Exodus 5 (Let My People Go)

Before we get into Exodus chapter 5, let's open in a word of prayer. Lord, we thank you for this time together, and we thank and praise you for your goodness towards us. And as we approach this chapter from your word, Lord, help us to learn lessons in patience and faith and how you work according to your timing.

Lord, and help us not to grumble as your people Israel did. Even when there seems to be, maybe from our vantage point, a good reason to grumble. But we know that you are always at work, so help us to trust in you moment by moment, day by day.

We ask all these things in Christ's name.

Amen.

Pharaoh Rejects Moses’ Request to Worship in the Wilderness

All right, Exodus chapter 5.

I know that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness. Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I do not know that I let Israel go. The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please, let us go three days' journey into the desert and sacrifice to the Lord our God.

Lest he fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword. Moses and Adam, why do you take the people from their work? Get back to your labor. Look, the people of the land are many now. Make them rest from their labor.

So the same day, Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people and their officers.

You shall no longer give the people straw to make brick as before. Let them go and gather straw for themselves. And you shall lay on them the quarter bricks which they made before. You shall not reduce it, for they are idle.

Therefore they cry out, saying, let us go and sacrifice to our God. Let more work be laid on the men, that they may labor it. And let them not regard false words.

And the taskmasters of the people and their officers went out and spoke to the people.

Thus says Pharaoh, I will not give you straw. Go, get yourselves straw where you can find it. Yet none of your work will be reduced.

So the people were scattered abroad throughout all the land of Egypt to gather stubble instead of straw.

The taskmasters forced them to hurry.

Fulfill your work, your daily quota, as when there was straw.

Also the officers of the children of Israel, whom Pharaoh's taskmasters had sent over, were beaten and were arsed.

Why have you not fulfilled your task in making brick, both yesterday and today, as before?

And the officers of the children of Israel came and cried out to Pharaoh, saying,.

Why are you dealing thus with your servants?

There is no straw given to your servants, and they say to us, make brick. And indeed, your servants are beaten, but the fault is in your own people.

You are Ira.

Ira.

Therefore you say, let us go and sacrifice to the Lord. Therefore go now and work, for no straw shall be given you. Yea, you shall never earn a quarter of bricks.

And the officers of the children of Israel saw that they were in trouble after it was said, You shall not reduce any bricks from your daily quota. As they came out from Pharaoh, they met Moses and Aaron, who stood there to meet them.

And they said to them,.

Let the Lord look on you in church, because you have made us abhorrent in the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his servants, to put a sword in their hand to kill us.

Moses Brings the People's Complaint to the Lord

So Moses returned to the Lord.

Why have you brought trouble on this people? Why is it you have sent me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has done evil to this people. Neither have you delivered your people at all.

All right. So last time in chapter four, you remember that Moses was concerned that the people wouldn't believe him, that God had spoken to him and given him this mission. So what did God do? He gave Moses the ability to perform signs or miracles, which he worked before the people.

And then he threw his brother Aaron, who is now his spokesman or like a prophet. He told the people all that the Lord had spoken. Chapter four ends with these words. So the people believed. And when they heard that the Lord had visited the children of Israel and that he had looked on their affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshipped.

So the last chapter ends on a very positive note. This chapter, not so much. And we're going to see a lot of ups and downs from this time forward. So the Israelites now have this great anticipation that things are going to start getting better for them.

Things are going to start getting easier. God has seen their affliction. Pharaoh is certainly going to let us go into the wilderness to sacrifice to the Lord. So they didn't know maybe exactly what to expect, but they're expecting good things.

Little did they know that things were going to get worse before they got better. It isn't that often the way it is sometimes. And throughout many different stories in the scripture, things get worse before they get better.

So this kind of starts this whole process where they lack faith. They grumble against Moses and Aaron. And the sad part about it is, if you think about it, Pharaoh is the evil ruler, right? They are being oppressed because of Pharaoh.

Pharaoh is the one to blame, but who do they blame? They blame Moses. And I think we see something similar in the New Testament. When the leaders of Israel are worried that Jesus is going to cause some great affliction to fall on them.

They're afraid the Romans are going to crack down on them. And the Romans are already oppressing the Jews in Jesus' day. So they're afraid that Jesus is going to make things worse. So instead of speaking against the oppressive government, whether it's Egypt or Rome, who gets the blame time and time again?

The man of God gets the blame. The religious leaders of Jesus' day, they cut deals with Rome. In Exodus, the Israelites, if you know the story, we're going to see that they desire to go back to Egypt once they are released.

So this is just kind of a sad reality. And we see so many parallels between the Old Testament, what's written, and then similar things when we get to the New Testament. All right. Now, before we get into this passage, this is as good a time to bring this up as any.

But so far, I brought up the Israelites in the days of Moses. And I made reference to the Jews in the days of Jesus. So what people have a tendency to do is to use the word Jew or the Jews as just a blanket term to cover everybody from Abraham to your Jewish neighbor today.

What's the problem with that, though? People will say, OK, Moses is leading the Jews out of Egypt. What's the problem with that? Who wants to tell the class?

You mean the issue of whether it's the Jewish religion or the Jewish nationality?

What do you think? What am I getting at?

What did you see? Did you just make reference to the Jews in what we've read so far?

You tell me, did I?

Well, Jews at this point haven't been called Jews. They've been called the children of God or Israelites.

Right. That's true. But what I'm saying is sometimes we have this tendency, Christians have this tendency to say, you know, Moses led the Jews out of Egypt. So here's the point in bringing this up. Moses is not Jewish.

All right. Abraham was not Jewish. There's no Jews in Egypt right now. The term Jew comes from Judah. Right. And you'll think, OK, you have the nation of Israel under David. It was the United Kingdom under Solomon.

It was United Kingdom under Solomon's son. It breaks into two kingdoms, Israel to the north, Judah to the south. The first time in the Bible that you see the word Jew or Jews is in Second Kings 25. And that's fairly late.

So all of that to say this. Technically, Moses isn't Jewish. By the time you get to the New Testament, the term Jew covers all of them. Doesn't matter what tribe they were from. But is that a big deal?

I'm trying to make a big deal about that. No, but it's just technically incorrect to say that they're Jews at this point. OK, just just a good thing to know.

Could you give the reference in Kings again?

Second Kings 25 verse 25. And at times the Jews were at odds with Israel. Because you had Israel to the north and the Jews to the south. And they were at odds with one another. So just a piece of information.

Any comments or questions before we depart this subject?

Looking at it from today's eyes, we see Israel as one thing and Jews as another thing. And people have a tendency to use both of them synonymously. Referring to either Israel as Jews or Jews as Israelites.

I think that's probably why it's happening today.

Well, and it's like Marcus indicated. It's both an ethnicity and a religion. And you can be one and not the other. So that doesn't help. OK, moving on. So we start reading in chapter 5 verse 1. Moses and Aaron.

This is their first encounter with Pharaoh. So it says afterward, Moses and Aaron went in and told Pharaoh, Thus says the Lord God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.

So the first thing to notice is that Moses is not asking Pharaoh to release the Israelites. This is more of God is telling you to do this. So basically a few days to worship God. Three days to get there.

It would be three days back. And then I don't know how long they planned on staying. So this is like at least a week. You can figure of Pharaoh not having a slave labor force working for him. Did I see a hand?

Yes.

I thought the question for the statement that Moses made was pretty, pretty accurate. He said, so they said the God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please let us go three days journey into the desert and sacrifice to the Lord our God.

Lest he fall upon us with pestilence and with the sword. Now that was a warning to Pharaoh. If you keep us here, if God does that, you're going to be affected by it. You're going to be affected by any pestilence that we will have.

You're going to be affected by any sword that would come upon us. So it was kind of a warning to Pharaoh. Even though Pharaoh took a different stance. He was known as a God, small G.

Right.

So this is not an unreasonable request, really. In the grand scheme of things, Pharaoh would have been wise to let them go. Not only for the sake that obviously would cause God not to come down on him.

But people tend to work better or work harder when they have a day off or when they're happy. Right. When people are miserable and work to the bone, they're not exactly all that effective. But he says no, I think because this is a matter of authority.

Nothing else matters. All he hears is you're telling me what I should do or your God is claiming to be above me. And because of that, in verse two, Pharaoh said, who is the Lord that I should obey his voice to let Israel go?

You think he's going to regret those words? I do not know the Lord, nor will I let Israel go. Now, Pharaoh may not have known of the God of the Hebrews. That's a possibility. Or it's just that he doesn't know God in the other sense that he knows him personally or that he's walking with him.

That's definitely not the case. And of course, as Jim indicated, the Egyptians had their own deities. Pharaoh would have claimed to be among them. So whatever the case is, Pharaoh is not going to take orders from anyone.

I think that's what it comes down to. So Pharaoh, he's hearing this. He isn't buying into it. He's probably thinking that this is a scheme.

Right.

I'll give you three days to worship your God and you guys are going to go out three days. Just keep on going. Right. That has to be one of his concerns that this is just a ruse to try to escape. So Moses then ups the ante, as you indicated in verse three, by saying, if we don't go, then God might strike the Hebrews with pestilence or with sword.

So now Moses is putting Pharaoh in a position where either way it's a lose, lose almost because he might lose them. They go into the wilderness and never come back. Or if they stay, God afflicts them or strikes them.

Then either way they're gone. So he probably feels like Moses is trying to put them into this position. And that makes Pharaoh angry. As you can imagine, look at verse four. Then the king of Egypt said to them, Moses and Aaron, why do you take the people from their work?

Get back to your labor. And Pharaoh said, look, the people of the land are many now and you make them rest from their labor. So the same day, Pharaoh commanded their taskmasters of the people and their officers saying, you shall no longer give the people straw to make brick as before.

Let them go and gather straw for themselves. And that would have been fine, I guess, except for what? The quota remained the same. So now they have all of this extra work to do. And in the process, to add insult to injury, Pharaoh accuses them of being lazy.

This is really that's got to hurt. I mean, you can imagine Pharaoh. He's on his throne. I don't know. The old movies, they have the palm branches and they're fanning Pharaoh on the throne, feeding him grapes and everything.

At the same time, his slaves are out working in the hot Egyptian sun and he has the audacity to call them lazy. So that's got to hurt. So just imagine, let's say for the sake of argument, that they work 12 hours a day and they slept for eight hours.

Let's say they had an hour to themselves in the morning, an hour for lunch and then two hours before bed. Well, now all of that is gone. Every waking moment. Now they have to work around the clock to get straw.

And even then they still don't have enough time. So this really is an impossible task that Pharaoh sets before them. For what purpose? Well, to punish the people. But, you know, he probably knew. OK, Moses is asking, I'm going to impose this.

This is going to turn them against Moses. And now I won't have to worry about him, you know, gaining popularity or power with the people. I'm assuming he's going through that in his mind. Look at verses eight and nine.

Pharaoh says, and you shall lay on them the quota of the bricks which they made before. You shall not reduce it for their idol. Therefore, they cry out, saying, let us go and sacrifice to their God. Let more work be laid on the men that they may labor in it and let them not regard false words.

So Pharaoh thinks that Moses is just making all of this up. These are false words. He's he's trying to get the people's hopes up. So they must have too much time on their hands, you know, cooking up all these schemes of trying to get out of work.

And I'll teach them a lesson that they're never going to forget. That's kind of his his approach here. Look at verses 13 and 14. And the taskmasters forced them to hurry, saying, fulfill your work, your daily quota.

And as when there was straw, also the officers of the children of Israel, whom Pharaoh's taskmasters had set over them, were beaten and were asked, why have you not fulfilled your task in making brick both yesterday and today as before?

You see, he's doing these things. It's trying to aggravate them and really just to wear them down. Why can't you do this? Well, what was the answer?

What notion?

So then you get this notion about going on this journey for three days.

Yeah, I mean, he's asking, why can't you do this? Because it's impossible. Don't blame us. Actually, what they respond is that this is your people's fault. They're not giving us straw. That's why we can't do it.

And, of course, once again, that is going to make Pharaoh mad. So you see this back and forth and it just keeps getting worse and worse. And the temperature is rising. Look at verse 17. Pharaoh again.

But he said, you are idle, idle. Therefore, you say, let us go and sacrifice to the Lord. Therefore, go now and work for no straw shall be given you. Yet you shall deliver the quota of bricks. And the officers of the children of Israel saw that they were in trouble after it was said, you shall not reduce any bricks from your daily quota.

So the people or the the officers of the people, because you think in any government, in any nation, there's going to be the people and the people have representatives who speak for everyone else. That's what we see here.

So the Israelites have their representatives who speak on their behalf. But the officers, they see that they're getting nowhere. That's very clear. So they're getting nowhere with Pharaoh. Now, where do they turn?

OK, let's turn to Moses and Aaron. So they're standing there. You know, you guys got us into this. So here comes the blame in verse 21. And they said to them, let the Lord look on you and judge because you have made us abhorrent in the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his servants to put a sword in their hand to kill us.

Is that true? Here's the thing. The Pharaoh and the Egyptians, they despised the Israelites anyways. It's not like Moses or it's not like Pharaoh loved the people or was treating them well before this.

They were slaves. And we saw how, well, it's 80 years now that Pharaoh was killing the Hebrew children back then. So they've been treated so poorly all along. And now they're acting as if Moses, this is all your fault.

I mean, it's really, really sad.

All right.

Did I see a hand?

I forgot. OK.

So Moses, this is your fault. Yes, Russ.

It's like a blame game.

My fault?

It's your fault.

Right.

Right.

Yeah.

It's always someone else's fault, isn't it? And this is going to be a reoccurring theme that Moses is making their life difficult. Moses, even when they are released, remember what they accused Moses of later on that Moses, you just let us out here to the wilderness to die.

I mean, the ungrateful nature is really astonishing. Now, on the other hand, leaders are responsible for their actions. So if a leader of a people makes decisions that makes things worse for the people, in one sense, that's fair to critique the leader.

The thing that makes this totally different, though, is that God is telling Moses what to do. So grumbling against Moses is one of the same as grumbling against God. Not trusting Moses is the same as not having faith in God.

Jim.

The whole Egyptian population, their main focus was because Pharaoh was declared a deity and he would position with the other deities in Egyptian culture. And their whole focus was to devote every action to Pharaoh.

Now, the Jews, even though they were slaves, they were part of that population. And I think what was happening here is that there was a verb put under the saddle and it irritated Pharaoh to the point that he started to dig in his heels.

He wasn't going to let anything go. And he himself hardened his heart against the people.

Okay. Anyone else?

Yes.

Originally, Pharaoh was scared because the Israelites were outnumbering the Egyptians. So the original problem with Pharaoh was fear. These guys are going to overrun us. And we're going to end up being slaves.

So early on, he decided, I'm going to act first here and make them slaves. So I think the original thing was fear. Now he's got to keep it up.

Right.

Faith, Grumbling, and Waiting on the Lord

All right. So Moses is getting the blame. As I said originally, that the people were expecting that things were going to get better. But now they're starting to see that things are getting worse. So it's Pharaoh's fault, obviously.

But they blame Moses. So they lack faith. You're going to see from here on out, they really lack faith every step of the way. The children of Israel, they never really laid hold to the promise of God.

Yes, he would lead them out of Egypt. But this generation would never, because of their lack of faith, they would never end up seeing the promised land. With the exception of who? Okay. Joshua and Caleb.

But the rest of them, even Moses, never saw the promised land. And trusting in God requires patience. It requires patience. They didn't have a lot of patience. If God promised something and then he just immediately gave it, then it's right there.

There's no need for faith because God gives it right away. And what is Hebrews 11 one? Tell us about faith without faith. No, that's verse six.

But you're on the right track for the evidence of things not seen.

Amen.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen. So the Israelites. What did they see? All they saw was bad upon bad. They had a bad situation to begin with. Now things are getting worse.

God had promised something, looked upon their affliction, but they don't see it. And they're not waiting upon the Lord. They're just not seeing it right away. So we're going to start complaining. Isn't that the temptation?

We know what God has said. We have faith that things will get better, that things will change, that, you know, we're waiting, but we want it now. We don't want to wait. So in verse 22, all of this puts Moses in a very difficult position.

So Moses returned to the Lord and said, Lord, why have you brought trouble on this people? Why is it you have sent me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has done evil to this people.

Neither have you delivered your people at all. You know, one could read that and hear Moses now getting frustrated and Moses now expressing doubts. Maybe, but what else is Moses supposed to do? I think Moses is just going to the Lord and he has no ideas.

What do I do now? This is what you said. It hasn't come about.

Now what?

So I don't see this necessarily as a lapse in Moses faith, Linda.

But he was warned back in chapter four that God would harden the heart of Pharaoh. So he knew it was the first time around.

That's early.

Yeah, that's a really good point. You should have expected that a little bit. So chapter. Go ahead, Dennis.

I just try to picture the absurdity of this man coming before the most powerful man on earth. And he like like it's pointed out, he's telling him what to do. The absurdity of this from Pharaoh's perspective.

Right.

And yet what else is a preacher to do? What else is someone to do? Thus it is written. This is what I want you to say. So you have to say it this way. Moses didn't have a choice and he he really got fed to the lion.

Yeah.

And and yet that's God called him to a task that looked ridiculous and impossible.

Wow. Yeah.

It's and some things haven't changed because preachers today proclaim what? That Jesus is the king of kings and that he's going to return and he's going to rule this earth with a rod of iron and the rulers of this earth.

Look at that. And they're like, you know, it's just as absurd, if not more absurd than Moses saying this to Pharaoh.

Yeah.

Right, Russ.

I'm going to say, how many times have you gone to the Lord and say, Lord, I don't know what you want.

Hmm.

Today, I think I did.

There's times when I get to the point where I said, no, I don't know what you want.

Hmm.

But your will be done.

Amen.

Amen.

The Lesson of Exodus 5 for Believers

All right.

So as I said, the last chapter ended on a very positive note. This chapter, not so much. So we're actually going to close with chapter six, verse one. But before we do, what's the takeaway? I was trying to look for something to take away from this.

So we have when we read all of this, most of us know the story pretty well. But we have the benefit in reading the story and that we know how it turns out in the end. We almost have God's vantage point, knowing the end from the beginning, if I could use that term.

So we can see that if the Israelites would just wait upon the Lord, in effect, they would just not grumble against Moses and complain that if they would just do that, things would work out so much better.

And things would be easier for Moses and Aaron. But when you're living through it. Yeah, that's a little harder, obviously. But you remember what Paul wrote to the Corinthians? First Corinthians chapter 10.

Speaking of the Israelites and their disobedience, he said these things were written for. He's writing to the church. These things are written for our admonition. So the Lord is setting forth this as an example for us of what not to do.

All right.

This is what we are not to do. So when we go through hard times or a time of testing, there should be a little less complaining and a little more trust. And if you're in a situation where you just have to get something off your chest and you're feeling really confused or down or whatever the case is, take your complaints to God.

Right.

Take your complaints to God in prayer and then apologize ahead of time for grumbling. But we want to try to refrain from bringing this to other people. We all have done it from time to time, but there's Christians that, you know, the type they do nothing but complain.

It's woe is me all the time. And that's sort of a natural thing for people to do. And other people just bottle it up. They feel like complaining, but they don't want to. But what is complaining and grumbling do?

It just discourages people. Think of Moses. Here he has this calling upon his life. But when he hears the grumbling of the people, I mean, at one point he's like, Lord, just kill me now. I can't handle it anymore.

So it's okay to talk about it. And I think it's okay to complain a little bit, but bring it to God. Bring it to God first. Certainly.

God won't turn a deaf ear to you.

No.

Amen.

God will hear you.

And then Exodus chapter six, verse one. Then the Lord told Moses, now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh. When he feels the force of my strong hand, he will let the people go.