Exodus 5–7: On Slowed-Down Wifi and Waiting in a Two-Hour Line Before Space Mountain (Bible Talk, Ep. 23)

[music] We have mention of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and then we have the Lord saying in verse 3, "I did not make myself known to them." And then he says in verse 7, "You shall know that I am Yahweh your God." And so it might be that this is a structural feature where the Lord is saying, "I did not make myself known to the patriarchs in the way that I'm about to make myself known to you through the Exodus." [music] Welcome to episode 23 of Bible Talk, a podcast brought to you by 9 Marks. 9 Marks exist to equip church leaders with a biblical vision and practical resources for building healthy churches for more visit 9Marks.org. My name is Alex Duke and with me are my two friends Samomoddy and Jim Hamilton. Now brothers, last week we chatted about the burning bush and we saw how patient the Lord was to Moses, even though Moses kept begging God to leave him alone. We ended though with Moses and Aaron making their first foray into Egypt where they met not with Pharaoh just yet, but with the Israelites. And man, it ended on such a sweet scene. I mean, you can think of it, right? After 400 years of toil and terror, they have heard that this man has come to save them. And he came not only with words, but with miraculous signs. When we read in chapter 4, verse 31, the people believed God had seen their affliction and so they bowed their heads and worship. And so you get to the end of Exodus 4 and you're like, "All right, let's get this show on the road. It's not going to be long before Israel will be free." Well, as the great former Louisville football coach, Lee Corso says, "Not so fast." Lee Corso coached it, Louis. Yeah, in the 80s. How about that? Yeah, we were not good. Maybe that's why he's doing TV. Game day. Sam, do you know who Lee Corso is? I don't. Not so fast, all right. So we get to Exodus chapter 5 and Moses and Aaron, they get to Pharaoh and they say, "Hey, the Lord told me Pharaoh to let my people go." And Pharaoh's like, "Excuse me?" Like, who said what? This scene reminds me of the legendary movie, "Monti Python" and the Holy Grail. When you've got, you know, King Arthur running around in his invisible horse with the, you know, the coconut guy behind him going, and he goes up to these people and he says, "Hello, I'm King Arthur." And these strange people look at him and they say, "King Arthur, who are you?" I didn't vote for you. The scene reminded me of that. Did it remind you guys of that? Not until you sent me the clip on YouTube. Yes. Yes. So, you know, but they're like, so Pharaoh is like, these people on Monty Python and the Holy Grail, they're like, "Who are you?" And who is this Lord that you're talking about? So Jim, what's going on here? Explain this initial interaction for us. What's the request of Pharaoh and how he responds? Well, it's interesting. In your English Bible, you see Lord and it has what are referred to as small caps. You have the upper case R, but it's the same size as a lower case letter, same with the D. And so they go and they say to Pharaoh in verse 1, "Thus says Yahweh." That's what Lord represents when it is presented in small caps that way. And again, they're referencing the name by which the Lord identified himself when he appeared to Moses in the burning bush. And so they say, "Thus says Yahweh, let my people go that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness." And it struck me as I was reading this passage for the podcast that that's exactly what's going to happen. They are going to go out and hold a feast to Yahweh, namely the Passover feast, and then they're going to celebrate booths, which is going to celebrate the temporary shelters, the booths in which they lived. And so they are going to hold this feast to Yahweh in the wilderness, but we're not there yet. So in verse 2, it's as though he looks around at his panoply of gods and he takes stock of all of them and all that he believes that they are able to do for him. And his response is, "Who is Yahweh that I should obey his voice and let Israel go?" And so there is this dismissive and derisive contempt, not just for Moses and Aaron, but for the God that they represent. These questions, or rather this question, is significant and it's programmatic for what's about to follow. And this isn't the first time we've encountered a question that's programmatic for the story. So if you remember back in 313, Moses said to God, "If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me, they're going to ask me what is his name?'" And then of course, this question becomes programmatic. The Lord is going to reveal his name and he's going to reveal himself to Moses and to the people of Israel. We find the same thing here. This question is central to identifying what's happening in the story. Who is the Lord? Who is Yahweh? Well, the Lord's going to make himself known to Pharaoh. Yes, he is. So yeah, Pharaoh waves them off and Sam read for us verse 5 and make a few comments on it. Yeah, Pharaoh said, "Behold the people of the land are now many and you make them rest from their burdens." So this is Pharaoh's comment that he's making to Moses as Moses is asking that the people be brought out. It's interesting the way that this verse connects to other places in the book of Exodus and the way that it foreshadows what's up to happen. So the people of the land again are many. It's this word that's coming from Exodus 1, which is coming from Genesis 1, 28 that the people are prospering. They are many. Israel is being presented as a new Adam. But then notice Moses is making them rest. It's the word Shabbat Sabbath from their labors. And so we see that the Lord is attempting the fact that the Lord through Israel is going to accomplish the creation project. You know, there's some irony here in the sense that Pharaoh is saying, "What are you doing here, Moses? You're making the people of Israel rest from their labors. Everybody needs to get back to work." But Pharaoh doesn't realize that's exactly what Moses is going to accomplish with the people of Israel. He's going to give them rest from their labors. Well, and Pharaoh does not want them to rest from their labors because they are his slaves. And so we see Pharaoh's brutality shows up and it shows up quickly. We see in verse 6, it says, "The same day he hatches this new plan for his Israelites' slaves." Okay, and what is that plan and what are the effects of Pharaoh's new plan? Well, the plan is, it's really crystallized in verse 9, which in my analysis of Exodus 5, I see Exodus 5, 9 as the central statement in the whole chapter. And that verse says, "Let heavier work be laid on the men, that they may labor at it and pay no regard to lying words." So not only does Pharaoh think that Yahweh is someone he can dismiss, he thinks that Yahweh's demands being presented to him through Moses and Aaron are nothing but lying words. This is just empty vanity. And so the plan is that they're to have heavier work and that's to be manifested in verses 7 and 8 by the people no longer having straw to make for themselves bricks. And then that's repeated in verses 10 and 11. So 10 and 11 are centering nine where it stated that they're not going to have straw for the making of bricks. And if I could just point out for the making of the bricks here, the consonants of those Hebrew terms are the same consonants of Laban's name. So we commented on how there are these overtones of the Exodus in Jacob's flight from Laban. And now there are these reminiscences of Laban in the description of the build up to the Exodus. And so at this point, we see a stark change in God's people, right? They do not like what has happened to them through Pharaoh and the way Pharaoh has responded to Moses and to Aaron. And so they used to it or at the end of chapter 4, they had their heads bowed in worship. But now it seems like their fists are bowled up in anger. Just look there at verses 20 and 21 of chapter 5. Moses writes, "They met Moses and Aaron who were waiting for them as they came out from Pharaoh and they said to them, "So the Israelites speaking to Moses and Aaron, the Lord look on you in judge because you have made a stink in the sight of Pharaoh in his servants. You've put a sword in their hand to kill us." So guys, what happened here? Yeah, it is an interesting transformation that takes place from the end of chapter 4 to the end of chapter 5. I think what we should note is how much we should see of ourselves in their reaction in the way that they are responding to suffering and the way that they have forgotten the word of God. Because if you go back to 319, you'll notice the Lord says, "I know that the King of Egypt will not let you go unless compelled by a mighty hand. So I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all the wonders that I will do in it. After that, he will let you go." So the Lord has already given them the program. The Lord has already told them what to expect and how they ought to anticipate that the Lord is going to deliver them from the land of Egypt. And it seems that already they have forgotten what the Lord has said and their response is conditioned on their suffering rather than being conditioned on God's promise. That's good. The unbelief though is infectious. Yes. It spreads to Moses. So we read in the next set of verses, verse 22 and 23, "Then Moses turned to the Lord and said, 'Oh Lord, why have you done evil to this people? Why did you ever send me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has done evil to this people and you have not delivered your people at all.'" So I mean, we see that the fortunes have changed considerably in just this one chapter. Any comments on this shift? Well, I think Moses does the right thing. So in other words, Moses doesn't turn to Aaron and start complaining. He doesn't decide to go back to Jehthro and he doesn't go to Zipra. He goes to the Lord. So I think he does the right thing here and the Lord in chapter 6 is going to respond directly to a lot of this. Pharaoh has said in 5-2, "Who is Yahweh?" And then at the end of 5-22, Moses says, "You have not delivered your people at all four times in Exodus 6. The Lord is going to say, 'I am Yahweh. I am Yahweh.'" It's like he's really insisting on who he is and what his identity is. And in 6-6, he's going to say, "I will deliver you from slavery." So the Lord is, it's as though he is indignant in response to both Pharaoh's dismissive and derisive attitude toward him and to Moses' questioning complaint that you haven't done what you've said you were going to do. So you would characterize this prayer of Moses as a prayer of faith in the midst of distress. I expected you to be harsher on Moses. Well, it's like Psalm 88 where people characterize that as one of the darkest Psalms in the Psalter, but the Psalm is still addressed to the Lord. And I think that's a hopeful note. In other words, the Psalmist in Psalm 88 and Moses here, they're not saying, "You can't do this. You can't help us." And they're not saying, "Actually, I've come to understand that you're not righteous and you're not concerned that the complaint is more like, 'Hey, you made these promises and we haven't seen the promises come to pass yet.'" You know? So you have not delivered your people. You said you were going to do this and you haven't done it. And it's still assuming you can do it and you will hear me and I do think you're righteous and I just need you to come on and have at it. All right. So we move on to Exodus 6. And for a moment, I want to slow down and zoom out. So here we are on the doorstep of God's mighty work of the Exodus, right? Perhaps the mightiest and most paradigmatic of all his works of salvation, save for well. Of course, the work of salvation through Christ. And what we get in Exodus 6 is Moses spending time rehashing and rehashing and rehashing. And then there's, Sam's going to love this. There's a genealogy. So, you know, it's like you're storming up to the ride of Space Mountain, the Disney World. And you're, you're sprinting through the park and you get there. When you arrive there, you see that, "Oh my goodness, there's a two-hour line in your parents, their cheat. They didn't splurge on the fast pass." And so you're just sitting there and you're waiting. And you're like, "What? I thought we were running to the sort of highlight of this time." So we've seen before in Genesis some macro-level repetition, you know, with the wells and the marriages and all that. But I think here in Exodus 6 we have micro-level repetition. I mean, he just keeps saying the same thing over and over. So Sam, what's going on here? What's the point of this chapter? Well, I think the point of this chapter is to respond to Moses' objection at the end of the last chapter. So we find that the people of Israel, they're not worshipping, they're not believing, they're not bowing down before the Lord as they did at the end of chapter 4. We find Moses looking for the fulfillment of God's promises. And so the Lord is stepping into their distress to basically proclaim his character and to remind them of who he is and to restate his authority and his power to accomplish his promises and also in a sense to recommission Moses and to remind Moses. And then in the genealogy as we'll see, to remind the readers that Moses is his servant, that he's commissioned for this task. So Jim, let's step into the details a little bit. Could you read for me verses two and three? We discussed this a little bit last time, but I want to revisit it. Okay. So verses two and three, God spoke to Moses and said to him, I am Yahweh. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty. El Shaddai. But by my name Yahweh, I did not make myself known to them. Do you want me to stop there? Yeah, so again, it's so good. I just wanted to keep reading. Keep reading. Keep reading. Stop. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as stonejourners. That's where I'll stop. Yeah. Why is he just repeating what we already know? So in an earlier episode, we talked about some of the suggestions that, you know, it could be that this is a new revelation or it could be that the Lord is revealing new aspects of the name. As I was looking at this for this podcast, I noticed that verses two through four really correspond to verses seven and eight. So in these two sections, we have mention of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and then we have the Lord saying in verse three, I did not make myself known to them. And then he says in verse seven, you shall know that I am Yahweh your God. And so it might be that this is a structural feature where the Lord is saying essentially, I did not make myself known to the patriarchs in the way that I'm about to make myself known to you through the Exodus. And then also, you know, the reference to establish the covenant with him in verse four is matched by the statement in verse seven, which many people will describe as the covenant formula, you will be my people and I will be your God. So there's their corresponding elements all through verses two through four and verses seven and eight. I think what's going on here is what we're finding is, you know, some of the distinctions that we see is that even though the patriarchs know the name Yahweh, they know him as a promise making God. But now Israel is going to come to know God as a promise keeping God. And we also have to reflect on just how unique the Exodus is in the biblical storyline thus far. You know, one place in Genesis where we see the Lord's hand at work is in the Joseph story where he's orchestrating all of human events to bring about the salvation of his people and to save the 12 patriarchs from the famine. But you'll notice in that story, God's working behind the scenes, right? It's something that Joseph has to grasp by faith, what you meant for evil, God meant for good. But now in the Exodus, the Lord's not going to be working behind the scenes. The Lord's showing up to be the star of the show. I mean, he is stepping down for this confrontation with Pharaoh where he's really going to show who he is. And the focus that we see in these verses is that the Lord is going to reveal himself and his name to mean that he is a redeemer. And the fact that you have I am the Lord at the beginning of this section and then I am the Lord at the end of this section and then I am the Lord in the middle of this section. And then you have his plan of redemption for Israel all through the middle there shows that that's what it means for the Lord to show himself to be Yahweh. That's what it means for the Lord to be a redeemer. Here we're seeing that the Lord is revealing that what Yahweh means is to be a deliverer of his people. Yeah, a few things stuck out to me in this chapter. So first and foremost is how patient the Lord is with Moses. He's hearing his concerns and he's responding again with his name. Also there are 17 through verses two through nine. There are 17 eyes. The Lord just, it's like boom, boom, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. And we saw how this does lift Moses' spirit, which honestly, Gem, I think gives credence to your thought that when he's praying there at the end of chapter five, it's a prayer in faith. So at the end of what the Lord promises, his spirits are lifted, but as you also mentioned in verse nine, it does nothing for these real lives. It says Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel, right? So he's just a messenger, given a message that he heard, but they did not listen to Moses because of their broken spirit and their harsh flavor. I mean, you know, at this point again, I noticed you can just marvel at the mercy of God because he's rescuing not only sort of a fickle people who constantly change their minds, he's rescuing people who want to stay where they are. Like they're happy where they are. And we'll see that later on in the Exodus. Well, they were complaining in the previous chapter. They were being beaten. Exactly. So it's almost like they're like winky the house self, you know, like a miserable slave who nevertheless wants to continue as a slave. It's a really sad and pathetic situation. So moving on to verse 12, Moses does get despondent again after the Israelites show themselves to be unfaithful and sort of undesirous of the Lord's help. And so why does he respond this way? Sam in verse 12, he says, Pharaoh won't listen to him because of his quote, "uncircumcised lips." This gets repeated again in verse 30. What does this mean? Sam, what does this phrase, an unusual phrase mean? Yeah, I think, you know, Moses logic that he's laying out to the Lord there is, look, the people of Israel aren't even listening to me. So Pharaoh, our enemy is certainly not going to listen to me. I think we have here again a repetition from a complaint that Moses already made to the Lord that he's not well spoken. He's not an articulate man. He's saying, "I'm an ineffective communicator of your word." But again, this is being included here to show us that the Lord is in essence recommissioning Moses and establishing him as a prophet among the people because what we're going to find later on in the Bible with Jeremiah and with Isaiah is there's often an encounter between a prophet and the Lord that goes along these lines where he's being commissioned but that he complains that he has some sort of inadequacy with his speech or with his lips, but that the Lord is going to equip him for the task. Yeah, and the Lord, again, responds by giving him this charge to him and Aaron. Just go do it. And so, again, as readers, it feels like we're about to get on space mountain, right? We've waited two hours and oh my goodness, it's our turn. We're up next. And then, you know, the ride operator who's, you know, making $15 an hour and, you know, hasn't washed his hair in a long time sort of steps off his stool. Sorry, ride operator, if you're listening to this. He's a former, as a former ride operator of the Santa Cruz Beach Fordwalk. I feel, I feel as though I can make these generalizations. So the ride operator gets, you know, off of his stoop and he sells us the ride is broken. We're going to have to wait because the genealogy is not broken genealogy. Only people like Sam, the anticipation is building for us. Sam. Swamy Sam and genealogy. What's the point? It's our special segment. That's the point, guys, of this genealogy. I mean, I just want to get on space mountain and you're not letting me. Yep. It's not us not letting you. It's Moses, the pretty dear. Yeah. Well, I think again, what Moses is doing and including the genealogy here is in response to what seems to be the disenchantment, the faltering, the struggles that he and the people of Israel are going through in five and six is that this is reminding us that he is the servant who has been established by the Lord to bring the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt that he is God's authorized servant. The way this genealogy plays out is rather interesting because you almost expect it to be a genealogy of all the 12 tribes, the way that it starts because it begins with Ruben, the first born and then it looks to Simian and then it looks to Levi, who's the third born. But then it just stays with Levi. It doesn't go to Judah or to any of the other sons. And again, because it's focusing on the centrality of Moses and of Aaron as those who are authorized to bring the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt. It's also interesting to note that Levi is 137 years. So not everybody's age is listed, but Levi's is listed at 137 years. And then Amram is listed at 137 years. And Amram is Moses and Aaron's father. So it's like Amram is maybe being presented as a true Levi, a true priest of the people and Moses and Aaron kind of inherit that identity from their father. And then you have another interesting little inclusion here in verse 23. Aaron took as his wife, Alishaba, the daughter of a minidab and the sister of Nashon. And I'm just, I can't wait to know what you're doing. A minidab and Nashon are from the tribe of Judah. And so, you know, there's a kind of Levitical priestly themes going on here. And then there's Judah themes going on here that I think are kind of merging in this genealogy to establish Moses and Aaron as the rightful leaders of the people of Israel. And we see this emphasis in verse 26. These are the Aaron and Moses to whom the Lord said bring out the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt. And then at the end of verse 27, this Moses and this Aaron. So I think what it's doing is establishing by genealogy the kind of rightful place of leadership that Aaron and Moses have in the people with the people of Israel. Yeah, that genealogy gem. I agree with that. Everything that Sam just said, it's also remarkable to me how this genealogy is structured. So, you know, it opens in verse 12 with that statement of Moses saying, "How shall Pharaoh listen to me for I am of uncircumcised lips?" It closes in verse 30. Moses said to the Lord, "Behold, I am of uncircumcised lips. How will Pharaoh listen to me?" It's same exact statements. And then as Sam just mentioned, you have Moses and Aaron bringing the people out of Egypt in verses 26 and 27. In verse 13, you have Moses and Aaron charged to bring the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt. And then there are all these other correspondences as you move through the center of this thing. At the very middle of it, verse 16, this just confirms what Sam was saying about this genealogy centering on Levi and his descendants. Verse 16 reads, "These are the names of the sons of Levi. And if you're familiar with the opening of Exodus, you know, it begins, these are the names of the sons of Israel." And it's the exact same Hebrew phrase. It says, "Though Moses wants to highlight the significance of the tribe of Levi, I think in anticipation, both of the role that Moses and Aaron are going to play through the rest of this book, and also of the role that they're going to play in Leviticus and Numbers, and then, you know, going forward as the priests of the people." I'm continually impressed by your guys able to just squeeze all the juice out of those genealogies. So, this leads us to Exodus 7 and Moses and Aaron. Can I say one more thing? Of course. I was just commenting on these correspondences. So, verse 14, "These are the heads of their fathers' houses." At the end of verse 25, you have that same phrase, "These are the heads of the fathers' houses of the Levi's." And then, just within that, you have a reference to the sons of Ruben. And then that line ends with Ruben's name. That corresponds in verse 25 to Eleasar Aaron's son. And then that line concludes with Phineas. And if these things are set across from one another in the structure of the genealogy, you have Ruben with his sexual sin going into his father's concubine, set across from Phineas who sought sexual purity when he put to death the man who had brought the Midian Knight woman into his tent. And that zeal of Phineas resulted in— Where do we read? It's over in the book of Numbers, I think. There's 25, I want to say, somewhere through there. But it results in the perpetual priesthood being granted to Phineas in his line. Fascinating. We'll post this chiasm structure that Jim is mentioning in the show notes. He has it tattooed on his back. Don't hold your breath for that. No tattooing on this gap. Exodus chapter 7, Moses and Aaron meet up with Pharaoh again. And this begins the sequence of 10 plagues that the Lord, as we know, and as we've talked about, is going to perform against each other. But again, before we get to those plagues, or at least the first one, we get a preview of what's to come in verses 1 to 7, the Lord tells Moses again exactly what he is going to do. So Sam, why does the Lord have this elaborate plan with all the 10 plagues? I mean, he has already said that the endgame here is that he's going to kill the Egyptians through Pharaoh's unbelief and their unbelief. So why not just wipe them out right now and save some time? Yeah, I think we see some clues to answering that here at the beginning of chapter 7, and then I'm going to take us to chapter 9 in a second. But if you look in chapter 7, verse 3, you'll see the Lord says, "I'm going to harden Pharaoh's heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, Pharaoh will not listen to you until he lays his hand on them, and he's going to do these great acts of judgment on Egypt." So the first thing we need to realize is that we typically call these the 10 plagues, but the Bible, specifically Exodus in 417 and in 73, and then we're going to see later occurrences of this, calls them signs and wonders. And what the Lord is doing is he's essentially answering that question that Pharaoh laid at his feet as a charge in chapter 5, "Who is the Lord?" And the Lord is responding with, "Well, I'm going to show you who the Lord is with these signs and wonders." And I'd encourage anyone who's listening to just read through Exodus and circle every time the word "no" K-N-O-W shows up. So in chapter 6, the Lord is going to redeem Israel in verse 7 so that they shall know that I am the Lord. And then here in verse 5, the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord. The Lord is taking us through these 10 plagues to establish Himself as the God of all creation, and so that everybody knows that He is the God of all creation. The Lord is flexing His arm, and He's making sure everybody sees that He's flexing His arm. And this is pretty explicitly stated in chapter 9, verse 14. The Lord says, "For this time I will send all my plagues on you, yourself, and on your servants and your people, so that you may know that there is none like me and all the earth. For by now I could have put out my hand and struck you and your people with pestons. I could have done this with one act of my hand, and you've been cut off from the earth. But for this purpose, Pharaoh, I have raised you up to show you my power so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth. Throughout Exodus, we see that the Lord is interested in revealing His name and making a name for Himself, and so the plagues are God's means to make His name known in the earth." Amen. With what Sam is saying, I'd like to make some comments on the hardening of Pharaoh's heart. So which we see there in verse 3. Right. It's in 7-3, but the first reference to it was actually all the way back in 4-21. When you always said to Moses, "When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh, all the miracles that I've put in your power." And then it says, "But I will harden his heart." And what I want to point out is that though the English translations use the word "harden" for all these descriptions, there are actually a number of different ways that what happens to Pharaoh's heart is described. So in 4-21, this verb "chazak" is used, and it can mean something like make firm or strengthen or cause to hold. You could say, "I will make firm his heart, or I will make his heart hold fast," or something like that. And then a different expression is used in 7-3. Here it says, "It's something like I will make his heart hard," and it's the same language used to describe their hard service. So it's a different kind of a verb that's employed. In another expression, you get the "make his heart strong or cause it to hold again in 7-13." But then in 7-14, the Lord said to Moses, "Fairose heart is hardened, and here it's something like its "cavade," which is an "Athird one." A third way of describing this. This one, I mean, "cavade" is glory, but it really means something like "wait," and here when it says, "I mean, you could render this something like Pharaoh's heart was heavy," and it says, "Though the Lord is causing Pharaoh's heart to be strong and resolute in his own purposes," and then as it were way down by his own desires and his own resolve. And the hymn, there's Pharaoh's heart. That's right. And so then, in 7-22, when it says Pharaoh's heart remained hardened, this is that verb "hazak" again, so you could say, "Fairose heart held fast," or something like that. So the way that this is described, there are these different descriptors that are being used, and I think they bring out the way that Pharaoh is actually being confirmed in his own choices by the Lord. So Pharaoh wanted to do this. Now the Lord's decision to make it this way is prior to Pharaoh's wanting to do this. The Lord confirms him in his desires, and the Lord causes him to hold fast in his own desires, and then related to this in 7-23, Pharaoh turned and went into his house, and he did not take even this to heart. Literally, he did not set his heart to this. It's as though he didn't contemplate it. He didn't think about it. He was just confirmed in his own resolution. So Sam, we have here, before we get to the first plague, we have a showdown, as it were, between Moses and Aaron and Pharaoh and his magicians. So it's a brief story, but it's a fascinating one. So you want to read for us verses 8-13, and tell us what's the point of this story, and why does it introduce the plague sequence? Yeah, this is an amazing story. So I'll just begin to say, then the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, "When Pharaoh says to you, 'prove yourselves by working a miracle, then you shall say to Aaron, 'take your staff and cast it down before Pharaoh that it may become a serpent.'" So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the Lord commanded. Aaron cast down his staff before Pharaoh and his servants, and it became a serpent. Then Pharaoh summoned the wise men and the sorcerers, and they, the magicians of Egypt, also did the same by their secret arts. For each man cast down his staff, and they became serpents, and Aaron's staff swallowed up their staffs. Still, Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and he would not listen to them as the Lord had said. So there's a couple of interesting features of what's going on in this paragraph. The first thing to note is that in verse 10, Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the Lord commanded. This is the foundation of the success of their ministry, from a human perspective, from the divine perspective. It's the grace of the Lord. But they're being faithful servants of the Lord. They're doing exactly what the Lord commanded. It's a tremendous model for what we should strive to do with our own lives. Then you have this conflict between the two serpents. You have the Lord transforming the staff of Moses into a serpent, and then the magicians by some sort of secret art seem to be able to do this same thing. But then the serpents fight, and Moses' serpents, while is up there serpents. I think what you have here is a picture of the conflict that is about to go down between Israel and Egypt and between Yahweh and Egypt, and how it's a conflict between their gods. We've discussed before how Pharaoh's crown had an erect serpent at the front of the crown, and he's identified with the serpent, and serpentine imagery is used for their gods. What we find in Exodus 12-12 is that when the Lord is talking about the plagues, He says, "I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast, and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments." This is that statement is kind of paradigmatic for how to think about all the plagues. This is the Lord rendering judgment against the gods of Egypt, which I think here is being represented by a serpent. There's one other little feature that I think is super interesting. The fact that Moses' serpents overcomes the other serpent by swallowing that serpent up. If you look at Exodus 15-12, we find that same language used to describe the Lord swallowing up Egypt in the Red Sea. You stretched out your right hand, the earth swallowed them. Same word in Hebrew, Bala. So I think what you have here is a preview of what's going to take place over the ten plagues and what's going to take place in Israel's Exodus through the Red Sea, that the Lord is going to swallow up the gods of Egypt and the people of Egypt and the leaders of Egypt, and he's going to prove himself more mighty than their gods. Well, I have a question that surely people are asking, is how did Pharaoh's magicians do this? That's a great question. It's interesting. In verse 9, when Pharaoh says to you, "Prove yourselves by working a miracle," I wish they would translate this, "Prove yourselves by doing a wonder." Because it's actually the same term that's rendered miracle, that's rendered wonders back up in verse 3 signs and wonders. And so there are different possibilities here as to what Pharaoh's magicians did. They may have been familiar with this kind of trick and they may have had trained snakes that they could hold like a staff and then when they throw them on the ground, maybe these guys are snake charmers, when they throw the snake on the ground, it comes to life. And then the snake is charmed, it's trained so that when they grab it again, it stiffens and becomes a staff again. That's a possibility. It's just not magical. Right. It's a slide of hand, it's a ruse. I'm inclined to think that's what the magicians are doing. But they say it says secret arts. But I guess that could be the secret. They could have been demonically empowered. In the book of Revelation, in Revelation 13, you're going to have this false prophet figure arise and in Revelation 13 verse 14, "By the signs that it is allowed to work in the presence of the beast, it deceives those who dwell on earth." And then these signs, they've been anticipated in verse 13 where it says, "It performs great signs even making fire come down from heaven to earth in front of people." Which is what the two witnesses in Revelation 11 did. Revelation 11, the two witnesses call down fire from heaven and then Satan has these cheap knockoffs who do what God's prophets do. So maybe by means of demonic influence, these guys are actually able to turn a piece of wood into a snake. I don't know. Whatever the case, in addition to what Sam said, we're going to see in the next episode that these guys are also going to be able to turn water to blood, which is not at all what Egypt needs from their magicians. I mean, if they're really going to prove themselves productive, what they need to do is to turn the bloody water into clean water. And so also here, if they're going to show up Moses and Aaron, they don't need to just turn a staff into a snake. They need to either say to Aaron's staff, "You go back to being wood," and then it happens, or their snakes need to devour Aaron's, which fails. So what we're seeing is a kind of worldly ability to mimic God's program, but not overcome and not deliver and not provide in the way that God's program is actually doing. And people today need discernment because this is still the way that Satan is operating. If you think stuff like this happens today, I think that people look for ways to purge their sin. They feel a stain of sin in their hearts. I was just listening to a thinking in public podcast with Dr. Molar and a guy named Joshua Mitchell who was saying that this is really what's going on in identity politics. People realize a stain, a sin in the history of the country. And the way they try to deal with it is the way that Leviticus deals with the sin of Israel. They try to purge the sin by means of a scapegoat. So they're trying to put all the sin on a particular object of their wrath, and then they're trying to drive that scapegoat out of the community. This is what identity politics is trying to do. And so I think people today need to recognize Satan is still up to the same strategies. He's still trying to say to people, "You don't really need what God provides for you. You've got this other way of accomplishing the same end, but it really doesn't establish purity. It doesn't bring about forgiveness. It doesn't remove the stain. It doesn't accomplish anything." So here we are, brothers. We are finally at the first of the 10 wonders. I'm going to try not to call them plagues. I'm going to call them wonders. Well, the word plague is used. It is. Okay. I can call them plagues then. So the first of the 10 plagues water turning into blood. So anything that we need to know, though, first about the sort of all of the succession of the 10 plagues in order. Any Sam, any 30,000 foot comments, Jim, any 30,000 foot comments? Yeah. Let me make it just a few comments. Again, if we read 1512, we find that this is a battle of the gods that Yahweh is proving Himself Lord over the false gods of Egypt. But there's also an interesting structure to the way that these plagues play out. Namely, what you have are three sets of three followed by the 10th plague. So that means as you've got one through three, four through six, seven through nine. So the beginning of each of these sequences, plague one, plague four, and plague seven, you have Moses going to Pharaoh in the morning. Right? So you can see that in 715, and then he's going to go to Pharaoh in the morning, in 820, in the fourth plague, and then he's going to go to Pharaoh in the morning in 913, in the seventh plague. And then each of these plagues, each of these kind of triads, is going to focus on a different kind of conflict pair, you might say. So in the first three plagues, the focus is on Aaron versus the Magicians. And then the next three plagues, it ramps it up a little bit, and you focus on Moses versus Pharaoh. And then in 7th through 9, you have Yahweh versus Pharaoh. That's the way that I think Moses is kind of portraying the primary actors in the conflict in these plagues. And then you have an admission of defeat of sorts at the end of each sequence. So at the end of the third plague, you have the Magicians kind of throwing up their hands and saying, "We can't do what Aaron can do." And then at the end of the sixth plague, you have the Magicians again kind of throwing up their hands and saying, "We can't do what Moses can do." And then it's not at the end of the ninth plague, but I think it's at the end of the eighth plague. You have this admission of sin from Pharaoh. You know, I don't think it's a genuine repentant heartfelt admission of sin, but there is this kind of confession of wrongdoing from Pharaoh near the end of that third sequence. Excellent. Very good. So Lord, trying to show the Egyptians by turning the Nile into blood? Well, one thing in addition to what Sam pointed out is that often people will say that each of these plagues in one way or another touches something that Egypt worships. And so it says, "Though Yahweh is saying, 'You think the Nile is this life-giving source of water, well, I'm going to make it into death.'" And that first one sort of corresponds to the tenth where you're going to have the death of the firstborn. And then these other things that you're inclined to look to, whether for protection or provision, or whatever the case may be, you worship the Son, well, I'm going to plague you with darkness, a darkness that can be felt. And so he, I think he's really demonstrating his superiority, his sovereignty, his mastery, the fact that he's the creator of everything that they worship. That's good. Alex, let me just offer a few comments on the plague itself. Notice again, in verse 16, Moses says, "Let my people go that they may serve me in the wilderness. This is going to be key language later on in the Pentateuch. This is the point of the Exodus so that the people serve." And then in verse 17, "Thus says, 'The Lord by this, you shall know that I am the Lord. There it is again.'" And then he turns the Nile into blood. And the irony here is that if you remember at the beginning of Exodus, the Nile is a place of death for Israel. It's the place where Pharaoh is commanding that the male children be thrown into, but now the Nile is becoming a place of death for Egypt. The Lord is turning the wickedness in on itself against Israel's enemies. And as Jim pointed out, the irony here is so thick that the magicians of Egypt decide, "Oh, well we can do that. We can turn water into blood." And you almost want to look at him and be like, "Good job." You know? Cool. Glad you can make the problem worse. Now you just wasted more clean water that we had. So it really shows the impotence of the Egyptians and their magicians to stand up to the Lord. How do you get to Jesus from a passage like this? I mean, is it as simple as, "Okay, you know, Moses turned water into blood, Jesus turned water into wine?" Well, I think we learn to interpret Scripture from Scripture. And one thing this means is that we look at the way that later biblical authors, both later Old Testament authors, and then also New Testament authors interpret this passage. One of the things that they do is they symbolically treat the defeat of Egypt at the Exodus as a crushing of the serpent's head. And so one of the ways, maybe not directly from the turning of the Nile to blood, but one of the ways that I would get to Christ is I would maybe reference the defeat of Egypt and then go to these places where, for instance in Isaiah 30, the Lord says of Egypt, "Their help is worthless. Therefore, I have called her Rahab who sits still." So Egypt is identified with Rahab. And then later in Isaiah's prophecy, in Isaiah 51 verse 9, there's this reference to the defeat of Rahab, the crushing of the head of Rahab. And Rahab is also not only identified with Egypt, but also this sort of symbolic, mythical serpentine semonster. And so this huge snake in the water was crushed at the defeat of Egypt in the Exodus. And then that, of course, is going to be fulfilled in the salvation that Christ accomplishes on the cross. That's one thing. Another thing is that we're going to see these plagues on Egypt recur all through the Bible. And in particular, they're going to accompany what we can refer to as the Day of the Lord. So particularly, you see this in the book of Revelation, where the plagues that accompany, the blasts of the trumpet and the pouring out of the bowls of wrath, they correspond to the plagues on Egypt. And so in a sense, we could say that the Exodus took place on the Day of the Lord and then that the final iteration of this Exodus pattern is also going to take place on the Day of the Lord. And that would be the one that we anticipate when he shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead. How would you? Well, I don't want to discount what you just alluded to, Alex. And that is there. There is a glorious contrast that I think John sets up for us in John chapter two and that he's already alluded to in John chapter one. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. And there is a qualitative bitterness to the new covenant over the old covenant because the old covenant can't produce in the human heart the thing that it requires, but the new covenant can. The Lord can write his law on our hearts. So whereas, you know, in the old covenant, the law is written on stone and it's outside of us and all it can do is stand above us and condemn us and bring death. But what's that have to do with turning water to blood? Well, because, you know, I think blood is meant to symbolize there in Exodus. It's death, right? It stinks to the people of the land of Egypt and its destruction on their land and on their livelihood. But the Lord in John chapter two, he shows up at this wedding. Here's this needy couple. They've, you know, they're going to be embarrassed that they run out of wine and the Lord steps in and he turns water, not into blood, but into wine. Look at what type of king we have. Look at how he loves to grant life. Look at what his kingdom is going to be like when he returns. And the water is going to flow as wine, in celebration, in life, in resurrection. It's, I just think it's a glorious contrast between Moses and Jesus and how Jesus is so far superior to Moses. Hallelujah. Well, brothers, thank you so much. Thank you for listening. And remember Psalm 111 verse two, "Great are the works of the Lord studied by all who delight in them." [MUSIC]