Hey, friends, thanks for joining us today.
You may tell if you’re a regular by our attire that this is not typical.
Michael and I had a funeral today,
and then I have an opportunity to
return a grandson to his parents.
And so we are pre-taping,
pre-recording this session,
but we are grateful that you would join us as we continue here in the book of Exodus.
We are in chapter six,
kind of a sandwich of sorts.
I will tell you more about what we mean
by that.
But as we begin here,
we are moving into verse 10.
A few verses we’ll talk over,
then we will continue on with the rest of the chapter.
So let me begin reading here,
verse 10, chapter 6.
“The Lord spoke to Moses,
‘Go tell Pharaoh, the king of Egypt,
to let the Israelites go out of his hand.’
But Moses spoke to the Lord.
The Israelites have not listened to me.
How then shall Pharaoh listen to me,
a poor speaker that I am?’
Thus the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron,
and gave them orders regarding the Israelites and the
Pharaoh, the king of Egypt,
charging them to free the Israelites from the land of Egypt.”
So this is a theme that is prominent in this chapter.
We’ve now started with it in verse 10.
We’re going to end with it at the end of the chapter.
Moses,
again, a kind of reluctance,
maybe a kind of practicality.
Moses not quite yet leaning fully into his role as God’s mouthpiece.
God says, “Go talk to the Israelites.
Go talk to Pharaoh.” He says,
“The Israelites haven’t listened to me.
Why would the Pharaoh listen to me?” We don’t know if there is something to this
business about Moses speaking.
Maybe he actually has an impairment or a condition.
That has been
speculated.
Or perhaps he just is one of those people who says,
‘I can’t do that.
I’m no good at that.
It makes me nervous.’ We don’t know exactly what the situation is,
but he clearly has a reluctance to speak up.
And I think, you know, in that, Michael,
there’s a sort of
common experience for people.
I think when we look sometimes at the opportunities we have
for the gospel’s sake,
they seem intimidating.
And we most often find ourselves maybe wishing
somebody else would take over.
Yeah.
The word I was thinking,
Clint, was that word reluctant.
I agree completely.
I think that what we see in this selection of Moses is a really striking example of how God chooses characters
in the story of the Scriptures who are unlikely to be chosen by any other metric than God’s providence.
Because if you look at Moses,
we talked about in the beginning how he had this impulsiveness.
And then now we see in some ways the exact opposite.
When God makes a statement
to Moses, Moses seems consistently reluctant to listen.
And the moment that there’s adversity
here, Clint, the moment that the people of Israel don’t listen,
he starts coming up with excuses
for God.
He starts to talk about how is Pharaoh going to listen.
If my own people don’t listen
to me, poor speaker as I am.
And of course, as the reader, we know that the text has explicitly
stayed.
That’s the very reason why God gave Moses Aaron so that he would have a speaker.
It’s as if Moses at every turn is reluctant to believe that God is going to be faithful to
accomplish the task that God set Moses out to do.
And, you know, Clint, there’s an aspect of this
theme that runs through Exodus that makes it clear.
The person in the driver’s seat,
the person who the people of Israel need to trust,
Clint, is not Moses.
Moses is not the guy.
It is God.
God is going to be the one to liberate the people.
Because if Moses was left to that task, Clint,
I mean, it’s going to be a series of frustrations.
I’m certainly not criticizing Moses,
Michael, but I will say that I think often in those type of moments,
in those sort of calling moments,
you know, in the Scripture, and I assume in our own lives as well,
God rarely calls us to things
that are easy, things that we could easily do,
things we were already going to do.
You won’t find that story in the Scripture.
And so when God calls Moses,
there is a kind of self-reference
here.
Moses thinks of his own ability.
We tend to do that.
We would tend to think whether or not
we are capable of the task.
But
for Moses, that’s really missing the point,
and it is for us as well
because the point is that God is going to equip Moses to do the thing he’s called him to do,
that God is going to equip us,
that God is going to give us the skills or the ability or whatever it is,
that it’s not really about us.
It’s about the way God endeavors or plans to use us for his
own purpose.
And I think
Moses doesn’t have that quite figured out.
You know, we’re still very early in the text.
Moses has not really been tested.
Moses is going to grow.
I think we’re going to
see an interesting character study in Moses through this book in that he is going to lean,
I think, further and further into that role and that reliance.
But here,
he still has, to use your word,
Michael, which is the right one,
a reluctance.
He’s dragging his feet.
He thinks, “I’m not good enough.” You know,
whether or not that’s a lack of trust in himself or God,
in the text, it’s a little bit one and the same because if one puts their trust in God,
then they trust God to do what God has said.
And God has said he’ll do what he’s going to do through Moses.
So,
yeah, I think a very human,
very interesting struggle here,
an interesting insight into part of Moses’ struggle that I think most of us can also relate to.
Yeah, absolutely.
And Clint, I think there’s a sense in which we need to recognize that as
this is telling the story of Moses’ leadership,
which it’s certainly doing,
that is only a microscopic part of the larger story that is being told here.
And let’s be clear about that.
That’s the story of God’s covenant made to Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, the story that we looked at through Genesis and that entire study.
And now,
that promise is being lived out in a very specific and timely way in those people,
that family’s experience in
Egypt, they’re slaves and they’re captive.
And now God is continuing this arc that has been
present since the very beginning.
And so I think that begins to make sense for us, Clint, of why
we begin to see this turmoil,
the people struggling to accept,
you know, how is God going to lead us out?
And Moses struggling, you know, how am I going to do it when I can’t speak?
It’s striking now that the writer of Exodus is going to lead us back into that family story.
And though it may
seem to us like this is a strange transition about to happen,
Clint, I think what we’re about to see
in this genealogy is a reminder to us,
the reader, that God is being faithful to the people who have a history.
And it’s that very history that God is leading forward in this moment.
And there’s a sense
of promise in going back to the bedrock of the beginning.
And I think we see something of that here.
Yeah, if you were with us through Genesis,
you know that genealogies matter,
and they tend to matter for two reasons.
And we’re not going to read this one because it would be a long list of
names that most of us wouldn’t recognize.
But in this instance,
a genealogy functions as it often does.
A,
it sort of establishes the lineage of the hero,
or in this case,
Moses and Aaron.
And interestingly enough,
particularly Aaron as a Levite, as a priest,
this genealogy is heavily
vested in Aaron’s lineage and in Aaron’s role as a Levite.
The second thing, and I think more
importantly, as you hinted at, Michael, is
that the genealogy roots the story in the ongoing work of God,
that it’s not simply about Moses and Aaron.
It is about the people.
It is about the
history.
This echoes the genealogies of the previous book,
the book of Genesis,
taking us again all the way back to the beginning of the story where God said,
“I’m going to make a view of people.
You will be my people.” And anytime we encounter a genealogy,
because it is backwards
looking,
it I think points us back to those original covenant moments.
And it’s hard for
us to get that as we read a list of Hebrew names that are hard to pronounce and maybe unknown to
us, but that’s really the point of the story.
Let me tell you about this person and this person,
that this story is bigger than Moses and Aaron,
and it is also connected to the biggest story,
which is the story of God’s adoption of a people and his promise to them.
You know, I don’t want to take this too far,
Clint, but there is also a sense of which genealogies
teach us that though they didn’t make large paragraphs of the Scriptures,
each life matters.
And I think we sometimes miss that,
that while the Scripture leaves out far more of God’s story
than it includes, if you include all of the people who have been faithful,
all of the moments in time in which God’s providence has been brought to bear and God’s kingdom has come,
like all of this stuff is a true reflection of God’s desire to bring the world back into perfect union,
but that are not all in the Scripture.
What we have in the Scriptures is what’s necessary
for us to understand God’s will and for us to see the revelation of Christ.
And so the genealogy in
some ways is a shorthand reminder that you may,
our lives won’t make the Scriptures.
That’s the reality.
But the truth is that those who are faithful to hear and to trust and those who live
their life as best as they can under the hand of God and in God’s people,
that these lives matter.
And, you know,
once again, I don’t want to take that too far,
so I won’t spend too much time on
it.
But there is, I think, an affirmation here, Clint, that we may not be Moses and Aaron,
most people weren’t.
But the truth is that it is our connection to a longer family story.
And in a world in which the family story and our rootedness and the people and the traditions
from which we came are less and less important,
there is some ancient wisdom in this,
that being connected and rooted to a story much farther back than our own short lifespans,
it really matters.
And the people of faith have always believed it matters.
And I don’t know how many of our listeners would care about this,
so I’ll make it very brief.
But
in the book of Genesis,
we introduced the idea that there were various parts of the family that
contributed to the overall story.
And because this genealogy seems to focus on sort of verifying
Aaron’s credentials as a Levite and celebrating lifting up Aaron,
it is thought that perhaps
this particular text came from the priestly tradition,
the Levite tradition, and that they were sort of on Team Aaron.
Not that they are in any way opposed to Moses’ leadership,
but that they wanted to celebrate one of their own and lift up Aaron’s contributions and his lineage as well.
So if you care about this sort of nitty-gritty of biblical scholarship,
that’s been one of the ways
that this text has been seen.
Yeah, and I’m not going to add much to this just other than to say,
this is one of the unique
stories of the Old Testament.
Maybe in some ways the Scripture as a whole to have a partnership
like this.
It’s not often that we have leadership represented as being so connected.
And so Moses and Aaron, I think, is interesting because Aaron’s Levitical importance shouldn’t be
understayed.
In fact, Jesus Christ in Hebrews gets connected through some interesting
spiritual understandings to the Levitical tradition,
to the priesthood of Israel.
So there’s a lot here.
We’re not going to spend a whole lot more time flushing it out.
We just want you to know that this genealogy is here.
Who it emphasizes matters.
The point is it emphasizes
the historical connection of God’s people,
that Moses and Aaron are fully in the midst of God’s plan,
and that in some ways it might feel like the junk drawer of Exodus.
You’re throwing stuff in
because it needs to be in there.
I think if you were the original recipients of this book,
if you were handing this down as a family heirloom,
this is who we are.
This is what God has done to protect
us and to bring us out of Egyptian slavery.
This is an important part of that story.
As modern readers, our temptation is going to be to speed read through it,
put it on three times,
play speed, and just try to get it done with.
But it does have value,
and we move on then.
Right.
And join us if you can tomorrow.
We still have a little bit today,
but join us tomorrow for
a fascinating look at this partnership.
Because I think you’re right,
Michael.
There are not very
many instances of this kind of tag team arrangement in the Scripture,
and tomorrow God is going to
say some very interesting things about the work of Moses and Aaron.
So let me just jump back in
here at verse 26.
It was this same Aaron and Moses,
to whom the Lord said,
“Bring the Israelites out of
the land of Egypt,
company by company.” It was they who spoke to the Pharaoh,
the king of Egypt,
to bring the Israelites out of Egypt,
the same Moses and Aaron.
On the day when the Lord spoke
to Moses in the land of Egypt,
he said to him,
“I am the Lord.
Tell Pharaoh, king of Egypt,
all that I am speaking to you.” But Moses said in the Lord’s presence,
“Since I am a poor speaker,
why would Pharaoh listen to me?” Interestingly enough,
at least if we start with verse 10, as we did,
we end right where we began.
God saying, “Go speak to the Pharaoh,” and Moses saying,
“Why would he listen?
Is this going to work?
Who am I that he would obey me?
Who am I that he would trust me?
Why would?” It’s a wonderful question.
We’ve heard it twice in these few verses.
And if you sort of skip over the genealogy,
which you could in the flow of the narrative,
you’ve heard them within just a few verses of each other.
And I think,
again, it’s a very interesting moment that we’re in for Moses,
Michael, as he expresses these kind of doubts and struggles.
Yeah, and just to surface reading the text,
the answer is he won’t and shouldn’t.
Right.
Moses, I mean, he’s not going to.
And that’s the reality,
because at the end of the day,
the people of Israel have no hope if their hope is in Moses.
If their hope is in his oratory,
in his rhetoric,
if the point is that Moses is going to stand up and he’s going to spin
some speech that’s going to move the world,
then the people might as well just settle in
for the next several generations.
But of course, we, the reader, know that this has always been
about God.
And I think it’s worth noting here, Clint,
that
this very famous revelation story
that happens at the burning bush makes it clear that God initiates the salvation plan,
right?
This is not Moses’s harebrained idea,
that Moses
simply sees the burning bush.
Really, quite frankly,
he’s only active in so far as he gives into his curiosity to go see what’s going on.
Really, the active driving force of the people of Israel’s salvation is God.
And the text is making
it clear, even through Moses’s explicit question.
And Clint, the scriptures don’t often tell us
what a character is thinking.
That’s not part of the narrative style throughout much of the scriptures.
So here,
language and dialogue like this gives us a little bit of a window
into what’s happening in Moses’s mind.
Why should Pharaoh listen to me is in many ways an invitation
to see he does not understand what’s happening.
He does not understand God’s surefire determination
to pull this off.
And the fact that Moses is just simply the vessel.
He still on some level
thinks that he’s essential to this task.
And as long as he thinks that, Clint,
he’s not going to
know what’s going on.
Well, he certainly is expressed doubt.
He tried to get out of it.
He seems to not wanted to do it.
Now he seems to think that he can’t do it or maybe even insinuates
that he shouldn’t do it.
It’s a very fascinating relationship that develops between God and Moses
in Genesis and throughout other parts of the Old Testament.
We’ve seen God’s anger provoked
for less than this.
And yet Moses and God have these interchanged.
I think it says it verbatim.
He said in the Lord’s presence,
“Why would the Pharaoh listen to me?” He expresses an open
question, a sort of doubt-filled question right in front of God.
And that is not wise in the Old Testament.
And yet Moses and God seem to have this relationship that can tolerate that sort of
movement, that sort of looseness.
And it makes it a very interesting study.
We’re going to continue
to see that kind of interchange between them throughout the rest of this book.
And there
aren’t many things like it.
They’re just Moses and God have a nearly unique relationship in the
Scripture, which is fascinating, I think.
I think we’ve traveled this ground enough for today.
I’m just going to put as maybe a future note that we’ll come back to as we encounter this theme again.
I think there is some interesting implications of comparing a character like Moses to the
characters we’ve had previous in Genesis,
because there are some really interesting differences
in how that tension or that intermediary space between Moses and God,
the ability to doubt,
the ability to push back,
we’ve seen negotiation,
but it’d be interesting to see how this also
compares to some of the characters we’ve seen before.
That said,
our friends, thank you for taking time to join us today.
We know that this is maybe not anyone’s favorite part of Exodus,
but yeah, it’s an important part of the story,
and it leads us forward,
and we certainly hope you
will join us tomorrow as we really start ramping it up with these encounters with Pharaoh.
Thanks, everybody.