Then Moses and Aaron went in and said to Pharaoh, "Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, 'Let my people go, that they may prosper in the wilderness. Pharaoh answered, Who is the LORD, whose voice I must hear, and let Israel go? I know nothing of the LORD, neither will I let Israel go.
So far we have heard how God ordained Moses to be the captain and ruler to lead His people out of Egypt, and confirmed him with words, promises and miraculous signs, that he was equipped and armed as a duke. Now we will hear how he will go to Pharaoh the king, and how he will take up his office of salvation, and what he will do therein, and how it will go on with him.
V. 3-9. They said: The Hebrew God has called us, let us now go three days' journey into the wilderness, and sacrifice to the Lord our God, lest pestilence or the sword befall us. Then the king of Egypt said to them: Why do you (Moses and Aaron) cause this people to leave their work in order? Go to your service. And Pharaoh said, Behold, the people are already too many in the land, and ye will yet call them to be celebrated from their
Services. That day Pharaoh gave orders to the people's governors and their officials, saying: You shall no longer gather straw from the people and give it to them to make bricks as before; let them go themselves and gather straw together. And the number of bricks which they have made hitherto ye shall lay up for them, and not diminish. For they go idle, therefore they cry out, saying: We will go and sacrifice to our God. Press the people with work, that they may labor, and not turn back to such words.
Now the redemption begins. But you have heard above [Cap. 1, ยง 52 ff.] that in the holy Scriptures, or in these histories, one should pay special attention to God's word and pay diligent attention to it, as to the most important main thing, to which one must pay much more attention than to good works. Although the good works done by men have a much greater appearance and open people's mouths more than the divine word, which is simple, bad and right [Ezek 1:12].
This is the nature of the divine word, and this is how it works. When it wants to begin to show its power and authority, it will
weakened before. For the power of our Lord God must first become weakness before the world, and His wisdom must be foolishness, as St. Paul laments in the first epistle to the Corinthians, v. 21, 25. Although God's foolishness is the greatest wisdom above all the wisdom of the earth, and God's weakness in making Himself weak is stronger than all men, and God's poverty is far more precious than all the riches of the world. But it takes faith and a special man who understands that the divine word is so.
The apostle St. Paul is very bold in ascribing to our Lord God that He is weak, sick and poor, and that His word is also so in the world. God speaks of great things, as, save, redeem, make blessed, and help from all sins 2c. They are great, mighty words; but when it is to come to pass and to meet, it is as if it were the ripening that should fall over a year.
(5) So it is here also, when Moses saith unto Pharaoh, Let this people go; and soon shall this word fall into ashes and dung. For Pharaoh saith, Who is the LORD? I do not know of any Lord, I will not let the people of Israel go"; and he sets more oppressors over them, is very angry, and orders other officials, who press them harder than before, are now much more severely afflicted.
After that the tyrant Pharaoh continues, lays himself at Moses' neck, scolds Moses and considers him a rebel and a mutineer. 1) So Moses comes into great danger, gets a rough felt 2) and a dry chapter, because he says: You are idle, have nothing to do, the people is much, burden them still with more glad services. And the people are in great distress and labor; but Pharaoh only makes a mockery of it. He thinks to suppress the divine word, and makes it weak, and considers it foolishness; this must be his posturing 3) and laughter. So, Moses, who has God's word for him with his own, must go over it for a fool of Pharaoh and his own,
1) Mutineer - instigator of mutiny.
2) Felt - Reference.
3) Buffoonery - farce.
yes, also probably be respected elsewhere in the world, and does nothing.
007 About this they themselves are divided, the people and Moses, because the people say, If ye had made us work as before; now we stink before the Egyptians. You have put the sword into their hands so that they may strike us. Is this saving and redeeming? You make us suffer more, that we may be the more afflicted; you set the light on fire, and put it out. And he, Moses, also says: Dear Lord God, why do you call me to do something, and then pull off your hand and leave me in it? As then follows in this chapter further in the text:
V.22. 23. And Moses came again to the Lord, and said, Lord, why doest thou so evil to this people? Why hast thou sent me hither? Because, since I went in to Pharaoh to speak to him in thy name, he hath afflicted the people more severely, and thou hast not delivered thy people.
(8) The prophet Jeremiah also laments and says to God [Cap. 20:7], "You have deceived and seduced me. How should God deceive you? He says [Jer. 1:18], "I will be a brazen forehead and an iron wall to you," and yet he has the prophet Jeremiah thrown into prison.
9 But this is God's way, that He guides His word wonderfully, and even if He attacks His work, it can be seen as if nothing would come of it, yes, the counterplay happens. But why does God do this? Because he wants to accomplish his work all the more wonderfully, and the divine word should show and prove its power and might all the more in weakness.
(10) For through foolishness he makes wisdom, through sickness he makes strength and health, through nothing he makes everything, Isa. 63:1. Then the opponents of the divine word are much stronger and wiser and become hopeful. But God remembers thus: "Wait, I will set you right, that you may begin. And when they are at their strongest, God breaks in and strikes down the world and all his enemies' strength, wisdom, art and everything.
(11) This is written for our comfort, so that we may learn to hold fast to God's word in our professions and offices, and renounce ourselves, but place our hope and trust in God. For our sake, God allows His word to become foolishness and weak, and yet still breaks through; just as this redemption had to follow with the children of Israel, even though it could not be seen as such, and even though it is difficult and impossible. For thus God says in the end of this fifth chapter:
Cap. 6, i. Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh; for by a strong hand he must let them go, by a strong hand he must drive them from his land.
(12) Thus all Christians are also God's weakness and foolishness, but God makes them strong and wise again; as is also said in the prophet Joel in the third chapter, v. 15: "The weak esteem himself strong. St. Peter, the layman and poor fisherman, attaches himself to all the holy, learned and wise people in the world, yes, even to the whole Roman Empire; although it is of little account that St. Peter should master the Roman Empire with the preaching of the Gospel. And one might have said, "Oh, if God were wise, He would not foolishly attack it. But St. Peter was (just as Moses is here) God's weakness and foolishness, and had to stretch out his head and his life. Nevertheless, he drowned the Roman Empire with the Gospel.
(13) For this is the nature of the divine word, so that we may well learn that when Pharaoh is proud, thundering, raging and angry, God and his word turn out to be weak, feeble and sick, as if it were lying on the ground. But it becomes strong again, pulls through and overcomes everything; just as it will follow that the children of Israel will be led through the Red Sea and Pharaoh will be drowned in it.
14 The other part of this chapter is about the devil's nature and character, of which Christ also says in the Gospel of Matthew in the twelfth chapter, v. 29: "If the strong-armed man keeps his palace, it is his own.
satisfied" 2c. [The devil can well suffer that one lets his kingdom go and stay, and he may keep the consciences and souls captive. But when God's word comes, and his kingdom is stormed and attacked, he becomes mad and unreasonable, and cannot bear it; and if he were patient about it, he would gain, accomplish and create much more than thus. But he does not do this; as soon as one touches him a little, it hurts him and he does not want to suffer it. We see this in the Gospel histories [Matth. 8, 32. Marc. 9, 26.], when the Lord Christ casts out the devil, he foams, sprays around and makes strange gestures, he trembles and tears around as if he were senseless and foolish; thus he does not like to leave. And as he does in men, so he does in his kingdom and in his whole body.
The pope is also attacked, his indulgences, pilgrimages, masses, invocations of saints and other lies are revealed and disgraced. See how his kingdom rages and rages here (for the devil must go forth); see how the pope blasphemes, defiles, maligns and condemns us, and how he spouts and curses.
(16) So it is here also in this chapter, when God's word and promise comes to help the people of Israel, that this people is kept harder than ever before. For Pharaoh also takes the straw from the people of Israel. Nevertheless, the harder he holds the people, the less he wins. For God's word is God's power and authority against the devil's power and authority [Rom. 1, 16. 2 Cor. 12, 9P Therefore it is in vain that the devil thus bars, pulls and resists, and thus keeps hostile. For in this way the devil himself helps the people of Israel to be loosed, as happened to Pharaoh, who, over his tyranny and raging, lost his life and possessions and was drowned in the Red Sea. Who could believe this alone, that the harder the devil compels us in deathly troubles, and the like in other matters, the more surely God is there with us, and the more stiffly He holds over us.