The Appearance of Yahweh 4

continued from here

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Still, he knows he is an Israelite. After he defends an Israelite and kills an Egyptian, he flees. Finally, when he has been away for some time, after he has married and had children, Yahweh appears to him.

Exodus 6:3 seems very important. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob did not know God by the name Yahweh. They knew God as "El Shaddai," "God Almighty." They likely knew God as "El Elyon," "God Most High." God met them where they were and took them from there.

Now God will have a new name, Yahweh. Of course, even here, it is probably the meaning of the name in Hebrew that is important, not the particular sounds that one makes with one's mouth. Moses sees a bush that is burning but is not burned up. He encounters God. God reveals who he is--"I will be who I will be" (Exod. 3:14). The "I AM" has sent him. Later Christians like Thomas Aquinas in the Middle Ages will contemplate God as Existence and Being itself.

9. God leads Israel out of slavery in Egypt. Moses is reluctant at first when God calls him. He does not feel up to the challenge. God gives him help. God gives him his brother Aaron to help speak for him, although Moses does just fine speaking to Pharaoh in the end it seems. God gives him a rod with which he can do signs.

It takes ten plagues to get the Pharaoh to let them go. The Nile River turns to blood. There are frogs, lice, flies, and locusts. Cows die. People get boils. There is hail from the sky and darkness. Finally, the plague that convinces the Pharaoh is when all the firstborn sons of Egypt die.

It is often suggested that the various plagues would have indicated Yahweh's power over the various gods of Egypt. For example, the sun god Ra was very important in the Egyptian pantheon. If Ramses II is the king in mind, the name of the god Ra is actually in his name. The three days of darkness would thus show the Egyptians and Pharaoh that Yahweh was more powerful than Ra.

On the night when the firstborn sons of Egypt die, the Israelites eat what would become known as the Passover meal. They take some of the blood of the lamb for the meal and smear it on the doorposts of their houses. Thus the "destroyer" passes over their houses that night (12:23), but the firstborn sons in Egyptian homes die. The English word "pass-over" tries to capture the sense of the Hebrew word it translates as God's "sparing" of Israel or the "exemption" they had from suffering. 

The Passover is significant for the New Testament as well. The four books about Jesus, the Gospels, all put Jesus' crucifixion around the time of Passover. Mark 14 indicates that Jesus' "Last Supper" was actually a Passover meal. The Gospel of John, a more symbolic presentation of Jesus, seems to picture Jesus being crucified at noon when the Passover lambs were being killed for the Passover meal (John 19:14). John explicitly calls Jesus the "Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world" (1:29).

A New Testament Christian named Paul actually calls Jesus the Passover lamb in 1 Corinthians 5:7. Symbolically, the New Testament is telling us that Jesus' death brings salvation to those who are trusting in him. We might even say that Jesus' death is a means by which God is leading his people out of the bondage and slavery of our current human situation.

10. Israel never forgot that they had once been slaves in Egypt (e.g., Exod. 20:2; Deut. 6:21). Israelites were not to be treated as permanent slaves to one another, although they might serve for a time for various reasons (Lev. 25:39-40). A person could voluntarily choose to serve another person for their lifetime (Deut. 15:17). If Israel followed these Scriptures, it would never have had anything like the permanent, race-related slavery of America.

Israel was not to oppress the immigrant or the "stranger" living in the land. Exodus 22:21 tells them, "You will not trouble or oppress a stranger, for you lived as strangers in the land of Egypt." It was very important in the values of Israel to treat well those who were not Israelites in their midst. We have a horrible example of inhospitality to strangers in Judges 19, leading to the decimation of one of Israel's tribes. 

The ancient world was a dangerous place, and those who did not belong to the dominant social group of an area generally had reason to be paranoid about their situation. Welcoming and protecting outsiders was considered a great virtue and duty, and we have stories of the gods harshly judging those who treated strangers harshly. [2] In the mindset of the biblical world, Abraham was greatly virtuous to entertain the angels who visited him, and he does so before he even knows who they are (Gen. 18). By the same token, the judgment of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah connects at least in part to the horrible way they treat these same visitors in Genesis 19.  

Our culture pushes us to focus on the same-sex rape that these men want to commit. From the standpoint of the ancient world of the text, that attempted rape is only part of their abominable behavior. In the mind of the biblical world, it is the embodiment, the specific manifestation of their overarching treatment of the strangers. It is the attempted act that demonstrates their overall attitude toward the outsiders. Unlike Abraham and Lot, who welcomed these strangers into their homes, the men of Sodom and Gomorrah want to do violence to them. 

It is thus a biblical value to treat those who are not the "in-group" with respect and welcome. By contrast, it is part of our natural, sinful tendency to want to dominate the group in the minority or the group that "does not belong." It is fallen human nature to abuse and even do violence to such groups living among the dominant group. The majority group enjoys a kind of privilege of which it may not even be aware. 

The Law told Israel not to treat the strangers in its midst in this way. There are obvious applications to our world today. There are applications today with regard to race, and there were many applications to the institution of slavery back when it was practiced. There are applications with regard to how we treat immigrants and people who are different from us when we are in the group with more power.

11. Soon after Israel leaves Egypt, the Pharaoh changes his mind and begins to pursue them...

[2] For example, the story of Baucis and Philemon in Ovid's Metamorphoses. It is possible that the story of Paul and Barnabas in Acts 14 has overtones of this story.