Exodus 6
1 But the Lord said to Moses, “Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh; for with a strong hand he will send them out, and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land.” 2 God spoke to Moses and said to him, “I am the Lord. 3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by my name the Lord I did not make myself known to them. 4 I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners. 5 Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians hold as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant. 6 Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. 7 I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. 8 I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I am the Lord.’” 9 Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses, because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery. 10 So the Lord said to Moses, 11 “Go in, tell Pharaoh king of Egypt to let the people of Israel go out of his land.” 12 But Moses said to the Lord, “Behold, the people of Israel have not listened to me. How then shall Pharaoh listen to me, for I am of uncircumcised lips?” 13 But the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron and gave them a charge about the people of Israel and about Pharaoh king of Egypt: to bring the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt. 14 These are the heads of their fathers’ houses: the sons of Reuben, the firstborn of Israel: Hanoch, Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi; these are the clans of Reuben. 15 The sons of Simeon: Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jachin, Zohar, and Shaul, the son of a Canaanite woman; these are the clans of Simeon. 16 These are the names of the sons of Levi according to their generations: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari, the years of the life of Levi being 137 years. 17 The sons of Gershon: Libni and Shimei, by their clans. 18 The sons of Kohath: Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel, the years of the life of Kohath being 133 years. 19 The sons of Merari: Mahli and Mushi. These are the clans of the Levites according to their generations. 20 Amram took as his wife Jochebed his father’s sister, and she bore him Aaron and Moses, the years of the life of Amram being 137 years. 21 The sons of Izhar: Korah, Nepheg, and Zichri. 22 The sons of Uzziel: Mishael, Elzaphan, and Sithri. 23 Aaron took as his wife Elisheba, the daughter of Amminadab and the sister of Nahshon, and she bore him Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar. 24 The sons of Korah: Assir, Elkanah, and Abiasaph; these are the clans of the Korahites. 25 Eleazar, Aaron’s son, took as his wife one of the daughters of Putiel, and she bore him Phinehas. These are the heads of the fathers’ houses of the Levites by their clans. 26 These are the Aaron and Moses to whom the Lord said: “Bring out the people of Israel from the land of Egypt by their hosts.” 27 It was they who spoke to Pharaoh king of Egypt about bringing out the people of Israel from Egypt, this Moses and this Aaron. 28 On the day when the Lord spoke to Moses in the land of Egypt, 29 the Lord said to Moses, “I am the Lord; tell Pharaoh king of Egypt all that I say to you.” 30 But Moses said to the Lord, “Behold, I am of uncircumcised lips. How will Pharaoh listen to me?”
It was Dietrich Bonhoeffer who famously said, “When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.” That is a powerful statement with two possible meanings. The primary meaning (and the one I think was Bonhoeffer’s intended meaning) was that life in Christ means death to self and new life in Christ. But it also means that the path of obedience is not always easy and may indeed demand the laying down of one’s life in a literal sense.
It is a lesson we must learn. It was a lesson Moses had to learn as well. When we meet him here in the sixth chapter, he is learning it. He has obeyed God in coming back to Egypt. He has obeyed God by announcing coming freedom to the Hebrews. He has obeyed God by confronting Pharaoh. He has obeyed, and, from his perspective at this point, it has all blown up in his face.
Moses had to be reeling. We know he was. At the end of chapter 5 he blames and accuses God of negligence, of not accomplishing what He said He would accomplish. The Jews are mad at Moses and Aaron. Moses is mad at God. Now, God speaks again.
This is a chapter in which we see Moses growing in his faith. He has come to see the challenges to faith. He will now be reminded of the true foundations of faith. It is not only Moses’ journey; it is also Israel’s journey. It is also our journey.
Let us consider the nature of faith.
I. The three foundations of faith: God’s Name, God’s Promise, God’s Remembrance (v.1-8)
The Lord begins by reasserting who He is and what He intended to do.
1 But the Lord said to Moses, “Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh; for with a strong hand he will send them out, and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land.” 2 God spoke to Moses and said to him, “I am the Lord. 3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by my name the Lord I did not make myself known to them.
This last statement is a strange statement: “but by my name the Lord I did not make myself known to them.” What does this mean? It is perhaps best to see this as meaning that the Lord God would reveal something about Himself to Moses and the Exodus generation that He had never revealed to the earlier generations. He had revealed much to the patriarchs, but they could not fathom what they were about to see. Peter Enns has suggested that verse 3 might be faithfully paraphrased like this:
I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but only partially – in the capacity of El Shaddai. But who I am fully, which is what my name Yahweh captures, I did not make myself known to them. This is made known first only now, to you, the Exodus generation, who will witness my mighty saving power.[1]
At every great epochal moment in salvation history, God reveals something about Himself that would have been largely incomprehensible to preceding generations. We see this definitively in the coming of Christ, which is the apex of all the epochal moments that preceded it. Everything before the coming of Christ was preparing the hearts of God’s people for that grand moment and that staggering revelation of all revelations. We can perhaps see this in the introductory statement to Isaiah’s amazing prophecy of the Messiah in Isaiah 53: “Who has believed what he has heard from us?”
Who indeed? And, before the Exodus, who could have believed that God would bring Israel out of Egypt in the way that He did?
God reveals His name to the Exodus generation in ways that were utterly unique. God’s name is therefore the first foundation of faith. We dare to believe because we know who this God is and what His name means. And we are even more privileged than the Exodus Jews, for we have seen and heard the most unexpected name of God: Jesus. In Jesus, God has come to us in a way we never could have imagined.
But our faith is not only founded on God’s name. It is also founded on the solidity of his promise and the constancy of His remembrance. The Lord continues:
4 I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners. 5 Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians hold as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant.
Here we see God’s promise (His covenant with Israel) and God’s remembrance (“I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel…and I have remembered my covenant.”). The Lord’s Word is good. The Lord’s Word is solid. His covenants stand. He hears the groaning of His people and He will act.
On the basis of His name, promise, and remembrance, God calls Moses to speak again.
6 Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. 7 I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. 8 I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I am the Lord.’”
This is the promise repeated: God will do what God has said He will do. Indeed, the path will be a painful path, but the Lord does not speak of it. In this, His response to Moses is much like His response to Job, who came to God wanting an answer concerning the reality of suffering but was given instead a reassertion of the greatness and goodness of God. A.W. Pink has noted the significance of the fact that the Lord speaks of ultimate victory without dwelling on the difficulties they would have to endure on the way to this victory.
There is much for us to learn in this. We defeat ourselves by being occupied with the difficulties of the way. God has made known to us the triumphant outcome of good over evil, and instead of being harassed by the fiery darts which the Evil One now hurls against us, we ought to rest on the assuring promise that “the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly” (Rom. 16:20).[2]
It is enough to know that God will ultimately lead us home. This fact makes the trials of the journey on the way bearable if not understandable. Pink also made an interesting observation about the number of promises in verses 6-8. Each promise is introduced with an, “I will.” Count them:
- I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians
- I will deliver you from slavery to them
- I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment
- I will take you to be my people
- I will be your God
- I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob
- I will give it to you for a possession
How many are there? There are seven. While I think we must be very cautious with issues of numerology, that is a significant fact. Seven is commonly called a holy number, a number of completion, and it does have a long and storied history in the Bible. For our purposes, it should be noted that the Lord’s seven-fold promise dramatically highlights and reasserts the certainty of the divine promise made. God will accomplish what He says He will do, and this fact must undergird our weary faith.
II. The three threats to faith: Skepticism, Suffering, and Fear (v.9-30)
Yet faith does have its challenges. Preeminent among these challenges, for Moses, for Israel, and for us, are skepticism, suffering, and fear. When we suffer, we sometimes grow skeptical that God will actually accomplish what He says. This leads to fear that blinds us to the reality of God’s presence and promise.
Perhaps you have experienced this. Israel certainly did:
9 Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses, because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery. 10 So the Lord said to Moses, 11 “Go in, tell Pharaoh king of Egypt to let the people of Israel go out of his land.” 12 But Moses said to the Lord, “Behold, the people of Israel have not listened to me. How then shall Pharaoh listen to me, for I am of uncircumcised lips?” 13 But the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron and gave them a charge about the people of Israel and about Pharaoh king of Egypt: to bring the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt.
Everybody is hurt! Everybody is suffering! You can almost see the battle within Moses’ soul. Will he dare to believe? Will he, as a popular Christian song puts it, “trust and obey”?
Moses argues with God. His words are interesting: “I am of uncircumcised lips.” This is a euphemism intended to refer, once again, to Moses’ inability to speak well. In saying this, he is again stressing the fact that he is not qualified to be God’s mouthpiece. It is possible that he may be saying even more than this. Do you remember that odd scene in chapter 4 when the Lord moves against Moses to kill him because Moses had not yet circumcised his son?
24 At a lodging place on the way the Lord met him and sought to put him to death. 25 Then Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin and touched Moses’ feet with it and said, “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me!” 26 So he let him alone. It was then that she said, “A bridegroom of blood,” because of the circumcision.
Here, the Lord nearly kills Moses because Moses sets his feet on the path of radical obedience to God when He has yet to obey Him in the basic issue of circumcising his own son. Moses nearly dies over the uncircumcision of his son. Is it not possible, then, that in calling his lips “uncircumcised,” Moses is essentially saying something like, “Lord, I would rather you kill me than ask me to do this thing again! I would rather die!”
Here we see the depths of Moses’ anguish and struggle to believe. It is at this seemingly unlikely point that we find a genealogy involving Aaron.
14 These are the heads of their fathers’ houses: the sons of Reuben, the firstborn of Israel: Hanoch, Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi; these are the clans of Reuben. 15 The sons of Simeon: Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jachin, Zohar, and Shaul, the son of a Canaanite woman; these are the clans of Simeon. 16 These are the names of the sons of Levi according to their generations: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari, the years of the life of Levi being 137 years. 17 The sons of Gershon: Libni and Shimei, by their clans. 18 The sons of Kohath: Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel, the years of the life of Kohath being 133 years. 19 The sons of Merari: Mahli and Mushi. These are the clans of the Levites according to their generations. 20 Amram took as his wife Jochebed his father’s sister, and she bore him Aaron and Moses, the years of the life of Amram being 137 years. 21 The sons of Izhar: Korah, Nepheg, and Zichri. 22 The sons of Uzziel: Mishael, Elzaphan, and Sithri. 23 Aaron took as his wife Elisheba, the daughter of Amminadab and the sister of Nahshon, and she bore him Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar. 24 The sons of Korah: Assir, Elkanah, and Abiasaph; these are the clans of the Korahites. 25 Eleazar, Aaron’s son, took as his wife one of the daughters of Putiel, and she bore him Phinehas. These are the heads of the fathers’ houses of the Levites by their clans.
Why a genealogy and why here? You will notice, first of all, that this genealogy seems to focus primarily on Aaron. It is likely that the legitimacy of Aaron as Moses’ helper and mouthpiece is being established. Also, the genealogy is stressing the Levitical, priestly, line. Perhaps it is also intended to highlight the mediatorial, priestly role that Aaron and Moses are playing in their roles in this chapter of Israel’s story.
Furthermore, you will note that the genealogy precedes and goes beyond Aaron and Moses by showing Aaron’s grandson, Phinehas. By doing this, we have a reminder, here in one of the darker chapters of this story, that God, in fact, does deliver Israel from bondage. Perhaps it is the equivalent of stopping in the middle of scary story to remind the listeners that, in the end, right and good wins out. Aaron will not die in Egypt. He will have grandchildren and more. The Lord will win. Even so, the chapter ends with a repeated note of struggle:
26 These are the Aaron and Moses to whom the Lord said: “Bring out the people of Israel from the land of Egypt by their hosts.” 27 It was they who spoke to Pharaoh king of Egypt about bringing out the people of Israel from Egypt, this Moses and this Aaron. 28 On the day when the Lord spoke to Moses in the land of Egypt, 29 the Lord said to Moses, “I am the Lord; tell Pharaoh king of Egypt all that I say to you.” 30 But Moses said to the Lord, “Behold, I am of uncircumcised lips. How will Pharaoh listen to me?”
Maybe the great significance of a chapter like this is to remind us that the great heroes of our faith struggled just as we do. Perhaps this humanizing portrait of Moses can serve as a comfort to us. He believes, but he is struggling to believe. Even so, he was mighty weapon in the hand of God.
God uses his struggling people to do great things.
Dare to trust, even when you struggle.