A daily, 32-day Lenten Devotional Series by Rev. Dave Brown
He said, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.”
Their second request was less confrontational and more reason-driven. “The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please let us go a three days' journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God, lest he fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword.” This God that you do not know has summoned us to a three-day feast and sacrifice in the wilderness. If we do not go, we might be subject to his judgment. If that happens, you’ll lose your work crew. Please! Pharaoh was not persuaded. Instead, he accused Moses and Aaron of taking the slaves away from their work.
Harsh criticisms were followed by harsher work conditions. Quotas were continued, but now the slaves were required to gather the raw material (straw) for making the bricks. The cruel plan was intended to keep the slaves from having regard to the “lying words” of Moses and Aaron.
No crying to Pharaoh and no reasoning about the quota and the lack of supply of straw to make bricks mattered. The top-down mandate sent through Egyptian task-masters and Jewish foremen led to beatings and intimidations. Meanwhile, Pharaoh wrote off the complaints as if the slaves were idle.
The Jewish foremen were the first to complain about the new set up. They saw that they were in trouble and met with Moses and Aaron as they came out from Pharaoh. “They said to Moses, “The Lord look on you and judge, because you have made us stink in the sight of Pharaoh and his servants, and have put a sword in their hand to kill us.”
If Moses’ wife had listened to the plan, prayed for him and promised to be there to listen to him at the end of the day, I can imagine her saying, How did your meeting go? And Moses saying, “Not well at all!”
In fact, Moses was so undone by this first meeting that he turned to the Lord and poured out these most painful words: “O Lord, why have you done evil to this people? Why did you ever send me? 23 For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has done evil to this people, and you have not delivered your people at all.”
Reflections: Is there anything positive to discover from Moses’ first meeting? And, practically speaking, is there anything to learn from your latest interactions in the working world? Perhaps we need to remember that the opposition we face in the world often comes from people who do not know the Lord. Insofar as that continues, they will not likely respond to a mandate from God or to a reasonable request which we might make. Our next step is to turn to the LORD. While our first prayer after such a meeting may sound critical of the LORD, it is worth saying. God can handle it and will respond.