not mentioned in 3:18 – and there is still the inclusion of the name ‘the Lord’. Probably Pharaoh’s question, ‘Who is the Lord?’ (5:2), was a genuine request for information, not an arrogant repudiation. 

Now, we need to notice that nothing Moses said to Pharaoh was untrue, but, in the strictest sense, first, the word of God was set aside (v. 1), and secondly, an addition from human logic and wisdom was given (v. 3). ‘Stewards’ are required to be faithful (1 Cor. 4:2), not inventive; ‘ambassadors’ are required to speak as if their overlord was himself speaking (2 Cor. 5:20), not to add their own ‘spin’; ‘prophets’ throughout the Old Testament characteristically say, ‘Thus says the Lord’, meaning ‘this is what the Lord has said’. How crucially important then, for us, is scriptural exactitude (1 Cor. 4:6)!

Reflection

Disobedience to God’s word all started in Eden. When Adam and Eve added to what God had said about safeguarding the tree, they opened a door for Satan (Gen. 3:3).