July 28, 2024
Reading: Exodus 4:18-31
Focus: Exodus 4:19 – Now the Lord had said to Moses in Midian, “Go back to Egypt, for all those who wanted to kill you are dead.”
Father God, thank You for all of Your blessings. You are the God of Moses, who opened taught the Egyptians that You are the One God. You opened the ocean to let the Israelites cross. You will do the same for us. In Jesus Name. Amen.
Moses, reluctantly, decided to follow God’s Instructions. Every felt like that? God tells you to do something and you really don’t want to. I know that I felt that way often growing up when my parents told me to do stuff. Often I didn’t want to, but equally more often, I did it anyway. Most of the time, it was ultimately rewarding. Other times, not so much. Moses had tried and tried to get out of going back to Egypt. Think about it. He had killed someone. The Israelites, at that time, didn’t want his help. So he ran. Then he spent 40 years in the desert. Unlearning all of his princely attitudes. Herding sheep. Then, God speaks to him. Telling him that he was to deliver Israel from Egypt. Now Moses was going to do what he was told. God told him that those who wanted him dead were all dead themselves. Now the time was right for him to return to Egypt. God had given him the tools to use and the words to say. Needless to say, Moses probably knew that it wasn’t going to be easy. But he was going to go anyway.
Moses spoke to his father-in-law, and Jethro sent him off with his blessing. Now, Moses was of the people of the Covenant of Abraham. He was probably circumcised but his son apparently was not. Because at a stop on the journey, God met him and was about to kill him. Remember that Moses had been raised in the palace of Pharaoh and had spent another 40 years in the wilderness of Midian. He may or may not have been too familiar with the laws regarding the covenant. Moreover, his wife probably was totally unfamiliar with it. However, if Moses was to lead the people of Israel, he must completely fulfill the commands of God regarding the Covenant. God had told Abraham that failing to circumcise the son was to cut yourself and family off from the Covenant. So, to be a part of the Covenant, Moses had to circumcise his son.
The Bible says that Moses’ wife, Zipporah, was the one to perform the circumcision. We are not told why. But it could be that she had talked him out of it when his son was 8 days old. As a Midianite, she had not learned the way of the Covenant. She may have considered it barbaric. Therefore, since she may have been the one who prevented it in the first place, she was the one to rectify the situation. She, more than likely, had been told by Moses that he would die if the boy was not circumcised. To save her husband and her son, she circumcised the boy and made sure that Moses knew that she was not happy about it.
Then God told Moses to go into the wilderness to meet with Aaron, who was already on his way to meet with Moses. They met with great joy. It had been years since they had seen each other. I can imagine that there was a lot of catching up to do. Aaron brought Moses up to speed about what was going on in Egypt and Moses informed Aaron of the task that they had been assigned. He told him of the burning bush, the staff and his hand. I would imagine that he showed those signs to him, so that he would know that God had indeed sent Moses to deliver the Israelites. The next step was to go down into Egypt and speak to the elders. Aaron told the elders that God had heard them and had been among them and knew of their suffering. Moses showed them the power of God with the signs that He had given Moses. The Bible tells us that the elders believed. Then, the people were told and shown the signs. When they realized that God had indeed heard them, they bowed down to God and worshipped Him.
The people had suffered, believing that God had forgotten them. Forgotten that they were His people. Forgotten that He has promised that they would not always be strangers in a strange land. But now, there was hope. God had not forgotten. He had sent a deliverer to bring them to the Promised Land.
Here we see another picture of Jesus. From creation, God had promised to send a deliverer. One who would deliver us from sin and death. For centuries . . . for millennia . . . human kind waited. Humans were oppressed by Satan. Sin had driven us to hopelessness. Sin oppressed us. There was no freedom from it. Sin could only be forgiven by the sacrifice of a lamb. This symbolized that only through the death of an innocent could sin be forgiven. Men died looking forward to the promised Deliverer, the Messiah. Following the Law was their only hope of salvation. Then, over two thousand years ago, the Messiah arrived but he was not recognized by His own people. Some realized who He is but those who influenced the people did not. Those who were supposed to know the scriptures, who were supposed to teach the scriptures and prophecies to the people chose not to believe the fulfillment of the prophecies. To this day, many refuse to believe that Jesus was the Messiah. They were looking for a military Messiah not a spiritual one.
Jesus was the one promised in the Garden of Eden to crush the head of the serpent. The freedom that God promised was from the sin that entered this world when Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. But the priests of Jesus time could not and would not see it. Some did, but most did not. They could not see a king coming from a humble family. They forgot that King David had been a shepherd. They could not see a Messiah choosing to preach to the sinners and not to the priests. They could not see that a Messiah would come to free them from the Law, to fulfill the Law.
Moses was the deliverer to the Israelites enslaved in Egypt. Jesus is the Deliverer of all mankind enslaved by sin. Moses was the hope of the Israelites for delivery from slavery. Jesus is the hope of mankind for the delivery from sin.
Jesus is our only hope.
Is He yours?
Father God, Thank You for Jesus. Our hope of Salvation. Thank you that He died on the cross, shedding His blood to cover our sins. Help us to place our faith in Him. In Jesus Name. Amen.
Food for Thought
- Do you think that Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, knew why Moses had to return to Egypt? Why or why not?
- Why do you think that Moses had to spend 40 years in Midian?
- What do you think Moses learned during his 40 years in Midian?
- Do you think that Moses explained what circumcision was, and why it was necessary to his wife? Why or why not?
- Have you ever been reluctant to do as God asks you to? Why or why not?
