April 19, 2018: Day 5 – Exodus 5

We have to begin this chapter with the end of chapter 4.  We read that Moses and Aaron went to visit the people of Israel while they are yet in Egypt.  As they visit with the people, whom Moses hasn’t seen in decades, they believed the words that they uttered, that God was going to get them out of this mess.  As a result of this belief, that God is going to act, not that Moses is with them, but that God is going to act, the Scripture tells us that they bowed down and worshiped.  The motivation to worship God was a result of “when they heard that the Lord had given heed to the Israelites and that he had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshiped.”  Sometimes we just need to know that God cares.

In this chapter we see God kind of become the bad guy.  Moses and Aaron approach Pharaoh and ask for a very reasonable request.  Let us go into the wilderness for 3 days to worship God.  They do not ask that Pharaoh set their people free.  That is what we think Moses asks.  Let my people go!  Should really be: Let my people go for three days and then we will be right back…, but that isn’t what we historically have thought.  Pharaoh isn’t excited about letting the Israelites go, and in fact questions who this God is.  He sees this request as manifestation of the laziness of the Israelites who just don’t want to work hard.

So he makes them work harder.  He takes away their straw, has their Jewish foremen beaten when they don’t produce the same amount of bricks as before, and calls them lazy, lazy.  Every since Moses shows up, Pharaoh has become a bit of an ogre and the people of Israel are not happy about that.  Things were going fine before you came along.  In fact, if you turn to vs.22-23 that is exactly what Moses tells the Lord.  Ever since you sent me, Lord, Pharaoh has mistreated the people of Israel far worse than they were treated  before I came.  You haven’t done anything to deliver your people.  I love this story.  Even Moses takes the side against God.  God is about to deliver, but things can’t work out the way that we think or expect.  They have to work out the way God wants them to.  Hold on, and we will be getting there.