The Song of Moses

Story:  The Song of Moses

Passage: Exodus 15:1-21

Characters:  Moses, Miriam, Israel

Summary: Moses and the people of Israel sang a song of worship to God.  I will go through it in the notes.

  

Notes:   This song of worship was quite profound and it demonstrates how much the Israelites were affected by the visual display of God’s power.  The song begins by addressing God’s power.  He has cast the horse and its rider into the sea.  He is our strength and our song.  The Lord is a man of war.  His power is emphasized.  Then the song describes what had just happened.  It describes the Egyptians pursuing Israel into the sea and then God collapsing the waters on them.  It attributes the events to God.  Even though they were caused by a wind, it was a wind from God.  Next, the song recognized the superiority of God.  Who is like our God, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?  At His command, the earth obeyed.  The next section details His love, leadership, and reputation.  It is acknowledged that is was an act of love to lead them out of Egypt.  The surrounding people will tremble when Israel comes near out of the fear of God.  Israel will be brought to God’s dwelling place.  Then Miriam, Moses’ and Aaron’s sister danced and sang and the women joined in singing, “Sing to the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea.” This is the first line of Moses’ song.  This entire scene is like a real life musical!  The people began signing as a nation as soon as they were delivered.  After the men sang the song, the women danced and sang the chorus.  But the important thing was that the song was focused on God’s provision, power, and love.  If only the Israelites could remember this their entire lives!

Questions:  Was this song written by Moses?  Was it written later to express the feelings of Israel at the time?  What was the atmosphere of the people like at this point? 

Lessons: God is a God of war and a God of love.  His holiness demands war, but His grace, mercy, and love demands salvation and deliverance.  God is not just a God of war or a God of love, He is both! 

Crossing the Red Sea

Story:  Crossing the Red Sea

Passage: Exodus 14:1-31

Characters:  God, Israel, Egypt

Summary: The Lord told Israel to camp by the Red Sea.  Pharaoh’s heart would harden and he would pursue them.  This is exactly what happened!  Pharaoh pursued Israel.  When the Israelites saw the Egyptians, they were afraid and cried to God.  God told Moses to lift up his staff and divide the sea.  The pillar of fire and cloud moved behind the people and blocked the Egyptians from reaching them.  The sea divided overnight and the Hebrews crossed the sea on dry ground.  The Egyptians pursued, but God confused them and broke their chariots.  God then returned the sea to normal, drowning all of the Egyptians who had been pursuing them.  The people of Israel feared the Lord when they saw His power. 

  

Notes: This is obviously a well known story of God’s miracles and wonders.  I see it as the first story showing the Israelites idiocy!  Now before I continue, here’s a disclaimer.  I’m as much of an idiot as they were, but still.  God just showed His power in Egypt, killed all of the firstborn but showed the Hebrews He would save them, led them out of Egypt with all the riches they wanted, visibly led them by day and night, and warned them that Pharaoh would pursue them, but he would end up losing and God would be glorified.  So when the people saw Pharaoh pursuing them, they got excited to see what God would do right? Wrong! They freaked out and complained to Moses!  They even said it would be better to be slaves in Egypt than to die in the wilderness!  What were these people thinking!  Moses however showed faith and told them to stand firm and see the salvation of the Lord.  Moses knew better.  God still scolds Moses for Israel’s attitude though.  God says, “Why do you cry to me?”  In other words God wants to know why Moses acts surprised that God is doing what He said He would do?  It’s a valid question!  Now I wonder what the Egyptians thought when this cloud moved between them and the Israelites!  Honestly, the Egyptians were stupider than Israel, but to be fair, their hearts had been hardened by God!  Also, they were motivated by the loss of their work force!  I always picture the parting of the Red Sea happening quickly, but it is described as taking all night and being caused by an east wind.  I assume that means the wind was so strong that it was the wind which held up the water on each side!  That is incredible!  I wonder what was going through the people’s minds!  There had to have been a wind!  If there had been no wind, the ground would have been soaking wet and muddy!  But the Israelites crossed on dry ground.  Pharaoh pursued, which was a really stupid idea!  At some point, he should have realized that God was working against him, but no, he didn’t accept that God was more powerful than he was!  His pride would be his undoing!  The Lord finally threw them into a panic and clogged their wheels.  I don’t know what that means, but apparently, they were going at a pace where they could have caught the people so God slowed them down.  Finally, Moses stretched out his hand and the sea returned to normal, drowning the Egyptians.  This whole process appears to have taken about 24 hours.  This was probably a very very stressful 24 hours for everyone involved.  The passage says that the people saw God’s power and they feared the Lord and believed in Him.  It is incredible that they did not already believe in Him!  Israel was incredibly stubborn and hard headed!  And they will only get worse!  It is also interesting to note that when the sea returned to normal, the Egyptians were fleeing.  Apparently, once their wheels stopped working, they realized that the Lord was fighting for Israel.  The pillar of cloud and the parting of the Red Sea weren’t convincing enough!

Questions:  How could the Israelites not trust God?  How could the Egyptians not see that they were doomed?  Did Pharaoh survive this?  It isn’t specifically stated that he died as well.  What does it mean that God clogged the chariot wheels?

Lessons:  God is powerful and is capable of doing anything!  He did these wonders to bring glory to Himself, and we see that that is exactly what happened!  When God makes a promise, we need to trust He will keep it!  When we feel surrounded with our backs against a wall/sea, God is capable of delivering you! 

Pillars of Cloud and Fire

Story:  Pillars of Cloud and Fire

Passage: Exodus 13:17-22

Characters:  God, Israel

Summary:  God did not lead Israel to the Promised Land in the most direct way because He thought they would turn back if they faced war.  So they went towards the Red Sea.  Moses took Joseph’s bones with him.  The Lord led them as a pillar of cloud in the daytime and a pillar of fire at night. 

Notes: It is interesting that God thought that Israel would go back to slavery if they faced war.  His solution was to march them through the wilderness to a huge body of water where they would be attacked by Egypt.  If I were God, I would not have thought of that as a better alternative to a more direct route with war!  But thankfully, I am not God and He knew what He was doing!  The fact that Joseph’s bones were taken out of Egypt shows that he was never buried.  This shows his great faith!  He had such a strong belief that God would deliver Israel that he never was buried.  Here we see that his faith paid off!  God surely did come through!  The people of Israel were no wandering alone though, God led them in a very visible way in day and night so that they could keep moving!  I wonder when they slept?

Questions:  How tall were the pillars of fire and cloud? Would the Philistines have really attacked? When did the people sleep?

Lessons:  God knows what is best.  It made no sense to not take the most direct route, but God had a very legitimate reason to lead them that way!  Sometimes we feel like God is not with us, but maybe He is leading us by the harder route so that we will end up closer to Him!  I know that has been true in my life!

Consecration of the Firstborn and The Feast of Unleavened Bread

Story: Consecration of the Firstborn and The Feast of Unleavened Bread

Passage: Exodus 13:1-16

Characters:  God, Israel

Summary:  The rules were laid out for consecrating the firstborn of Israel to God.  More rules were laid out for the Feast of Unleavened Bread.  The firstborn of man and animal was to be given to God.  Once again, we read that no leavened bread is to be eaten.  Even when they come to the Promised Land, they are to continue celebrating this feast.  The seven days would end with a feast.  This was to remember what God did for them when they left Egypt.  If a donkey was born, a lamb was to be consecrated to redeem the donkey.  Money was used to redeem the firstborn of a man.  This celebration was to be a tangible reminder of what the Lord had done. 

Notes:  I am struck by a few things in this passage.  As a reminder, Christ came to fulfill the law, so I am going to do my best to find the ways in which the law was fulfilled by Christ.  Passover is a great example of this as Christ became our Passover lamb.  Interestingly, God killed the firstborn of Egypt but passed over the Hebrews.  Now they were to continue to sacrifice to the Lord.  They were to consecrate their firstborn to the Lord.  The firstborn son was the son who earned the blessing and birthright.  To give this son to God is significant.  Today, even though we have been saved, we are to present our bodies as living sacrifices, holy to God.  Just like God saved Israel but still demanded sacrifice, Christ has saved us but still demands sacrifice.  The Passover was a time of remembrance of what God did to bring Israel out of Egypt, but it was also a time of joy.  This was a feast after all!  Joy should be a result of our remembering what God did to save us!  Yes it is a serious and heavy thing that the son of God died in our place, but it is also the most remarkable thing worth celebrating in history!  When we remember what Christ did for us, we should respond with joy!  The other thing that strikes me is the command to redeem the firstborn donkey with a lamb.  I believe that donkeys were considered unclean.  The laws of cleanliness had not been given yet, but God was covering for it anyway.  Interestingly, even though the donkey was unclean, it could be redeemed by a lamb.  The comparison of gentiles to unclean animals occurs in Acts.  Even here in Exodus, God has provided a way for the unclean to be redeemed by the clean.  This is huge and shows that while God had chosen Israel as His chosen people, He had chosen humanity as His bride!

Questions:  Why did God require that the firstborn of Israel be consecrated to Him?  Why are animals lumped with humans? 

Lessons:  We need to react with joy to the fact that we have been redeemed!  It is hard to believe how depressed we can get when we get caught up in the details of life.  It is like we completely forget that we have been redeemed by God!  We need to be joyful!  Joy is listed among the fruit of the Spirit and each of us has the Spirit inside of us!  

Institution of the Passover

Story: Institution of the Passover

Passage: Exodus 12:43-

Characters:  God, Israel

Summary:  The Lord laid out the rules for the Passover.  No foreigner could eat it, but slaves could if they were circumcised.  It was to be eaten in one house.  Nothing was to leave the house and no bones were to be broken.  A foreigner could eat it if he and all of his males were circumcised.  The people did exactly what God commanded them.

Notes: The Passover was to be for Israel, but a foreigner could eat it too if they were circumcised.  The purpose of circumcision was to set the Israelites apart.  In a similar way, the gospel was first for Israel, but Gentiles could also be included.  We also must be set apart to be saved though.  It is very interesting to me that the Passover lamb’s bones were not to be broken.  Jesus’ bones were not broken when He was killed, so He was indeed a valid Passover lamb! He even fulfilled the requirement that it is eaten in one house and indoors.  When He ate the last supper with His disciples, they broke bread and He told them that it was His flesh.  They did not realize it at the time, but when they ate the bread, they were taking part in the first Passover meal of the true Passover.

Questions:  Why were the bones not to be broken?  Why were foreigners excluded?

Lessons:  We are starting to see some of the ways in which Christ fulfilled the law.  In reading this passage we are learning what a perfect Passover lamb Christ really was!  Instead of questioning why God worked things out like this, we should worship the Lord who sacrificed His only son, the true Passover lamb, and has accepted His death as the punishment for our sins!

Death of the Firstborn and The Exodus

Story: Death of the Firstborn and The Exodus

Passage: Exodus 12:29-42

Characters:  Israel, Egypt, God

Summary:  The Lord struck down the firstborn of everyone in Egypt.  Pharaoh summoned Moses and told him to leave.  The Egyptians were urgent to get the Hebrews out of Egypt.  They feared for their lives.  The Israelites ate unleavened bread because they did not have time to fully prepare it.  They left Egypt with 600,000 men not counting women and children.  They had been in Egypt for 430 years.

Notes:  Every house in Egypt lost their firstborn.  From Pharaoh, to his lowliest servant, even to the flocks, no one was spared.  The passage says that everyone woke up in the night and Egypt was filled with wailing.  Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron after telling them that he would never see them again.  He tells them to leave once and for all.  Finally, the plagues became too much for him.  God had accomplished what He intended to accomplish through Pharaoh.  He had delivered the Israelites from death through the blood of a perfect lamb.  The Egyptians weren’t stupid!  Their land had been ruined!  They wanted to get the Israelites out of their country.  What impressed me the most out of this passage though is the fact that one family had become 600,000 men alone over a period of 430 years!  That is a massive slave force to lose!  And Egypt was losing their slaves right when they needed some significant work done!  By the way, that is 430 years to the day apparently!  The passage concludes by stating that it was a night of watching by the Lord, so the Passover has become a night of watching by Israel. 

Questions:  Could Egyptians have killed a lamb to be passed over?  Did any Egyptians leave with the Israelites?  Why did the Egyptians just give their gold and silver to the Hebrews?  What was the Lord watching for exactly? 

Lessons:  This is a story of deliverance.  God kept His promise and delivered Israel from the hand of Egypt.  We need to remember that even when it feels like God is distant, He never has left us and He will keep His promises!

The Passover

Story: The Passover

Passage: Exodus 12:1-28

Characters:  God, Israel

Summary:

The Lord told Israel what He was about to do and what they had to do to be spared.  Each household was to take a lamb without blemish and keep it for four days and then kill it.  They were to smear the blood of the lamb on their doorposts.  Then they were to eat the lamb along with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. They were to eat it with their shoes on, their belt buckled, and their staff in hand.  God would kill every firstborn in Egypt, but when He saw the blood, He would pass over the Israelites.  They were to celebrate tis with a feast every year.  For seven days, they would eat unleavened bread.  Now work would be done for those seven days.  Moses told the elders what to do and they obeyed.  

Notes:  I have nowhere near enough time to do Passover justice in this post, but here goes!  The feast of unleavened bread is the first celebration that God gives Israel, and it is the first aspect of the law that we see.   Since Christ fulfills the law, every time we study part of the law, I will try to show the way that Christ fulfilled it!  The Passover was a time when God showed mercy to Israel and delivered them from Egypt.  Throughout the Bible, Egypt represents sin, the flesh, and death.  God was going to deliver His people from sin and bring them to the Promised Land.  Let’s look at how He is going to accomplish this!  First, every household is supposed to find a lamb. This lamb needs to be perfect.  Interestingly, a lamb is needed for each household.  (Spoiler alert: Jesus is the ultimate Passover lamb)  In order for Christ’s sacrifice to cover us, we must become part of God’s household.  Fortunately, we see this all throughout the New Testament.  We are adopted as heirs; we are the sons of God.  This lamb was not just chosen and killed, it was kept for four days by the family.  This lamb became a part of the family and lived with them for a short time before they killed it.  Likewise, Christ lived among us for a short time before we killed Him.  They were to eat it while prepared to move.  When we are saved, we need to be ready to go.  Salvation is the beginning of a journey, not the end.  God specifically says that He will execute judgment on all the gods of Egypt.  We have already seen how the plagues were a direct attack on specific Egyptian gods.  Here God states that that is what He is doing.  Egypt worshipped these false gods, so the true God attacked each one to prove that He is the only true God worth worshipping!  God is not happy when we give the glory and worship that He deserves to something we create ourselves.  We see a taste of His wrath in His treatment of Egypt.  God has done many many miracles already for Israel, but this is the first one that He wants them to commemorate with a feast forever.  During this feast, there is to be no leaven present.  Yeast is a leavening agent.  Yeast is later referred to in the New Testament.  Yeast mixing through bread is compared to sin working through our lives.  By having no leaven, the Israelites were symbolically keeping themselves pure from sin.  This was obviously important, because twice God specifies that if anyone has leaven in their possession, whether Israelite of foreigner, they are to be cut off from Israel!  This was a serious deal!  Moses specifies that this is to be celebrated even after Israel arrives in the Promised Land.  This is the most significant moment in history so far, and it is possibly one of the most significant moments in history ever up to our current place in history!  The Passover laid the groundwork for how God was going to redeem His people to Him.  This was more than foreshadowing, this established the structure and meaning of what Christ would later do for the entire world!  God is God and could have saved us in a number of ways, but He chose to save us through innocent blood taking His wrath in our place.  This is the first time we see this play out and this is the precedent for what Christ did for us!  Christ did not have to die because the Passover happened, rather, the Passover had to happen and Christ had to die, because that is how God decided to structure our redemption!  The fact that many people died in the Passover is tragic, but necessary!  For the Israelites to be saved, they had to be saved from something!  For us to be saved, we must be saved from something!  The emphasis should not be on the fact that God killed Egyptians, but rather that He spared the Israelites!  In fact, we see that that is what the Feast of Unleavened Bread is for: to remind future generations of the way that God spared them.  The focus of the Feast is not on the death of the Egyptians, but on the life of the Israelites!  Likewise, our focus should not be on the fact that there are people who are not saved, but rather on the fact that there are people who are saved!  Salvation makes no sense!  Judgment on the other hand is totally logical!  We are broken and have strayed from the purpose of our design and creation.  We deserve death!  When people die, they are getting what they and we deserve!  It is the right thing for bad things to happen to us!  The illogical and strange thing that happens is that some are saved!  Grace is by definition not deserved, and if we feel we must question God, do not question His judgment, but rather His grace!  He has every right to judge us and destroy us!  If you think differently, you do not understand His holiness!  He had no conceivable reason though to judge and destroy His own son so that we are passed over.  Take some time and just worship God for His mercy and grace which He has lavished on those of us who don’t even deserve another breath!

Questions:  Why was the death of a lamb necessary?  Who exactly was going to pass over Egypt? 

Lessons:  The lessons in this passage are somewhat apparent!  This story speaks volumes about God’s mercy and grace.  Some see this as an example of a judgmental God.  I see this as a story of a merciful God full of grace!  In fact, how can there be mercy without judgment?   A life was taken in every house in Egypt, but in Goshen, that life was not the one deserving of death.  Keep in mind, that even though we have been given life, a life was still taken: a life that was infinitely undeserving of death.  Keep this in perspective, and never give in to the temptation of believing that our grace is deserved!

Update

Sorry it has been a while.  I have been out of town visiting London.  I currently have a couple of pressing projects that will demand my lunch hour.  And our next passage is about the Passover so I don't want to rush through this.  So updates will be on hold until I can give this passage the time it deserves!  I will try to do better about updates though!