What if you were a Hebrew slave in Egypt?

[First posted in April 2012, reposted every Passover (April 19-27 this year 2019) when observant Israel commemorates two feasts that recount the history of their liberation from Egyptian bondage:

• Passover/Pesach and
• Feast of Unleavened Bread/Chag HaMatzot. 

A visitor clicked this post which brought it to our attention so we’re reposting early, why wait for Passover?  We Sinaites keep saying we’re not Jew-wannabes and yet as Torah observant Gentiles, what DO we celebrate of the commanded feasts in Leviticus 23 These posts clarify our position:

• REVISIT: How now do we observe biblical feasts? -1
•  How now do we observe Biblical Feasts? – 2

Translation: EF/Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses.—Admin1.]

 

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The starting point of any journey is significant in the sense that the traveller has to determine what he should pack for the trip.  In the biblical account of the Exodus, the Israelites were given specific instructions on how to prepare for their freedom trek out of the land of their bondage, Egypt, into uncertain territory through the wilderness of Sinai toward the Land of promise.

 

Put yourself in a Hebrew slave’s place and think the thoughts he might have pondered:

• For such a journey, what does a slave bring?  
• What worldly possessions might a slave have to even pack?
• What about food provisions to physically survive in an inhospitable environment; would we have enough to last the unspecified time it would take?
• There are so many UNKNOWNS!

Think and consider:  

• Why leave familiar surroundings in Egypt, insufferable though life is in what has become “home” for our people for 400 years?
• At least we have access to daily bread between non-stop-no-rest back-breaking-brick-making labor; better the devil we know!
• What to do, what to do . . . .not to worry, we’re assured after all, that the travel orders come from . . . Whom?  
• What did Moses say His Name was? is? will be?  
• Have Israelites heard that Name before?

Didn’t word get around that the Pharaoh didn’t recognize that God and answered:

 

 Exodus/Shemoth 5:2 

 Pharaoh said:

 “Who is YHVH,

that I should hearken to his voice to send Israel free? 

 I do not know YHVH,

 moreover, Israel I will not send free!”

 

Pharaoh does not know this god, never heard his name before.

 

• Do we know the name of our God?
• Were we ever told by our parents, were they told by theirs, through generations since the first generation of Yaakobites/Israelites came to live in Egypt some 400 years ago?
• Do we even remember the name of the God of our patriarch Jacob?
• Weren’t we often told the story about our forefather’s night experience, wrestling with that mysterious figure?
• Before parting, didn’t he have an opportunity to ask for a name and did he get a straight answer?
• What was the name, can we remember  . . .?

Genesis/Bereshith 32:28-30  

28 He said to him:

What is your name?

And he said: Yaakov. 

29 Then he said:

Not as Yaakov/Heel-sneak shall your name be henceforth uttered,

but rather as Yisrael/God-fighter,

for you have fought with God and men

and have prevailed. 

30 Then Yaakov asked and said:

Pray tell me your name!

But he said: Now why do you ask after 

my name?

And he gave him farewell-blessing there.

31  Yaakov called the name of the place: Peniel/Face of God,

for I have seen God

face to face,

and my life has been saved.

 

So if our patriarch Jacob didn’t get a straight answer,

• how can generations of Israelites know our God’s name,
• except as “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” and “El Shaddai“
• which are not names at all?
• Is not a name important for identity?
• There are so many gods in Egypt, so many gods among the nations, how do we distinguish the true god who claims to be our god . . . if we don’t know his name?

 

Exodus/Shemoth 3:13-16

13 Moshe said to God: 

Here, I will come to the Children of Israel

and I will say to them: 

The God of your fathers has sent me to you, 

and they will say to me: What is his name?-

what shall I say to them?

14 God said to Moshe: 

EHYEH ASHER EHYEH/I will be-there howsoever I will be-there

. And he said: 

Thus shall you say to the Children of Israel:

EHYEH/I-WILL-BE-THERE sends me to you.

15 And God said further to Moshe: 

Thus shall you say to the Children of Israel: 

YHVH,

the God of your fathers, 

the God of Avraham, the God of Yitzhak, and the God of Yaakov, sends me to you.

That is my name for the ages,

that is my title (from) generation to generation.

16 Go, 

gather the elders of Israel

and say to them: 

YHVH, the God of your fathers, has been seen by me, the God of Avraham, of Yitzhak, and of Yaakov, saying:

I have taken account, yes, account of you and of what is being 

done to you in Egypt,

 

 

Exodus/Shemoth 6:2-3

2 God spoke to Moshe, 

he said to him: 

 am YHVH.

3 I was seen by Avraham, by Yitzhak, and by Yaakov 

as God Shaddai, 

but (by) my name YHVH I was not known to them.

 

YHWH . . . that’s a name we’ve never heard before!

• How do we know he’s the one?
• Are we  supposed to swallow everything that comes from the mouth of that messenger, what’s his name, Moses?
• Sounds like Thut-moses, Ra-moses, or Ramses, aren’t those Egyptian names?  
• Is he Egyptian?  
• Wasn’t he connected somewhat to the Pharaoh’s family?
• Didn’t he disappear 40 years ago?
• What’s he doing coming back here?
• Can we trust someone who was never one of us, never living with us, never slaving away with us from the very beginning?

But, as we’ve already witnessed,  9 plagues have stricken the Egyptians right and left, while we and our homes have been spared!  That should make us think!  How many more proofs do we need to believe the power of this God whose name is YHWH and His sincerity in going to all this trouble to liberate us? Why us?

 

This YHWH has chosen us

even if we have not chosen him!  

 

• Who are we to say NO to FREE GRACE?
• This is our chance to get out of this miserable life!
• What have we done to deserve living like this for generations, with no rest from our labors?  
• And with the Pharaoh making it even more impossible for us to make bricks!
•  Sometimes we wish this Moses would back off, he’s caused us more misery and heavier burdens!
• But perhaps that’s part of the power play; this Moses seems to have quite a few tricks up his sleeve but he’s only a man, so the plagues upon the Egyptians must be coming from the God whose name Moses proclaims!

And now we ourselves are being put to a test!

•  Whereas previously we were simply witnesses to the miracles of this YHWH, now we are told to participate in the plague against the firstborn.
• Couldn’t we just huddle quietly inside our home the way we did during previous plagues?  
• Must we now take part by following the final instructions?  
• And how strange these instructions are!

Would we dare slaughter one of Egypt’s gods—a lamb—right here in Egypt?

 

Exodus 8:21-23 

21 Pharaoh had Moshe and Aharon called 

and said: 

Go, slaughter (offerings) to your god in the land!

22 Moshe said:

 It would not be wise to do thus: 

for Egypt’s abomination is what we slaughter for our God; 

if we were to slaughter Egypt’s abomination before their eyes, 

would they not stone us?

23 Let us go a three days’ journey into the wilderness,

and we shall slaughter (offerings) to YHVH our God, as he has said to us.

 

As if that’s not hard enough,

• we have to roast this lamb; just think of the aroma of roasting meat wafting all over Egypt, they’ll know what we’re doing when they smell it!
• Then we’re supposed to eat it and not leave anything.
• As if that’s not enough for faint-hearted slaves like us, worse, we are commanded to further flaunt our disrespect for their god by splattering the lamb’s blood on the lintel and doorposts of our houses.
• Isn’t that the height of insult, that blood evidence will surely identify us and the Egyptians will slaughter us if they recover from the most recent plague!

What to do, what to do . . . do we have a choice?

 

• For the first time in our hopeless life of slavery, we have been given an opportunity to make a decision for ourselves!
• The alternative to slavery, to a lifetime of bondage, is being served to us on a silver platter by the God of our patriarchs.
• All we are asked to do is to take that leap of faith!
• Obey all instructions to the letter, and let our rediscovered Self-Revealing God do the rest!
• He has already shown what He has done to Egypt’s other gods, do we need one more proof of His power?

Exodus 12:12-13 

12 I will proceed through the land of Egypt on this night and strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from man to beast,

 and on all the gods of Egypt I will render judgment,

I, YHVH.

13 Now the blood will be a sign for you upon the houses where you are: 

when I see the blood, I will pass over you, 

the blow will not become a bringer-of-ruin to you, when I strike down the land of Egypt.

 

 

Who was it who said ‘You shall know the truth the truth will set you free?‘ (Oops, that’s in the New Testament, supposedly said by Jesus, picked up by Dr. Martin Luther King for his freedom march. Still, that statement is so true!)

 

Sinaites have come to know the Truth about the One True God and this Truth has indeed set us free! Free from what?

 

Let’s start with the obvious:  IGNORANCE!

And the second obvious:  MANMADE “TRUTHS”!

 

The God we have sought all our lives is the God who commissioned Israel to declare Him to the gentiles like ourselves; we have come to believe in the original good news:  

 

YHWH reigns today and as foretold by the prophet Zechariah 14:9:

 

JPS/And the LORD shall be King over all the earth;

in that day shall the LORD be One, and His name one.

 

You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.

He liberates all who are in bondage to ignorance and falsehood but there is a condition to such freedom:  one must decide, just like the Hebrew slave, to believe in this God and and what He has promised to all who seek Him, take Him at His Word, and let Him have the last word:

Do not add to what I command you

and do not subtract from it,

but keep the commands of the LORD your God

that I give you.

(Deuteronomy 4:2)

But if from there you seek the LORD your God,

you will find him if you seek him

with all your heart and with all your soul.  

(Deuteronomy 4:29)

¹² Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.

¹³ You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

¹⁴ I will be found by you,”

(Jeremiah 29:12-14)

 

Hear, O Jew, O Gentile:

 

 “I will be found by you!”

 

 

 

NSB@S6K