Pursued by the Enemy
June 23rd, 2009
God pulls the people of Israel back from escape into the wilderness and places them in the path of Pharaoh. There a number of maps that trace the route of the people of Israel through the wilderness. You notice if you look at them, however, that we’re not sure of even the place names in Egypt, much less in the wilderness. The point is that the people of Israel could have escaped without the Red Sea episode.
Why does God do this? According to some scholars, it was to demonstrate God’s power not simply over Pharaoh, but over the sea. To the people of the Bible, the sea represents “chaos” – and this part of the story emphasizes that God is bringing order to a world in chaos. It’s as if – before taking the people into the wilderness, where he will deliver the law to them – God takes one more opportunity to establish who he is to the people of Israel (and ultimately the world). Here’s what Wesley has to say:
[O]ne stage or two would have brought them to Horeb, the place appointed for their serving God, but instead of going forward, they are ordered to turn short off, on the righthand from Canaan, and to march towards the Red sea. When they were at Etham, there was no sea in their way to obstruct their passage; but God himself orders them into straits, which might give them an assurance, that when his purposes were served, he would bring them out of those straits.— from Wesley’s Commentary
What does Wesley mean by the phrase “that when his purposes were served“? This brings up questions that we’ve asked before. Here are the verses from the fourteenth chapter of Exodus:
1 Then the Lord said to Moses:
2 Tell the Israelites to turn back and camp in front of Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, in front of Baal-zephon; you shall camp opposite it, by the sea.
3 Pharaoh will say of the Israelites, “They are wandering aimlessly in the land; the wilderness has closed in on them.”
4 I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will pursue them, so that I will gain glory for myself over Pharaoh and all his army; and the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord. And they did so.
5 When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, the minds of Pharaoh and his officials were changed toward the people, and they said, “What have we done, letting Israel leave our service?”
6 So he had his chariot made ready, and took his army with him;
7 he took six hundred picked chariots and all the other chariots of Egypt with officers over all of them.
8 The Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt and he pursued the Israelites, who were going out boldly.
9 The Egyptians pursued them, all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots, his chariot drivers and his army; they overtook them camped by the sea, by Pi-hahiroth, in front of Baal-zephon. Ex 14:1-9 (NRSV)
What are your thoughts about today’s lesson scripture?
“…so that I will gain glory for myself over Pharaoh and all his army; and the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord. ”
This about says it all. When we live for the glory of God, His purpose is served.- Karen
I have a question. More than once, but specifically in this passage, the idea of our God “hardening the heart” of the Pharaoh is mentioned. What does this mean? Does He really work this way? This has always bothered me.
It should bother us – just as Cain should bother us and Judas should bother us (that’s why I tagged this post with “Theodicy“). First of all, Pharaoh hardened his own heart (Exodus 8:15 & 32). BUT . . . God created Pharaoh, and he knew that sending Moses to free the people of Israel from this particular Pharaoh would result in him hardening his heart (Exodus 4:21). Similarly, in John 13:26-27, Jesus gives bread to Judas, singling him out as the one who would betray him and then telling him to go and “do quickly what you are going to do”. He’s God, he’s all-knowing, so he knows what Judas is going to do. BUT . . . He’s God, he’s all powerful, why didn’t he change Judas’s heart (for that matter, why didn’t he change the hearts of the Pharisees and Pilate)?
To say that it’s a matter of free-will is to over-simplify the question, because it still leaves us with the issue of the death of innocents (whether they be the first-born of Egypt or the first-born of Bethlehem) and – even more problematic – natural disasters caused by no human action. The problem is that we’re dealing with an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good God and we find it hard to reconcile the three. (We’re not alone in this — from Job to C.S. Lewis we’ve been trying to understand the conundrum).
I don’t know the answer, but I know the solution . . .
God died to fix the problem.
I also want to add to Tom’s response that, Pharoah made a choice, he viewed himself to be greater than Moses’s God. He, Pharoah, as Tom said, hardened his own heart…but let us not forget, he was not a nice Pharoah…he wanted the Israelites to suffer for his own purposes, to create a “kindgom” for himeself…this is going to sound harsh, but…”what goes around, comes around”…”do unto others…”!- K