God is amazing and he reveals himself in some pretty powerful ways throughout his word. We have now been in our Youth Series in the book of Exodus for four weeks and this last week we wrapped up the first of three larger sections in the book. (Christopher J. Wright helpfully divides the book into three themes: Redemption, Covenant, and Presence.) On that note, I thought it would be helpful to recap where we’ve been so far, as well as to address some more confusing parts of the book that might be helpful in your conversations with your kids.
The Story So Far
The narrative of Exodus begins with the people of Israel—seemingly forgotten—under oppressive slavery in Egypt. (This was the result of an oppressive style of government that Joseph set up when he was in power [cf. Genesis 47:13-27].) The narrator shows us that God has not forgotten his people, though. He continues to cause them to “be fruitful,” “multiply,” and “fill the earth” (the creation blessing of Genesis 1:28). The first section of Exodus is all about God’s rescue of his people. He sees them when they feel forgotten, he reminds them of their identity (an identity more about whose they are than who they are), he demonstrates his power to triumph over their oppressors, and finally his trustworthiness to rescue any who trust him. This is his redemption.
A few themes repeat all throughout this first section. With all of these themes, we see that Moses is kind of like a mini-Israel (this will be important). Everything that happens to Moses is a bit of a foreshadowing of what happens to the nation. So just like baby Moses in the basket, the people cry out. They cry out under the hands of their slave masters at the start of this section. They cry out under the threat of death at the Reed Sea at the end of the section. And just like Pharaoh’s daughter heard the cry and rescued Moses from his peril, so does God (whose name is Yahweh) rescue Israel from their peril. God hears the cry of his people!
Our Story within His
For us as adults, and for our teenagers, this historical-theological record is tremendously important. For this is our story too! When we feel most forgotten—and the evidence looks like everyone has abandoned us—in the background (like Mariam in the reeds), God has not abandoned us, but has heard us. Moses was the most identity-confused guy you can imagine. Neither fully Egyptian, nor Hebrew, nor Midianite. Neither a Shepherd nor a Prince. His heart for injustice was attacked by his own oppressed people, but was praised by foreigners. He felt he couldn’t even talk properly. He did not fit in. His son’s name, Gersham (lit. “a foreigner there”) sums up his lifelong feeling of not knowing who or why he was. But Yahweh’s answer to his question “who am I?” was “I will be with you.” For me, this is both frustrating and tremendously freeing. The God who knows my lineage better than I do, who created me in such a way that he knows my weaknesses and limits more intimately than I do, is not that concerned about defining me but is rather committed to helping me find myself within my relationship with him. As the signs and wonders of chapters 7-11 remind us, it makes a world of difference whether we try and be our own god, or whether we trust Yahweh to be God. Isn’t it good to trust in a God who is trustworthy?
What About __________?
In the midst of this story, there are some tricky parts! You might have come across some sections that were confusing — you’re not alone. Here are some thoughts that I have on some of the more challenging themes I came across. I hope these will help you as you have continued conversations with your kids.
Is it ever okay to lie?
The story of the Egyptian midwives has become a core passage people turn to in thinking about the ethics of truth-telling. Many point to this account (i.e., Exodus 1:19) as evidence that—under unjust systems—lying is commendable. Much can be (and has been) said on this topic, but as we come to scripture it’s always really important we look at what the text actually says. The narrator of Exodus seems quite content to leave us asking questions that he does not ever answer. It is true that the midwives usurp Pharaoh and that they are blessed by God. Many questions remain, though. One important question is: did they actually lie?
On this question I’ll say two things. First, if the Bible does provide an ethic around when it may or may not be okay to bend the truth, this is not the place it is trying to do so. While we should certainly pay attention to the decisions of characters, we must also not import into the text more than the text is trying to teach us. I simply do not see evidence in the passage that leads me to believe that the author is (here) making a case for righteous deceit. The second thing I will say is that I think this does display a larger theme that is certainly being taught through this passage: that given the choice between “fearing Pharaoh” and “fearing Yahweh” one must always fear Yahweh. This is picked up all throughout scripture (see e.g., Acts 5:29) and it is certainly this fear of Yahweh that is commended and blessed in the passage.
Are we supposed to be scared of Yahweh?
We’ll cover this idea more later in the series, so stay tuned. But briefly I think the text (and scripture as a whole) would define “the fear of the Lord” as something like: “having an accurate understanding of who God is.” Might that make you tremble in fear? I think so! Might that equally calm your fears? I think so, too! Knowing the true power of a lion, the real sharpness of a chef’s knife, or the actual heat of a fire does cause some reasonable fright, and also awe, and also marvel and how good power, and sharpness, and heat can be.
(By the way, I think humility is the mirror of this: “having an accurate understanding of who I am.” Understanding both my greatest strengths and non-strengths grounds me and helps me better to have a joy for the reality of God.)
What’s with the weird circumcision story?
One of the most jarring verses (one that we did not discuss at Youth group) is in Exodus 4:24-26 where randomly, after Moses has decided to follow Yahweh, we’re told that the Lord sought to kill Moses. He’s rescued when Moses’ wife circumcises her (probably adult) firstborn son and touches the blood from it on his feet. What. On. Earth. Is going on here?!
Again the narrator has left a lot for us to not know. But some of what we already know about this story helps us. Remember that Moses is like a mini-Israel. God does for Moses what he will do for all of Israel (hears his cry, draws him out of the water of reeds, drives him out into the desert, meets him as a fire in the wilderness, etc.). Well here, we see what I think to be a clear foreshadow of the Passover: where death is immanent because of sin, and is prevented by the blood-sacrifice of a firstborn.
Now. Can we just admit that in our cultural moment, it’s weird how much the Bible talks about circumcision? It is. But understanding the culture into which it is written helps us. Ritual practices like this were very common in the Ancient Near East (including in Egypt) and were community and religious markers. We’re going to see a theme throughout all of Exodus of God asking his people to wear reminders to themselves and those around them that they belonged to God. (Perhaps a modern equivalent would be wearing a cross necklace to show you’re a Christian, or a wedding band to show you’re married.) The people of God practiced this kind of ritual “marking” to show that they were Yahweh-people. The fact that Moses had not distinguished his family as part of that community was important. It’s not shocking, then, that—at the end of this wild couple of verses—his wife characterizes their marriage and family as related to this act of obedience, sacrifice, and identification. Just as the whole people of Israel will soon become family through the blood of the lambs at Passover, we get a foreshadow of this in Moses’ nuclear family.
God never gets Moses to lead his people to a place he has not first asked Moses to go.
What about the death of the firstborn kids?
While the rescue of the Israelites from slavery and from death is beautiful, and points to our own rescue from slavery and death, it comes at the contrast of tremendous suffering in the land of Egypt. Can God be just in the midst of the death of these firstborn? Some here comment that this is Yahweh’s fair justice upon those who had 80 years earlier slaughtered the Hebrew children by tossing them in the Nile river. But is this just retributive justice? We all long for a God who will “make things right,” but you’re not alone for questioning whether this seems extreme.
I will not attempt to resolve that tension here. I think it is helpful that we come to God with those questions. I have a couple points that might be helpful in your consideration, though. The first is that often scripture uses hyperbole to emphasize a point (just as we might say our team totally destroyed their opponents). Given that not every home would have a firstborn child residing there we can already logically infer that “total destruction” of the firstborn of Egypt might not be completely numeric.
I cannot say for certain that this is what the text is implying, but I have often wondered about one reading of 12:30, “for there was not a house without one dead.” In some senses this was true about every household in the land. Either there was dead lamb or a dead firstborn. And I wonder if the text might be hinting at this. All throughout the text we see that there are Egyptians who begin to trust the Lord, to have favour on the Israelites, and to trust his instructions. I wonder how many Egyptians exchanged a slain lamb for the life of their child?
The discomfort we have in these texts is appropriate. I think the author intends it. The injustice, here, though lies not at the hands of Yahweh, but of humanity. In Exodus we are dropped into the middle of a cycling story of humans choosing dominance, independence, and mistrust of God in ways that cause the undoing of the created order. (The murder of Abel, the flood, the chaos at Babel, the 10 plagues all intentionally use language of de-creation of God’s Genesis 1 world.) The consequence of making self (and Pharaoh) into gods is that the life brought by God beings to uncreate. Death is not so much inflicted by God on the next generation as it is experienced as the result of God handing over the wheel of creation to people who want nothing to do with him.
The discomfort of this also comes because of our own tendency to do the same. We’d rather not imagine that the consequences of our sin would lead to that kind of death. Just as we’d rather blame the police officer than ourselves for a speeding ticket, so we’d rather imagine an unjust God than believe we’re sinful. Praise God that, to be just and justifier, he has rescued us from immanent death through the substitutionary death of another firstborn son. His very own.