Israel Oppressed. There is already so much in this. I cannot help but draw analogies to the modern day because it seems so obvious to do so. First, the “midwives” are depicted as heroes, and they are. Truth be told, I never knew what the term “midwife” meant, but they are essentially nurses. Nurses are heroes, and we certainly have seen that just recently. In particular, the nurses who have had the courage to speak out about their observations from inside the hospital are especially heroic, as they would be obeying God rather than men, which is what the midwives did here in Exodus. Also, in the opening of Exodus, the xenophobia of the Egyptians is illustrated, which, of course, is a common buzzword today. I’m not about to use this platform to offer up my opinions on illegal immigration, but I do know that the answer is not either end of an extreme. The answer is certainly not “to hell with all of them,” as everyone is God’s child, but it is also certainly not “let everyone in.” Living in California, I’ve seen both sides of a coin, with immigrants coming to the United States working their fingers to the bone and others coming to the States with no regard for human life. Obviously, we could have no issue with the former, but with the latter. I will say this – I’m not sure how or when Americans developed or adopted this notion that “we” are God’s chosen people and that “this” is God’s chosen land. “Because we are a Christian Nation,” one might say. Oh, as if we are the only Christian Nation left in the world today. Furthermore, we are definitely less of one now than before, and there are numerous countries that have a population containing more God-seeking people than we do. Even the “enemy” Russia has 87% of their population describing themselves as subscribers to Russian Orthodoxy.
The Birth of Moses. The birth of Moses appears to depict the compassion of women and faith in God. Women are true, natural rehabilitators and have an easier time with faith. As far as I can tell, women don’t do a whole lot of “wrestling with God,” presumably because their egos don’t stand in the way as it does with men. I was talking to a couple of friends the other day, and I said something to the effect of, “Men don’t make men ‘feel good.’” Man’s use to their fellow man can be seen in enterprises like coaching, mentorship, etc. Notably, things that require a certain “tough love.” Rarely will we find a man who does an exceptional job, as women do, at making somebody feel loved and cared about. It just isn’t the nature of the male existence. Without the courage (otherwise known as the fear of God – as Moses was hidden from Pharoah for three months), compassion, and faith of women, we may never have known about one of the greatest Biblical characters.
Moses, at the age of 40, comes to a crossroads. (it’s interesting how the Bible does away with extensive periods, but I suppose if anything noteworthy happened, it would have been mentioned. It is reasonable to assume that, for the most part (and according to Josephus), he was being trained and groomed to be the next Pharoah of Egypt between his birth and the age of 40, or rather, that he was being trained and groomed by God to do His eventual bidding. As he sees one of his brethren being beaten by an Egyptian, he has a decision to make, to turn ‘babyface’ or to be the ‘top heel.’ My apologies for the wrestling terminology, but that’s exactly what it is. There is something interesting about that decision, and it’s that whenever one makes a decision toward the good, to turn away from an evil path, while certainly, Heaven rejoices, one does not rise to the top straight away. It’s almost as if we have to consolidate our decision and prove to the “team” that we are, indeed, one of them. We’ll see that shortly as the Hebrews do not immediately accept Moses. Lastly, it’s important to note that Pharaoh’s daughter, a non-Hebrew, was the one who had the compassion to rescue Moses. This illustrates that “morality is not bound by ethnicity,” which might seem obvious, but as westerners, I believe we’ve fallen victim to the thinking that because other people were born elsewhere that they may never receive the gift of morality or God’s grace. That just isn’t true.
Moses Flees to Midian. Although I do not want to regurgitate any idea from the DailyWire+ series about Exodus, a lot of the ideas presented in that study cannot go unsaid, as the one about Moses representing the chaos and transformation of water in direct opposition to tyranny and stone. It’s why water so often appears in dreams, I would say, as it is symbolic of both chaos and transformation. Water can overwhelm and drown is in the chaotic sense, but it is also revivifying and rehabilitative. Perhaps this is why so many Biblical characters meet their eventual wives near water as women are the rehabilitators and have the capability to transform. Man meets woman and man changes is the classical story, is it not? It also might be why women are constantly encapsulated by the idea that they can change a man, and that’s because, well, they can.
Moses stands up to the shepherds (purposefully plural, illustrating that he is outnumbered) who were chasing the women away from the well. Moses is the transformative water against the tyrannical stone, even demonstrated in this “small story,” where Moses defends women against bullies.
It’s interesting to read the line that God “remembered” His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as if he “forgot,” but I think that’s just it. The word “remembered” in this passage is simply to say that He never forgot. God is intimately involved; He knows and sees all. “Enduring Word” makes a great point (Enduring Word is all over ‘The Exodus Notes’) that God did not turn his attention to Israel because they were good people, but because He had made a covenant with them. I have this tendency to think that as soon as I do something “good” then I’ll be saved, but that’s not accurate. I, or we, are saved because of Him. Period.
Moses at the Burning Bush. Obviously, Moses was chosen to encounter God as the burning bush, and then again on Mount Sinai. Why might it be that Moses was the only one permitted these meetings whereas practically everyone else was not? I don’t suspect it was so much that they “couldn’t,” but that there is real danger in attempting to meet God if one isn’t “there” yet, or has not gone through the process in which it takes to do so. If you’ve ever witnessed a moth’s ascent toward a light, they don’t shoot right up to the light. They undertake a very slow, cautious procedure toward it, and while they eventually do get burned by the light, they are able to spend more time “wrestling” with the light because of their cautiousness. There is a certain hierarchy or intermediary undertaking one has to go through before “more will be revealed,” let’s say. One analogy I can draw is why I’m so petrified of taking psychedelics. I don’t know that I am ready to see what I might see, and actually, I have this suspicion that what I might see could be fatal, whether instantaneously, or eventually, through a slow tormenting of the mind afterward. God is separate but not distant.
“Burning but not consumed.” Analogous, possibly, to not only God’s people in the context of the story, but to the tyranny we might be enduring externally or internally. Burning, but not yet burned.
*Authors Note* – I suppose this is in regard to specifically the website, but as I continue this journey through Exodus, some of these notes in different sections are added later than they were posted. Any discovery made throughout the Bible leads to new discoveries that may have been previously glossed over. As I’ve heard it put, “the Bible is the first and only hyperlinked text.” I suppose all of that is to say, if you are interested in going through these notes with me, to periodically check the website for updates. I will let it be known on social media when updates are made.
There is a sort of echoing of Adam hiding from God in the Garden of Eden here at the burning bush. The definition of humility from the 1800’s is something like, “a deep sense of one’s own unworthiness in the sight of God,” and “submission to the Divine will.” This appears to be what is happening, although not quite as similar as Adam going into hiding, but Moses is a humbled man who understood that he was a sinful creature. Moses is about to (or finally has) understood his unworthiness in God’s presence and is about to submit to His will. Although, it must be said, there is a question worth considering, is this true humility or is this actually pride? Yes, Moses hides his face, which would paint a picture of humility, but Moses “wrestles with God” throughout the conversation (not so similar to the way Jacob wrestled with Him but it was wrestling nonetheless). Now, is this just pride disguised as humility?
“I AM WHO I AM,” says God to Moses in response to Moses’ question about what he shall say to the Israelites. There are many ways to translate this utterance, but I am a simpleton with simple analogies. In my estimation, it’s a Bret Hart promo. “I AM the best there is, the best there was, and the best that ever will be.” No wonder Bret Hart never quite got over as a babyface – you can’t play God. Anyway, yes, it’s something like that. “I AM that was, I AM that is, and I AM what will become.”
Moses’ Miraculous Signs. The dialogue here between God and Moses is most interesting, and it brings me to this idea of “believing in yourself.” Moreover, it brings me to two ideas in seeming contrast with one another, which would be, believing in yourself vs. believing in God. Can you believe in both? I’ve written about this plenty of times, about the idea that one cannot “believe in themselves,” but after reading this passage, I’ve come to the understanding that I am ultimately impressionable. If I hear something I think I like or that I think might be correct, I immediately adopt it as gospel. I’ve heard somebody say that belief, respect, or love are ideas or things that are to be placed in someone or something else, and if I try to place those ideas upon myself, that would be schizophrenia. That made a lot of sense to me, initially, but where or what is Moses’ disbelief in Exodus 4? He clearly doesn’t believe that he is the man for the job, but the case he puts forth to God isn’t a case based in humility. Moses’ apprehension is very much grounded in self-pity, and is God in this passage attempting to get Moses to believe in himself – that he is the man for the job? Because how could one argue that Moses does not believe in God? There He is! He stood before Moses manifested as the burning bush!
I’ve spent some time talking to a friend of mine about whether or not God has the capacity for anger. He made a great point, or so I thought (it still might be a great point, depending on how we define the context of God’s anger), when he said in order for God to become angry, He would have to pass through fear, and we would never describe God as fearful. Anyway, as Moses continues to offer up self-pitied arguments against God, the scripture clearly states, “and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses.” Why has the Lord become angry with Moses? Is it not because God has granted Moses all he would ever need to believe that he can do the job, or, is it as Enduring Word suggests, that Moses was just “plain unwilling?”
Also, ensconced here in Exodus 4 is the calling of God, as it seems that God has made a decision that Moses is to be the one who delivers His people, or has decided that Moses was ready to do so. It had me wondering about what happened between Moses killing the Egyptian, as then, he was clearly not ready judging by how he was rejected by his own people afterward. The only thing(s) that had happened, according to the text (and maybe more is revealed about this time period as we read along, but so far, we have only gotten where we’ve gotten to), is that Moses did stand up to the bullies (shepherds) and watered the women’s flock. He also met a woman to be his wife, too, which is obviously important as the role that women play in the transformation of men cannot be understated. Possibly, what we could extrapolate from the time period between the killing and subsequent transformation, let’s say, is that Moses knew the damage he could do with a sword. Another way of putting that might be that Moses discovered within him his inner tyrant, which, if he was going to be the one who delivered God’s people out of the promises land, from the hand of the ultimate tyrant, that was absolutely a necessary discovery. It’s also something like that because he had the capacity to commit certain atrocities, the opposite and/or equivalent good now exists on the other end, which, in my estimation, illuminates the idea that yin and yang are not opposites, but alternating enterprises. We can’t know good without the bad. None of this is to say that one must be capable of murder before they are capable of living, not at all, but that there is certainly utility in examining just how far down the scale one could go.
To be continued..
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