Pastor Sean leads us through the Exodus story and explains how God's power is not displayed by delivering us to comfort, but delivering us through challenge.
Live Teaching Podcast Scriptures & ReferencesExodus: 5:1-3
Not long after, Moses and Aaron confronted Pharaoh.
Moses and Aaron: The Eternal, Israel’s God, has a message for you: “Release My people, so that they may go and celebrate a feast in My honor in the desert.”
Pharaoh: 2 And who is this god you call “the Eternal One” that I should heed His message and release His people Israel? I do not know any god by that name, and furthermore I do not intend to release Israel.
Moses and Aaron: 3 The God of the Hebrews has visited us. We ask that you allow us to travel three days’ distance into the desert to sacrifice to the Eternal our God. Otherwise, He may become angry and come after us with disease or sword.
Exodus 13:17-18
17 After Pharaoh sent the people out, God did not take them by the coastal road that runs through the land of the Philistines, even though that was the nearest and easiest route. Instead, God said, “For if they see battle with those contentious Philistines, they might regret their decision and then return to Egypt.”
18 So God chose a different, longer path that led the community of His people through the desert toward the Red Sea. The Israelites marched out of the land of Egypt like an army ready for battle.
Exodus 14:4
“Then I will harden Pharaoh’s stubborn heart even more, and he will pursue the Israelites. Honor will come to Me through the actions of Pharaoh and his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the Eternal One.”
Exodus 14:11-12
Israelites (to Moses): Were there not enough graves in Egypt? Is that why you brought us out here to die in the desert? Why have you done this to us? Why have you made us leave Egypt? 12 Didn’t we tell you in Egypt, “Stop pestering us so that we can get on with our lives and serve the Egyptians”? It would have been better for us to live as slaves to the Egyptians than to die out here in the desert.
Exodus 14:13-14
Moses (to the people): 13 Don’t be afraid! Stand your ground and witness how the Eternal will rescue you today. Take a good look at the Egyptians, for after today you will never see them again. 14 The Eternal will fight on your behalf while you watch in silence.
Exodus 15:1-5
Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the
Eternal One.
Moses and the Israelites: I will sing to the Eternal, for He has won a great victory;
He has thrown the chariot into the sea: horse and rider.
The Eternal is my strength and my song, and He has come to save me;
Exodus 15:1-5
He is my God, and I will praise Him.
He is the God of my father, and I will exalt Him.
The Eternal is a warrior; the Eternal is His name.
Pharaoh’s chariots and his army He has thrown into the sea.
And his high-ranking officers are drowned in the Red Sea.
The deep waters covered them; they sank to the muddy depths like a stone.
“The passage can be read two ways. The first is that what happened was a suspension of the laws of nature. It was a supernatural event. The waters stood, literally, like a wall.
The second is that what happened was miraculous not because the laws of nature were suspended. To the contrary, as the computer simulation shows, the exposure of dry land at a particular point in the Red Sea was a natural outcome of the strong east wind. What made it miraculous is that it happened just there, just then, when the Israelites seemed trapped, unable to go forward because of the sea, unable to turn back because of the Egyptian army pursuing them.
There is a significant difference between these two interpretations. The first appeals to our sense of wonder. How extraordinary that the laws of nature should be suspended to allow an escaping people to go free. It is a story to appeal to the imagination of a child. But the naturalistic explanation is wondrous at another level entirely. Here the Torah is using the device of irony. What made the Egyptians of the time of Ramses so formidable was the fact that they possessed the latest and most powerful form of military technology, the horse drawn chariot. It made them unbeatable in battle, and fearsome.
What happens at the sea is poetic justice of the most exquisite kind. There is only one circumstance in which a group of people traveling by foot can escape a highly trained army of charioteers, namely when the route passes through a muddy sea bed. The people can walk across, but the chariot wheels get stuck in the mud. The Egyptian army can neither advance nor retreat. The wind drops. The water returns. The powerful are now powerless, while the powerless have made their way to freedom.”
— Jonathan Sacks, Covenant and Conversation
Exodus 15:19-20
19 When Pharaoh’s horses, chariots, and chariot-drivers drove into the sea, the Eternal caused the waters to collapse upon them. But the Israelites walked through the sea on dry ground.
20 The prophetess, Miriam (Aaron’s sister), picked up a tambourine, and all the rest of the women followed her with tambourines and joyful dancing.
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