Company law gives a
separate legal persona to a firm. The principle is called limited liability,
for it means that the firm carries its own liabilities, separate from the owners.
That way, the firm
will continue as personalities come and go. It has a permanent and independent
life that will outlast its shareholders. That principle is as true of nations.
Governments are temporary, nations enduring. That was not true in any monarchy.
Thus Elizabeth had an
age named after her, because she was a good queen, as was true of Victoria or the
Tudors. But, among them were many scoundrels. As they came to power the
direction of the nation went with them as happened when Israel acquired a king.
Pharaoh tried to stop the Jews
After Joseph, the new
Pharaoh disregarded what went before and the honor rightfully earned by Joseph
when he saved Egypt. Instead, he turned against the Hebrews.
It is also notable
that the cutting edge of the racial divide was petty. The Jews were shepherds, which
Egyptians despised, but in all other respects they were similar and from the same
region. Racism can be that petty, building its dogma around trivial nuances.
The apparent motive
was one of insecurity. Pharaoh noted that the Hebrews had become mightier than
them, the kind of rhetoric still used by politicians to push their agendas.
So they impose heavy
labor on them, thereby enslaving them to the crown. What an insult to what Joseph
did to make every Egyptian an equal subject of the state. Whatever, the oppression
just caused the Jews to multiply faster.
I lived through
apartheid South Africa, saw similar racial patterns applied by the minority
regime and also saw the oppressed multiply significantly in their poverty and
oppression, to become an equalizing force and a factor for change.
He asked the Egyptian
midwives to kill all Hebrew sons at birth, and to save only the daughters, but
they claimed that the Hebrew women bore before they could deliver them.
That infuriated
Pharaoh further. He instructed that the midwives drown the sons in the river.
The birth of Moses
Two Levites married
and bore a special child. Thus, Moses was of the levitical line, not the chosen
tribe of Judah and not part of Christ’s genealogy, but destined to play a special
role in the life of Israel. His older brother, Aaron, also became the father of
the levitical priesthood.
They protected the
child for a while, but when the risk grew too much they set him in a small,
floating ark and let him drift among the bulrushes of the Nile. He drifted
close enough to Pharaoh’s daughter and she rescued him because he was a goodly
child.
Thus he was raised in
the royal house and acquired a formal education, but also learnt the art of
war. Unfortunately, he betrayed his loyalties by killing a slave driver for
what he was doing to the Jews.
The news got around quickly.
Moses was forced to
flee Pharaoh’s retribution, and ended up in Midian, where he married Zipporah (Hebrew: beauty), daughter
of the Midianite Priest, Jethro. She bore him a son, Gershom (sojourner). Jethro and Zipporah are Hebrew names and thus kindred to Moses.
Moses in exile
The land was beyond the
gulf of Aqaba, in modern-day Saudi Arabia. We will learn later that that was
where Moses brought the people to worship him.
Archaeologists have
discovered a mountain on the far side of the gulf, called Jabal el Laws, or the
mountain of laws. It is burned at the top and presents other archaeological evidence
of the Mount where Moses received the ten commandments.
Recent archaeological finds
in the gulf, of chariot wheels and weapons, confirm that the mount was not in the
Sinai Peninsula and that the Jews did not cross the reed sea of the Nile
Delta, but the gulf that extends from the Red Sea proper.
The scriptures briefly
cover Moses’ exile, but he was there for 40 years. During that time God
prepared him to lead the sheep of Israel by using sheep as His blackboard. It
was a major career setback from prince to shepherd, but it prepare him in heart
and mind.
The burning bush
Then one day, when
Moses had all but given up hope of returning to make any meaningful
contribution to the emancipation of his people, God led him to a burning bush
and told him to take off his shoes, for the place he stood was holy.
Was the ground holy
because God’s presence made it so, or because He had set aside that mountain
for his temporary habitation. Exodus 3:12 confirms that his sign would be that
Moses would bring Israel to that mount to worship Him.
The bush did not
consume with its burning, alluding to another truth. The zeal of God that has
always ignited His people and the church, sustains us without ever burning us
up. If you are burned up by what you do for God, you may be burning your own
oil.
Moses asked the God of
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, “Who am I?” To Jacob, God had also said, “who are
you?” Jacob did more to describe his reproach than to merely give his name, but
God only needed to change his name to change his identity and his destiny.
However, Jacob had
then somewhat pertinently asked God, “and who are you?” just as Moses then more
subtly asked, “and who shall I say sent me?” It was the same as saying “who are
you?”
The resolving of
respective identities was as important to Job. He came to the same conclusion
as Moses did, that God is God. He is doing what He is doing, is single minded
about that and will be guided by His divine but resolute sense of integrity and
justice.
Thus, to Moses He
merely said, “I am who I am”. Tell them “I am sent you”. Now go back to Egypt
and meet with the elders of the tribes, then I will show you what to do.
God also assured Moses
that, despite Pharaoh’s resistance, the Jews would be freed to go to the land
of Canaan, not empty handed either, but with the wealth of Egypt.
(c) Peter Missing at Bethelstone.com
(c) Peter Missing at Bethelstone.com
