The Call - Exodus 3:6-10

3:6-9 - Standing bare foot on this Holy Ground, God introduces himself to Moses, saying, “I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” From several sources that I’ve read, this introduction as the God of his fathers ties this God who is speaking to the Abrahamic covenant, indicating God’s desire to now start fulfilling those promises. I’m not exactly sure how widely known, understood, and valued the concept of the Abrahamic covenant was to the Hebrews in Egypt. Referencing his identity as half of the promissory parties of the covenant seems to indicate that God thought that Moses should at least have recognized what He was talking about.

We know that Moses’ father in law Jethro was the priest of Midian which means that they shared the common ancestor of Abraham, so it would stand to reason that Jethro would have preached about the Abrahamic covenant because they too would have been a distant part. However, because Abraham’s son Midian was not the son chosen to carry the covenantal promise, it probably didn’t play a huge part of Jethro’s material, so we can’t assume that Moses was familiar with the Abrahamic covenant because of his time spent listening to Jethro teach as the high priest.

Understandably, Moses was freaked out and “hid his ace, “for he was afraid to look upon God,” but God continued his message that he had “surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt… for I know their sorrows.” This was probably difficult for Moses to hear, after all, even though he probably had a good childhood in Egypt, running away in disgrace while fleeing for your life probably left an emotional mark on Moses. And while I assume that he had a good childhood because he was raised in the palace, we know that he was probably discriminated against for being Hebrew, he was ripped away from the family that he knew and loved at the early age of 5ish, he felt constant moral injury as an adult because he felt for the plight of his biological people, but he was also rejected by them.

He had worked hard as a shepherd without gaining his own personal wealth, and probably saw his only treasure as that of his wife and children. He had built a life for himself in Midian and was probably not at all interested in hearing Egypt being brought up again, especially in the context of their suffering when they had rejected his attempts at helping them.

God continues, “I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land.” TB notes, “God makes it very clear to Moses that He has not been asleep at the switch. He has seen, He has heard, and He has KNOWN of His people’s plight. We should NEVER assume that what we perceive as a long period of God’s silence in our lives means that He has forgotten His promises to us, or isn’t away of us, or has lost interest in us. For, as daunting as it can be it seems that an extended period of heavenly silence is invariably a major ingredient of God’s preparation process; His preparation of us…. For whatever His divine purposes for us might be… WILL include periods of divine silence.” It goes back to one of my favorite concepts in that, if unnecessary suffering occurred, that would make God cruel, and because he’s not cruel, we can know that there was no other way, our readiness or preparation could not have been done any other way.

3:10 – Here comes the kicker, God isn’t simply informing Moses of His plans because he feels like chatting, God came to Moses with a mission, saying, “I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt.” Again, we have to remember that Moses probably doesn’t look back on Egypt fondly, hearing God’s call for him to be the one to not only go back to Egypt, where surely he has a death warrant, but to also be the one to free the Hebrews from bondage. These are the same Hebrews who hated him even when he stood up for them at great personal risk. These are the Egyptians who hated him, even as a child, and even though that Pharaoh had died, surely he knew this new Pharaoh quite well, and my guess is that they weren’t BFF. All the movies portray them as brothers and best friends who have a falling out, but it probably didn’t go that way. Moses wouldn’t be returning as the champion of the people, the Hebrews would have to be freed to follow God kicking and screaming. That is a daunting task to take on. It’s like raising teenager, you try so hard to provide for them and be a good parent, and then they still hate you and fight you on everything.