COME AS A CHILD - LESSON 119 - GOD MAKES MOSES SOME NEW PROMISES AND EQUIPS HIM FOR HIS TASK

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

When Moses complained to God about the attitude of the people, God answered him.  “Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh:  Because of my mighty hand he will let them go; because of my mighty hand he will drive them out of his country.”

God continued to speak; reminding Moses of a few things just in case he had forgotten:  “I am the LORD.  I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name the LORD I did not make myself fully known to them.  I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, where they resided as foreigners.  Moreover I have heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are enslaving, and I have remembered my covenant.  Therefore say to the Israelites ‘I am the LORD and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.  I will free you from being slaves to them and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment.  I will take you as my own people and I will be your God.  Then you will know that I am the LORD your God who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.  And I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob.  I will give it to you as a possession.  I am the LORD.’”

I’m sure this conversation must have encouraged and inspired Moses.  He runs back to the poor, tired, overworked people and reports what God has promised.  He again states that he is talking to THE GOD OF ABRAHAM, and none of this is coming from Moses' imagination.  He explains to them that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob knew God as God Almighty, but this same God Almighty has many attributes and each one is named.  This time the people will know him as THE LORD.  Moses tells the people they must realize the LORD will bring them out of slavery because he has chosen them to be His people.  Moses tells them that God has promised to give them the land of Canaan in order to fulfill his covenant with Abraham made so long ago.  Moses explains to them that they will one day be free and possess that land that was promised.

The people are tired.  The people are hungry.  The people are overworked and under fed and longing for nothing more than death.  They are not listening to Moses whom they think may have been hiking up a mountain having imaginary conversations with God while they have been confined to so much hard labor.  Who was he anyway?  He couldn’t even stay in the palace and run the country when it was offered to him.  That would have helped them out a lot!  He was a fool.  He would never be Hebrew like them; who did he think he was kidding?  What was this talk of the God of Abraham hearing their cries?  That story was beginning to get a little old.   Surely God had forgotten them long ago or they would not be here in the first place. 

So once again a discouraged Moses goes back to the Mountain of God and falls on his face and says to God that the people do not believe him.  God doesn’t worry about that.   Instead of joining Moses's pity party for himself, God  tells Moses to get up and go straight to Pharaoh and tell him to let the Israelites go out of his country.

Now Moses must have been super perplexed this time.  God was repeating the same things again.  Last time he listened to that nothing had happened and Pharaoh had only become angry with the people and punished them by giving them harder and longer work.   It had started this huge communications problem with them, because they had become angry with him for misleading them.   

So Moses speaks to God and says, “The Israelites will not listen to me, why would Pharaoh listen to me, since I speak with faltering lips?”  Some scholars think this meant that Moses stuttered.  That really could have been the case, or it could have simply been that the people did not have any confidence in Moses's ability to speak to Pharaoh since the last time had brought them only deeper into bondage.  

Here is where there is a pause in the scriptures and the genealogy of Aaron and Moses is spelled out, name by name.  The twelve sons of Jacob are repeated along with their son’s names and some of their wives names.  It is like God is reminding the two; (Moses and Aaron) of their heritage.  Moses may have desperately needed this lesson since he had been living like an Egyptian, then a Midian Shepherd.  He probably did not have a good clear understanding of the twelve tribes of Israel.  Aaron was probably just getting a refresher course.  Whatever the case, it confirmed that God thought this to be very important.   

Every little detail of the lineage is noted and spelled out.  God was dividing up the tribes and explaining to Moses and Aaron that they should bring the people out in divisions by families.  God was instructing both Moses and Aaron, and Moses was again complaining about his lack of speaking abilities.  I’m sure that the people not being willing to listen to him  had heaped more and more feelings of incompetence upon his already too low self esteem.  God saw this.  God included Aaron in the instructions.  Aaron had great powers of persuasion over the people, especially the elders.  Aaron had good self esteem and he would get their attention and persuade them that Moses was right.  If anyone could make the people listen to Moses, it was Aaron.     

So with the family history lesson fresh in his head, and Aaron at his side; God again told Moses:  “Tell Pharaoh to let my people go!”