Exodus 14:1-14

Friends, welcome back.
Good to have you with us again as we continue our way through Exodus
on this Tuesday, voting day,
election day.
So, continue to pray for all of those things
and continue to be grateful that maybe our phones will ring less and less text messages
from political things.
But we are setting that aside as we continue through this narrative,
the story of Exodus.
We’re in the 14th chapter.
The people have escaped Egypt,
but we’re not quite
done with Egypt yet.
So, let me read a few verses,
then we will get into this.
“Then the Lord said to Moses,
‘Tell the Israelites turn back and camp in front of the
Farhiroth between Migdol and the sea in front of Balzephas,
and you shall camp on the opposite side by the sea.
Faro will say of the Israelites,
‘They’re wandering aimlessly in the land.’
The wilderness has closed in on them.
I will harden Faro’s heart.
He will pursue them,
that I will gain glory for myself over Faro and his army,
and the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord.’
And they did so.”
So, we can stop here,
Michael.
I think this is a very interesting
place to start this part of the story.
One last time here we see that God is not yet done with Faro.
The punishment has befallen Egypt.
The plagues have devastated Egypt.
But one last time,
God plans to make an example through the Faro of the Egyptian people.
And interestingly enough,
for the Egyptian people,
maybe the idea is he wants to make sure that Egypt is not a future enemy,
wants to make sure that Egypt isn’t going to attack at some point in the future.
Not sure that that’s in there or not.
It’s not clear what the motivation is.
What is clear is that God makes
a plan here, and it involves trying to deceive the Faro to make it look like the people are confused,
like the people are wandering,
and gives them instructions so that they’re sort of the bait
for the trap that God’s about to set. You know that you’ve reached into territory where there’s some speculation when you turn to
your Bible commentary, and it says things like,
“Pai Haryoth is possibly a temple site.” “Migdal
is probably a fortification.” These are places that would have had meaning to the original
readers of this, certainly its writer.
And, you know, there’s some interesting implications in
that.
If it’s true and there is a temple at play here,
it’s another way in which Clint,
we’ve already talked many, many times already about how this is a conflict between God and Pharaoh,
and how now the people are being called to go and essentially camp right in front of a outpost of
Pharaoh’s small god as they represent the one true god.
It is interesting how this narrative
continues that we’ve seen throughout the plagues,
where God predicts what will happen,
the language of hardening Pharaoh’s heart happens again,
this idea that God is active,
that providence is at play,
that not even Pharaoh can resist God’s will happening in the midst of the people.
And, you know, once again, this statement, I think this is critical Clint, and verse four,
“And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord.” And so we’ve already had this text in which we
teased out the idea that Passover exists so that the Israelites will know and remember who God is.
Now we’re being set up and told that this next act,
which is going to be a pivot act,
I mean, everything in the book is going to pivot on what is to come here in the next part of this story,
that all of this hinges upon Egypt knowing that the final blow that as the Israelites are carried out deliverance,
that the one who deserves glory for that,
who deserves credit for that,
will get it, and that is God.
And there’s a sort of totality here,
I think, Michael.
You know, we saw
God afflict the land,
we saw God afflict the water,
we saw God afflict the livestock of Egypt,
then the people of Egypt,
ultimately the sons, the firstborn of Egypt.
And now, as the final straw,
God sort of sets his sights,
so to speak, on the military,
on the might of Egypt,
the strength of Egypt.
And there is a sense in which God is showing dominion and power over Egypt from
the top to the bottom
here.
And
I think the takeaway clearly is
one does not make an enemy
of God and get off
the hook.
In some ways, I would point our previous conversations
to here and say those comments that we’ve made about this being a conflict,
even a war narrative, is now explicit.
I think it is essential that we see that in verse four,
where it says that Pharaoh will pursue them so that I will gain glory for myself,
myself being God over Pharaoh,
and very critically here,
and all his army.
So if there was any doubt,
there’s any skepticism along the way that this is where the story was going,
we now have it explicitly teased out as it’s ratcheted up.
I’d say that this is evidence
towards that point, Clint, that fundamentally,
when God comes against Egypt, it’s not metaphorically
with military strength.
It is God versus the mightiest army,
certainly on the continent,
if not in the world,
and the point being here that one has dominion and the other does not.
Right.
Let’s continue a little bit.
Verse five,
“The king of Egypt was told that the people had
fled.
The minds of Pharaoh and his officials were changed toward the people.
They said, ‘What have we done,
letting Israel leave our service?’ So he had his chariot made ready,
took his army with him.
He took 600 picked chariots and all other chariots of Egypt with
officers over all of them.
The Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh,
king of Egypt, and he pursued the Israelites who were going out boldly.
The Egyptians pursued them,
all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots,
his chariot drivers, his army.
They overtook them and camped by the sea,
by Prohiroth in front of Balzephan.” We stop there.
Not a lot to be gained there other than,
again, we see that Pharaoh changes his mind.
We saw this pattern in some of the plague narratives.
The numbers here are big and intentionally so.
600 hand-picked chariots,
along with, just to be clear,
all the other chariots of Egypt with officers.
This is a massive force
pursuing them.
His whole army,
I think the short version of the text goes out of its way to tell us
that the full force,
the full might, the full strength of Egypt is bearing down on the people.
Clint, I would only point out here in this part of the story,
maybe something that’s not obvious
to a modern reader.
I’m trying to think of a modern equivalent.
Maybe it is some combination
of like tank or like machine gun armored vehicle.
When it comes to people on foot against a chariot,
it’s a no contest.
There’s absolutely no, the speed of the chariot,
the ability to move quickly
and then to literally just bowl over anyone who might put a firm stance is essentially to cast
this story in a no-win kind of situation.
It’s not just the number, in other words.
It’s also
the sheer strategic force that is being mobilized after this civilian population would be
ridiculous.
To the reader of this,
it would be as if to say that there’s no chance,
there’s no defending against an onslaught of this,
just the sheer mass strategic power that is coming
here.
Yeah, you have a trained army led by literally hundreds and hundreds of chariots
and charioteers versus slaves on foot who are fleeing,
though doing so boldly according to the text.
So maybe in some sense,
it’s not then surprising where we end up.
What are we doing?
Yeah, we can get into this.
As Pharaoh drew near,
the Israelites looked back
and there were the Egyptians advancing on them.
In great fear,
the Israelites cried out to the Lord.
They said to Moses,
“Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to
die in the wilderness?
What have you done bringing us out here?
Is this not the very thing we told you in Egypt?
Leave us alone and let us serve the Egyptians,
for it would have been better to serve
the Egyptians than die in the wilderness.” But Moses said to the people,
“Do not be afraid, stand firm,
see the deliverance that the Lord will accomplish for you today.
For the Egyptians whom you see today,
you shall never see again.
The Lord will fight for you.
You have only to keep
still.” This is a beautiful passage.
We may need to come back to it tomorrow,
but we will see many
like it in this book.
As the Israelites consider the threat before them,
they are terrified.
And this accusation or challenge made against Moses is going to be a refrain that we will encounter often in Exodus.
Why did you bring us here?
Why did you bring us all the way out here to die?
Why couldn’t you have left us alone?
Isn’t this what we said?
We’d rather be slaves.
Why did you do this to us?
Moses, this is all your fault.
We’re going to see versions of this
pop up again and again.
And what is interesting is that Moses’ response is not always as patient
as it is here,
but here it is,
the words of encouragement,
“Do not be afraid, stand firm.”
Particularly like this last verse,
“The Lord will fight for you.
You have only to keep still.” In
other words, to be quiet or to be at peace.
Take courage, take heart.
And this is really going to
be, I think, Michael, an often repeated theme of whenever we look at Israel facing challenge,
their struggle to keep still versus to be afraid.
This is a monumental introduction to a hugely
important thread that runs through the rest of this book.
Clint, I don’t want to make a mountain out of a molehill,
but we said previously,
especially when we were talking about Moses’ exit from Egypt,
we talked about how in many
ways he’s a man without a country,
a man without a people.
He’s born within the Hebrew
community,
and then he becomes a prince.
And then really, he forsakes both of those,
and he’s living out in the wilderness.
And what’s striking to me here is that Moses is once again being addressed by
the people as an outsider.
You know, there’s a kind of accusation
in, “Didn’t we say to you?”
And it’s Moses who stands with and also in a substantial and meaningful way against the
people.
He stands before them and calls their attention up and says,
“No, you can trust God.
He’s going to lead you through this.” But as this happens,
notice just this language.
Leave us alone.
Let us alone.
Let us,
or the Egyptians,
us, us, us.
Moses isn’t even included
in that number as if he’s the foreigner,
the outsider being brought in.
There’s a kind of
within
and without that we see in Moses.
And it was already in the text from the very beginning
as he was teased out,
as we began to see his character.
And I think that this is maybe one
of many times we’re going to point to that again and just say that sometimes the leader
stands between God and the people trying to be faithful.
And if we know Moses,
it’s shifting ground.
It’s tenuous ground.
It’s not always going to hold and be easy.
Darrell Bock Yeah, agreed.
Moses is going to find himself in that role again and again.
I think that, again, we just see that these are themes that we’ll circle around.
So we don’t need to go into
them in great depth today because we will have multiple opportunities to talk about them.
But this tension between fear and faith is going to be a framework that covers the rest of the story
and that the rest of the story is built upon until we will get to it often.
And I think it’s
a challenging idea, Michael.
You know that the Israelites do pretty well until there’s
anything wrong and then they begin to unravel.
And this is their challenge.
This is the growth
that God tries to lead them toward is to be people of faith and not fear.
And
we’ll let you decide at the end of Exodus if they get there or not.
Right.
So before we close here,
I think it’s a small thing,
but it’s important, I think, the last verse here,
“The Lord will fight for you and you have only to keep still,”
is the kind of thing that you can imagine putting on a post-it note on your bathroom
mirror or, you know, maybe you bookmark that in your Bible,
you underline it, that kind of thing.
I think it’s interesting, Clint.
We’ll occasionally come across sections of scripture like this that
are so beautiful, poetic even.
I think the lesson that comes from this is that we need to,
as Christians, be careful to not take a verse like this and make it apply to anything that we want.
Right. So in other words,
this is not God’s promise to fight for you when you got the wrong
sandwich at the fast food restaurant.
Or this isn’t God’s promise that that thing that you
want so badly will come to you.
It’s easy sometimes, I think, to read scripture,
to claim it for ourselves and just say this verse 14 is for me and to forget that thoughtful and
engaged, wise disciples will take time to put these things in the context that they were built.
And we need to remember,
this is told within the story of Israel.
It’s told as they are being
delivered out of Egypt.
It’s being told in the midst of all of these signs and miraculous
plagues that have been brought against Egypt.
Now it stands as they stand at the precipice,
caught literally between a rock and a hard place,
between the advancement of the Egyptian army and no escape.
And at that moment,
God promises and God says,
“I will fight for you.
You just have to keep still.” That is a beautiful promise.
Not suggesting you shouldn’t claim it, but I am
inviting you to consider that we should exercise some discernment on passages like that and
recognize that they fit within a story for a reason.
And certainly verses like this,
which are beautiful, have sometimes been used for ill purpose because we’ve stripped them out and
we’ve made them suit our own needs.
I don’t want to overdo that,
Clint. No, I think that’s fair,
Michael.
I think probably the closest equivalent would be something like
Psalm 46,
“Be still and know that I am God.” The point of this phrase in the story is
to put your trust in God and therefore not have fear.
It’s less about the result that
God will bring about than it is the invitation to rest and put one’s trust securely in God
so that one isn’t paralyzed or hampered by fear.
And yeah, to turn that into some kind of
God promises to get you what you want would be,
I think, to misread the verse entirely,
for sure.
Thanks for being with us.
Do keep joining us,
friends, some really amazing things to come,
but we’re glad that you are with us today and look forward to seeing you tomorrow.
Take care.