Exodus 3 and 4

[michelle]

Hardened Heart

I found myself a little frustrated by God when he tells Moses that he is going to harden Pharaoh's heart. Moses just had this amazingly honest conversation with God about his fear that he will not be good enough to convince people that he has spoken with God and God basically tells Moses, "Don't worry. I'll give you the words to say. And if that doesn't work I'll give you the ability to do miracles to show them that I am with you. Oh and by the way none of it is going to work no matter how hard you try because I'm going to harden Pharaoh's heart."

That being said, I understand that God was trying to teach Moses about perserverance and trust because God knew what was to be coming for Moses. Moses need to learn to perserver and trust God through the hardest of times, which were yet to come.

Also, I think it's foreshadowing of Jesus' ministry. Jesus would show miracle after miracle, but he would sometimes be preaching to those with hardened hearts and it wouldn't take.

[Josh]

3/8/06:

This thought reminds me of the time I felt God telling me to speak something to a complete stranger at PSU. I felt compelled to tell him (even though I really didn't want to and almost didn't) that God was saying 'it wasn't too late for him'. The guys response was less than appreciative.

That really bugged me for quite a while. God, why did you prompt me to say something that would just be (apparently) rejected? Over time I came to see (and I know any skeptics would chalk this one up as just some fanciful way out) that just because a person rejects a message from God doesn't mean that that message shouldn't have been delivered. What a person does with the message is their own business, that doesn't let us off the hook from delivering it.

Call it an excuse, but that realization is probably one of the most powerful realizations I have had in my road to spiritual maturity. And it rings true in all of life, not just 'spiritual stuff' (I say that facetiously).

[Josh]

3/11/06:

Here are some thoughts/discoveries I had reading these chapters:

1) I would argue that the angel of the Lord appearing in the burning bush is the preincarnate Christ (as we talked about earlier). Note how he keeps showing up at all the pivotal times.

2) I'm open to the view that Mt. Sinai is not in the Sinai peninsula, but in Midian, as these chapters may seem to indicate (more on this later)

3) God "coming down" and a land "flowing with milk and honey" are more examples of metaphor in the text.

4) THE LORD is not a title in the Old Testament, it is equivalent to YAHWEH, God's personal name.
LORD=YAHWEH=I AM. BTW, Jehovah is an errant spelling of YAHWEH.

5)You'll be happy to note I'm not going to suggest a naturalistic explanation of the signs given to Moses (although I've got some thoughts about that burning bush!) HEHEHEH

6) Verses 11 and 12: God is the giver of our limitations (slow of speech, etc..) and also the God who delights in TRANSCENDING them. Wow.

7)The whole God wanting to kill Moses/ Zipporah/ circumcision thing. I'll post on this soon, hopefully. It's just one of those passages that doesn't make sense at first and then becomes quite powerful on later reflection.

[Josh]

3/12/06:

I find it strange, amazing, and encouraging that Moses haggles with God. When God tells Him that Moses is to speak to the Pharaoh, Moses succeeds at the unthinkable: persuading God to change His plan.

This stretches the bounds of the normal theological ideas of God's sovereignty. But it happens many times in the Old Testament: think of Abraham bargaining for Lot, and Moses later interceding when God wants to destroy all Israel.

Can it be said of God that He changes His mind? It almost seems so.

I think this is a perfect illustration of the paradox of Predestination/ Free Will.

It also says that although we might have missed God's original best plan for us, He may very well be willing to come up with plan B. How encouraging!

[Josh]

3/13/06:

We have a very strange passage in Ex. 4:24. Why does God want to kill Moses?

This passage can be seen as underlining the importance of dedication to God-- of being set apart for God. That was what the covenant of circumcision with Abraham was all about-- separating the Jews out as God's holy covenant people. It seems that Moses had neglected to circumcise his son. What a disaster that would have been for the leader of Israel's deliverance to clearly flaunt the intentions of God for his own people.

It seems from the text that perhaps Moses hadn't done it because his wife was opposed to the rite. This is the reason for her sarcastic response.

But despite Moses' reason for not doing it, to continue in that kind of major disobedience would pit him squarely against God's wrath.

We, who might be tempted to think of God as overreacting here, should pause to ponder the deep significance of circumcision. If you're unfamiliar with this, then perhaps it will be made known more fully as we continue. To get started, check out the passage in Genesis where God first institutes circumcision to Abraham: Genesis 17.

[nathaniel]

3/17/06:

a funny thing indeed. doesn't this seemingly come out of nowhere. it's like one minute God and moses are having a nice little chat where God is turning sticks into snakes and telling moses to "set his people free." and the next minute, BAM! i'm reading "the Lord met moses and was about to kill him." WOW. God is not to be played wit'.

a question: do you think God was really going to kill moses, or was he just flexin' his muscles a little to prove a point? the reason i ask is because it could be percieved as a little inconsistent to tell moses to go do these things, and such and such is going to happen, and I'll be with you, etc. and then when moses sets out to do them, God decides to kill him.

[Josh]

3/23/06:

Before I address your question directly, another thought or two on this passage generally:

I think the biggest problem we have here is that we're reading a selective account of historical events- events which in reality were much more complex that anything that could possibly be conveyed in a couple paragraphs.

We don't really know, but I suspect, that Moses wasn't really utterly surprised by God showing up in such a threatening way. I think he must have known he wasn't obeying God in this matter-- maybe he was hoping like we do sometimes that he could deal with it later or that it could just be swept under the carpet or something.

God may have even told him at the burning bush specifically to circumsize his kid and we just weren't told about it. Perhaps the author (even Moses himself) was wanting us to feel some dramatic tension. Maybe not... The point is that we are just told so very little in the text.

As to whether God was really going to kill him... Well, maybe it's kinda like this: let's say there's a downed power line and I'm walking straight for it. Yes, you could say that the power line is going to kill me, but it's really the fixed thing and I'm the one moving toward it. It doesn't really have a motive against me, it's just a fact that if I come into contact with it, I'm going to be fried. I'm really the one who's going to get myself killed.

Well, God is absolutely holy and powerful, like that downed power line. And unless Moses or we are 'covered', then contacting that is going to be deadly.

Maybe 'going to kill him' here doesn't so much mean 'going after him with murderous intent', but just 'moses blundering disobediently toward a holy God without being 'covered' through obedience'.

[hume]

3/24/06:

Looking at a few different translations, this passage seems ambiguous about the target of God's wrath. Apparently Moses is not named at all in these verses; 4:24 simply says, "the Lord met *him* and was about to kill *him*" ... The NIV footnote indicates the alternate reading, "the Lord met Moses' son and was about to kill him."

To me, that reading makes somewhat more sense of this passage in light of Josh's commentary. What's especially jarring if Moses is the target is the seeming irrationality of God's actions: first, assign Moses a critical task, then suddenly kill him before he can get started on it. It seems like God is foiling his own designs. But, if the target of 4:24 is Moses' son, while this is still a severe and disturbing passage, at least it isn't a case of God threatening to kill his own messenger.

[Josh]

3/24/06:

Hmmm...

I'm not sure whether the alternate reading makes more sense or less.

I think that translation (that the him is Moses' son) might seem more casually appropriate (?), especially considering we tend to think of people being responsible for their own actions, but I think it's more disturbing because how can God expect a baby to circumcise himself?

On the other hand, I prefer viewing the 'him' as Moses, because it implies corporate responsibility-- and it implies that fathers take the blows in some way for their sons.

[Josh]

3/24/06:

"How can God expect a baby to circumcise himself?"

In thinking about what I just said in my previous post, I notice an error in thinking, perhaps.

In one sense, the danger of God's holiness doesn't change whether we are helpless or not, ignorant or not, uninformed or not, just like the danger of the 'downed power line' (see my other post on this subject: Axe Murderer or Downed Powerline) isn't diminished just because I don’t know that I'm about to step on it.

I think this line of thinking (which, I hope someone else can somehow follow, because I’m not sure I’m articulating it well) helps us understand other strange passages in Scripture, such as the story about the priest who carried the ark of the covenant- the one who dies when he touches the ark, trying to keep it from falling accidentally to the ground. The power of God’s holiness doesn’t discriminate: no flesh can stand before it with any excuse, except the covering provided by the Son of God.

One reason this aspect of God is hard to understand is that we know God and the powerline are different because God is a person and a power line isn't. We sense an unfairness in these stories because we think that God should discriminate how his power breaks out (maybe we also think that death is the worst result of anything, which is also false).

But just because God is a person doesn't mean we might not need to see how He is like a power line. In fact, God is not merely a person, he is beyond personality, so we shouldn't be too surprised that He operates in ways a little foreign to us, our ways only being a poor copy of His ways.

Does this all make any sense?

[hume]

3/24/06:

Spoken like a good father. I think I had in mind the Pharoanic plague referenced in the verses just prior to 4:24, where God explains to Moses his intent to kill Egypt's firstborn ... I was carrying this forward into the passage about Moses' son -- as if, being uncircumcised, Moses' firstborn was unprotected from the coming curse.

But your reading makes good sense of this too; the New Ox. Annotated comments: "the application of the blood ... saves Moses' life ... as the blood of the passover will save all Israel at the end."

In other words, these verses echo the coming Passover.

[nathaniel]

3/17/06:

When bad things happen to people i'm always very, very hesitant to say that God had a hand in it, but more that it's just a result of our decaying world. but when i first read Exodus 4:11, "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'?" it made me reconsider a little. maybe God does dole out more ills than i'm comfortable admitting. at second glance though the passage seems to be God asking rhetorical questions, emphasizing his sovereignity, rather than any kind of statement about His hand in human suffering.

in a related thought. what if God did make people blind and lame. and what if he did cause this eartquake and that tsunami, as opposed to just allowing them to happen. and what if he did unjustly send people to hell. you frequently hear people say, and i'm sure i've said it, "well if that's who God is i don't want any part of it," or "I can't believe in a God like that." i've often thought to myself, though, what choice do i have. say God was the angry, quick tempered God many people see in the Old testament. or what if God really is a sadist. i would think i would still have to worship him all the same. It's not like i have a choice in the matter; God is who God is. It's not like i can just say, "you know what, i'm not really likin' your style. I'm gonna go 'head and find me a different God than you." i'd probably get drop kicked straight into hell. Luckily though, (well i suppose it couldn't have been any other way) we don't have that kind of God. and when we're finally able to see 20/20, we'll see a God who we wouldn't have wanted any other way.

[Josh]

3/17/06:

I had some of the same thoughts about that verse, too.

I think it's true that we rush to not implicate God in anything that's negative.

I think we're so quick to not indict God as being in any way 'the author of evil' that we sometimes also end up arguing that He couldn't possibly have had anything to do with things that are unpleasant... or even catastrophic.

I think the Eastern Religions are much more in tune with this, perhaps. They don't tend to see 'natural evils', like natural disasters, etc., as necessarily evil, but more as 'negative' forces- kinda the whole black side of the yin-yang. We tend to think of all things in terms of good and evil.

I'm not saying that the Eastern perspective is better. I think most Eastern Religions exhibit the fault of not recognizing the truly evil and affirming the fact that evil is not equal to good, but merely a dependent variable. That said, I think they understand that some painful things are not necessarily evil things.

For instance, it doesn't bother me like it used to that I believe there was animal death before the sin of mankind. I've come to see the 'cycle of nature' and the 'laws of entropy' as things that are not Evil (although I would say that human death is evil). God created the universe this way- it is 'good', as God says in Genesis. Yet it is not the Perfect that will one day come- the Perfect that will one day replace the good.

But back to this verse: I think we should be wary of too easily dismissing God's role in what we perceive as unfortunate circumstances.

I note that there is a bright ray of hope in this passage: God is basically implying that He did give Moses a 'stuttered-tongue'. But that's not all: He did it so that He could transcend that stuttered tongue and bring about a greater glory-- one which Moses should have taken Him up on in faith (too bad he kind of chickened out).

This makes me think of one of the guys Jesus healed. Jesus said that he wasn't blind because of his or his parent's sin (which, interestingly, is very reminiscent of Hinduism), but so that God's glory might be displayed in his life. In other words-- our inherent weaknesses are a vehicle for redemption.

This is tricky stuff, and I'm kinda writing off the cuff right now, so I'm sure I've either overstated or understated certain things (or, more likely misstated, rather). But this is an important topic, Nate.

More thoughts anyone?

[Josh]

3/18/06:

Augustine:

"There are some who bring false charges against God, or rather against the Scriptures of the Old Testament, because God said that he himself makes a man blind or mute. So what do they say about Christ the Lord, who says openly in the Gospel, "I have come so that those who are blind may see and those who see might be made blind"? Who besides a fool would believe that something can happen to a man in regard to corporeal defects that God did not will? No one doubts that God wills all things justly"

Pretty firm, here, and leaning heavily, as Augustine does, toward predestination.

I'm not so sure about the last line, though. Isn't it obvious by the very fact he's arguing about this that some DO DOUBT?

[Josh]

3/18/06:

I was reading what the early Church fathers (especially Tertullian) thought that the signs given to Moses symbolize:

1.The staff of wood that turns into a snake and back again:

Throughout the whole Exodus narrative, the early fathers see the staff of wood as symbolic of the cross of Christ and it's power. In this case, it's power is demonstrated over the snake- the staff triumphs over the snake.

2.Moses' leprous hand

Symbolic of Jesus power to heal, symbolic of reurrection power (Christ's power over corruption), or more fully, as Jesus says somewhere in the Gospels (a paraphrase): my life is mine, I will lay it down, and I can take it up again. Moses can, at will, hand over his hand to corruption, and then draw it back again into life.

3. Water to Blood

Symbolic of Christ's victory over the enemy through blood.

4. Also, the Jewish rabbi Philo felt that the Burning Bush was symbolic of the intense suffering that has often engulfed the Jews, yet has not consumed them.

[Josh]

3/29/06:

Luke 14:25-33

The Cost of Being a Disciple

25Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: 26"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. 27And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
28"Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? 29For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, 30saying, 'This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.'
31"Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. 33In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.”
Very tough words from Jesus here. A painful but necessary passage to reflect on. One of it’s central questions is, “Are you prepared to face the risks in your calling?’
What is the cost of your calling? It isn’t a calling if it doesn’t cost something. Moses knew this automatically upon encountering the living God. This last Sunday we talked about some of the realizations Moses had about the cost of obeying God’s call on his life, many things which we will most likely face at some point in our calling:

Exodus 3-4

You might have to stop making excuses for yourself (3:11)
You might have to learn how to be humble or learn how to see your own worth (3:11)
You will have to go forward without knowing how things will be work out exactly (3:13)
You might have to face embarrassment or few obvious results to your efforts (4:1)
You might have to grow in areas of weakness (4:10)
You might have to face troubles from your past
You might even be killed

And these are just Moses’ initial fears!

What about… dealing with thousands of fickle complainers and usurpers, dealing with your own anger problems, or facing a holy God!

Others throughout Scripture had to ‘count the cost’ of following God’s call as well. Here are just a few:

Abraham:
Genesis 12:1
In addition to many of the same costs discussed above with Moses, the story of Abraham reveals to us that:
You might have to leave your family and culture
You might have to face famine and personal misfortune, as well as broken dreams

Samuel:
1 Samuel 3
You might have to deliver bad news to people you love

David:
1 Samuel, 2 Samuel
You might have to wait for long periods of time
People you love might turn on you

Jeremiah 1:4-9,17-19
You might be ignored
You might be held to a higher standard (Jer. 1:17, see also: James 3:1)

Paul:
Acts 9
You might suffer overtly or in spite of your obedience

The point of this overview is not to discourage us from obeying God’s call—it’s to help us be realistic about the difficulty of obedience to God. If we know the cost, we will be more willing to pay it for the higher good. We should not be surprised when our ‘calling’ becomes costly like something strange is happening to us (1 Peter 4:12). We should remember that that which is worthwhile is also difficult, and rely on the Holy Spirit to share the cost with us.

[aimee]

When I read this I was also struck with the sudden change in God's attitude toward Moses. It does seem like maybe we don't have the whole picture.

I found myself asking the question 'why did God want to kill Moses' the motive didn't seem very clear. I suppose it could have been because his son wasn't circumcised, which would explain why God stopped when Zipporah circumcised him... but it didn't have much description of Moses' sin.

I wonder if Moses was circumcised? Considering his up-bringing, perhaps because of having to hide their baby, and always being in fear of someone finding him, his parent's didn't?

Anyway, I'm glad Zipporah did what she did. I find it kind of neat that she was the one to circumcise her son and save her husband. Saying (from the NIV translation) "Surely you are a bridegroom of blood [circumcised] to me"