Living in the Nile Delta, Israel was not yet under the Law of Moses. In the main, they were still observing the other Law requirements which applied to them. Thus, when the Hyksos Invaders, who saw Israel as a possible rival nation, realized Israel outnumbered them by a wide margin, decided to enslave them as a part of their larger program for maintaining control. We see the Hyksos living on the border of paranoia. Meanwhile, the native Egyptians rather liked Israel. Thus, we find a thin layer of the uppermost power class hated just about everyone in their domain, and most everyone they ruled returned the favor. In the particular case of Israel, their adherence to the applicable commands of God gave them a measure of protection.
The concrete examples presented here help to clarify previously revealed truth. The human view of time has little bearing on God's action in this world. Israel was oppressed for quite some time before they were delivered. Time was not important, but the ripeness of sin for God's justice was the deciding factor. We also see a certain amount of oppression and tyranny is not sufficient of itself to justify a quick remedy from God. Nobody knows the precise dates, and things seemed to drift slowly into the situation we see at the beginning of Exodus, but we can safely assume several generations lived and died under the whip. However, during those generations, God prospered Israel, as signified by the exploding population, and an implied high average lifespan. God personally enforces the promises tied to obedience to His revealed will, and what makes sense from the ground of human logic simply does not apply. We would naturally expect oppressed people to pine away, but we would also expect a legal framework to operate more quickly. Yet both are subject to God's personal attention, and to planning He often does not reveal completely. This is universal, and is still in effect today.
Another critical element is God's tendency to make sure sin is fully revealed before He crushes it. Most of us in the West today are very uncomfortable with what appears God's laxity in addressing sin in others, but so harshly and quickly in ourselves. We who are spiritual are held to the higher standards, and should not be surprised when God allows fallen men to push past the barriers we understand. We are family, and we should expect a more loving and direct interest from God. The others are servants for hire, and He simply expects less of them. Egypt's Hyksos Pharaohs weren't that important, doomed from the start. God knew they could not be reformed; their own hearts in His eyes proved they had chosen the darkest path of evil. He gave them over to that choice, and acted when the fruit of their sin was fully ripe.
In the case of Israel, it was not they were spiritual -- they were manifestly unspiritual. Rather, it was God's often inscrutable plans. God had warned Abraham things would get tough on his descendants before they got better, so Israel should at least have known that much. Yet the comments of Moses to God, about a perception of taking too long to respond to their crying out to Him, probably reflects the general attitude of the people. They missed the cues to show God was intimately involved, but the bonus was they had gained a good measure of fatalism. In its proper place, fatalism teaches you to accept things God didn't promise to fix, or at least to wait until He does. But we know the entire nation of Israel were major whiners, and in the New Testament (Acts 7), Stephen noted shortly before he was martyred how Israel was probably one of the worst nations in history God could have chosen. This was on purpose.
Israel itself was a revelation. First, let's recall "loyalty" is the primary synonym for "faith." Lack of faith equals disloyalty. Acting as if God cannot or will not deliver on His promises is exhibiting a shift of loyalty to another master, Satan. There is no middle ground. Thus, of all nations on earth, according to Stephen, Israel was the quickest to change loyalties, the first to argue with God. Second, while noting this we see just how loyal God was in keeping His promises when Israel so justly deserved annihilation. Had not Moses intervened in prayer, that could have happened several times. If the most truculent nation in history can reap such blessings, surely other nations can, too. Not just the standard grade prosperity, stability and protection, but wildly miraculous levels of those things. A generally poor level of peace with God in terms of Law (the root meaning of the Hebrew word shalom) still brings generous measures of what every nation seeks on a purely worldly level.
The other major element in the Exodus narrative is Moses was a spiritual man. There isn't a lot of reference to it because the focus of Moses' calling was to be the channel for this one, highly specific implementation of Noah. He was intensely aware the nation contained precious few spiritual people, and they had to be guided by law. At the same time, we see him taking some perceived liberties with the Law himself, because he is held to a higher standard. He clearly understood the Law was not the ultimate revelation of God's character, but was His demand from Israel as a nation. It was a poor reflection of higher principles, just as the physical Tabernacle was a poor copy of God's Courts in Heaven (Hebrews 8:4-5). Moses had a chance to see, as it were, those real things in Heaven. He was deeply aware all the visible, tangible and logical trappings of the Covenant were mere symbols of a higher truth. For those who were spiritual, the Covenant was not binding, but symbolic.
Every step of the way, God was showing the magnanimous grace available at just the worldly level. The massive devastation on Egypt was a special case, but demonstrative of what God will do even today when a government embraces His laws for nations, as against those who reject them. On those terms, the tiniest righteous nation today can withstand a nuclear attack from the biggest sinful nation on earth. Nothing He allows men to discover and build can stand against His wrath, and no horror men can create has any hope against His promised protection.
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By Ed Hurst
17 April 2009
COPYRIGHT NOTICE: People of honor need no copyright laws; they are only too happy to give credit where credit is due. Others will ignore copyright laws whenever they please. If you are of the latter, please note what Moses said about dishonorable behavior -- "be sure your sin will find you out" (Numbers 32:23)