Editor's note: Enjoy today's devotion from From Silence to Sinai by Alex Duke.
*
Exodus 2:23–25
I love the end of Exodus 2. Moses is a masterful storyteller.
He pulls the camera back to remind us that Exodus isn’t really about Israel’s harsh sociopolitical situation, no matter what Ridley Scott wants us to believe.1 He’s not burdened to come to grips with his muddled identity. No, Exodus is Moses’ sequel of salvation, a glorious extension of the story he started in Genesis.
Time passes. The king of Egypt dies. But not much changes: Israel remains in chains. As every day passes, the indignity deepens. How can it be that God’s chosen people are enslaved? How can it be that the ancestors of Jacob, once fruitful and multiplying, are now forgotten or murdered? What’s the Lord doing? Has he fallen asleep in the clouds?
What can possibly explain His silence?
So God’s people groan. They cry out. They ask for help (2:23).
Oh Lord, save us. Break these chains!
I love how Moses portrays what happens next. It’s as if those groans and cries and requests for help rise up to the heavens. You can practically see them as they waft through the heavenly gates and under the door into the very throne room of the King of the universe. The prayers of these saints, like sweet-smelling incense, rouse the Lord to attention. God wakes up. And then Moses tells us,
God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew. — 2:24–25 ESV 2
I know, I know. God “hears” and “sees” everything.3 He can’t “remember” anything because He never forgets anything. He can’t “wake up” because He never sleeps. Moses and basically everyone who ever tries to talk about the Lord must use this kind of language when we talk about God so that we can say anything at all without equivocating or qualifying ourselves into obscurity. In this case, Moses wants us to know that God is now directing His attention to Israel’s plight. Why? Because of the promises He made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
So, again, we must understand that Exodus isn’t about the Lord liberating Israel from sociopolitical oppression. It’s not fundamentally a story about the Lord waylaying the wayward Egyptians and their so-called gods. It’s a story about God keeping His word. Exodus is best read as the sequel to Genesis because all of its plot is grounded in the promises of Genesis.
God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.
Every single syllable of that sentence is electrifying. Though the king of Egypt has forgotten God’s people (1:8), the King of the universe has not.
Even as Israel seems crushed by confusing providence and persisting curses, the Lord hasn’t forgotten them, not even for a moment.4
Are you kidding me? How could you not want to keep reading?
1. See his film Exodus: Gods and Kings.
2. I chose the ESV because it has a slightly more dramatic timbre than the NIV’s passive-voice “and He was concerned about them.” Also, it’s illuminating that the Lord remembers the covenant He made with Abraham, which tells us that the Abrahamic covenant is both prior to and fundamental to the Mosaic covenant. If that sounds like a bunch of gobbledygook to you, that’s okay. We’ll return to it as our tour continues.
3. When we come across verses like these, we must remember two fancy a-words that help us understand how Scripture speaks about the Lord. Verses like these are both anthropomorphic and accommodating. They use words we use for humans—like heard, remembered, saw—as a way to accommodate our limited understanding about who God is and how He acts.
4. I can’t end this chapter without mentioning that while Israel’s life is a preview of Moses’ life, Moses is not the main attraction. Jesus is. And guess who also survived a king’s baby-killing, and then passed through the waters of baptism, and then spent forty days in the wilderness enduring intense temptation? That’s right. Israel previews Moses, who previews Jesus.
Excerpted with permission from From Silence to Sinai by Alex Duke, copyright Alex Duke.
* * *
Your Turn
God hears your groaning. Read that again. Your struggles aren’t lost on God. We don’t always understand His ways, but He “hears”, He “remembers”, and He “sees” you. ~ Devotionals Daily