Bible Commentaries

Exodus 5:1

The history of the deliverance of God's people from the bondage of Egypt, their pilgrimage through the wilderness, and then ultimate settlement in the Land of Promise, bears a striking analogy to the history of the human soul.

I. The words "Let My people go," regarded as spoken concerning human souls, may be said to contain in themselves the whole gospel history of our redemption. Even the small word "My" is emphatic. We are God's people; not Satan's people. When God claims us we should remember that He claims His own, and that we are bound to support His claim. (2) The summons to let the people of God go implies a bondage from which they are to be delivered. That which forms the basis of Holy Scripture is the fact that man committed sin. He rebelled against his Maker, and became the slave of one to whom he owed no obedience. (3) If the words "Let My people go" imply the existence of slavery, they still more emphatically imply the way and the promise of redemption. The Gospel of Christ, as preached throughout the whole world, is just this—"Let My people go."

II. The whole system of ordinances and sacraments, in which we find ourselves by God's providence, like the system of ordinances and sacrifices which was given to Israel when they came out of Egypt, are intended to insure and perfect and turn to the best account the liberty which the Lord has given us, for the soul of man may not be content with emancipation once and for all.

III. The consideration of what Jesus Christ has done for us is the chief means of moving our hearts to seek that liberty which God designs us all to possess.

Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Penny Pulpit, No. 643.

References: Exodus 5:2.—Preacher's Monthly, vol. ii., p. 65; Parker, vol. ii., p. 309.

Exodus 5:22-23

When Moses saw the vision at Horeb, he had passed many more years in the world than Jacob at the time of his vision at Bethel; he knew much of which Jacob was ignorant, and had experienced a kind of sorrow which had never reached him. He had passed through the sore trial of feeling himself the member of an utterly degraded race, which he had dreamed of helping and could not help; in the very sufferings of which he was not allowed to share. He had an early inward intimation that he might unite and deliver this people. The intimation had come to nothing. He might call himself an Egyptian, a Midianite, an Ethiopian, as well as a Hebrew.

I. This education in an Egyptian court, in the family of a Midianitish priest, in an Ethiopian desert, was just the one which was to prepare him for understanding the vocation of a Hebrew in the world; just the one which was to make him fit for a deliverer and lawgiver of his people.

It required that he should be far from kinsmen and from country—from every external association with the covenant of his fathers—that he might hear and understand the words, "I AM THAT I AM" that he might receive the assurance, "I AM hath sent thee."

II. Moses was called to be the deliverer and founder of a nation. Either that nation stood upon this Divine Name, or it and all that has grown out of it are mockeries and lies from first to last. "The Lord God of the Hebrews, the God of our nation, the God of our family, has established and upholds the order of human existence and all nature,"—this is the truth which Moses learnt at the bush; the only one which could bring the Jews or any people out of slavery into manly freedom and true obedience.

F. D. Maurice, Patriarchs and Lawgivers of the Old Testament, p. 154.

References: Exodus 5:22, Exodus 5:23.—Clergyman's Magazine, vol. viii., p. 141; Congregationalist, vol. vii., p. 208. 5-11. (14)—J. Monro Gibson, The Mosaic Era, p. 31. Exodus 6:1.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxiv., No. 1440. Exodus 6:2, Exodus 6:3.—Clergyman's Magazine, vol. x., p. 93; Homiletic Magazine, vol. viii., p. 211. Exodus 6:3.—A. M. Fairbairn, The City of God, p. 123; Parker, vol. ii., p. 310. Exodus 6:6-8.—Clergyman's Magazine, vol. xii., p. 145.