ESV Chronological Plan, Day 30 | Exodus 1-4

LOOK | WHAT DOES IT SAY?

Read Exodus 1:1-4:31

THINK | WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

(A) Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. We are told in Exodus 1:8 that a new king arose in Egypt who did not know about Joseph. How was this possible? Well, if there had been a regime change, it is entirely possible that this could be the case. (1) First we have to work out the timing of events. The biblical evidence for the date of the Exodus (worked out from Judges 11:26 and 1 Kings 6:1) suggests that the Israelites left Egypt in 1446 BC, with the length of time that they were in the land being 430 years (Exodus 12:41), giving us an arrival date of 1876 BC. (We already know from the Berlin Fragment dated to around 1400 BC, the Soleb Hieroglyph in the 1300's BC, and the Merneptah Stele in 1205 BC, that the Israelites had left Egypt and conquered the Canaanites to establish Israel by the time of the biblically suggested date--with more to follow as we get into further readings.) So the stay of Israel in Egypt is from 1876-1446 BC. (2) Then we have to look at why the Egyptians would have no knowledge of Joseph, and be worried about Semites living in the land and joining their enemies. It turns out that for about a hundred years during the time that Israel was sojourning in Egypt, a foreign group of Semitic rulers named the Hyksos came and ruled over Egypt, from around 1637-1529 BC. Britannica.com tells us, "The rise of the Hyksos kings in Egypt was made possible by an influx of immigrants from Palestine into Egypt beginning about the 18th century BCE... The sequence of events that brought the Hyksos kings to power in Lower Egypt is not entirely clear. The 13th and 14th dynasties, which had existed concurrently in Lower Egypt, weakened and disappeared about the middle of the 17th century. Some scholars have suggested that a famine in the Delta region contributed to their decline and opened the way for the emergence of the Hyksos dynasty. From Avaris the Hyksos 15th dynasty ruled most of Lower Egypt and the Nile valley as far south as Cusae (near present-day Asyūṭ)... [the Hyksos fell to] Ahmose, founder of the 18th dynasty, thereby ending 108 years of Hyksos rule over Egypt. Although vilified in some Egyptian texts, the Hyksos had ruled as pharaohs and were listed as legitimate kings in the Turin Papyrus." Knowing about this as background for the Exodus makes perfect sense for the events leading up to what we see in the opening chapters of Exodus. It explains why the new Pharaoh didn't know about Joseph. It explains why the Egyptians were afraid of Israel (a Semitic group) multiplying in the land and joining with their enemies (perhaps this had been what had happened in the past). And it explains why the Pharaoh of Moses' day went to such incredible and brutal lengths to suppress the people of Israel--by the time Moses was born, the Egyptian victory over the Hyksos was still very new, maybe only having happened a little over 40 years prior.

*One additional nugget: with the timing of the Exodus given above, the Pharaoh of the Exodus may have been either Thutmose III or Amenhotep II (but I think Thutmose III). The Egyptian rulers around this time tend to have "Moshe/Mose(s)" as a part of their name quite often, and so it's interesting that the Egyptian daughter of Pharaoh would give Moses a similar name. **One more nugget: depending on the chronology, some have suggested that it is likely that the daughter of Pharaoh who took Moses out of the river was Hatshepsut--who would later on become the Queen Regnant of Egypt.

(B) Our calling happens on God's time, and in God's way. It looks like Moses became aware of his Hebrew origins, and saw himself as a deliverer for his people, early on. He rose up to kill an Egyptian for beating a Hebrew--"one of his people" (Exodus 2:11-12) when he was 40 years old (Acts 7:23). Then he started walking around and acting like a mediator to unite the people of Israel (Exodus 2:13). In the book of Acts, Stephen said that "Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not" (Acts 7:25). So Moses, when he had been rejected by the people of Israel, and when he was discovered by the Pharaoh to be trying to raise up the Hebrew people against the Egyptians, he fled. He had nothing. And only 40 years later (Acts 7:30) did God appear to Moses in the midst of a burning bush, when Moses was no longer young, or influential, or had anything else going in his favor, to call him to be the deliverer of Israel. Even when we see how we could do something great for God, God likes to remind us that things happen in his time and not ours. The appropriate response to this on our end is humility and patience.

(C) The Angel of the LORD. In Exodus 3:2 we see that "the angel of the LORD appeared to Moses in a flame of fire out of the midst of the bush," but then two verses later we see that "God called to Moses out of the bush, 'Moses, Moses!'" What is happening here? Well, starting in the book of Genesis and then periodically throughout the rest of the Bible, there is "the Angel of the LORD" who is both a messenger from God, and when he speaks, he speaks in first person as God. And when he appears, the narrative often asserts that the person who has seen the angel has actually seen God. (We will see this a few times over the course of our Abraham series, starting this Sunday.) This figure is both with God, and is God, both one who reveals God, and who is himself the appearance of God. This is the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ, the physical representation of God the Son who appears all over the Old Testament.

RESPOND | WHAT IS OUR PART?

There is often more happening than we know. In Exodus 1 we see references to a whole history that we only know about now through archaeological sources; we see an early period in Moses' life where he had tried to be the deliverer of Israel, but not in God's timing; and we see a pre-incarnate Jesus delivering a message to Moses; who both is with God and is God, something that confused the Jewish people to no end when interpreting this passage, but now makes perfect sense to Christians. For us, I think the application is to be okay with waiting. The Israelites had to wait 400 years in Egypt. Moses had to wait to fulfill his calling. And the people of God had to wait over 1440 years to find out what was happening with the angel who suddenly started speaking in the first person as God--some things only become clear over time. And so, whatever situation you're in, whatever you're trying to figure out, whatever doesn't make sense--just wait. It will become clear in time.

PRAY | HOW DOES THIS BRING US CLOSER TO GOD?

Here is a suggested prayer prompt: "God, help me to be okay with waiting. Help me to be patient, not in a passive way, but actively serving you here and now, trying to understand what you are saying or doing, and yet content to know that you will make all things clear in time. Give me a purpose in my patience, and use this time to draw me more closely to yourself."