“23 During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. 24 God heard their groaning and he
Compare that to Exodus 3:7-9
“7 The Lord said, “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. 8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 9 And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them”
There are a lot of similarities here, as you can see. Another connecting word is the word “deliver” that appears here in 3:8 also appears in 2:19 when Moses delivers the ladies from the shepherds. It seems Moses was already practicing for a job he didn’t know God had for him.
Here is the very next, shocking, verse in Exodus 3,
“So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.” – 3:10
God will come and deliver and sometimes (often, even) He will involve us in the process. God tells Moses at the burning bush that He has heard and seen the injustice and He is going to come down and deliver his people. Then God tells Moses to go and talk to Pharaoh about that! Moses then gives God five reasons that run through chapters 3 and 4 why that just won’t work out well and to each one God gives a sufficient answer.
One Response
Often in the cases where the Jews brought what is called free will offerings, God used the materials offered by man. In reality God expected man to be in the process, because the process was often in favor of man.