Israel In Bondage

by T.M. Hyland, Birkenhead | Category: From Egypt To Canaan | Jan 1969

In Genesis we have an account of the early history of mankind in the period from Adam to the Patriarchs. Following Adam's fall, the development of evil in the earth was rapid and calamitous. The first great epoch of human history was brought to an end by the judgement of the Flood: "God spared not the ancient world, but preserved Noah with seven others, a preacher of righteousness, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly" (2 Peter 2.4,5).

So God started anew with mankind to whom He was bound by promise to send a deliverer who would crush Adam's conqueror (Genesis 3.15). Following the Flood the next stage in God's purpose was to disperse man in the earth, and the details of His plan are set out in Genesis 10. In this remarkable chapter, the lands allocated to the various branches of Noah's family are named. In His conflict with His adversary, God is always a move ahead. He was moving forward for man's eventual blessing, and the dispersion of mankind was an important step at that period of human history. This disposition of the various families is referred to in a remarkable verse in the Song of Moses:

"When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance,

When He separated the children of men,

He set the bounds of the peoples

According to the number of the children of Israel.

For the LORD'S portion is His people;

Jacob is the lot of His inheritance"

(Deuteronomy 32.8,9).

Here the land of each nation is described as an inheritance from the Most High. When God separated men into nations He had in view a nation, as yet unborn, whose land was already chosen by Him. Around this land the nations of the earth were planted.

This development of God's purpose brought a countermove by the Adversary. In defiance of the divine decree to replenish the earth men made a determined effort to keep together. Their rebellious purpose is expressed in the words:

"Go to, let us build us a city, and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven, and let us make us a name; lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth " (Genesis 11.4).

What men sought to achieve was frustrated by an act of divine judgement, and henceforth in Scripture Babylon became the symbol of organized rebellion against God. Men still hold to the delusion that they can establish an ideal state on this earth - with God outside. They hope to achieve this one day but the great confederacy of the future will be completely and finally overthrown (Revelation 16 to 18).

We have already referred to God's plan to have for Himself on this earth a nation whose land was already chosen by Him when He gave to the nations their inheritance. This nation and this land were to occupy a central place in the saving purposes of God towards mankind. None of those nations whose origin is recorded in Genesis 10 could be used by God for this high purpose. So God made a new beginning:

Now the LORD said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto the land that I will shew thee: and I will make of thee a great nation ... and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed" (Genesis 12.1-3).

The obedience of Abraham is given a foremost place in Scripture as the supreme example of triumphant faith: " he went out, not knowing whither he went" (Hebrews 11.8). While men were still fascinated with their Babylon, Abraham, the man of faith, " looked for the city which hath the foundations, whose builder and maker is God " (Hebrews 11.10). And from this obedient, separated man God proceeded to build a nation for Himself.

During the 430 years from Abraham to the Exodus God waited for Abraham's seed to multiply and become a virile people. He disclosed to Abraham that before his descendants entered into possession of the land of Canaan they would endure a period of bondage in a strange land (Genesis 15.13,14). As God's plan unfolded during the history of the Patriarchs it became clear that the land of Egypt was to be the furnace of affliction in which the seed of Abraham were to be prepared for nationhood. In His inscrutable wisdom and providence God "sent a man before them" (Psalm 105.17), and when at last the aged Jacob (now renamed Israel), at Joseph's invitation, prepared to take the seed of Abraham with him into Egypt, the God of His fathers gave him the assurance "Fear not to go down into Egypt; for I will there make of thee a great nation : I will go down with thee into Egypt; and I will also surely bring thee up again (Genesis 46.3,4).

The book of Exodus opens with an account of the children of Israel's prosperity and growth in the land of Egypt. The 70 souls that went down there with Jacob had become a great and mighty host. Then came the fearful servitude God had foretold to Abraham. A Pharaoh which knew not Joseph arose, determined to restrict their growth and at the same time enrich himself by Israel's service. The people of God's choice, destined to occupy the premier place in the history of salvation, were now in abject slavery. The lengths to which Pharaoh went in his oppression of the children of Israel have seldom been surpassed. But God was watching and waiting. As the time drew near for Him to intervene and release them, their plight was wretched indeed. Pharaoh's desperate edict that all the male children should be killed at birth proved futile for it was at that very season that Moses, God's chosen deliverer, was born.

The story of Moses' birth, his training as the son of Pharaoh's daughter, his abortive attempt to intervene on his brethren's behalf, his flight into the land of Midian and his 40 years sojourn there, must not detain us here. During these years the plight of the children of Israel in Egypt is thus summed up in the inspired record:

"And it came to pass in the course of those many days, that the king of Egypt died: and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God saw the children of Israel, and God took knowledge of them" (Exodus 2.23-25).

The call to service came to Moses with dramatic suddenness. His forty years of solitude in the desert was rudely interrupted one day as, pursuing his daily task, he led his flock to the back of the wilderness near to mount Horeb and observed a burning bush. No doubt this was a familiar sight but this bush fire did not abate so he turned aside to investigate. Then came the Voice - the voice of God. Solemn, unforgettable moment! He is alone with God in the wilderness. Barefooted he stands, hiding his face, awaiting the divine message. It came to him with overwhelming power:

I have surely seen the affliction of My people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; and I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey" (Exodus 3.7.8).

No doubt Moses had learned at his mother's knee of the promise of God to Abraham. As he listened to the voice of God he realized that the long-awaited deliverance of his brethren was at hand. What a project! Not only their emancipation from slavery but their trek across that barren wilderness to the land of Canaan. None better than he knew the hazards of such a journey. A practical survey of all that this involved passed before his mind. Then came the divine commission, "Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth My people the children of Israel out of Egypt" (Exodus 3.10). Moses faltered. He felt unable for the task, and in spite of every assurance given him he persisted in his reluctance to the point which incurred the anger of the LORD. But God knew His servant and dealt graciously with him. He granted him the help of Aaron his brother and eventually these two servants of God were the bearers to Pharaoh of Jehovah's ultimatum, " Let My people go, that they may serve Me in the wilderness" (Exodus 7.16).

The record of Pharaoh's obduracy and the judgements this incurred on the land, the people, and the gods of Egypt, are a striking example of the futility of resisting God. God broke the iron yoke, and in reply to every subtlety of Pharaoh revealed His wrath and made His power known, until at last,

Egypt was glad when they departed;

For the fear of them had fallen upon them (Psalm 105.38).

This brief survey of the early history of Israel is intended as an introduction to a series of monthly articles entitled,

From Egypt to Canaan," which we hope to publish during the present year, if the Lord will. Various writers will deal with different phases of that historic pilgrimage and draw lessons for ourselves from this treasury of revealed truth. The account of God's dealings with Israel is no mere interesting record of ancient history. It is embedded in the strata of Scripture and remains for all time as a vital part of divine revelation. One has only to study the epistle to the Romans and the epistle to the Hebrews to discover how much may be learned of the ways of God and of the service of God from the Old Testament narratives. God "made known His ways unto Moses", and careful attention to Israel's wilderness history will enlarge our knowledge of His ways and bring spiritual enrichment. May our brethren who ponder these precious records for our instruction be " like unto a man that is a householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old" (Matthew 13.52).

Israel in bondage in Egypt is but a picture of man's greater bondage to sin and Satan which the apostle Paul describes in the early chapters of his epistle to the Romans. The children of Israel were powerless to throw off the iron yoke of Pharaoh and could never have been freed to serve God by their own efforts. We, too, had remained in Satan's domain unless God had loosed us by His almighty power. We must not miss the important lesson that God's purpose in securing Israel's freedom was that they might leave Egypt to serve Him in the wilderness. So with ourselves. We have been freed to serve God "without the camp, bearing His reproach (Hebrews 13.13).

T.M. Hyland, Birkenhead | Jan 1969
From Egypt To Canaan