Tag Archive | God’s promises

Journaling through the Bible Chronologically in 2025, Day 31

Jan31

Day 31. Reading in Exodus 4 – 6. 

I invite you to read the scripture for the day and meditate on it. What stood out to you?

Exodus 4.

From the burning bush, God told Moses that He was sending him back to Pharaoh to bring the children of Israel OUT OF EGYPT.

By now, Moses has twice told the LORD that he is “unable” to do it.  God has assured Moses that He would be with him all the way. God gave Moses His sacred Name by which he could persuade the people and even told him HOW He would rescue them. (Many times, Pharaoh would refuse, but God would plague Egypt until he agreed. )

“But the people won’t believe me,” Moses counters now.

Then, God gave Moses three signs to convince the people.  First, his staff turned into a snake and then back into a staff.  Next, his hand turned leprous, then back to clean. Finally, when Moses poured a little Nile River water onto the ground, it would turn to blood.  WOW!

“Oh, my Lord,” whines Moses, “I am not eloquent. I’m slow of speech and tongue.” (He’s spent the last 40 years with only sheep to talk to.)

God assures Moses that HE is God. He makes mouths (and ears and eyes with their deficiencies).  Moses is not to worry about that, but to “Go! I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak.”

“Oh, my Lord. Send someone else.”

Okay, that is enough!  God is angry.  “Ok, Moses, but this is the last concession. Your brother is coming to see you. Tell and show him all I’ve revealed.  He will be your spokesman.  I’ll tell you what to say, and you can whisper it in his ear.” 

  • Wow.  Indeed, God has been exasperated with me like this many times as I make excuses not to obey Him.  Oh, the patience and kindness of our God!  Forgive me!  What a wonderful example I have in Jesus when it was time for Him to become human and die for my sins. No hesitation. And God said of Him, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

Moses asks permission from his father-in-law to go and is graciously relieved of his shepherding duties.  He packs up his wife and son on a donkey. At a rest stop, God threatens Moses’ life. Why? Because he did NOT follow through with the covenant commandment of circumcision, which he should have done to his son when he was 8 days old.  Does Moses want to be part of God’s family or not?

While Moses lies dying, Zipporah circumcises their son and flaunts the foreskin. “You are a bridegroom of blood to me!” she says.  

God relents, and Zipporah is left alone with the boy until he heals before they return home. Moses leaves on foot to meet Aaron at the Mountain of God. He tells his brother everything God said, and together, the two men go to the elders of the people of Israel in Egypt and do the signs.  The people believe, and there is great rejoicing and worship of the LORD. 

Exodus 5.

Buoyed up by this reaction, Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, “The LORD, the God of Israel, says ‘Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness‘.”

“Um, no!” answers Pharaoh. “Who is the LORD, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I don’t know him. I will not let Israel go.”

“Please let us go three days into the wilderness to worship our God, or He may send a pestilence on us.”

“No!  Get back to work!  You have too much idle time on your hands. Now you will have to find the straw for the bricks for yourselves instead of me supplying it.  AND YOUR QUOTA IS THE SAME!”

The elders of Israel go to Moses and complain. “You have made us stink in the eyes of Pharaoh! Things are worse than they were before!!!”

Moses goes to God. “Lord, why have You done evil to this people?  Why did You ever send me?  I have not delivered the people at all!”

Exodus 6.

“NOW, you will see what I will do to Pharaoh,” the LORD says. “For with a strong hand, he will send them out, and with a strong hand, he will DRIVE them out of his land.” (Just you wait and see!)

God speaks to Moses. “I am the LORD. I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan. 

  • 1) I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians HOLD AS SLAVES. 
  • 2) I have remembered my covenant. 
  • 3) Say to the people, “I am the LORD, and I will DELIVER you from slavery, I will REDEEM you with an outstretched arm with GREAT ACTS OF JUDGMENT. 
  • 4) I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God.
  • 5) I will bring you into the land I swore to give to your fathers, and give it to you as a possession. I AM THE LORD.”

“Now, Moses, go in, tell Pharaoh, king of Egypt, to let the people of Israel go out of his land!” 

And so the contest begins. In the end, Israel will be free and wealthy. Egypt will be broken and without an army, a leader, or a son to take his place.

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As the writer of this book, Moses takes a moment to give us his and Aaron’s genealogy.  Jacob’s third son, Levi, had three sons (important regarding the duties of the Tabernacle and Temple worship). They are Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.  Moses and Aaron are descended from the line of Kohath through Amram and his wife, Jochebed.  (Levi lived 137 years, Kohath lived 133 years, and Amram lived 137 years.  At this time, Moses is 80, and Aaron is 83. Their sister Miriam is somewhere between 87-92 (sources differ).

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#2024 GOAL – Reading Through The Bible Chronologically, day 24

Jan24

   Day 24 —  Won’t you read the Bible with me this year?   It only takes a few minutes.  (You can also listen to an audio recording.)

   Day 24 – Genesis 35 – 37

In Chapter 35, after the horrific situation with his daughter in Shechem and Jacob’s fear of retaliation in the last chapter, God now comes to the road-weary man with a new direction.

“Get up to Beth-el and live there. Make an alter there to the God who appeared to you when you fled your brother.”    (Beth-el is where Jacob had the stairway to heaven dream and first heard God’s promises. He’s a different man now. His fathers’ God is now HIS God.)

He commands his household to get rid of all their foreign gods/idols and purify themselves.  Hmmm, besides the ones Rachel stole from her father, where did all these idols come from?  Remember in 34:29 when Jacob’s sons plundered the city of Shechem, they took all the livestock, all the little kids and wives, all their wealth, and ALL THAT WAS IN THEIR HOUSES.

Jacob obeyed God, left the pagen idols behind, and began the 20-mile trek south to Bethel to worship “the God who answers me in my day of distress.”  And, “a terror from God fell upon the cities that were around them, so that they DID NOT PURSUE the sons of Jacob.” 35:3-4  WOW!

Jacob and fam, arrived at Beth-el, he built the alter and worshiped God. God reaffirms his name change to Israel, and identifies Himself as God Almighty (El Shaddai). He reaffirms the promises given to Abraham and Isaac…

  • they would be fruitful and multiply
  • nations and kings would come from him
  • the land would be given to him and his offspring

Two deaths are mentioned in this chapter. Rachel, Jacob’s beloved wife, dies in labor wit her second son, whom Jacob names Benjamin. He buries her near Ephrath (Bethlehem – remember when Herod tries to kill Jesus by killing all the boys under two in Bethlehem? It said “Rachel was weeping for her children, who were not.” This is the place.)

And soon after Jacob meets up with his father, Isaac (and I’m sure, introduces all his children to “Grampa” and tells his story of the last 20+ years), Isaac dies at the age of 180.  Jacob & Esau bury him in that burial cave along with Abraham, Sarah, and Rebekah.

Chapter 36 (don’t skip reading it!) gives the geneology of Esau, his children and leaders, and cities they become.  36;6-8, tells of Esau’s whole family, with livestock and possession leaving the area (much like Lot did when it became too crowded), moving south and east to what will be know as Edom.

Chapter 37 begins the story of Jacob’s “favorite” son, Joseph. (Didn’t he learn a lesson about favortism from his parents??) But, Jacob’s heart remembered his beloved Rachel, and this was her first born son. He lavishes love on him and gives him the special, long and long-sleeved coat of a “ruler” of his brothers, an “amazing technicolor dreamcoat.”  (Just kidding.)

Joseph’s brothers KNEW EXACTLY what it symbolized and hated their “pompous” little brother, who tattled on them every chance he got and taunted them with his “dreams” of superiority.”  (Yes, God sent the dreams as prophecy, but did he have to share them???)

They got their revenge, and when they saw the boy coming to where they were pasturing the sheep (way north, past Shechem), they plotted first to kill him, and then to sell him for profit to a caravan of Ishmaelites going to Egypt.

(It’s interesting that both Reuben & Judah did not want him killed (37:21 & 26). These two brothers will also seek to save Bemjamin’s life in Egypt.)

The chapter ends in double tragedy. Joseph, the exalted son, becomes a slave to Potiphar, a captain of the guard for Pharaoh.  And Jacob (the great deceiver) is deceived again, this time by his sons, who tell him that Joseph must have been killed by wild animals.  The “ruler’s coat” is torn and splattered with blood (by them) to prove his untimely death.

Jacob is inconsolable in his mourning and weeping, and wishes he were dead too.

(But God means it all for good.)