Exodus 14

Study Guide 11: Exodus 13-19 THE NEED FOR LAW Overview Redemption from slavery was to be the beginning of Israel’ s new relationship with God as One Who Is Always Present. That relationship, as our own relationship with the Lord, has a goal: transformation. People with whom God shares Himself are expected to share the Lord’ s qualities, and especially His holiness! The events we read of in Exodus 13-19 demonstrate all too clearly that Israel was not yet a holy people, and not yet ready to respond to God. These events demonstrate to us why the introduction of Mosaic Law was a historic necessity. LAW. The Hebrew word torah means “ teaching” or “ instruction.” It is instruction focused on how to live, not on abstract or academic issues. The idea expressed by torah or law is broad and has different shades of meaning. The first five books of Moses are called the torah. The total way of life these books lay out for Israel are also called torah. And of course the Ten Commandments are torah. Thus biblically, law includes all the instruction God gave to guide the nation Israel, including ceremonial or ritual instruction as well as civil and moral guidelines. In this part of Exodus, however, “ law” is used in its narrower sense of a specific rule of life; a standard God’ s people are to live by. Law in this sense was never intended as a permanent feature of faith’ s life. But the righteousness that is expressed in the Law is to find living expression in the life of everyone who walks with God.

Commentary Passover night was an end to slavery, but a beginning of life with God. While the people of Israel were always to remember that “ the Lord brought [them] out of it” (Exodus 13:3), they were not to remember Egypt! They were not to look back, but to move out immediately on their journey to the Promised Land. The route of Exodus (Exodus 13:17-22). The most direct route to Palestine was along the coast. But this would have thrown Israel into immediate conflict with powerful enemies. The people needed time to learn to trust God, time to become organized. So God led them by a roundabout route, paralleling the Red Sea for about 100 miles southward down the Sinai Peninsula. Their journey brought them to the shore of a great body of water, in Hebrew called yam suph. This means literally, “ sea of reeds,” and probably is best identified as the Bitter Lakes. It was at this point, trapped against the waters and a dry wilderness, that Israel realized the Egyptian army was pursuing them!

Deliverance: Exodus 14:1-31Pharaoh and the Egyptian people (Exodus 14:5) recovered quickly. Perhaps the wealth that Israel took with them motivated pursuit. At any rate, Pharaoh set out to recapture his slaves, sending a 600-chariot army on ahead. The Israelites were overtaken at the seaside. Pharaoh had forgotten God. But so had the Israelites! The people cried out bitterly against Moses, begging him to let them return and serve the Egyptians rather than die in the wilderness. Moses’ response makes a good watchword for us today: “ Do not be afraid. Stand firm and see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today” (Exodus 14:13). Redemption had been God’ s work. Now deliverance of His people from each new peril must be His work as well. We all know the familiar story of the crossing. God opened and dried a path for His people. When the Egyptians tried to follow, He brought the walls of water swirling back to destroy them. Perhaps we can even imagine ourselves there, and realize what it must have meant to God’ s people to see their oppressors’ dead bodies along the seashore (Exodus 14:30). We can sense the great feeling of release from fear, the joy of that moment. The people believed God and sang.

The Song: Exodus 15:1-27Exo_15:1-27 concludes with a record of the song the people of Israel sang. Like our own worship and praise, the song lifts up the person of God. It reviews what God had done. And it lifts up for all to see the fact that God truly is “ One Present With Us.” I will sing to the Lord, for He is highly exalted. The horse and its rider He has hurled into the sea. The Lord is my strength and my song; He has become my salvation. Exodus 15:1-2LINK TO LIFE: CHILDREN There are ways that even the youngest of children can praise the Lord. They can give thanks, tell God they love Him, sing praises, even talk of what they appreciate about Him. Older boys and girls can memorize the first two verses of Exodus 15:1-27 and hold a classroom parade, quoting it or singing a familiar praise chorus. Children can also be encouraged to write their own praise songs. Let your class suggest things that God has done for them or their families. Write these down on a chalkboard. Then work together to express praise and fit them to the music of a familiar children’ s song.

Just Beginning To put the happenings of Israel’ s next few months and years into perspective, we need to shift for a moment to the New Testament. There we read of God’ s purpose for people who come to know Him. That purpose is expressed in many ways, and yet the thrust is always the same. Ephesians speaks of becoming “ mature, attaining the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13). Romans speaks of being “ conformed to the likeness of His [God’ s] Son” (Romans 8:29). Colossians talks of putting on “ the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator” (Colossians 3:10). Peter insists that believers be like God (1 Peter 1:14-15), and explains his demand by pointing out that we have “ been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable.” We have, as J.B. Phillips paraphrases, “ His [God’ s] own indestructible heredity” (1 Peter 1:23). Jesus Himself told His disciples they were to be like “ your Heavenly Father” (Matthew 5:48). The thrust of this line of teaching is clear. For the believer, salvation is the beginning of a process in which the individual is to grow up into the likeness of Jesus Christ. Peter sums it up beautifully: But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. 1 Peter 2:9-10This same purpose sums up the calling of Israel! As a people who had received mercy, they were a chosen people belonging to God. Once a mob of slaves, they were now a nation destined to declare the praises of the Lord Yahweh who had called them. In a few months Israel would stand before God at Sinai. He would teach them about their identity, claim them as His people, and announce: I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy; be cause I am holy. . . . I am the Lord who brought you up out of Egypt, to be your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy. Leviticus 11:44-45Israel must now learn to be like God! As a nation, they were called to reflect His character and His personality as a light to all men. Yet the divine lifestyle which Israel was now called to learn was foreign to them. No wonder deliverance from Egypt was only a beginning. It was like being born again: born into a new world, called to learn new thoughts, new feelings, new attitudes, new values, and new behaviors. Only by seeing Israel’ s deliverance from Egypt as the birth of the nation — and tracing the subsequent events as God’ s training and nurture of a loved infant being helped toward maturity — can we understand the next books of the Old Testament. Only then can we understand what they teach us about our own redemption. LINK TO LIFE: YOUTH / ADULT Conversion for some has little outward change associated with it. Some of us were brought up in the home of Christians, and taught Christian values. For others, though, conversion means a radical change in lifestyle. Go around your group and ask each to reflect aloud on the most difficult change he or she had to face in learning to live as a real Christian. Afterward, talk about how the new life pattern was learned. From books? Sermons? The Bible? From friends? Explain that God needed to teach redeemed Israel a new lifestyle, when the pattern of their life had simply left God out for decades!

The Child Events reported in Exodus 15:22 through Exodus 17:7 show us how like a child Israel was. Looking back the Prophet Hosea used that image: When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called My son. But the more I called Israel, the further they went from Me. They sacrificed to the Baals and they burned incense to images. It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in My arms; but they did not know I healed them. Hosea 11:1-3Squalling and willful, toddling off to grasp at forbidden “ pretties,” infant Israel soon forgot the great acts of God through which she was delivered, and lapsed into complaint and a childish, willful bitterness. Three days after crossing the Red Sea, the people were in a waterless wilderness, led there by God Himself by the agency of a cloudy, fiery pillar which was always visible to them (Exodus 13:21). When they did find water, it was undrinkable, and the people “ grumbled against Moses.” The Lord purified the water, and promised that if the people would be responsive and listen to His voice, He would continually be a “ healer” to them (Exodus 15:22-26). Immediately after, God led them to Elim, an oasis with 12 springs and 70 palm trees, where they could rest from the desert journey and refresh themselves. When they journeyed on, the people murmured against Moses again, complaining of hunger. The supplies they brought from Egypt had dwindled. God responded by bringing quail to the camp that evening, and in the morning produced the first of the manna which would feed Israel all the time they were in the wilderness (Exodus 16:1-15). This manna was a waferlike substance that appeared on the ground with the dew. It tasted like honey and nuts. Only as much as a person could eat in a single day was gathered, except the day before the Sabbath, when two days’ supply could be collected. On weekdays any extra manna spoiled; on the Sabbath it did not. In spite of Moses’ warning that their murmuring was against the Lord, and His command not to gather more manna than they needed, the people “ paid no attention to Moses” (Exodus 16:20). Moving on in easy stages, Israel was again led to a place where there was no water. Panicked, they accused Moses of bringing them out of Egypt to kill them with thirst. In their anger, they were about ready to stone Moses. But again God acted in grace to supply water, this time from a rock (Exodus 17:1-8). What then is the picture we have of infant Israel? It is a picture of people too immature to respond to grace; too willful to respond to guidance. God constantly demonstrated both His love and His ability to meet their every need. Yet in each crisis the people panicked and were unable to trust Him. Their response to pressure was more violent each time: they “ grumbled against Moses” (Exodus 15:24); then “ the whole community grumbled against Moses” (Exodus 16:2); then “ they quarreled with Moses” and were “ almost ready to stone” him (Exodus 17:2, Exodus 17:4). These people were not learning the divine lifestyle. They in fact rejected the first and most basic lesson: the lesson of trust. God had proven Himself faithful over and over again. Yet there was no awakening of response in the hearts or the minds of His chosen people. Israel proved herself to be a child. LINK TO LIFE: YOUTH / ADULT Make a chart diagramming God’ s acts and Israel’ s responses on the journey to Sinai (Ex. 15-18). Then ask your group to share ideas of Israel’ s “ personality” at that time. What were the people really like? What words describe them, or their relationship with God? Why would such a people need discipline, or clear “ do” and “ don’ t” guidelines?

Introduction of the Law: Exodus 19:1-25We cannot understand the Mosaic Law and the Ten Commandments without realizing that they were given to Israel as a child. It was the infancy of Israel that made it necessary for God to introduce the Law. Put in modern terms, we can look at the journey to Mount Sinai as a time when God dealt with Israel permissively. He let them respond “ naturally.” He acted in love to meet their needs. He did not correct or punish. And the result showed the outcome common to all permissive approaches to child-rearing. The people failed to develop inner discipline. They did not mature. They did not respond to God as a Person, or delight in His purposes. The Bible makes it very clear that God is not a permissive parent. And this section of Scripture shows us why. Scripture tells us “ the Lord disciplines those He loves, and He punishes everyone He accepts as a son” (Hebrews 12:6; see also Proverbs 3:11-12). What’ s more, Scripture tells us the purpose of God’ s discipline. “ God disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness” (Hebrews 12:10). It takes discipline to develop holiness, and God will not shrink back from giving His children any good gift — no matter how painful that gift may initially seem! It was because of love, then, and for the introduction of a discipline through which Israel might come to share God’ s holiness that the Lord led His people to Mount Sinai. Love, and Israel’ s desperate need for discipline, led to giving of the Law. In later years the Law would be tragically misunderstood by God’ s people. Its purpose and meaning would be distorted, and its true role clouded. But the Law was nevertheless necessary — for Israel. A voluntary covenant. As we study the Law we’ ll see a striking difference between the Law Covenant made at Sinai and the covenant God made earlier with Abraham (Genesis 12:1-20; Genesis 15:1-21; Genesis 17:1-27). Each makes clear what God is committed to do. But how God acts under Law is linked to the response of each generation and individual to His revealed Word. God said “ I will . . .” to Moses, and gave him unshakable promises. God said, “ If you obey Me fully,” to Israel at Sinai (Exodus 19:5). Under Law, obedience would bring blessing; through obedience the people would become “ a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6). But if a generation would not respond to God, and continued in childish rebellion, they would not be blessed. Instead they would know the chastising hand of God. Fear of the Lord. The events at Sinai now take on a striking appearance. The God who brought vast judgments on Egypt now thundered at Israel! Boundaries were set around the mountain, and no living thing was permitted to approach its slopes. A thick cloud covered the mountaintop; thunder and lightning constantly played above the camp. Then, dramatically, a voice that stunned Israel’ s senses spoke. The Bible tells us that the people “ trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance and said to Moses, ‘ Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die’” (Exodus 20:18-19). Awed and fearful, the willful people of Israel, for a time at least, were cowed. Psalms 111:10 says it: “ The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” And Proverbs 1:7 echoes the thought: “ The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.” The child must learn respect for the parent before he will respond to love. “The Law.” Often in Scripture “ the Law” speaks of these first uttered commandments of God to Israel. But the word Law (torah) does not always refer to the Ten Words of Sinai. It also refers at times to the whole system of life expressed by the continuing Old Testament revelation; a system containing many positive statutes and ordinances as well as the apparent negatives of the Ten. Also, the believing Jew thought of the Books of Moses (Gen. through Deut.) as torah, “ the Law.” But here it is the Ten Commandments and their explanation in Exodus that will soon draw our attention. For these stand today as the epitome of the moral revelation of the Old Testament. Looking at them, remembering that Israel is a people who need discipline and training in holiness, we need to ask, “ Why these? What was God’ s purpose in giving Israel this Law, now?”

The Law This first revelation of Law to Israel performed two clear functions. First of all, it revealed the character of God. If Israel was to reflect God’ s character, and thus bring Him praise, they must understand His character. The Ten Commandments are our first sharp revelation of the moral character and the deepest values of our God. Oh, we can infer much from earlier revelation: for instance, we know that God is faithful to His promises. But His moral character still remained something of a mystery. But no more. The Ten Words from Sinai reveal the moral nature of this God who had taken it on Himself to redeem a people to become like Him. A second important function of the Law is that it defines God’ s expectations. In objective, clear, and well-defined standards, the people of God are told how He expects them to behave. There is a tremendous value in any relationship in having expectations revealed. Some of us grew up in homes where we simply did not know how to please our parents. Nothing we did seemed to meet with their approval, and their commands to us would change from day to day. There was to be no such uncertainty for Israel in its relationship with God. God defined clearly the way He expected them to go; so clearly that even a child could not miss his way. With the limits established, and with God’ s expectations clearly expressed, the people would now have a standard by which to measure their own responses and behavior. In modern terms this might be called an “ immediate feedback system” — something very important when anyone is being trained. For example, imagine a golfer practicing daily to eliminate a slice from his drive. He stands on the tee, swings, and watches the ball . . . adjusts, and tries again. He gauges each effort by watching that ball in flight, and, when he begins to straighten out the drive, he continues to practice to make sure that he has mastered the correct swing. Now, how much chance would the golfer have to improve if a screen were placed so he could tee up and hit, but not watch the ball’ s flight? Obviously, without the feedback of seeing how he is doing, he simply could not correct his problem. In the same way, the Law provided an objective standard and served as a background against which the Israelites would obtain immediate feedback on their behavior. They could measure their plans, their goals, their values, and their actions against the divine revelation of morality. There are other functions of the Law as well, but these two help us see its tremendous value to Israel at this point in history. The Law would be for Israel a dual revelation. In it they would see the moral character of God. And in it they would also see themselves. LINK TO LIFE: CHILDREN Children can understand that rules are good for them. To help them sense this in a special way, invite them to play several games. Begin with a hopping game. “ Let’ s everybody hop.” After they hop a bit, stop and say, “ Who won?” There is no answer, of course. No one knows the object or the rules of the game. Then set two goals, line up even teams, and have them do a relay hopping race, with the next person on a team to be touched by the one hopping before he or she can begin. Do this with several games, and afterward talk with the children: “ How did knowing the rules help? Was it better playing with rules or without?” When God gives us rules to live by He is doing it to help us, not to harm us. God’ s rules help us live a happy, successful life, just as rules for games help us have a happy, successful time together.

Teaching Guide Prepare Read and meditate on Psalms 119:97-104. How does David see God’ s Law? Why is it so precious to him?

Explore

1. Put on the board, “ Children do not need rules. They should be allowed to do what comes naturally.” Let group members agree or disagree with this statement. Discuss: “ When do children need rules? What kind of rules do they need?”
2. Ask your group to think of feelings they associate with the word “ Law.” (The feelings will range from “ restricted” and “ guilty” to “ secure” and “ free.” ) When the feeling words have been listed on the board, ask group members to explain why a word they suggested is associated for them with “ Law.”

Expand

1. Do the chart study of Israel’ s responses to God during the journey to Sinai (see “ link-to-life” above). How does the description of the character of Israel which they discover help provide a background for the introduction of Law?
2. Give a minilecture covering God’ s goal for His people, and explaining how giving the Law to Israel at this point in history fits in with His purpose.

Apply

1. Examine Hebrews 12:5-13 and note the commitment God has to discipline those He loves. Talk about the relationship of this text to Exodus. But then encourage group members to share about times they have experienced God’ s discipline. Are there parallels between their experiences and those of Israel?
2. 1 Timothy 1:9 says that the Law is not made for good persons, but “ lawbreakers and rebels.” How is this illustrated in Israel? What does this suggest about the Christian who loves and follows Jesus closely? How good to know that when we live close to the Lord, law is unnecessary, for we will love and act as Jesus wants us to without its external discipline.