LITMIR.BIZ

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Lord appeared to Abram, and informed him: “To your offspring I will give this land.” So Abram erected an altar at that location. After which, he continued on to Bethel, and again built an altar. Thus laying claim to God’s promise.

The word of the Lord subsequently came to the patriarch, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward” (Gen. 15:1). “The negative imperative appears here and on other occasions, as with Isaac (26:24) and Jacob (46:3). With the passing of time, it came to serve as formula for encouragement, having been tested and not found wanting. As elaborated the shield implies his protection, and great reward his provision.15

      Some time later God again addressed Abraham (Abram). “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love and go to the region of Moriah,” the Lord instructed him. “Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about” (Gen. 22;2). In retrospect, “Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death” (Heb. 11:19).

      As the patriarch reached for his knife to slay his son, an angel protested: “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son. Your only son.” Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught by its horns in a thicket. Accordingly, he sacrificed the ram instead of his prized offspring.

      “So Abraham called the place The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said, ‘On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.’” In anticipation that God would make provision for those who put their trust in him.

      Now Isaac’s wife Rebekah gave birth to twin boys: Esau and Jacob. The former became a skilled hunter, while the latter was more retiring. Once when Jacob was cooking stew, his brother came in from the open country. “Quick, let me have some of that red stew!” he exclaimed. “I’m famished!” (Gen. 25:30).

Jacob replied, “First sell me your birthright.” “The firstborn received a larger portion of the inheritance; according to Deuteronomy 21:17, the firstborn received a double share. Jacob, the master manipulator, perceived that Esau was too exhausted to value something as abstract as birthright over tangible food at the moment.”16 Moreover, one gets the impression that he had been anticipating such an opportunity.

      “Look, I am about to die.” Isaac protested. “What good is the birthright to me?” So he sold his birthright under oath to his sibling. Soliciting the critical comment, “So Esau despised his birthright.”

      Fearing for his life, Jacob fled to his uncle Laban. When he had reached a certain place, he stopped for the night. He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and angels ascending and descending on it. There above it stood the Lord, who declared: “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendents the land on which you are lying. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land” (Gen. 28:13, 15).

      So the patriarchal period continued to run its course. Employing manifestly imperfect means to achieve God’s redemptive purposes. While in different circumstances, drawing from a righteous resolve.

      With the exodus. Now the Israelites fled famine to Egypt, where they remained for an extended time. A new king, unfamiliar with Joseph, who enjoyed a cordial relationship with those in authority, ascended the throne. So that he was less amenable to their tenuous situation. “Look,” he alerted the populace, “we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country” (Exod. 1:9–10).

      So he put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread. Then the ruler instructed some helping Hebrew women who gave birth to kill the male offspring. But the midwives feared God, and excused their failure to comply. Then Pharaoh set forth a public proclamation, insisting; “Every boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.” With the intention that the latter would be assimilated. Which amounted to genocide.

      “Now a man of the house of Levi married a Levite woman, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months” (Exod. 2:1–2). When she could hide him no longer, she placed the child in a papyrus basket and put it among the reeds. His sister stood at a distance to see what would transpire.

      When Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, she saw the basket and had one of her servants retrieve it. Seeing the crying child, she felt sorry for him. Enlisting the help of his sister to recruit a Hebrew woman (His mother) to nurse the child, she adopted him when older. She named him Moses, derived from the verb meaning to pull out.

      One day, when Moses had matured, he saw an Egyptian beating one of his own people. Assuring himself that there was no one watching, he killed the oppressor and hid his body in the sand. When Pharaoh heard of this, he determined to have Moses killed. But the he fled to Midian to escape Pharaoh’s wrath.

There he married and was tending the flock of his father-in-law when he saw a burning bush that was not consumed. “What actually did Moses see: Was it a supernatural vision or was it an actual physical phenomenon? If the latter, did he see a bramble bush literally blazing in the desert; or the shrub called ‘burning bush’, in brilliant flower; or the sunset light falling full on a thorn bush and producing the effect of flames?17 All of these alternatives have been suggested.

      In any case, he heard a voice from the bush cautioning him: “Do not come any closer. Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” Then the voice continued, “I am the Lord the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob” (Exod. 3:5–6). In other words, the God the patriarchs.

      The Lord then assured him, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with mild and honey.” Hence, ideal from a pastoral perspective. “So, now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”

      When Moses protested his lack of credentials, God assured him: “I will be with you. And this will be a sign that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.” Initially, this recalls the saying: “One with God is in the majority.” Subsequently, “The proof of the pudding is in its eating.”

      Afterward, Moses and Aaron went before Pharaoh, and informed him: “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’” (Exod. 5:1). Consequently, even rulers are subject to God’s sovereign authority.

      “Why are you taking the people away from their labor?” Pharaoh indignantly replied. Then he instructed his slave drivers, “Make the work harder for the men so that they keep working and pay no attention to lies.” Which incited Moses to complain to the Lord for worsening the situation, with no relief in sight.

The stage was set for a series of plagues to descent on Egypt. Some “have suggested that a sequence of natural occurrences can explain the plagues, all originating from an overflooding of (the Nile). Those who maintain such a position will still sometimes admit to the miraculous nature of the plagues in terms of timing, discrimination between Egyptians and Israelites, prior announcement and severity.”18 With the exception of the tenth plague, concerning the death of the firstborn. Not that we lack answers, but seen at a loss to ask the appropriate questions.

      Pharaoh finally relented, only to have a change of mind. Pursuing the Israelites, his forces perished when the waters

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