EXODUS 1-3I. The Israelites in Egypt, 1:1-14 A. The people of Israel were fruitful in Egypt, perhaps even outnumbering the native Egyptians, 1:1-7 B. Pharaoh grew concerned they might basically take over the country, 1:8-10 C. The Egyptians started to enslave Israel, 1:11 1. The people of Israel built the supply cities of Pithom and Raamses, 1:11 2. Yet they continued to multiply, and Egypt feared them more, 1:12 3. The Egyptians treated them even more harshly, 1:13-14 D. Pharaoh’s cruel plan, 1:15-19 1. He commands the Egyptian midwives to kill the Hebrew’s male babies, 1:15-16 2. They disobey him and let the male children live, 1:17 3. He asks them why they have done this, they explain that the children were born before they had a chance to get there, 1:18-19 4. Israel continued to thrive, and the midwives were provided for, 1:20-21II. Early life of Moses, 1:22, 2:1-14 A. Pharaoh orders all male children cast into the rivers, 1:22 B. Moses is born of the house of Levi and hidden for three months, 2:1-2 1. His mother sets him adrift in the river, and his sister sees this, 2:3-4 2. Pharaoh’s daughter finds him, 2:6-7 3. Moses’ sister convinces her to adopt Moses, 2:8-10 C. As a young man, 2:11-14 1. He sees Hebrew slaves being beaten, 2:11 2. He kills the slaver and hides the body, 2:12 3. The next day, he stops two Hebrews from fighting, and they say they knew who he has killed, 2:13-14 D. Moses flees to Midian, 2:15-25 1. Pharaoh sought to kill Moses, 2:15 2. Moses goes to Midian and helps the priest’s seven sisters, 2:15-17 3. Moses come to live with Reul and marries his daughter Zipporah, and has a son, 2:18-21 4. The current Pharaoh dies and God acknowledges his covenants, 2:22-25 III . Moses sees the burning bush and learns of God’s plan, 3:1-22 A. Moses tends the flocks and finds the burning bush, 3:1-6 1. Moses is tending his father-in-laws’ flocks and as he leads them back from the desert, he comes to the mountain of God, 3:1 2. An angel of the Lord appears to Moses in the form of a flaming fire in a bush and Moses notices that the bush is not consumed by the fire, 3:2 3. Moses decides that he will go and see the bush and try to figure out why it isn’t burning, 3:3 4. God calls Moses from the midst of the bush and uses his name, “Moses, Moses”, and Moses answers with, “Here I am”, 3:4 5. God tells Moses to not draw near to the place with is sandals on because Moses is standing on holy ground, and that He is the God of his father, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Moses hides his face because he is afraid to look upon God, 3:5-6

B. God tells Moses He has seen His people hurting, 3:7-10 1. God tells Moses that he has seen that the Jewish people are oppressed, He has heard their cry, and knows their sorrows. God then says that He has come to deliver the Hebrews from the Egyptians and to bring them to the promised land, now in the hands of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, 3:6-8 2. God then continues to tell Moses that He has heard the Hebrews cries and that He is going to be sending Moses to Pharaoh as God’s representative, 3:9-10 C. Moses questions what God wants and God tells him, 3:11-22 1 . Moses is afraid and asks God why He wants Moses to be his mouthpiece, so God tells him that He will be with him and that once he has helped His people to come out of Egypt, Moses is to worship at the mountain, 3:11-12 2. Moses is still not fully convinced and he asks God who he is to say has sent him unto the Hebrew people and God replies, “I AM WHO I AM”, and that Moses is to the Hebrews that I AM has sent him, 3:13-14 3. Further God tells Moses that he is to tell the Hebrews that the Lord of their fathers has sent Moses, that His name is forever and that His covenant with them is eternal, 3:15 4. God tells Moses that he is then to gather the elders together and tell them that God has appeared to him, that God has seen what is being done to them in Egypt, and that God has decided to bring them out of bondage and into the land of milk and honey, 3:16-17 5. God says to Moses that they will then hear Moses’ voice and they will go with Moses to talk to Pharaoh, asking him to let them go three days into the wilderness so they may make sacrifices to their God, 3:18 6. God does tell Moses that He knows that Pharaoh won’t listen to their pleas, so He is going to have to strike Egypt, and then He knows that Pharaoh with finally let His people go, 3:19-20 7. And finally God promises to Moses that the Hebrews will have God’s favor, that they shall not go empty-handed from Egypt, and that they will merely have to ask the Egyptians for gold and silver so that they will be able to essentially plunder the Egyptians, 3:21-22

If I am reading this passage correctly, it appears as though the Hebrew people were fruitful even in their captivity in Egypt, and this naturally made Pharaoh upset. So then Pharaoh decides that to kill the first born sons of the Hebrews as a means of controlling their population, but God saves Moses so that He can use him to bring His people fully out of bondage. I do wonder if Pharaoh hadn’t decided to start killing off the Hebrews’ first born sons, if they would have simply wanted to stay put instead of moving onto the land that God has promised they will inherit? One of the other things that I noticed is that when Moses has killed the Egyptian, rather than simply brushing it off like most Egyptian princes would have been able to, Moses feels a sense of guilt and hides the body. I wonder if that is because one of Pharaoh’s servants has overheard the fact that Moses is actually a Hebrew and is threatening to tell on Moses, or if it is simply that Moses is ashamed of losing his temper enough to kill a man? Finally I’ve also noticed Moses’ reaction the God wanting him to be the mouthpiece of what God wants his people to know. Moses sees the burning the bush not being consumed, and is wise enough to know that it is God doing so, yet he seems almost afraid that God won’t be there with

him and give him the words to say. So I guess what I want to know is why Moses is filled with doubt when he can clearly see the power of God? Why does Moses doubt God when God has clearly chosen him?

EXODUS 14-15I. God prepares Moses and the Hebrews for the miracle of the Red Sea, 14:1-31 A. The Lord directs Moses on where the Hebrews are to set up their camp and how Pharaoh will react, 14:1-9 1. God speaks to Moses and tells him to set up the Hebrew camp by the sea and that when Pharaoh sees it, he will think the Hebrews are lost and that they wilderness has confused them, 14:1-3 2. God then let’s Moses know that Pharaoh’s heart will harden and that he is going to then send his army to pursue the Hebrew people in order to regain his honor, but that God will use the Pharaoh’s pride to show the Egyptians that He truly is God, 14:4 3. Pharaoh does become upset and he asks his servants and generals why they have let the Israelites go, 14:54. So Pharaoh then has his army ready themselves, he hardens his heart even more against the Hebrews, and Pharaoh and his army set out to pursue the Hebrews, 14:6-9 B. Pharaoh and his army hedge in the Israelites, and the Israelites grow afraid, 14:10-14 1. When Pharaoh’s army gets closer, the Israelites see them and they grow very afraid, so they cry out to the Lord, 14:10 2. The Hebrew people call upon Moses and ask him why he has brought them out of Egypt, where they felt safe, only to have the Egyptians chase them down in the wilderness and kill them there. They tell Moses that they were better off being in bondage to the Egyptians rather than dying in the middle of nowhere, 14:11-12 3. Moses tells the people that they should not be afraid, that they should cast their eyes upon the Lord and know that He will save them. Moses tells them that the Egyptians that are there before them will not be there after that day because God is going to fight for the Hebrews, 14:13-14C. God brings the Israelites safely through the Red Sea, 14:15-31 1. The Lord then tells Moses to tell the Israelite people to move forward, and that Moses is to raise his rod over the sea and that it will divide so that the Israelite people will be able to walk on dry land, 14:15-16 2. God further mentions that the Egyptians will try to follow the Hebrew people because they want to try to regain Pharaoh’s honor, but that He will show Pharaoh and his army that He is God, 14:17-18 3. God then sends one of His angels to go before and behind the Hebrew people and the angel appears as a pillar of cloud between the camp of the Egyptians and the Hebrews so that it seems to be a darkness to the Egyptians and light to the Hebrews, 14: 19-20 4. Moses then stretches out his hand over the Red sea and the Lord caused it to recede enough so that the Israelites were able to walk across on dry land with the water as walls on the right and the left, 14:21-22 5. The Egyptians try to pursue the Hebrew peoples and are in the midst of the sea, but God has been causing them issues all morning and they have had trouble with their chariots. The Lord then tells Moses that he is to stretch his hand back over the sea and

when he does, the waters comes back upon the Egyptians and the sea is back to its full depth, 14:23-27 6. The Egyptian army is caught in the middle of the sea and not a one remains, but all of the Israelites had made it to the other shore safely, 14:28-29 7. The Lord saved the Israelites from the Egyptians and when the Hebrews saw the great work that God had done, they believed the Lord and Moses, 14:30-31II. Moses and the Israelites praise God for their salvation 15:1-18 A. Moses and the Hebrews sing to the Lord, 15:1- 1. Moses and the Israelites sing to God saying that God has triumphed and thrown the Egyptians into the sea, that He is their strength and their salvation, and that He is their God whom they will praise, 15:1-2 2. The song continues that the Lord is a man of war, that the Lord is His name, that He cast Pharaoh’s chariots and his army into the sea, and that He drowned Pharaoh’s army in the Red Sea where they sank like stones, 15:3-5 3. God’s right hand is glorious in power and that He has dashed the Israelites’ enemy into pieces and in the greatness of God’s excellence, He has overthrown those who rose against Him in His wrath, 15:6-7 4. With the breath of God, He gathered together the waters, made the floods stand upright, and when the enemy has said that they will pursue the children of Israel so that they may overtake them and destroy them, God made the waters cover them back up and they drowned in the waters, 15:8-10B. The song that Moses and the Israelites continue to praise God for bringing them safely through the Red Sea and out of the Egyptians’ hands, 15: 11-13 1. The Israelites ask who is like the Lord among any of the other gods, who is as glorious in holiness, doing wonders such as God has performed, 15:11 2. God has stretched out His right hand and the earth swallowed up the Egyptians, that His mercy had led and redeemed his people and that God had guided them with his strength to God’s holy habitation, 15:12-13C. Moses and the Israelites sing how other enemies will fall in fear before the Lord, 15:14-19 1. So when the people hear about what God has done, those who are inhabitants of Philistia, Edom, Moab, and Canaan will be sorrowful, dismayed, and tremble 15: 14-15 2. Fear and dread will fall upon these nations because God’s greatness will turn them as still as stone till God’s chosen people have passed over, 15:16 3. The Lord will take his people and give them the land that He wants them to inherit for that will be the Lord’s dwelling place and they will establish the sanctuary where God has established where He shall reign forever, 15:17-18 4. For when Pharaoh sent his chariots and his army after the Israelites, God brought the waters back upon them, but the Children of Israel had made it safely to the other side, 15:19

It appears to me that in these passages Moses has started to lead the people out of Egypt by now, and it seems that they were starting to almost miss being in bondage in Egypt. So I think that God decided to show the Israelites that He was there with them, that He was truly leading them, and that there would really be no going back. I feel that is why God has Moses lead the people to the Red Sea so that they are literally between a rock and

hard place, and He hardens Pharaoh’s heart against the Israelites. So when the Hebrews see the Egyptians coming after them, they have a lot of fear in their hearts and they cry out against Moses, but God uses this instance to show the Israelites that He will bring them safely away from Egypt. I have to imagine that when God parted the Red Sea and the Hebrews walked across on dry land, they had to be frightened, yet in awe at what God could do; they must have felt that even more so when God removes His hand, and He lets the water fall back over the Egyptians and drowns them. One of the questions I feel is raised for me by this passage is did Pharaoh drown with his men or was it merely the captains of his chariots that perished? Another one that I am curious about is, knowing that the Hebrew people see God perform the miracle of parting the Red Sea, how could they ever come to doubt God was with them? Finally, I also wonder what it means in the passage where it says that God is leading them to His holy habitation? Is that the land of Canaan?

EXODUS 20I. God gives Moses the Ten Commandments that the Israelites are supposed to follow, 20:1-17 A. God establishes with Moses the laws that He wants the people of Israel to follow, 20:1-17 1. The Lord speaks to Moses and tells him that He is the God who has brought the children of Israel out of the bondage they endured in Egypt, 20:1-2 2. God gives Moses the first two commandments that the Hebrew people are not to have any other gods before Him, and that they are not to make carved image that they would bow down to and worship because the Lord God is a jealous God and will visit their sins upon the third and fourth generations of those who hate Him. God will show mercy though on those who love Him, 20:3-6 3. The next commandments are that no one is to take the Lord’s name in vain because God will not hold him guiltless who does, and that the people are to remember to keep the Sabbath, keep it holy, and that while they may labor for six days, the seventh is to be given to God. No one is allowed to work, and that this represents the six days in which God made the world and rested on the seventh, 20:7-11 4. The commandment that the Israelites are supposed to honor their mother and their father comes with the promise of a long life, while they are also instructed not the commit murder, not to commit adultery, not the steal, and not to bear false witness against anyone, 20:12-16 5. The final commandment is that no one should covet anything that is their neighbors, not their house, not their wife, not their livestock, 20:17B. The people of Israel witness God’s presence, 20:18-21 1. All of the nation of Israel see the storm and hear the trumpet that denotes God’s presence, and they are filled with fear even though they are far away, 20:18 2. The people go to Moses and they ask him to speak with God because they know that if they hear God’s voice they will die, 20:19 3. So Moses tells the people not to be afraid because God has come to test them, and that the fear He is inspiring in them is so that they will not sin before Him, 20:20 4. The people continued to stand far off, but Moses goes up into the mountain and the darkness where God was, 20:21

II. God gives Moses the law of the alter for making sacrifices to Him, 20:22-26 A. The Lord reminds Moses that there are not to be any other gods before Him, 20: 22-23 1. God says to Moses that he is to tell the children of Israel that God has spoken with Moses from heaven, 20:22 2. The Israelites are not to make anything that represents God, not out of silver or gold, to serve as what they worship, 20:23 B. God gives Moses instructions for what to make the alter of, what and how to sacrifice upon it, 20:24-26 1. The Lord tells Moses to make the altar of earth and that they are supposed to sacrifice upon it burnt offerings and peace offerings of sheep and oxen, and they are to do so in every place that God tells them to do so and if they do, He will bless them, 20:24 2. God then tells Moses that if they do make an altar of stone, they are not supposed to hew it because their tools will have profaned the altar, 20:25 3. The final direction that God gives about the construction of an altar is that they should not go up by steps so that their nakedness will not be exposed, 20:26

From Exodus 20, I find that God is basically just telling the Israelites how they are supposed to live, how He wants them to follow Him, and how they are supposed to worship. I think it is interesting that the Ten Commandments are basically simple instructions for how any human society should function, but God also makes specific commandments for how the Hebrew people are to organize their religious practices. I also find it fascinating how the Hebrew people were so dependent on Moses when he is charged with speaking to God, and they were afraid to go before God themselves, but in some of the previous passages they seem to nearly be ready to overthrow Moses’ position as their leader. One of the things I have a question about is, why would it be considered profane to hew an altar out of stone? Why does God call for the altar to be made of earth, yet in the temple that Solomon builds, wasn’t the altar made of gold? Finally, one last question I have is what exactly does Moses mean when he tells the people not to be afraid of God’s presence because He is using their fear as a means of testing them? I understand that God would not want them to commit sins in His presence, but why does He need instill fear in His people?