Exodus

Exodus 23:1-3: You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness. You shall not fall in with the many to do evil, nor shall you bear witness in a lawsuit, siding with the many, so as to pervert justice, nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his lawsuit.

I love the fact that the Egyptian magicians think it is clever to copy the first few plagues. (They run out of steam when it gets to the gnats).

The Egyptians "grow weary of drinking water from the Nile" (7:18 - !), because it is turned to blood. So the Egyptians produce... more blood.

Pharaoh is pleading (not very dignified for a king of Egypt, 8:8) with Moses and Aaron to take away the frogs. But that's alright - his magicians can produce... more frogs.

I mean: What use is more blood and more frogs?! The one thing they cannot copy is Yahweh's ability to take away the plagues. Thus it's clear, even from plague 1, that Yahweh is without rival in Egypt.

There are many temporal expressions of God's anger in today's world. The false gods we all serve to varying degree can replicate many of these expressions of anger. But there is no god in the world, except the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, who can take away the anger of God.

I’m enjoying Peter Enns, NIV Application Commentary, Exodus more than I expected to. He has clearly spent a lot of time with the Hebrew text of the book, and has a lot of helpful observations to make.

For example, the word for “worship” in 4:23 is of the same root as the word for “work” in 5:9. (‘bd). The conflict between Yahweh and Pharaoh is being seen in yet one more respect – which king will successfully command the work/worship of the Hebrews.

At St James, Audley we are about to start a sermon series on Exodus – the whole book in 8 sermons.

I get to preach on 1:1-7:7, 12-14, and the first of the tabernacle sections.

Phew… it’s hard work. And I’m trying to work out why.