Exodus 6:1-9

Welcome back, everybody, as we finish the week and start the sixth chapter of the Book
of Exodus as we go through here.
Remember,
just yesterday we saw kind of a moment of
disconnect where the people are unhappy with Moses.
Moses is not entirely happy,
perhaps, with God and has said,
“Are you going to help us or not?”
And today in the sixth chapter of Exodus,
we have God’s reply to Moses.
So let me read this for a moment,
then we’ll discuss it.
“Then the Lord said to Moses,
‘Now you shall see what I will do.
Pharaoh, indeed, by a mighty hand, he will let the people go,
and by a mighty hand he will drive them out of his land.’
God also spoke to Moses,
saying to him, ‘I am the Lord.
I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac,
to Jacob, as God Almighty,
but by name the Lord,
I did not make myself known to them.
I will also establish my covenant with them,
to give them the land of Canaan,
in which they would reside as aliens.
I have heard the groaning of the Israelites,
whom the Egyptians are holding as slaves.
I have remembered my covenant.
Therefore, say to the Israelites, ‘I am the Lord,
and I will free you from the burdens of the Egyptians
and deliver you from slavery to them.
I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with
a mighty act of judgment.
I will take you as my people.
I will be your God.
You shall know that I am the Lord your God,
who has freed you from the burden of the Egyptians.
I will bring you into the land that I swore to give Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
I will give it to you
for a possession.
I am the Lord.’
Moses told this to the Israelites,
but they would not listen to Moses because of their broken spirit and their cruel slavery.”
So we begin today with God’s answer.
Remember yesterday in the text we looked at at the
end of chapter 5, Moses said,
“Why have you done this to me?
Why did you send me this
way?
You haven’t delivered us yet.” And here we have a pretty expressive response from God,
many times repeating,
“I will.” A little,
“I have,” but mostly, “I will.”
The “I have” ties back to Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob.
But in addition to this,
he says, “You know, I made myself known to them,
but I did not make my name the Lord.” Remember
that’s the word Yahweh.
“I did not make that known to them.
They did not know me in that way.
I established my covenant with them,
but now I will do this.” I’ve heard the groaning.
And Michael, one of the things I appreciate about this passage is the multiple instances
of the “I am” that we saw at the burning bush,
all coupled with what God will do.
“I am and I will”
tend to dominate this
passage in a way that links the divine name and the
divine identity with the promise of the divine action that is to come.
And I think it’s a
really nice coupling, and I think the way that it’s written really helps us get that.
Yeah, so I think it’s important to slow down when reading a text like this,
Clint, because it would be easy to push through and to pass by the deep meaning that’s happening here
when we see in verse 1 of chapter 6 that God says,
“You will see what I’ll do the Pharaoh.”
He moves on to say,
“I am the Lord.” Appeared to who?
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob,
as God Almighty.
This naming of the story is substantial because here,
not only does God explicitly name “I’m
the one,” I’m the one who met you in that revelation moment at the burning bush,
but also I’m the one who has gone far before you, Moses,
the one who called these people as my own.
And here,
God isn’t repeating this as if it needs to be said again for it to
be true.
It’s been true all along.
But here he’s making the case to Moses that what is
about to happen, to use that language of the effect,
the thing that God is going to do,
is not because God is showing up and just suddenly came up with a plan to solve this problem, Clint.
God is doing this because God is deliverer.
He’s the Lord of these people.
He’s claimed them.
They are His.
And He is going to make good on the promise that He made to Abram.
He is going to carry these people into the promised land.
The reality is, in the scriptures,
what God does is always intrinsically paired with who God is.
There is, and as humans, we struggle to understand that,
Clint, because we assume hypocrisy
to be a part of our world because we know the reality of sinfulness.
But to God,
who God is will drive God’s action.
God is the Lord of these people,
and therefore He will
be faithful to carry them out of the oppression of another pseudo-ruler.
Yeah, there’s some beautiful language here, Michael.
I’ve made myself known.
I have established my covenant.
I have heard the groaning of the people,
and I have remembered my covenant.
And remember that this word “remember” doesn’t mean that God has forgotten.
It means that it comes back to the forefront,
that the covenantal love that God has expressed for the people
is going to lead to God’s action on their behalf.
Say, “Therefore,” because all this is true,
“say therefore to the Israelites,
‘I am the Lord,
and I will free you.
I will redeem you.
I will take you as my people.
I will be with you.
You shall know that I am God.
I will bring you to the land I swore,
and I will give it to you as a possession.
I am the Lord.'” And there’s a really beautiful litany here,
Michael, as God kind of in multiple
ways expresses His faithfulness and His promise to the people.
This is almost liturgy.
It’s almost worshipful, that I will,
I am going to,
I will, I will, I will.
Take that to the bank.
“I am the Lord.” And it ends on such a high note here,
and yet in the next verse,
it all turns.
Yeah, and I think that’s worth spending a little bit of time here with,
Clint, because there’s some interesting factors happening here in verse 8,
or sorry, verse 9.
“Look who tells this to the people.” Not Aaron,
at least the text doesn’t say it’s Aaron,
who God called to be the voice piece for Moses,
who claimed that he didn’t want to speak to the people.
Here,
Moses comes and says this to them,
and they won’t listen.
And why?
Because of their broken spirit and their cruel slavery.
What’s striking here is the nod that the Pharaoh’s
efforts, and not just one Pharaoh, but now multiple,
has been effective, that the people’s spirit has been broken,
that they have been beaten down by this cruel and this systematic
oppression of the people.
It has affected them in a deep and substantial way.
And I don’t want to take this too pastoral or too devotional,
but I do think there’s a sense
in which we do sometimes in our life come to a place where the bad that has happened
to us transforms us in a substantial way,
that we can’t just look beyond anymore,
that that brokenness is very deep into our identity.
We ourselves may feel broken,
and when that happens,
it takes literally this forceful word of God to even break through the shell,
the force field that we put around ourselves.
I think there’s something deeply spiritual
that Moses comes to say this good news,
and the people can’t hear it.
The people are,
they’re beaten down, but they can’t find the hopefulness that comes from even God declaring this for them.
I think this is a sad phrase, Michael.
They had a broken spirit,
and when you have been through deep pain,
hope is a risk.
Hope is a struggle.
Hope
is an effort, something that
one risks, one has to risk more pain in order to hope for things to be different.
And here,
at least in this moment,
the people can’t bring themselves to that.
Moses stands before them and assures them,
“God is with you.
God will act on your behalf.
God is going to do
these things.
The God of the past is the God of the present and has promised to be the
God of your future.” And the people can’t,
they can’t hear it.
They can’t embrace it
because it cannot make it through the pain that they’ve experienced.
It can’t make it
through the damage that has been done to their hearts.
And the Scripture will hold them accountable
for that any time you don’t believe.
It is ultimately on you.
But it is very interesting
that was sort of a pastoral note here.
The text tells us that the reason they would not
listen was because literally their spirit had been broken by the cruelness and the slavery
that they had experienced.
Not everyone starts the journey of faith and of hope
at the same place, and these people are in a deep hole that they have to be brought out of.
And so
I think this is a very human verse.
I think this is a very human moment.
It’s an understanding moment.
There’ll be lots of times the Book of Exodus is extremely frustrated with the
people.
And I would argue even moments they’re angry with the people,
but here I think that
it
is fairly compassionate toward the people.
I think it looks upon their pain and it says
they are having a difficult time believing.
That’s going to change,
unfortunately.
They’re going to stay in that experience even as they have more and more reasons to believe.
But here we see something of the
effect that difficulty and pain has upon them,
and I think it feels
true to us.
I think we all,
either we’ve been there ourselves or we know others who have,
hope is difficult when you come to it out of a place of pain.
There’s also an interesting note here, verse 8,
where God says, “I will give it,” being the land,
“to you for possession.” And that’s true if we know our story.
We know that God is going to bring
the people into that possession.
What is maybe under-emphasized is that the people are expected
as part of that gift to reach out,
to have faith in God,
to go in and take the land.
And we know that the people are going to struggle to do that as we come to the end of the story.
And so there’s a kind of interesting lesson in that,
that God may have something for us that still requires something of us.
That we are,
by God’s both grace and in some ways by God’s own expectation,
we are called to be partners in this work that God has on offer for us.
So this idea of giving
is not like a Christmas gift that you unwrap,
that you suddenly receive,
and it’s now in your possession.
There’s something at stake in us being able and having the Spirit that enables us to reach
forward and to receive this thing that God has given,
to put our faith enough into God to actually
take steps to receive the gift.
And that’s in the Protestant language,
at least in the Protestant family,
Clint,
we were very, very quick and careful to say everything we receive from God is gift.
We don’t deserve or earn anything.
And so I want to be very clear,
I’m not suggesting that we
affect some change because we grab and reach for it.
But there is this divine mystery in which God
does expect that we respond in faith to God’s gift,
to God’s command.
And I wonder if there’s
not at least a small lesson here in the text,
that the people are not prepared for the gift that God
is giving.
That it’s a heavy gift,
even if it’s a good gift.
I think the sadness of the text is one
we still live with,
that God offers promise,
that God offers hope,
that God offers a future,
and the people can’t bring themselves to accept it.
They can’t bring themselves to see it.
They can’t see another path forward.
And that’s not just true in the Old Testament.
We, in some way, all struggle with that.
When we are confronted with the promises of God,
we are also challenged
to go beyond whatever our current reality is and to accept them.
And it is not easy,
particularly in moments where there is deep pain and hurt and struggle and abuse.
And we see it here.
I think it’s not an easy word,
but it’s a poignant one.
It’s a profound one.
I think there’s a lot of depth in this one verse.
It’s a sad verse,
but it’s a very human verse.
So thanks for being with us here this week,
friends.
We’ve traveled some really, I think,
deep ground.
And next week, we’re going to kick off with what God has to say to Pharaoh.
And we know how the people of Israel has responded to this.
And so as the reader,
it naturally lends us to the question,
well, what’s Pharaoh going to do with this?
And how is this
voice going to be spoken?
And what is God going to do?
Because if we’ve seen anything already,
the people of Israel are consistent in their inability to trust that God is going to be faithful to God’s word.
And we have good reason to suspect that Pharaoh will continue to be hardened against God’s word.
And so as reader,
we are interested to see what comes next.
So I hope you’ll join us
as we continue on through this story together.
Have a great weekend.
Thanks for being with us.