EXODUS 2 - HOW I LOVE YOUR LAW
Exodus 2
“Oh how I love your Law! It is my meditation all the day”, declares the psalm writer in Ps. 119:97. Note that there is actually an exclamation point in that verse to emphasize the psalm writer’s devotion to and excitement about God’s Word. It should excite us, and we should love it! The entire Bible, and every word in it, is divine, perfect, and unchanging truth, and reveals ways to us that are higher than our ways, and thoughts that are higher than our thoughts. One of the things that makes the Bible so fascinating to study is the fact that there are repetitive and consistent themes in it concerning the situation of mankind and of God’s divine nature. There is not sufficient time in this short blog to discuss every sentence or principle in this Chapter, but there is time to meditate upon a number of themes in the Bible which make a timeless appearance here, and which show us something about ourselves and something about our great God. So, with that heart, let us consider the following.
The Chapter begins with the people of Israel living under Pharaoh’s murderous decree that all of their newborn baby boys are to be cast into the Nile, yet one day, God will reverse the situation and cause Pharaoh and his army to all be cast to their deaths in the overwhelming waters of the Red Sea. The people of Israel are at this point in their existence living as slaves, under this curse, just as before the coming of Jesus, as one of the lines in the well-known Christmas Hymn, “Oh Holy Night”, declares, all the world “lay in sin and error pining.” Hope will eventually be placed in the baby boy whom we meet in this Chapter for the redemption of his people from Pharaoh, just as it will later be placed in a baby boy at the birth of Jesus by his parents, shepherds, wisemen, Simeon and Anna in the Temple, and even angels, for the redemption of all mankind from sin, Satan, and death.
The mother of the baby boy revealed in this Chapter is forced to relinquish him, as Abraham had done with Isaac, and as Mary eventually had to do with Jesus. His mother puts him in a mini-Ark like basket to protect him from the waters, just as God had done with Noah and his family many centuries earlier. As she did that, no doubt a sword pierced her soul, just as it was prophesied by Anna in Luke 2:35 would happen to Mary. In a sense, this mother submitted to the law of Pharaoh in that she cast her baby boy into the Nile, but with a protective covering over him, just as Jesus submitted to the law of Rome and of the religious leaders of His nation in going to a cross, but with the protection of the Holy Spirit over Him.
This mother, Noah, Abraham, Mary, and Jesus, all trusted in the sovereignty of God for protection. God, who as Prov. 21:1 declares, can move the hearts of kings like water running through His hands, then sovereignly works in the heart of the daughter of the very same man who had issued this murderous decree to have pity on the baby boy in this Chapter, and because of her, he is saved and thrives as a member of the Egyptian royal family. The name she gives him is Moses, because he was drawn out of the water, and he will later be used by that same sovereign God to take his own people through the water of the Red Sea, and then to draw Pharaoh and his army into it and drown them.
Later in this Chapter, Moses’s own sin and rebellion in killing an Egyptian sends him into the wilderness for (40) years, just as the sin and rebellious nature of his own people against his leadership would later keep them wandering in the desert for (40) years. Yet, at the same time, Moses gave up all of the perks and privileges of being part of the Egyptian royal family in order to endure the hardships of his own people, and to eventually be used by God to rescue them from slavery in Egypt, just as Jesus would later give up all the perks and privileges of being God, in order to come to earth to live, suffer, and die as a human being, in order to rescue us from slavery to sin.
Then, we see Moses provide water at a well to (7) needy women, who were being oppressed by heartless male shepherds who will not let them water their flock, much as Jesus will do for a very distressed Samaritan woman centuries later, who was being oppressed by her past with the men in her life. The Chapter closes with God seeing and hearing the cries of His people for freedom from slavery, and He will begin to take action to deal with it in the next few Chapters, just as He heard the cries of humanity for freedom from slavery to sin, and would take one huge and final step to deal with it centuries later at the time of the cross.
As Paul declares in Eph. 3:10, these are some of the wonders of the manifold wisdom of God that can be seen in this Chapter.