Today's text from the ESV Study Bible: Exodus 13-15.
I have been diligently fighting the temptation to breeze through these narratives as merely stories learned in my childhood Sunday school classes.
Israel has been in captivity for over 400 years, and now through the most remarkable of circumstances, God has brought them away from Pharaoh, and through his "strong right hand", has made it clear to Israel, Egypt, and all the surrounding nations, that He alone is God.
Everyone, including Israel, has in them a fear of this God.
It is now that God will fulfill his promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to build of these people a chosen nation. It is now that we will begin to see God establish Israel as a Theocracy, and begin to establish the ways in which they should live, conduct themselves, and relate to Yahweh as the only God. It is now that Israel must begin to understand, and feel great privilege to understand that this God, the only God, is also Israel's God. It is also now that Yahweh will continue the molding of his mediator Moses.
Try to imagine yourself as one of these Israelites, 400 years removed from Joseph, enslaved for generations, and now witness to these events. I have got to believe that a great many of them longed for our modern adult diapers as they shook in fear at the events happening around them.
Imagine their joy as they witnessed God's powerful right arm completely destroy Egypt's mighty Pharaoh and his whole army.
Hundred's of thousands of Israelites, pinned against the Red Sea, and God delivers them in the most powerful way imaginable.
And then, in chapter 15, we find Moses' incredible song, and a nation forever changed, and ready to travel through the centuries, sometimes with only a very small remnant remaining, but moving forward, as promised by God, until all Israel, and a great host of adopted Gentiles find their chosen path to God's ultimate promised land.
What a journey we are witnesses of, and what a journey we are on!
