Episode Transcript
Carey Griffel: Welcome to Genesis Marks the Spot, where we raid the ivory tower of biblical theology without ransacking our faith. My name is Carey Griffel. And we are continuing the refuge series today. Last week, we talked about refuge inside bondage. We were now in a situation after the Book of Genesis where Pharaoh had transformed Egypt's life-supporting structures into instruments of control and death. Yet Israel's future survived through ordinary people whose actions preserved threatened life. Moses himself was preserved before he could become a deliverer. And last week we ended with four divine actions that we were talking about in the book of Exodus, where God heard, God remembered, God saw, and God knew.
[00:01:02] So Exodus 1 and 2 give us kind of a hidden preservation. It's not really obvious that God is the one who is doing it, even though it is His people and His people who are fearing Him and so on. There is not overt action from God. But what we will soon see in the Book of Exodus is some direct divine self-disclosure. even though Pharaoh dies, the system remains intact. And so we have a new Pharaoh, but it doesn't seem like anything changed with that. And I think narratively, we're supposed to see kind of a continuation of this in some way. Like at the beginning of Exodus, we have a Pharaoh who did not know Joseph. Now we have a new Pharaoh, and we don't get that repetition but he's just continuing the path of the previous Pharaoh. We can probably also suppose possibly that this new Pharaoh was the firstborn child of the old Pharaoh as well.
[00:02:05] But I want to point out once again that Israel is groaning and they are crying. And Exodus chapter two, verse twenty-three uses several overlapping expressions. We have three different words here in Hebrew. We have a word anah, to groan or sigh. A word za'aq, to cry out, and the word tsa'aq, a cry for help or an outcry. And so the piling up of terms gives a little bit of density to what's going on here. The people's suffering is not reduced to just a prayer formula, and it seems like we're supposed to see this as exceptionally severe and a really big problem, right? But that's where we get the divine response where God heard, God remembered, God saw, and God knew.
[00:03:00] So then we get to chapter three of the Book of Exodus. And Moses was a shepherd. He had a flock of his father-in-law's, the priest of Midian. He was in the desert, and he came to the mountain of God, to Horeb. Of course, there's a lot we could say about the location here, but I'm not gonna dwell too much on the particulars. But it is important to note that it is a mountain, it is attributed to God, it is under God's ownership. And there's a bit of irony here because the deliverer Moses is geographically removed from the enslaved people. He's not being enslaved. He's not trying to organize a resistance. He's not even doing anything at all with the people. He's not trying to go back. He's not even tending his own flock, but somebody else's. I just want to foreshadow here that if you're reading the book of Exodus, then Exodus 3 and Exodus 19 belong together very deeply. Of course, a lot of people, that's really obvious, even though we have some different terminology. But here in Exodus 3, Moses is alone. There is a fiery manifestation. the place becomes holy. God speaks. And this is where Moses receives his commission. And then later in Exodus 19, Moses returns with the people. The mountain is enveloped in fire. It's not just a bush any longer. The place is holy. God speaks again. And not just Moses, but Israel itself, the whole nation, receives a vocation that is under covenant.
[00:04:44] Now, as I said, the first two chapters of Exodus, we don't have any direct divine revelation of God. But here in the beginning of Exodus chapter three, we have one of the most dramatic episodes, so dramatic that people who don't even read the Bible know at least the details of the story. The text is not maintaining a rigid narrative distance between the angel of the Lord and Yahweh himself. The messenger is said to appear, but Yahweh is said to speak. Now, I think this is a very clear instance of the visible and invisible Yahweh and the two powers in heaven and all of that kind of stuff, but for now, the textual point is sufficient for what we wanna see in the theme of refuge. Moses does not merely receive information delivered from a distant deity. The narrative presents Yahweh as personally present and speaking from within the flame. And that same divine presence will appear in clouds, in fire, on the mountain, and in the tabernacle. But here, Moses is in the wilderness, he's all by himself, and he's encountering this phenomenon.
[00:06:04] Now, as far as the bush and it not being consumed or eaten, it's a really interesting depiction of it. The root of that word actually does mean to eat. And, so the picture would be the fire consuming material which is not a strange way of describing what a fire does. But there is an interpretive tradition that sees the bush as symbolizing Israel itself, which I think is a really interesting option here, because Israel is afflicted in the fire of Egypt, but they're not destroyed. And then, of course, it kind of maps onto a lot of the other ideas of purifying fire, where the fire is destructive to things, but only to things that it needs to be destructive to.
[00:06:53] Of course, we don't have any explicit interpretation of the bush here as far as that goes. But it's a very interesting idea that we can kind of map this idea of fire and purification and things like that. What we can tell is that Moses clearly is paying attention to this phenomenon. It is very extraordinary, and so it draws him toward that. And this is the moment of divine speech that we have early on in the book of Exodus. and within the theme of refuge, fire becomes kind of an interesting companion to refuge at times. It can manifest things. It can guide the people. It can form a boundary line. It can be part of judgment. And it is certainly very often associated with holiness. So the remarkable fact of the fire is not just that it's there. It is, of course, that it is not annihilating the object in which it is appearing.
[00:07:54] And so as a manifestation of the divine presence, we see that it is dangerous. We see that it creates a situation of holiness because Moses has to remove his sandals. But God can make himself present without just consuming everything around him, even though there is an element of danger there. we have Moses who sees Moses turns aside. And then Yahweh is described as seeing Moses turning aside, and God is the one who calls Moses by name. I just want to highlight all of these little verbs that I think are really important to the narrative. and then God addresses Moses twice. The doubled name belongs to another significant biblical pattern that we see of address. We have Abraham who gets that same treatment. We have Jacob. We'll also in the future, in the Old Testament, have Samuel. And the repetition is signaling, of course, direct personal address because it's a name, but there's also a level of urgency.
[00:09:02] And in these times when we have the double names, there is a decisive vocation or a turning point. And then Moses's answer of, "Here I am,"is another formula that indicates availability or presence It doesn't mean that Moses already understands what's going on, but he is offering himself up to the moment, to being open to what's being communicated. Then of course, we have the bit with the holy ground and the sandals. And within the realm of cosmic geography, it's a really interesting question as to why exactly Moses has to remove his sandals. There's quite a few different ideas for this that scholars have. The first obvious point is that there is a divine presence and holiness, but why remove the sandals in particular? Well, some of the suggestions include just simple reverence before sacred space. Another idea is that it is about avoidance of impurity that is carried around on footwear because you're walking around in the dirt. A third idea is that there is an acknowledgement that the ground belongs to the divine king. There's a few other ideas, and one of those is that the command about holy ground helps to distinguish this encounter from the establishment of a permanent cult site while simultaneously anticipating the future of Sinai.
[00:10:40] So we have this moment. And you know, usually when somebody has an encounter, in the ancient world we're talking, where they encounter the divine, then that site becomes holy itself. And yet there is no suggestion that Moses is going to mark this site in particular It doesn't say in the narrative that it's going to become holy for all of time. And yet we do have that return back in Exodus 19 with a new name, incidentally, which is really interesting, whether it's a new name or just a double name. Again, there's different ideas about that. But there's a lot of suggestions anyway about why the removal of the sandals and no really definitive answer. But clearly we have holiness and presence going on of the divine. And so there's some form of honoring, some form of acknowledgement that this space is special.
[00:11:37] All right. there are quite a few other details here in Exodus 3 that I would just love to dig into, but then we're never gonna get out of Exodus 3 in this episode if I do. But we have God telling Moses who He is. and a whole bunch of other details that are wrapped up in the divine encounter. But to our point of refuge and God responding to people crying out, I wanna point out something in verse seven and verse nine of Exodus three. in verse seven, God says, "Surely I have seen the misery of the people who are in Egypt, and I have heard their cry of distress because of their oppressors. For I know their sufferings."So we have repetition of these verbs. And then in verse nine, we have a little bit of repetition. It's not exactly parallel to verse seven, but it does flip a couple of these verbs. Verse nine says Quote, "And now look,"so that's the seeing, "the cry of distress of the Israelites has come to me, and also I see the oppression with which the Egyptians are oppressing them."
[00:12:51] So lots of Hebrew wordplay and repetition going on to make some points. And in the middle of these verses, we have the passage about deliverance from the Egyptians. And they're gonna go to the promised land flowing with milk and honey. And that is in between all of these verbs that the people are doing and that God is doing in response to the people. Another thing I will point out here in verse seven, we have the double verb that we sometimes see in Hebrew. It actually says, "Seeing I have seen the affliction."So that verb there is doubled. We have the same doubling of the verb in Genesis when God says to Adam, "Dying you shall die."So there is kind of an emphasis here. There's also a directionality in the passage where God comes down to deliver, and He is going to bring the people up. So there is descent and ascent language here.
[00:13:56] Then in Exodus 3:10, God tells Moses to go because He is sending him to Pharaoh. So even though Moses might be doing the delivering in person, it is really God who is the deliverer, and Moses is the sent agent. So there is double action here. There is divine action along with human agency. Of course, Moses objects to say, "Well, who am I that I should go and do this? And that I should bring the Israelites out from Egypt?" is this just kind of a way for Moses to try and wiggle out of the commission? Well, who knows? But clearly Moses is thinking that he needs some sort of authority That he needs to prove or be the right kind of person to do this job. But really, his commission arises from being sent by the God who has heard Israel. It doesn't matter who he is. And so God responds that He will be with him and there will be signs and that the people will be brought out from Egypt to serve God on this mountain. So God is calling back to the location that they're at. And it is at this point in time that Moses asks God for his name.
[00:15:17] Because it is God's name that is going to supply the proof of authority for Moses in the situation. Now, in the ancient world, a name could communicate more than just what you're called, but it encapsulates identity, reputation, authority, character, and really the grounds upon which a messenger speaks if they have a message. A messenger was to be the stand-in for the original speaker. Now, of course, again, we know that Genesis already uses Yahweh's name extensively, but it seems like Exodus 3 narrates a formal disclosure of the name to Moses as if he or others wouldn't know it. This is a really big question for source critical scholarship and lots of different ideas here. But my thought is that the name is not only carrying the authority, but also going to be something that is going to resonate with the people. I don't personally think that they didn't actually know God's name at all, but, you know, names are a little bit fuzzy in the ancient world.
[00:16:29] And the same person or the same God would have different names according to what was being communicated. So the particular name that Moses needed to have was going to be part of this deliverance, right? So I'm not gonna get into the grammar and all of that, but we know for sure that what the name is communicating is something deeply embedded into this narrative, the reason for deliverance, the identity of the people as God's treasured possession, along with what their vocation is, and what their vocation was meant to do, to be reflections of Yahweh, and so on.
[00:17:11] All right, so then we get into Exodus three, verses 16 through 22, where we have this next section of the narrative. Moses gets more information from God as to what he is supposed to do. He is telling Moses what they can hope for as well. not just the release of the misery from Egypt, but going into the land flowing with milk and honey. God tells Moses that he's going to strike Egypt, that there's going to be signs and wonders and that the people will not leave Egypt empty-handed. There is a really interesting verb in Exodus 3:16 where God says that He has carefully attended to you and what has been done to you in Egypt. This verb is often translated visited as well, and its semantic range includes attending to, taking account of, appointing, and intervening.
[00:18:13] And here it actually recalls Joseph's promise in Genesis 50:24-25 that God would surely attend to Israel and bring them out of Egypt. So then we continue on into Exodus 4. Moses returns under the promise of the presence of Yahweh. He goes back to Jethro. He receives permission to leave there with his household, by the way, and carrying the staff of God after God assures him that those seeking his life are dead. Then Exodus chapter four, verses 21 and 23, we have more words from Yahweh. "When you go to return to Egypt, see all of the wonders that I have put in your hand."Because he's got like a staff, right? So it's kind of concrete idea that Moses is going to deliver the people by the outstretched arm of Yahweh. He is gonna do it with the help of the staff. Not entirely, but in part. So like it's this visual reminder. He's gonna do all these things before Pharaoh. He was gonna say, "Nope, I'm not gonna release the people."Moses is supposed to tell Pharaoh, thus says Yahweh, Israel is my son, my firstborn. Release my son and let him serve me."so then we have God saying that he's going to kill the Pharaoh's firstborn.
[00:19:41] Now in this context of Israel being God's son, Israel is a singular word because the nation is being personified corporately as Yahweh's son. This is part of the category of places in Scripture where we have people or beings characterized as God's son. Of course, that includes the sons of God. That includes here the whole nation of Israel. It also includes King David. That's part of why some people balk at the idea that the sons of God in Genesis 6 and elsewhere just could be humans, right? But the construction in Hebrew is not the same. It's not the same phrase exactly. Israel isn't called the son of God, but the phrase says that Israel is my son. So the metaphor is there, and it is communicating belonging with familial relationship, chosen status, representation, inheritance, and vocation.
[00:20:49] And all of that would be also wrapped up in the phrase sons of God. But the phrase sons of God is particular to divine beings. The sons of God as divine beings are never actually called God's firstborn. And you might wonder why, because it seems like they were created before humans, right? But the term firstborn should not be reduced to the first nation that God happened to choose, or the first nation in existence, certainly. In the family world that is reflected in biblical law and biblical narrative and the ancient Near East at large, firstborn status carried privilege and it carried inheritance, but it also carried responsibility and representative significance. And later on in Exodus, it's going to connect firstborn identity with consecration, priestly vocation, and Israel's national calling. So a lot of scholarship in this passage in Exodus four is going to treat this as foundational for Israel's corporate sonship and their relationship with God in a covenantal sense.
[00:22:05] But of course, Pharaoh sees Israel as dangerous, so he forces them into labor, and he treats them as property. Now, Yahweh calls the nation, and he also calls the nation to serve him. But this is very distinct from the way they are serving Pharaoh. Pharaoh is, of course, acting very exploitively, whereas Yahweh is acting in a way that is going to provide them a path into the promised land and servitude in a very different way. Because they are not just slaves, but they are sons. I also think that this description of Israel as God's son explains in large part the judgment on the firstborn, although I think there are many layers here. Exodus 4, verse 23. says, quote, "And I said to you, ' Release my son and let him serve me,' but you refused to release him. Look, I am about to kill your son, your firstborn."End quote. And the thing I want you to notice is that it is Pharaoh's firstborn or the Egyptian firstborn versus all of Israel as the firstborn son. So it is not just the sons of Israel as in their male children. It is all of Israel as a nation.
[00:23:33] And this statement occurs well before the plague narrative. So the final plague isn't a surprise. It's not an escalation that is unrelated to anything else, but it's been announced as the consequence of Pharaoh's refusal to release Yahweh's son. Now, this idea of the people needing to go so that they can serve Yahweh, it shows up quite a few places in Exodus. You'll find it in Exodus five verse one, seven verse sixteen, eight verse one and twenty, nine verse one and thirteen, and ten verse three. And the repeated phrase here contains both release as well as the purpose, the vocation. It's not just that they're going to escape, it's they're going to hold festival, they're gonna sacrifice, and they're gonna serve Yahweh.
[00:24:30] And that verb to serve can be applied to labor, can be applied to work, service, slavery, or just generally worship. And I think that that range is supposed to be seen here because Israel has been made to serve Pharaoh in harsh slavery, and Pharaoh is commanded to release Israel so that they may instead serve Yahweh. There is a transfer of ownership, a transfer of slavery, we might say. But obviously a very different result when the people are under Pharaoh versus when they're under Yahweh. And Pharaoh's first recorded response to what is going on here is a very theological one. Pharaoh says in chapter five, "Who is Yahweh that I should listen to his voice?"But then his second response is very economic. Israel is lazy. Religious observance is an excuse. So I'm going to withhold the straw, but I'm going to remain with the same quotas, and their labor must intensify.
[00:25:42] So Pharaoh is not recognizing the legitimate claim on Israel's time beyond production and this sets up the plague narrative in several different ways but the signs and wonders of the plagues are communicated identity and authority. They're not simply punishments or demonstrations of raw power, but their stated narrative aim includes making Yahweh known to Pharaoh, to all of Egypt, to Israel, as well as to later generations. I think that a lot of times we are missing the generational impact of what's going on when we have things that are not just about what's happening to the people right there, right then, but their descendants also matter. This is why we have emphasis on children, why we have emphasis on firstborn sons and inheritance and so on. in an individualistic society like ours, we tend to focus things like salvation and deliverance in a personal way. And again, I'm not saying it's not personal, but the biblical narrative and the biblical world has it very communal in a way that I think is very hard for us to grasp, so we don't see these things.
[00:27:07] We just think, "Wow, God is so mean to afflict the firstborn if Pharaoh is the one to be doing the evil deeds and enslaving the people. But God's view of things is far more expansive than simply individuals. The fact that God is afflicting the firstborn of Egypt is not a case of injustice in the sense that, God says many, many places, that God does not afflict the children on account of the father's sins. But generally they're going to follow in their father's footsteps. And again, I think there's a really large emphasis here on offspring and what that entails for the people. Not everything is really shining the light on the same elements, right? and here is where I think it is really crucial to see that the Pharaoh that Moses is dealing with is not the same Pharaoh from Exodus one and two. But it doesn't seem to matter. They seem to be effectively the same person or doing the same thing. I think that is part of this collapsing of the son and the father in a sense.
[00:28:28] You know, that might not be a particularly satisfying response to everyone, and I get it, but we don't live in this corporate reality. I also want to note that the son is not getting the impact instead of his father. There's no transfer of, "Well, I don't want to afflict Pharaoh, so I'll afflict his son instead."But the picture is all together. They're both being afflicted at the same time because of what's happening. so to kind of speed up the narrative of the Exodus, in chapter six we have God speaking again to Moses, reminding him of who he is, reminding him of the covenant. And this is what Moses is supposed to say to the Israelites, that they are being brought out by Yahweh, and Yahweh is taking ownership of them. There's going to be knowing, there's going to be seeing, there's going to be serving, and all of these other verbs I just will kind of put onto your plate when you're reading the Book of Exodus. Pay attention to the verbs.
[00:29:38] And also the sequence of the verbs. God is going to bring them out. He is going to deliver them. He is going to redeem them. He's going to take them as His people. He is going to be their God, and He is going to bring them into the land. So this is adoption language. This is inheritance language, continuing the theme of being God's son. But then there's a human response. And that human response is not really great. in Exodus 6:9, Israel does not listen because of shortness or anguish of spirit and the harsh slavery that they are under. But the text isn't condemning Israel for failing to respond enthusiastically. Oppression has damaged their capacity to receive the promise that God is giving them. Pharaoh's bondage has not only exhausted the bodies of Israel, but it has constricted their capacity to even imagine deliverance, even though they have been crying out. They don't seem to be particularly trusting God, but God is still going to be delivering them, so God tells them what they're supposed to do.
[00:30:55] And this is when we have the Passover, right, where they are sheltered in preparation for their departure. So we get to the final judgment that is about the firstborn. And it's also all of this is a judgment on Egypt's gods, as Exodus 12 verse 12 explicitly says. And interestingly, at the beginning of chapter 12, we have an introduction of the reckoning of time that is going to be changed on account of this event. This month is supposed to be the beginning of months for you. The point is that the Exodus is going to be a prime event that is going to reset their entire perspective of time. and the neighborhood is meant to be a refuge. And I say neighborhood because it says that, you know, if you can't eat all of the lamb within your own household, you are to combine households in order to eat it. The animal is selected according to the ancestral household, but if it's too small, then they will join with their nearest neighbors according to the number of people and how much each of them can eat.
[00:32:09] So the threatened community is organized around households, neighbors, shared meal, and so the refuge is once again communal. I won't get too much into the Passover animal and sacrifice because I've done that kind of at length before, but I will mention here that the blood is not a symbol of death, but it is literally described as a sign. It is a sign that marks the covenant community that resides inside the home. The blood forms a protective boundary. And it is kind of a lexical question that we have here of whether this word, pesach, gives Passover ideas or protection ideas. The traditional translation of Passover suggests that Yahweh moves past the marked houses without entering them. But there is a significant scholarly interpretation that argues instead for ideas like to spare, to protect, to shield, or to guard.
[00:33:16] And Exodus twelve verse twenty-three is particularly suggestive here because Yahweh sees the doorway blood, Yahweh pesach at or over the doorway, and Yahweh does not permit the destroyer to enter. And Isaiah thirty-one verse five also places this word within a cluster of verbs that mean protect, deliver, and rescue. and it's also the case that ancient translations likewise understand the verb in a protective form. Now, I'm not saying that the word Passover is a mistranslation by necessity. But the picture here I think is one of guarding rather than simply skipping the house. And that's exceptionally key, and this may be one of the core elements of our refuge theme here. But part of what I want you to see as we're going through this Exodus narrative is that it's going to be the pattern that is going to show up again and again all throughout the Old Testament as well as into the New Testament.
[00:34:28] And very, very importantly, Exodus 12 verse 22 says that Israel must remain inside until morning. So that boundary needs to be understood as a boundary. The people can't mark the door and then just wander and go wherever they want. They can't control what's happening outside their door, but their role is limited to receiving the instruction, marking the entrance, gathering inside, eating, waiting, and preparing for their departure. So even though the destroyer is being sent by God, this is more a story about hiding by and with God rather than hiding from God. And I think that's also a crucial distinction because even though they are connected and Yahweh sends the destroyer, the text does distinguish between these two because it's Yahweh who passes through or protects and does not allow the destroyer to enter. That really makes us wonder exactly who the destroyer is.
[00:35:41] And some possibilities are that it's an angelic agent, that it's a personification of a plague, or that it's a traditional destroying figure that is subordinated to Yahweh, like some form of spirit being or who knows what exactly that they're thinking of here. We can't really give a detailed angelology from what we have in the text. But exegetically, we can say that the destroyer cannot cross the doorway apart from Yahweh's permission to do so. So whoever or whatever the agent of destruction is, it operates within a boundary that Yahweh controls. Then continuing on, we have details about how the meal is to be eaten in readiness, in a sense of urgency and preparation. They are supposed to roast the meat. And that is in distinction to later instances, or we might say replays of the Passover narrative.
[00:36:42] But overall, what we have is a distinctive refuge pattern that is going to combine a few of the themes that we've talked about in the last couple of episodes, these refuge frames that I've mentioned. We have concealment. We have a presence of Yahweh. We're also in preparation for a flight. So at one point in time here during the night, the refuge is the household. But if they were to remain in the household, they would remain in Egypt, they would remain in slavery, they would be not in continued protection under God. So at one point, they have to be concealed. At another point in the refuge scene, they have to flee. They have to leave. And this night of keeping or watching. is part of the language of guarding, a vigil.
[00:37:37] And this is done in the original Passover night as well as done in commemoration afterwards. And this commemoration of it is the tradition and the ritual and the enactment when the preserved household is going to teach down the generations, all of the children and all of the people being raised are meant to identify with it as if they too were saved in the Passover. So then we enter into Exodus 13, where all of the firstborn of Israel are said to be consecrated to Yahweh. Now, This is one of the pieces of information that I think that it really shows that the Passover lamb is not and cannot be a substitute for the Israelite firstborn sons. They are redeemed. So if the lamb is a redemption of the firstborn, then we have like double redemption here. It doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. But what we have is a few different layers, right? Because Israel is God's firstborn son. But then we have the firstborn sons of the firstborn sons, and they are consecrated in a particular way.
[00:38:59] Then later on, we have the king of Israel, who is God's son and none of these ideas undo the other ones. But they are meant to be stacked narratively to understand that all of the people are God's, that God reigns, and that they all participate in the inheritance of God. But that doesn't remove all of the hierarchy in the society. Another really important point that I think is sometimes missed, the Passover is not the completion of the deliverance. The end of Exodus 12, they have survived the night. they get to leave Egypt. They get to leave Egypt with a lot of possessions, but they're still in danger. And so the flight from Egypt continues to be part of the refuge pattern. Kind of an interesting question because why didn't God just have them leave immediately? They could have just left that night, left Egypt, because even though Egypt ostensibly allows them to leave the next day, they're still pursued by Egypt. So why couldn't they have just snuck out and had kind of the same result?
[00:40:16] I mean, obviously I don't have an actual answer to that question, but I do think that regardless, all of these patterns of refuge are deeply part of the main story of the people of God. That's also going to matter a great deal when we get to the New Testament and we understand ourselves as the people of God. So then of course they flee. They get to the sea. If you are a fan of thematic patterns and metaphorical imagery in Scripture, then you'll know things like the fact that the sea and the wilderness are both places of chaos. They are places where demons live. this is why wandering into the wilderness and wandering around places without rest is not a particularly good thing. And yet, this is again where it gets really complicated and we can't just claim that one image means one thing. You have to read the image within the context of what's going on.
[00:41:25] And you have to read the image within the context of who is in the situation and their relationship to God so while the wilderness is a place of danger, it is a place of demons and darkness and thirst and hunger. Both the sea as well as the wilderness are also seen as places of providence and provision. It's the same thing with Egypt. Egypt is traditionally seen as God's enemy and something that you don't wanna be in Egypt. And yet at crucial times, Egypt also becomes the place of deliverance. They were saved in Egypt at the end of Genesis. Jesus himself as a baby is saved by going to Egypt. So these patterns do not just map onto some physical reality as if that is the only thing that that can be. today we think that the government is bad or an institution is bad or whatever.
[00:42:33] And that is simply too simplistic of a way to view things. Can those things be places of danger and places of rebellion and places that are against God? Absolutely. Can they also be places of salvation, places of deliverance, places where if you don't go through that thing, then life isn't going to come out at the end. and the difference in each of those situations is posture toward God. Are we obedient to God? Are we listening to God? Are we obeying God? And not only us in the situation but other people that we're dealing with. What is their posture to God? And not only that, but what is their posture to God's people? We should be tracking on these themes. And sometimes the people in those relationships are surprising. So it is not always this people or that people or this boundary that we think or that boundary. It is the boundaries and provision that God sets, that God has put into place, and that just kind of naturally arise within the frame of history.
[00:43:52] So we have the people leaving Egypt, and we have them entering into the sea and the wilderness. So this is a double picture in the wider story, in the wider narrative, of dangerous places that we would think are not really good, and yet the people are able to pass through, and the people are able to be blessed in those situations. Exodus thirteen verses seventeen through eighteen says that when they left, God didn't lead them the way of the land of the Philistines, even though that was the nearer, shorter path, because He knew that the people would change their mind, they would see war, and they'd just go right back to Egypt and slavery. So they go by the desert, they go to the Red Sea. And interestingly, even though God knows that they're gonna turn away when they see war, and the Israelites are described as going away in battle array.
[00:44:53] Now, the way of the land of the Philistines likely refers to the direct northern route from Egypt towards southern Canaan. The use of the term Philistines may reflect geographical terminology that was familiar to the text's later audience rather than establishing that they were literally going through the land of the Philistines or that this is dating the journey. And plus, of course, there's always different coordinates and ideas of where exactly this is geography-wise. So to try to reconstruct the exact route is really very uncertain, and we're just kind of not going to do it, especially if they import later geography into the story, which we know that biblical redactors did at times. So anyway, they leave armed, but they remain unprepared. They also bring Joseph's bones along because God will not leave his people back in Egypt.
[00:45:58] All right. Now, I talked about Exodus 3 and the fire being part of the refuge theme. And this is where we see that directly in Exodus 13 with the cloud and the pillar of fire, where we see God's presence becomes mobile and visible to the people. The text is not saying that God sends clouds and fire. It says that God goes before them in those forms. And so the pillar is a manifestation and a mediation of divine presence. It functions to guide, it functions to illuminate, and later on it's going to function directly as protection. So we go from Egypt in slavery and difficulty, and God preserving the people through other people. Then they are concealed inside their homes. Then they have to escape and flee. And now they are in a mobile kind of refuge.
[00:47:03] And then they're placed in apparent danger by God Himself. in Exodus 14, God tells them to go camp by the sea. And Pharaoh's gonna chase them. And God says, Exodus 14 verse 4, that he will be glorified through Pharaoh and through all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am Yahweh. So God intentionally camps them at the sea where they are going to be pursued and seen and found by Pharaoh. They're not accidentally lost here. God knows exactly where they're going and exactly what's gonna happen. And importantly, later on in the narrative and in the Torah and elsewhere in the Old Testament, we're gonna see God's fame spread because of these kinds of incidents where people will know that the Israelites are coming. They'll know who they are. They'll know the God that backs them. and they will act either appropriately or inappropriately or whatever, right? But people will know who God is. And we will have further instances of salvation with, for instance, Rahab because she has heard the fame of Yahweh.
[00:48:21] So God's guidance avoided one kind of danger, premature war, but then leads Israel into another crisis where they are overtaken and they must be saved through the sea. The difference isn't that one of the routes contains danger and the other one doesn't. The difference is what God intends to reveal and accomplish through each of those routes. people talk about the problems with the conquest and other things that they have difficulty with in the Old Testament, but it's also these little places like here that can also be really difficult. Like, why is God intentionally placing Israel here in a frightening place just so that He can deliver them? And a lot of people will say that God is proud and arrogant and just wants a bunch of fame and glory, but that's not the kind of glory that we're talking about here. I mean, it kind of is. It isn't not, but in relation to God and glory, the purpose is not just so that people know who God is, but the purpose accompanies other things like other people knowing who God is so that they can align with Him.
[00:49:43] And if they choose not to, they get judged because they've already been shown who God is. in a sense, some of it is a bit of a warning to other people and an invitation to join what God's project is in deliverance. I'm not pretending that that erases all of the difficulty here. But God is also dealing with forces of Egypt and Pharaoh who refuse to listen to sense. They have been shown over and over in ways that they could have listened to who God was. Yahweh was defeating not only their people, but showing His superiority over their gods. And Pharaoh was like, I don't care. We're still going after those Israelites. And that obviously does not end well for them. Israel is very afraid when they see Egypt. But God, through Moses, tells the people to not be afraid, to stand still and see the salvation of Yahweh. That's in Exodus 14, verse 13. Exodus fourteen verse fifteen has God saying, "Why do you cry out to me? Speak to the Israelites so that they set out. And you, lift up your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it so that the Israelites can go in the middle of the sea on the dry land."
[00:51:14] Again, pay attention to the verbs here. Previously the crying out resulted in God seeing them. And here it's like God is saying, "Why are you crying? Why are you crying to me? Just go lift your staff, and this amazing miracle will happen. The sea will divide." And later on they'll be described as walking through the sea with walls on their side. Like, that's more refuge language right there. And this is a moment once again of trust in Yahweh. Now, there's also an interesting difference here where Moses tells them to stand firm and that the people should be quiet, but then God tells Moses to go forward. And some might see that as contradicting ideas here. But Moses isn't telling Israel to fight. And the picture here is that they can't do anything, and so they have to stop imagining that their survival depends on them doing something. except trusting in the path that God opens. Perhaps they are willing to face the battle but he's not hyping them up.
[00:52:28] Now this is the moment where the cloud moves behind Israel. And we have again mention of the angel of God who was going before the camp. And that is when we have the cloud move back. And now is going behind them. The angel of the Lord, by the way, is not synonymous with the cloud. It's two different things here, which I think is a very Trinitarian pattern. And this is the protective boundary of the people. So the people are passing through the sea, but their path isn't described as being wet, right? They are going over on dry ground. The walls of the sea are on their right and their left. So even though the ground is dry, they are going through the sea but not really getting wet. So this still becomes a really potent image of baptism in the New Testament, and I would say probably also connected to some of the water washings in the Old Testament as well.
[00:53:36] Okay, so remember how I said we had the cloud behind them and the angel of the Lord behind them? In Exodus 14, verse 24, Yahweh looks down on the Egyptian camp from the column of fire and cloud, and he throws the Egyptian camp into a panic. We have mention of the chariots, which are symbols of military strength and, you know, trusting on one's own military might. And then, of course, the sea falls back over to the Egyptians. So the same water is both passage as well as judgment. I think it calls back into the flood narrative. I think it calls forward into many other things when we talk about water and its purpose as both something that gives life as well as something that takes life away.
[00:54:31] So then Exodus 14, verses 30 and 31 say, quote, "And Yahweh saved Israel on that day from the hand of Egypt, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the shore of the sea. And Israel saw the great hand that Yahweh displayed against Egypt, and the people feared Yahweh. And they believed in Yahweh and in Moses, his servant." So here we have this chapter ending with seeing. Israel sees Egypt defeated. Israel sees Yahweh's great hand. Israel fears Yahweh. Israel trusts Yahweh and Moses. And this calls back to verse 10, where Israel saw Egypt, Israel feared Egypt, and Israel accuses on account of what's going on. But this flips it on its head, and Israel is changed. They now trust and fear Yahweh.
[00:55:34] The event at the sea transformed their interpretation of what was going on. The army was visible. It was a source of danger. And they did not yet see until God opened up the sea where and how they would be able to be saved. So by the end, the invisible deliverer has become known through visible effects. And you might think that they would already have seen the visible effects because of the angel of the Lord, because of the pillar of fire and cloud. But seeing visible manifestations is not really seeing the same thing as directly experiencing the deliverance.
[00:56:19] And the reason I am spending so much time in Genesis and Exodus here in the refuge theme is because I think they are so absolutely foundational to understanding every piece of refuge that we see showing up throughout the rest of Scripture. We have to understand what God is doing and how He's interacting with people, and how people are interacting with God, sometimes faithfully, and sometimes it takes people a little bit of time, a little bit of going through things in order to see what God's doing and to trust Him. And this is brought up in many places as I say. I'm gonna turn to Psalm 77, starting in verse 16. It says, quote, "Waters saw You, O God. Waters saw You and they trembled. surely the deeps shook. The clouds poured out water. The skies thundered. Your arrows also flew about. The sound of Your thunder was in the whirlwind. Lightnings lit the world. The earth shook and quaked. Your way was through the sea, and Your path through many waters, yet Your footprints were not discerned. You led Your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron."End quote. Psalm 77 remembers the sea during a later crisis of divine hiddenness for the people.
[00:57:58] The psalmist asks whether God has rejected permanently, whether he has ceased to show favor, whether he has forgotten his grace and shut up his compassion. But the answer comes through remembered Exodus imagery. The waters see God and writhe. The depths tremble. Storm imagery surrounds the divine advance of God, and God's way passes through the sea, His path through great waters. But still, his footprints remain unseen. He leads the people like a flock. This isn't just a repetition of Exodus fourteen, and it is also not just poetic imagery. It interprets the current situation in light of past situations for people who cannot presently see God's activity. So again, even though we are talking about refuge from the perspective largely of humans and God being our refuge, this also speaks directly to that idea of God's hiddenness and why it is sometimes so difficult to see God's actions, to see God's saving grace, and to even understand what's going on around us.
[00:59:19] So at this historical moment of the sea, a historical moment of deliverance that the people were to replay yearly through the Passover, by the way, and also something that we are to participate in, I believe, in our baptism as well. in Psalm 77, it describes the road becoming visible, but the divine footprints not being visible. And so the psalmist is joining together overwhelming cosmic divine power with hidden divine agency into the gentle shepherding that can occur in those situations. All right, I'm gonna go ahead and wrap up for today. We are here at the boundary of Exodus 15, the Song of the Sea, which has so much depth in the theme of refuge and the theme of deliverance and God's presence. A lot of scholars think that Exodus 15 is one of the oldest passages in Scripture.
[01:00:24] And I don't know if we're gonna start with that and go through that next week, or if we will just move on past it. But I do want to highlight it as a really important part of today's episode. So if you haven't read Exodus 15 lately, I encourage you to go and do that. It's a beautiful piece of poetry as well. But again, I am going to wrap up for today and really deeply appreciate all of you guys for listening as always. I hope you're enjoying the refuge theme, and I kind of can't wait to get into some of the prophets and the ideas of refuge there. Especially because from Protestant or evangelical perspectives, we just don't spend enough time in the prophets. So I'm actually considering doing some series that maybe jump from Genesis over into the prophets to see the continuation and the narrative of Scripture there. I think that might be really quite helpful. I haven't planned that out yet. I just kind of go where the flow is. But we will see what happens. And if you guys want me to get deeper into the prophetic narratives, I would love to do that. Let me know. But for now, thank you guys for listening, as always.
[01:01:51] And thank you especially for those who support me by sharing the episodes. And by supporting me financially through Patreon, PayPal, and my Biblical Theology community. I deeply appreciate all of you. And also, thank you for praying for me. But that is it for this week, and we will see you later.
