Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Hey, Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for The Bible Recap. Yesterday, the Israelites finally got free from Egypt after 430 years. And pretty immediately, God wants to make sure the whole experience sticks with them, that they don't forget what just happened. He knows humanity pretty well, and He knows how easy it is to forget the truth when we're faced with lies. So He makes a few helpful commands.
Remember the celebration he told them to have to commemorate the Passover each year? He wants them to follow that with a seven-day feast called the Feast of Unleavened Bread, like the kind of bread they had to eat on the night of Passover. I don't know about you guys, but so far I'm really resonating with all of this. I'm glad I've been adopted by the God who ordains dinner parties and week-long feasts. In 13.9, God says all of this shall be as a sign to you on your hand and as a memorial between your eyes.
The Israelites took this quite literally. In fact, if you were to go to Jerusalem today, you would see people from certain sects of Judaism wearing a small black box tied on their forehead or strapped around their arms and hands. These little boxes have scripture written in them. They're called phylacteries. This is one way they aim to remember the word of God.
God also tells them to consecrate the firstborns as a reminder that their firstborns were spared when the firstborns of Egypt weren't. He wants them to remember what they've been rescued from and celebrate his deliverance. This remembering and celebrating will help them keep God at the forefront of their minds as they live in their new homeland amidst the Canaanites who don't worship God. He wants them to do these things annually. Then they'll also be passing these practices and stories on to their children.
When things go well, it's easy to forget God. And when things go poorly, it's easy to doubt God. So he calls them to remember, not forget, his past faithfulness and not doubt. Focusing on his heart and his character is the way we set our hearts right, no matter what has gotten him off track, good times or bad. And by remembering what he's done, we remember his character.
Because of what they've seen God do through Moses, it's clear to them that he's been appointed by God as the mediator between them and God, to act as the voice of God to them. The way they respond to Moses indicates the way they're responding to God in their hearts. Moses is God's representative, but God is their primary leader, not Moses. And Moses recognizes this too. In 1311, he says, "'When the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites, as he swore to your fathers, and shall give it to you,'
Moses is under no illusion that he's the one in charge here. He knows that God is the source of all his power and that God is the one giving the directives here. Moses is the leader, but all that means is that he's just the first follower. That's what a good, godly leader is. The first place God led them via Moses, they took the long way around, but he did it for their protection and for their good, to avoid the effects that the Philistine War might have on their hearts. God knew their faith was brand new and wasn't strong enough yet to face something like that.
By the way, of all the things Moses had to think about as they were fleeing Pharaoh, he did not forget to add Joseph's bones to his packing list. They'd been hanging out there in Egypt for 400 years, but someone got them to Moses and he helped fulfill the promise the sons of Israel had made to Joseph that they wouldn't leave his bones in Egypt when they left. Personally, I wouldn't want to walk through the desert with a bunch of bones in my duffel bag, but these guys were loyal. They helped keep a promise that somebody else in their lineage made generations earlier.
This whole group of millions is led by the angel of the Lord. The identity is a bit blurred here, but this does seem to be a theophany. There's also mention of God leading them by a cloud in the day and by a fire at night. Those two things are mentioned in conjunction with God all throughout Exodus. We've already seen this with the burning bush, but we'll continue to see it a few more times, so keep your eyes peeled.
Here's what I love about this. A cloud could shield them from the blistering sun in the heat of the desert. I've hiked that desert, and trust me, you want a cloud. And if you don't have electricity in the desert at night, it's super helpful to have a fire to light your way or keep you warm or drive away coyotes. If you could choose two non-human desert traveling companions, these are exactly what you would want for the day and the night. Plus, it's God himself.
It's possible that with the angel of the Lord and the fire cloud combo, we might actually have a double theophany here. There's no way to know, but based on what we do know throughout scripture, it's possible that the fire cloud is the presence of God the Father and the angel is the presence of God the Son.
I noticed something new as I was reading through chapter 14 this time. I'd never seen it before. In 14, 1-4, God gives Moses advanced warning that Pharaoh's coming after them. It's no surprise to Moses when Pharaoh and his army show up. And God tells them to set up camp in their path. And here's what's crazier. Moses does it.
This guy has really grown to trust God's command since that burning bush incident. But not Israel. When they see Pharaoh's army approaching, they still fear the chariots more than God. They blame Moses for their trouble and they begin to think fondly of their past. They've already forgotten the thing God wanted them to remember and it's basically week one.
Despite their unbelief, God delivers them to the sea, killing Pharaoh's army. In chapter 15, we see the first worship song in scripture. It's all about God's deliverance, how he's a warrior who fights for Israel and wins. After the people sing it, Miriam the prophetess, who is the sister of Moses the prophet, leads the women in the refrain. In case you were wondering, this is possibly the sister who helped save his life when he was a baby in a basket, though we never actually got her name back then.
Prior to her brothers Moses and Aaron showing up on the scene, Miriam had likely been in captivity in Egypt. She was probably one of the people they rescued. After they finished worshiping God and his powers of deliverance, they're thirsty and they grumble against Moses about the taste of the water. They were literally just worshiping and now they're complaining again. You can already see how quickly they forget. But God provided better water and he promised them that if they listen to him and obey him, he will spare them from the diseases he put on the Egyptians.
He calls himself their healer. It's interesting to note that he can both give and withhold disease. He's sovereign over both disease and health. Finally, they come to an oasis and we ended today's reading with a happy scene. Ta-da! Enjoy that for the next 24 hours. It doesn't last long. So what was your God shot today?
We've seen a lot of compassion and mercy and kindness as displays of his love in our reading so far. So today I want to highlight a different way God's love manifests. As a warrior, there is no love without wrath. Let me explain. If you truly love something, you will hate anything that threatens it. You make war against whatever opposes it.
If you're a parent, you probably felt this. It's when mama bear kicks in. It's the reason we have cliches about dads cleaning their shotguns when the daughter's boyfriend comes over. And God, our Father, has a very protective love for His kids too.
Out of his great love for Israel, we see the warrior God who fights for his people. And when God makes war, he wins. He has solutions we can't even conceive of. No one would have thought even to pray for a path through the sea and drown the enemy afterward. That military strategy does not exist. I love that God fights for me against all the things that threaten our relationship. And if I'm honest with myself,
I am my own worst enemy in this regard. My flesh is far more present and more persistent than any outside enemy. So that means sometimes he fights against me as he's fighting for me. He knows better than I do, and he loves better than I do. And I want him to help eradicate all those things I do that distract my heart from him. I want him to keep me near to him because he's where the joy is. ♪♪
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