The first meeting with Pharaoh
Exodus 5 (selected verses)
5 Afterwards Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, “Let my people go, so that they may celebrate a festival to me in the wilderness.”’ 2 But Pharaoh said, ‘Who is the Lord, that I should heed him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and I will not let Israel go.’ 3 Then they said, ‘The God of the Hebrews has revealed himself to us; let us go a three days’ journey into the wilderness to sacrifice to the Lord our God, or he will fall upon us with pestilence or sword.’ 4 But the king of Egypt said to them, ‘Moses and Aaron, why are you taking the people away from their work? Get to your labours!’…6 That same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people, as well as their supervisors, 7 ‘You shall no longer give the people straw to make bricks, as before; let them go and gather straw for themselves. 8 But you shall require of them the same quantity of bricks as they have made previously; do not diminish it, for they are lazy; that is why they cry, “Let us go and offer sacrifice to our God.” 9 Let heavier work be laid on them; then they will labour at it and pay no attention to deceptive words.’
10 So the taskmasters and the supervisors of the people went out and said to the people, ‘Thus says Pharaoh, “I will not give you straw. 11 Go and get straw yourselves, wherever you can find it; but your work will not be lessened in the least.”’ 12 So the people scattered throughout the land of Egypt, to gather stubble for straw. 13 The taskmasters were urgent, saying, ‘Complete your work, the same daily assignment as when you were given straw.’
19 The Israelite supervisors saw that they were in trouble when they were told, ‘You shall not lessen your daily number of bricks.’…21 Supervisors said to Moses and Aaron, ‘The Lord look upon you and judge! You have brought us into bad odour with Pharaoh and his officials, and have put a sword in their hand to kill us.’
22 Then Moses turned again to the Lord and said, ‘O Lord, why have you mistreated this people? Why did you ever send me? 23 Since I first came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has mistreated this people, and you have done nothing at all to deliver your people.’
The first interaction with Pharaoh did not go well. Instead of letting the people of Israel have time off to go into the wilderness to worship God, Pharaoh increased the workload of the Israelites. Now instead of having straw delivered to them, they were required to find and gather up straw themselves for the building projects they were working on. In forcing the workers to gather their own straw, Pharaoh was working on the idea that people who have no free time are less likely to complain about things.
Pharaoh also made things much harder for Moses. Moses went to talk to Pharoah and things got worse, much worse, for the people Moses was trying to help. That would have been easy for the Israelites to say, “We don’t want your help.” In fact, the leaders of the Israelites said to Moses and Aaron, “May God judge you for the mess you are making of things.”
And we meet one of Moses’ many complaints to God, “You are doing nothing to fulfill the mission you sent me on. How is any of this helping set your people free?”
How often in our lives do we think that God is slow in bringing about the good we hope for, the good that we think God desires for the world? How often does the path God invites us to walk seem unnecessarily difficult and challenging? Two things to glean from this text. First, it is okay to complain to God – to tell God that we think things are not going well with God’s plan. Again and again we see people in the Bible doing exactly that. Which leads directly to the second thing, we need to be willing to hear a response from God very much like Isaiah 55:9 : For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” In the end, God is God. Our questions are fair to ask, as long as we understand that God is God; and God is bringing about God’s goal and dream in God’s way.
PRAYER:
O Lord, often your way of doing things seems strange to us. We think we know better. Teach us the dual truths of joining in conversation with you telling you what we think, and trusting you to know what you are doing even when your way is not the way we would do it. In Jesus’ name. Amen.