LORD

God Unleashed

Lois Tverberg
Plagues of Egypt

by Lois Tverberg

Afterward Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: `Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the desert.'” Pharaoh said, “Who is the LORD, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the LORD and I will not let Israel go.” Then they said, “The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Now let us take a three-day journey into the desert to offer sacrifices to the LORD our God, or he may strike us with plagues or with the sword.” Exodus 5:1-3

During Moses’ encounters with Pharaoh, God told him to tell Pharaoh that the Israelites needed to take a three-day journey into the desert to worship him (Ex. 3:18, 5:3, 8:27). This is confusing because it sounds as if they are asking for a long weekend off, and then they’ll come back. But in fact, in no place does Moses say that they will return afterward.

Another suggestion is that the phrase “three-day journey” is actually not about the length of time they plan to be away, but the distance they need to travel from Egypt before they worship God. In the Scripture, measuring distance in “days of journey” was common. (See Gen 31:33, Num 10:33, Deut 11:1, 1Ki 19:4, etc.) Moses was likely saying that people must be far away from the false”gods” and oppression of Egypt before they worshipped God, or their awesome God might release plagues and destruction. The Egyptians were the ones in danger!

Plagues of Egypt

It seems that Pharaoh was undaunted by Moses’ warnings about the power of his God, and he refused to let the Israelites go a safe distance from Egypt. It is easy to imagine that as this holy God approached his people, getting nearer and nearer, the plagues on Egypt became increasingly worse. First the river ran red from some distant danger sweeping downstream, then the insects started swarming, then the animals started dying, then the sky blackened with hail and locusts and utter darkness as this awesome God approached Egypt.

Finally, when the Israelites went ahead and sacrificed a lamb and worshipped their God right in the midst of Egypt, his full power was unleashed on the Egyptians and destruction poured out on the oppressors of his people. Because Pharaoh would not release Israel to worship their holy God, he came to punish their captors and release them himself.

Photo: John Martin

That You May Know

Lois Tverberg
Plague of the Firstborn

by Lois Tverberg

But Pharaoh said, “Who is the LORD that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the LORD, and besides, I will not let Israel go.” Exodus 5:2

“For this time I will send all My plagues on you and your servants and your people, so that you may know that there is no one like Me in all the earth.” Exodus 9:14

A key theme in the book of Exodus is “knowing” who the Lord is. When God first appeared to Moses in the burning bush, Moses seemed to be asking who God was when he asked for his name. Then, when Moses went to Pharaoh, Pharaoh’s response was that he did not “know the LORD,” so why should he obey him?

Plague of the FirstbornIt is important to understand that in Hebrew, the word for “know,” yada, is more broad than in English, describing personal experience, not just intellectual knowledge. To “know” God in this sense is not just to have heard a name, but having awe for him from encountering his power directly. Pharaoh had no fear of this God because he had never experienced God’s power.

Many places throughout Exodus God says that he would send his plagues and free his people so that both Egypt and Israel would know him:

Ex. 6:7 `Then I will take you for My people, and I will be your God; and you shall know that I am the LORD your God, who brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians

Ex. 7:5 “The Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I stretch out My hand on Egypt and bring out the sons of Israel from their midst.”

Ex. 14:4 “Thus I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will chase after them; and I will be honored through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD.” And they did so.

Ex. 16:6 So Moses and Aaron said to all the sons of Israel, “At evening you will know that the LORD has brought you out of the land of Egypt; When Moses first came to Pharaoh, Pharaoh had no idea who the God of Israel was, and he could only find out from his own personal experience of the power of this God.

Do you know who the LORD is, that you should obey his voice?

Photo: Lawrence Alma-Tadema

Time for a Change

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, “This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year.” Exodus 12:1-2

Egyptian CalendarThe very first instruction that God gave the Israelites as they were leaving Egypt was to establish a new calendar that was utterly unlike the Egyptian calendar. This may not seem significant to us, but how we measure time is fundamental for how we look at life. Our calendars define the importance of the day to the entire culture, saying whether we should work, rest or worship, or think about some great event in our past.

This was especially critical as the Israelites left the powerful nation of Egypt, which had strongly influenced their thinking while they lived there. Egypt had a twelve-month solar calendar that was entirely organized around the veneration of their gods. Their year started in late June when the brightest star in the sky, Sirius, arose, about the time of the flooding of the Nile. They spent five days in feasting and worship beforehand, pleading with their gods for a good flood of the Nile and good harvest for that year. Each of the 36 ten-day weeks of the year was dedicated to a different god.

In contrast, God instructed Israel to mark time by remembering their redemption from Egypt. Their calendar no longer focused on idolatrous gods, but on permanently remembering the true God that loved them so much that he freed them from slavery. Every aspect of their calendar repeated this motif. The other major feast of the year, the feast of booths (Sukkot), also focused on reliving their time in the wilderness after God brought them out of Egypt. Even the seven-day week was founded on remembering how God had granted them rest from slavery:

You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out of there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your God commanded you to observe the sabbath day. Deut. 5:15

Exodus

Also, the law to celebrate the fiftieth year as a Year of Jubilee was also founded on the idea that they set free those who are in debt, just as God set them free.

If one of your countrymen becomes poor among you and sells himself to you, do not make him work as a slave. He is to be treated as a hired worker or a temporary resident among you; he is to work for you until the Year of Jubilee. Then he and his children are to be released. Because the Israelites are my servants, whom I brought out of Egypt, they must not be sold as slaves. Lev. 25:39-41

All of their worship and time focused on remembering how God saved them and took them to be their people. In the same way, we as Christians should continually remind ourselves of our redemption in Christ, the Passover Lamb, by his death for our sins. Every day of our lives should revolve around living out of this truth.

Photo: Hans Bernhard (Schnobby) and Edward Poynter

Plagues from the God of Nature

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

Pray to the LORD, for we have had enough thunder and hail. I will let you go; you don’t have to stay any longer.” Moses replied, “When I have gone out of the city, I will spread out my hands in prayer to the LORD. The thunder will stop and there will be no more hail, so you may know that the earth is the LORD’s. – Exodus 9:28-29

HorusAs the passage above says, God unleashed the powerful forces of nature in the plague of hail to show that he was the true ruler over the earth, not the hundreds of “gods” that the Egyptians worshipped. It was clear that God was in control of other aspects of nature when locusts and diseases destroy the crops and livestock at Moses’ command.

It may surprise you that most of the plagues could be describing natural events that were known to occur in Egypt. The Nile turning to blood may describe the red tide, a type of algae that kills fish when it overgrows, or an excessive reddish silt washed down from the mountains during an abnormally strong annual flood. The frogs might have bred in the stagnant water left behind from the flooding.

Even the “darkness that can be felt” seems to be a description of a dusty sandstorm that comes from the hamsim, strong east winds that blow in from the Sahara Desert that blot out the sun, which can make it as dark as night. (The dust storms during the Dust Bowl in 1930’s were described this same way.)

The thought that the plagues could have had natural causes initially feels disturbing because we assume that God must show his supremacy by turning nature on its head. But what showed God’s power is not the unearthliness of the plagues, but God’s sovereignty over their timing and who they afflicted. They began exactly as Moses announced them, and some did not strike Goshen, where the Israelites lived. While they might have been events of nature, they clearly were controlled by God’s will.

Death of Firstborn

Even the last plague, the death of the firstborn may have had a semi-natural origin. During the Dust Bowl, many succumbed to “dust pneumonia” because inhaling large amounts of dust can cause severe lung inflammation and even death. But the fact that every firstborn succumbed to the illness all on the same night was profoundly supernatural. While God was working through nature, his timing showed that he was utterly in control.

When you think about it, God working through nature is really the most appropriate display of his power, because he is the creator and sustainer of all things. You can see this in that the point at which the magicians realized that their gods were defeated was a seemingly mild plague, that of the gnats. (Ex. 8:18-19) Why? Because God is the creator, not Satan. God’s creation of the tiny gnat was too much for Satan to imitate. It was the God of Israel who held the life of every creature in his hands.

Photocred: Bibleplaces.com

Send Someone Else!

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

Moses said to the LORD, “O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.” The LORD said to him, “Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the LORD? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.” But Moses said, “O Lord, please send someone else to do it.”
– Exodus 4:10-12

When God first appeared to Moses and told him to go to Pharaoh, Moses had the chutzpah to say to God, “Please send someone else!” We are amazed at Moses’ repeated refusal to do what God asked. How could that be?

The text says that Moses doubted his own abilities. Perhaps he was thinking that God was asking Moses Burning Bushhim to somehow go convince Pharaoh to release the Israelites from slavery all on his own. What an impossibility that a stuttering 80-year old shepherd could do such a thing! Perhaps he imagined that God was telling him to raise up a rebellion who could demand release from Pharaoh. In his younger days when he was passionate for justice, maybe he could have done it, but not now. Surely God couldn’t use him.
Maybe part of Moses’ response was because he had forgotten his people’s sufferings, feeling that he had left his people behind when he fled to the desert forty years ago. When he was a younger man, his anger at his people’s misery caused him to kill, but maybe now he felt differently after finding a peaceful life in another land. Wasn’t their bondage someone else’s problem? Certainly someone should do something about it, but why should he be the one to take on such a difficult, dangerous mission?

Or, perhaps he doubted God. No one had heard anything from this God in four hundred years, and in Egypt, Moses learned that there were many small gods that shared power with others. How could this one defeat the many gods that ruled over Egypt, who had made it a super-power of the ancient world? This god was unknown – only the private god of his family, not of a mighty nation. God certainly was no match for the powers of Egypt.

Whenever any of us feel God is calling us to serve him, these are all typical human responses – either to doubt ourselves or how much God will help us, or how much God is even capable of doing. And we might even secretly say to ourselves, “Yes, someone needs to do something, but why should it be me?” We can learn a lesson from knowing that despite Moses’ doubts in himself and in God, God refused to change his mind about using him. We can all be encouraged that God never gives up on us. With our willingness, God will not fail at all that he has appointed us to do.

Photocred: Nheyob

The Hardening Heart

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

The magicians said to Pharaoh, “This is the finger of God.” But Pharaoh’s heart was hard and he would not listen, just as the LORD had said. – Exodus 8:19

Pharaoh StatueMany of us struggle with the fact that God said that he would harden Pharaoh’s heart, so that God could bring all ten plagues on Egypt before he finally would free the Israelites. It seems like Pharaoh might be innocent pawn which God callously manipulates.

It helps to examine the story more closely. The idea of “hardening the heart” is mentioned twenty times in the Exodus story. The text says ten times that Pharaoh hardened his own heart, and ten times that God hardened it. The first time that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart was in the sixth plague, after Pharaoh had already had five chances to change his mind. With each plague that Pharaoh ignored, it showed that he cruelly cared nothing of the misery of his subjects.

After the third plague, Pharaoh’s magicians declared that the plague of gnats were the “finger of God” – meaning that they were up against something mightier than anything they’d ever known. But in spite of the fact that it was irrational to think that he could defeat this God, Pharaoh refused to yield. At this point, it seems to have become a test of wills between Pharaoh, who considered himself a god, and the real God. Because Pharaoh was understood to be a god himself, his will was absolutely supreme. All decisions of his were uncontested because he held all authority. The fact that God was in control over his power of decision showed that God was ultimately supreme even over him.

We can learn a valuable lesson from this too. When we fall into sin, God is generous with his offers to repent, but at a certain point, our hearts become hardened because of our own desires. As the rabbis used to say, “When sin starts out, it is weak like a spider’s web, but then it becomes as strong as an iron chain.” We should examine ourselves and repent before sin has hardened our wills to the point where we can no longer turn back.

Photocred: Captmondo

Starting Out Small

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the LORD commanded. Aaron threw his staff down in front of Pharaoh and his officials, and it became a snake. Pharaoh then summoned wise men and sorcerers, and the Egyptian magicians also did the same things by their secret arts: Each one threw down his staff and it became a snake. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs. Yet Pharaoh’s heart became hard and he would not listen to them, just as the LORD had said. – Exodus 7:10-13

It is fascinating that the first sign that God gave Moses to show Pharaoh God’s power is so weak as to be almost humorous. Pharaoh had imagined that the God of Israel was one of the small gods of other nations, and assumed his powerful gods could easily defeat him. This first story sounds like that is the impression that God wants him to start off with, too, initially.

Egyptian DeathmaskGod told Aaron to throw down his staff so that it changed into a snake, fully knowing that the Pharaoh’s magicians could do the same thing. They must have smirked when they saw it, recognizing it from their bag of standard warm-up stunts and laughing to themselves at how easy it would be to replicate. It’s like God was lobbing a slow pitch over the plate for an easy swing – something to draw the attention of the spiritual powers that there was a new “god” in town who
had wandered into their territory.

Interestingly, the word to describe the snake is different that what one would expect. The typical word for snake was nahash (nah-HAHSH), but this was a tanin, (tah-NEEN) a larger reptile, possibly describing the hooded cobra of the Nile. The cobra is the snake-god associated with Pharaoh’s powers as king, the one seen in the golden headdress and masks of Pharaohs in Egypt. The magicians were able to produce it too, either by sleight of hand or by some occult powers.

It is interesting that when God interacts with humans, even his enemies, he starts out in such a humble way, like a baby laid in a manger. He begins by looking a lot like what was around, like one teacher among many, one Galilean carpenter in the crowd. Only later will his full power be displayed.

Photocred: Erik Hooymans

Our Great Redemption

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God…who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. Deuteronomy 8:11, 14

Sphinx and Great PyramidsIn the next weeks En-Gedi’s Water from the Rock series will focus on Exodus, specifically God’s redemption of the Israelites from Egypt. Christians generally don’t see this story as especially significant. But for thousands of years, Jewish readers have considered it a defining point their history, when God reached down into world events in an unprecedented way. The story of redemption is also central to the rest of the Scriptures, as the foundation of God’s relationship with the people of Israel. We can see the story’s critical importance just by noticing the many references that are made to it throughout the Bible. Here are just a few:

The people answered [Joshua] and said, “Far be it from us that we should forsake the LORD to serve other gods; for the LORD our God is He who brought us and our fathers up out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. Josh. 24:16-17
When the sons of Israel cried to the LORD on account of Midian, the LORD sent a prophet who said to them, “Thus says the LORD,… `It was I who brought you up from Egypt and brought you out from the house of slavery.'” Judg. 6:7-8

[David said,] “And what one nation on the earth is like Your people Israel, whom God went to redeem for Himself as a people and to make a name for Himself, and to do a great thing for You and awesome things for Your land, before Your people whom You have redeemed for Yourself from Egypt, from nations and their gods?” 2 Sam. 7:23

Thus says the LORD God of Israel, “I made a covenant with your forefathers in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage…”Jer. 34:13

But I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt. You shall acknowledge no God but me, no Savior except me. Hos. 13:4

In almost every book of the Old Testament, a reference is made to this great act of deliverance in Israel’s history. Why? Because it showed the power of God and his love for his people. Moreover, it reminded them of their great debt to this God who had done so much for them. God was showing his people that they could trust him now and forever more.

Photocred: Bibleplaces.com

Heaping Burning Coals

Lois Tverberg

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Romans 12:20

In Romans, Paul talks about how to deal with our enemies and those who have wronged us. He says many wise things about dealing with others in this passage:

Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Romans 12:17-21

As we read this, one sentence sticks out to us that doesn’t make sense – about heaping burning coals on an enemy’s head. We wonder what Paul meant by this. It helps to know that Paul is quoting Proverbs 25:21-22: “If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink; for you will heap burning coals on his head, and the LORD will reward you.” Understanding this proverb will unlock Paul’s words as well.

That saying is in the middle of several proverbs that use physical images to describe emotional reactions. Right before it is the passage, “Like one who takes away a garment on a cold day, or one that pours vinegar on a wound, is one who sings songs to a heavy heart” (Proverbs 25:20, RSV). The physical picture of discomfort illustrates that trying to make a person in mourning happy just distresses them more. Likewise, the passage about coals is about the emotional discomfort an enemy will feel when you waken his conscience about his conduct toward you. According to the Jewish Encyclopedia1 :

The word “coal” is often used in a metaphorical sense: 2 Samuel 14: 7 speaks of the “quenching of the coal” of a man, meaning the complete annihilation of his issue; while in Proverbs 25:22 kindness bestowed upon an enemy is called “heaping coals of fire upon his head,” since it tends to waken his deadened conscience and help him to realize his wrong. Sirach 8:10 compares the smoldering and easily roused passion of the godless man to the coal that is easily lighted and breaks forth into flame.

The picture of putting coals on a person’s head initially sounds like a picture of causing burning pain, but it really is not. Instead, it seems to be a picture of stirring up the coals of a fire to rouse it back to life again. It is a picture of stirring within a person a response of remorse, when they see your kindness in the face of their meanness. This must also be the sense of Paul’s passage – we cause our enemies to be remorseful for their actions toward us, and in doing so we overcome evil by doing good.

1 www.jewishencyclopedia.com

Photo: snty–tact (Talk)

Drink Deep

Bruce Okkema

by Bruce Okkema

As we close this section on living water for now, would you take a few minutes to do something very Hebraic? Take a glass … fill it with water … hold it up and look at it for a time. Think about God’s faithfulness to you and think about how so many people don’t have this simple glass of water so easily. Bless the Lord for his precious gift, then, take a big long drink. Let it soak deep into your soul as you read these beautiful passages about the Living Water:

“The LORD will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.”
Isaiah 58:11En Gedi

“For I will pour out water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out My Spirit on your offspring and My blessing on your descendants; and they will spring up among the grass like poplars by streams of water.” Isaiah 44:3-4

“On that day living water will flow out from Jerusalem, half to the eastern sea and half to the western sea, in summer and in winter. The LORD will be king over the whole earth. On that day there will be one LORD, and his name the only name.” Zechariah 14:8-9

“Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” John 4:13-14

“Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.’” John 7:37-38

For more on this topic, please read our Director’s Article of April/May, 2003 titled, “Living Water.”