EXODUS 2 to 23 are the chapters for this week's reading. Wonderful chapters they are, too, inviting extended comment on almost every one. The going out from Egypt is filled with tremendous events; but with the amount of reading each day, it is impossible for the SIGNS to give extended comment.
OUR first chapters deal with the early life of Moses, his understanding that he was to be the deliverer of God's people, his self-sent mission and utter failure, his flight to Midian, and his post-graduate course of forty years' schooling in the wilderness tending sheep, and God's call to Moses at the end of the forty years. He felt all-sufficient, with his knowledge of warfare and Egyptian education, in the beginning of the forty years, and met failure. He felt utterly insufficient when God called him, but his mission was successful.
IN the various expressions concerning the hardening of Pharaoh's heart, follow the American Revised Version. God hardens hearts only by withdrawal of His Spirit which the heart utterly rejects. He did not cease pleading with the Egyptian king until all hope was gone.
THERE are some striking features in the plagues that are worthy of note. First, they came largely against the idolatry of Egypt to show that their gods were utterly worthless and that the Lord Jehovah was above them. The first nine plagues are divided into series of three, the first two of each of which came with warning, the last without. In every warning which God gave Pharaoh there was salvation until we come to the very last, and he had so turned from God that the only thing God could do was to show His mighty power in punishment for the deliverance of His people.
THE word "borrow" in chapter 11:2 and elsewhere in this record should be "ask."
THIS wonderful deliverance was to be kept in mind by the children of Israel in the yearly observance of the Passover, until the coming of Christ Jesus our Lord, who is our Passover, whose blood alone can keep us from the destroying judgments which we deserve. 1 Cor. 5:7.
CHAPTER 15 records the wonderful deliverance from earthly power. Chapter 16 shows that the Sabbath was known and understood before the Decalogue was spoken from Sinai. In chapters 19 and 20 we have the record of the sublime manifestation of God's glory in giving His holy law. It is worthy of note that it is not said Jehovah spoke, the covenant God of His people, but God (Elohim) spoke all these words. If Jehovah, it would have limited the law to His people; but Elohim the Creator of the heavens and the earth speaking, makes the law of universal application. Israel by wholly yielding to God in simple faith might have had that law written in their hearts. They were, however, afraid of God's glory, and begged that He should not speak, but that Moses should be the one who should speak to them. Consequently they received the law simply from Moses, the man, who had no power to write it in the hearts; whereas if they had received it from God, the glory of condemnation would have been swallowed up in their hearts and life by the glory of righteousness; and the law, instead of being condemnatory prohibitions, would have become enabling acts, furnishing power through faith for the doing of the thing demanded. Following the law to the close of chapter 23 we have various laws and judgments given to Israel.
