V. 2-5. And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am the Lord, and appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, to be their Almighty God: but my name, O Lord, have I not made known unto them. I have also established my covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, where they were strangers. And I have heard the lamentation of the children of Israel, which have afflicted the Egyptians with their groaning; and I have remembered my covenant.
In this chapter God repeats His promise that He would bring the children of Israel out of Egypt and give them the Promised Land, wanting to strengthen the faith of Moses and the children of Israel with this new promise, so that they would not doubt their redemption. But these words were preached to them in vain etc.
2. the Holy Scriptures and the Holy Spirit take great care when they speak of the benefits God wants to show us, that they first take away all glory and merit, and point out to us that everything God does and works in us, He does because He has had His pleasure and joy in it, and He has ordained it from eternity.
(3) So that Moses here, and God's word, may also be weakened and made foolish, it is foolish and lowly. God preaches here that he appeared to Abraha, Isaac and Jacob, and remembers the covenant that he promised them, as giving the promised land, and says: "For the sake of this covenant this shall happen to you, and not for the sake of your sighing, crying and complaining, so that they have nothing to defend themselves against.
(4) For no lamentation shall not be full and sufficient, and good works and suffering shall not be counted, but go beforehand in the word of God. Therefore God says here: Because I have promised you this land, and you are the seed to whom this land is promised.
is for the sake of this promise, I see this lamentation. For this time, wherein ye are thus martyred and afflicted, giveth me cause to remember your lamentations; so compose them, that they may not boast a hair's breadth of any merit. For the children of Israel also had few good works and righteousness and godliness of their own: the people were full of unbelief, impatience, murmuring, and Moses full of weakness and disobedience. But what was given to them, that it might be done by His eternal goodness, for the sake of His truth and promise, that they might give thanks to God for His grace and mercy, and that they might not say that they were the people whom God had to look upon for the sake of some work. Therefore, God says here: Behold, I will save you, not because of your yellow hair, but because I promised it four hundred years before to your fathers, and so determined that I would do it; that you may know that it was given to you by grace, and delivered and promised to your fathers by grace.
V. 3. But my name, O Lord, I have not made known to them.
Now let us look at the words. The Jews speak that the name of God is called Tetragrammaton ADONAI, that one must
let remain. He says: I have appeared to them so that I am their God. Therefore they recognized God and knew how to speak of God, that He was almighty, true, merciful and gracious. God often appeared to them, spoke to them and performed great miracles for them. And in this way they knew him better than we do. Why then does he say that they did not know him? We must interpret the name of God in this way, that it was not preached and proclaimed so brightly and clearly as it was in the time of the Lord Christ, the beloved apostles, and for a while afterward, because at that time the name of God had no great cry in the world, so that it was known everywhere. I, says
I have appeared to them, but I have had no name among them, that is, the patriarchs have not been the ones to lead the preaching and the crying of me, as now you, Moses, and the children of Israel should do, so that my name would be known in the whole world. But now the redemption of the children of Israel is to be set in motion, and the promises are to be fulfilled, and the whole nation of Israel is to be helped, since before he only helped individual persons, as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
(6) So we interpret it and get through it; whoever knows better, we grant him. Moses had a ministry; the ministry is spoken of here. Otherwise Abraham also preached the name of God in his house [Gen. 12:8, 13:4], but he did not have such a command to preach the name of God as Moses did, or as we do, or as St. Paul, the dear apostles, and the Lord Christ did. Isa. 41:25 says, "He shall preach my name"; thus br makes his name known and known to the patriarchs.
(7) But there is much lame talk here from the Jews about the miracles of this name Adonai, which we will now let pass. But Moses wants to say: Now you should take up and preach this name of God, and do excellent, beautiful, lovely sermons about it. But this is also weak, it is not valid before the people; they do not believe because of the hard work and great hardship. However, God has compassion on them and gives them credit for it, perseveres, continues to preach, does not let up.
V. 9 Moses told the children of Israel this, but they did not hear him because of groaning and fear and hard work.
8) Moses, having been strengthened by God's word and promise, is obedient to God, preaching again to the children of Israel about salvation, exhorting them to faith, patience in the cross, and that they should follow God's calling.
(9) But here we see the disobedience and unbelief of the children of Israel. For, since they do not want to proceed with salvation soon, they throw the sackcloth at God's door, no longer want to believe His words, nor do they want to believe any of His words.
Allow consolation. For when things go badly for us, flesh and blood do not think that it should once again become good, but thinks that now we must perish, so that a downpour and thunderstorm is soon followed by sunshine and bright, beautiful weather [Tob. 3, 23]. Thus, after a long cross and tribulation, God also helps again, and helps much more gloriously, the more severe the suffering has been.
V. 14-20. These are the heads of the house of their fathers. The children of Reuben, the first son of Israel, are these: Hanoch, Pallu, Hezron, Charmi. These are the families of Reuben. The children of Simeon are these: Jemuel, Jamim, Ohad, Jachin, Zohar, and Saul the son of the Cananean woman. These are Simeon's families. These are the names of the children of Levi in their families: Gershon, Kohath, Merari. But Levi was an hundred and seven and thirty years old. The children of Gershon are these: Libui and Shimei, in their families. The children of Kohath are these: Amram, Jezear, Hebron, and Uzziel. And Kahath was an hundred and three and thirty years old. The children of Merari are these: Maheli and Musi. These are these families of Levi, in their friendships. And Amram took Jochebed his wife, and she bare him Aaron and Moses. But Amram was an hundred and seven and thirty years old etc.
(10) Now the following is described in two leaves, which another would have understood in two words, and Moses' and Aaron's genealogies and genealogies are told. For if Moses is to become a teacher and a duke to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt, it is necessary to know who he is and from what tribe he was born, so that his arrival may be known; and for the sake of the third tribe, as Levi, from which Moses and Aaron come, the two tribes, as Reuben and Simeon, must also be named beforehand. For these two, Reuben and Simeon, were older than Levi. Moses is also the son of Leah, the poor little ash, for Levi is of Jacob, and the son of Leah. Now Levi has again a son, as Kahath [Gen. 46, 11.], then Kahath's son is Amram, who was Mosi's father. This is Mosi's lineage. All three of these, Levi, Kohath and Amram, are
died in Egypt, and have all lived in Egypt. Thus Jochebed was Mosi's mother. And above [Cap. 2, 1] it is said that a man of the tribe of Levi took a wife as his wife; there Jochebed is called Levi's daughter. But I rather believe that she was Gershon's or Merari's sister, and Amram's wife, that she belonged to him in the other member and was of his blood. Jezear is Amram's brother; as Elizabeth is Zachariah's wife, who is also Aaron's daughter [Luc. 1, 5]. But Aaron's wife is also called Eliseba, of the tribe of Judah; for these two families intermarried. If the daughters had goods, they did not have to intermarry; but if they did not have goods, they could intermarry out of the family and into another family.
V. 26, 27: This is Aaron and Moses, to whom the Lord said, "Bring the children of Israel out of Egypt with their army. They are the ones who spoke to Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, to bring the children of Israel out of Egypt, namely Moses and Aaron.
(11) Out of the tribe of Levi great men are born, as Moses and Aaron also came out of it. And Moses is described here as a commander and captain of the people of Israel, that he came from this tribe, and that God spoke to him in this way and that.
V. 28-30. And the Lord spake that day unto Moses in the land of Egypt, saying: I am the Lord, speak unto Pharaoh king of Egypt all that I speak unto thee. And he answered before the Lord, Behold, I am of uncircumcised lips: how then will Pharaoh hear me?
12 God again repeats His command and commandment to Moses to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt; He wants to make him confident and courageous by His word in this work and calling. But Moses again shows his disobedience and weakness, excuses himself, does not want to leave, fears the skin. In this we see an example of the frailty and weakness of the saints, how they also let the dog limp, how sin is always stirring in them, and because of this they have to ask for forgiveness daily.