The Parting of the Sea

David Burns on May 26, 2017

Today’s post is an excerpt from Chapter Three of my latest book, Moses: In the Footsteps of the Reluctant Prophet. Click here to read last week’s post, which was taken from Chapter Two. About the photos above: (1) Filming the small group video on the crossing of the Reed Sea on location near Ismailia, Egypt. This is one of the small lakes some scholars have proposed was the Sea of Reeds. The Suez Canal now cuts through the eastern side of the lake. (2) Pharaoh Ramses II in his chariot marching into war – from the exterior of the Karnak Temple in Luxor.  (3)  An actual chariot that belonged to King Tutankhamun and was found in his tomb. Depending upon when Moses is dated, Moses was likely a contemporary of King Tut.   Today we pick up Moses’ story after Pharoah has freed the Israelites. Following the plague of the firstborn, Pharaoh released the Israelites, and they departed Pi-Ramesses in the middle of the night. Exodus 13:17-18 notes, When Pharaoh let the people go, God didn’t lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, even though that was the shorter route. God thought, If the people have to fight and face war, they will run back to Egypt. So God led the people by the roundabout way of the Reed Sea desert. In a strange turn of events, God commanded Moses to lead the people to set up camp in front of the Reed Sea. The Reed Sea is the literal reading of the Hebrew that is usually translated as “Red Sea.” To the Israelites, it must have seemed an odd place to camp. To the east was a marshy lake. To the west was Pharaoh’s Egypt. If for any reason Pharaoh should come after them, they would be trapped. But surely, they must have hoped, that would not happen. Pharaoh, hearing that the slaves had camped near the lake and now regretting his decision to let such a massive labor force go free, decided to go after them and to retrieve them as Egypt’s slaves. We read in Exodus 14:6-7, “So he sent for his chariot and took his army with him. He took six hundred elite chariots and all of Egypt’s other chariots with captains on all of them.” It was the elite chariots that made Pharaoh’s army so imposing. These were the latest in military technology. Examples of Pharaoh riding his chariot into battle can be seen in bas reliefs on the sides of many Egyptian temples that were built or expanded by Ramesses II. Amazingly, at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo you can see actual chariots used shortly before the time of the Exodus, which were wonderfully preserved in King Tut’s tomb. Exodus 14:9 notes, “The Egyptians, including all of Pharaoh’s horse-drawn chariots, his cavalry, and his army, chased them and caught up with them as they were camped by the sea.” Up to this point in the story, it had been Pharaoh and his gods with whom God had battled. Now, God was about to display his power against the greatest military power on earth at the time. We know from the battle of Kadesh, in which Ramesses II fought against the Hittites, that Egypt had several thousand chariots in addition to the six hundred elite chariots. The chariots were lighter and more advanced than those of other nations. One modern engineer described them as the Formula One racers of their time. Two horses would draw the chariot, which was piloted by one warrior while another, using Egypt’s advanced composite bows, fired at their enemies from a distance. As the charioteers drew closer, swords and spears were used. It is not difficult to imagine what the mostly unarmed Israelites were feeling as they saw the dust from Pharaoh’s chariots in the distance. The Israelites were terrified and cried out to the Lord. They said to Moses, “Weren’t there enough graves in Egypt that you took us away to die in the desert? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt like this? Didn’t we tell you the same thing in Egypt? ‘Leave us alone! Let us work for the Egyptians!’ It would have been better for us to work for the Egyptians than to die in the desert.” But Moses said to the people, “Don’t be afraid. Stand your ground, and watch the Lord rescue you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never ever see again. The Lord will fight for you. You just keep still.” (Exodus 14:10-14) Nightfall came, and the Egyptians made camp opposite the Israelites. God commanded Moses to lift his staff over the water. That night a strong east wind came blowing across the water toward the Israelites, and when morning came they found the water pushed back by the wind on either side of a path that had been cleared through the middle of the sea. Using the path, the Israelites walked through the water as if on dry land. The Egyptians tried to follow, but their chariots appeared to become stuck in the seabed, slowing them down. When the Israelites arrived on the other side of the sea, God commanded Moses to stretch back his staff over the waters. When he did, the waters returned, covering the Egyptian army and charioteers. The finest army in the land was utterly destroyed. As the Israelites stood watching this scene unfold, they were undoubtedly filled with awe. They had been utterly delivered from Pharaoh and the greatest military power of the day. A rabbi friend describing the Passover Seder noted, “This is our defining story. If you are a Jew, you’ve got to get this. It defines who we are as a people. We were slaves. God saw our suffering. God delivered us and made us his own. This is our story.” When God chose a people with whom he would have a special covenant relationship, he selected a group that was oppressed and enslaved. He delivered them by his “mighty right hand.” There was nothing they could have done to deliver themselves. There’s a word that describes this kind of salvation: grace. It was salvation that the Israelites did nothing to deserve; it was purely an act of God’s kindness, mercy, and love. What does the story mean for Christians? It means that God cares about the nobodies! It means that God will ultimately defeat the arrogant, prideful, and cruel. It means that God sees our suffering, and God will deliver us. It means that we don’t have to remain enslaved to the things that bind us. God can set us free. Today’s post is an excerpt from Chapter Three, “The Exodus,” from my latest book, Moses: In the Footsteps of the Reluctant Prophet. Click here to find more information about all Moses products, including the primary book, a Leader Guide, a Children's Leader Guide, and a Youth Study book.    

The Birth of Moses

David Burns on May 11, 2017

Today’s post is an excerpt from Chapter One of my latest book, Moses: In the Footsteps of the Reluctant Prophet. Click here to read last week’s post, which was taken from the book’s Introduction. Notes about the photos above: (Photo #1) My daughter Danielle and I in the Hypostyle Hall in the great Karnak Temple which was built during the time of Moses (if one assumes a 13th century date for much of Moses’ life). The hall is 54,000 square feet and is dedicated to the principle god of the Egyptian pantheon, Amun Ra.  In the Moses small group video I take viewers through this temple complex.  (Photo #2) One of the small sailboats visitors can take on the Nile in Luxor.  Across the River are the Theban Hills within which is found the Valley of the Kings where the Pharoah’s during Moses’ period, and long after, were buried. I take viewers of the DVD inside one of these tombs.  Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died, but the Israelites were exceedingly fruitful; they multiplied greatly, increased in numbers and became so numerous that the land was filled with them. Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt. (Exodus 1:6-8 NIV) As seen in this Scripture, the backdrop for the story of Moses is the story of Joseph, the son of Israel, who was sold by his brothers into slavery and eventually became Pharaoh’s second-in-command over Egypt. The story is a masterpiece of ancient literature and is known by many who have never picked up a Bible because of the wonderful way Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber retold it in the hit Broadway musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. The biblical story actually fits well a period in Egypt’s history in which foreign people, known as Hyksos, settled in the Nile River Delta. These foreigners eventually gained control of Lower Egypt (the area from roughly Memphis north to the Mediterranean, including the massive Nile Delta) and ruled as pharaohs over the land for roughly a hundred years. The Israelites, like the Hyksos, were Semitic people. Both came from the Near East, and both were shepherds and farmers. It would not be surprising for a Hyksos pharaoh to make a Hebrew such as Joseph his prime minister and to allow the Israelites to settle in the land of the Delta with many other Semitic people. Sometime after Joseph lived, Pharaoh Ahmose I of Upper Egypt (the area from roughly Memphis south), who ruled from 1550 to 1525 b.c., led an Egyptian army to defeat the Hyksos and drive them from Egypt. Ahmose united Upper and Lower Egypt once again and began what historians call the New Kingdom period of Egyptian history. Ahmose I may have been the “new king to whom Joseph meant nothing” who “came to power in Egypt.” It would appear that the Israelites were not forced to leave Egypt with the Hyksos but allowed to remain. But the Egyptians had something else in mind for the Israelites. Pharaoh feared that the Israelites would join Egypt’s enemies, the Hyksos or other enemies from the east, and fight against Egypt in case of war, and he responded by enslaving the Israelites. Fear is a key word to remember in this part of Moses’ story. It is behind the oppressive treatment of the Israelites at every turn.   Note what happens next: But the more they were oppressed, the more they grew and spread, so much so that the Egyptians started to look at the Israelites with disgust and dread. So the Egyptians enslaved the Israelites. They made their lives miserable with hard labor, making mortar and bricks, doing field work, and by forcing them to do all kinds of other cruel work. (Exodus 1:12-13) Notice that Pharaoh was the most powerful ruler on earth, king of both Upper and Lower Egypt, and yet he and his people were anxious about a minority population of foreign sheepherders in their midst. Their fear led them to despise the Israelites and to oppress them. In Egypt, as fears grew about the increasing population of Hebrews, so too did the oppressive acts ordered by Pharaoh. The king of Egypt spoke to two Hebrew midwives named Shiphrah and Puah: “When you are helping the Hebrew women give birth and you see the baby being born, if it’s a boy, kill him. But if it’s a girl, you can let her live.” (Exodus 1:15-16) The Hebrews had not rebelled. They had done no harm to the Egyptians. Yet fear led Pharaoh to decree this dreadful plan to kill newborn baby boys. Two Courageous Midwives The writer of Exodus goes on to tell us something profound about the midwives who were commanded by Pharaoh to put the infant boys to death at childbirth: “Now the two midwives respected God so they didn’t obey the Egyptian king’s order. Instead, they let the baby boys live” (Exodus 1:17). These women feared God more than they feared Pharaoh, and they refused to go along with his plan. Can you imagine the courage of these two women? This is one of the first recorded acts of civil disobedience in history. Because of their disobedience they saved the lives of countless children, perhaps even that of Moses. A Determined Mother and a Compassionate Princess When the midwives refused to kill the boys as they were born, Pharaoh gave an order to all Egyptians: “Throw every baby boy born to the Hebrews into the Nile River, but you can let all the girls live” (1:22). Can you imagine? He called the entire Egyptian populace to tear children from their mother’s arms and drown them in the Nile. And this is the context for the story of Moses’ birth. Now a man from Levi’s household married a Levite woman. The woman became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She saw that the baby was healthy and beautiful, so she hid him for three months. When she couldn’t hide him any longer, she took a reed basket and sealed it up with black tar. She put the child in the basket and set the basket among the reeds at the riverbank. The baby’s older sister stood watch nearby to see what would happen to him. (Exodus 2:1-4) Moses’ mother was Jochebed, a courageous woman who was not going to let her child be put to death. She refused to let her son die without attempting to save him. She hid him for three months, then took a basket made of reeds and she put her child in it and placed him among the reeds on the banks of the Nile. She did so at a location where Pharaoh’s daughter was known to bathe, perhaps in hopes that the daughter would feel compassion for the child, disobey her father, and save the child. I want you to notice that this is the Bible’s first story of adoption. Jochebed gave her child up for adoption in order to save his life. It was love that led her to give up the child; it was the only way she felt she could save him. Let us also consider Pharaoh’s daughter. We don’t know anything about her except that she saw the Hebrew child and, despite knowing what her father had decreed regarding Israelite boys, felt compassion and pity for the child and was moved to adopt him. How easy it would have been for her to have left the child there in the basket on the banks of the Nile, perhaps fearing her father or believing that surely someone else would save him. But instead her compassion led her to lift the child from the water, risk her father’s wrath, and take him home, adopting him as her own child. Of the four courageous women who saved the baby Moses, Pharaoh’s daughter was the least likely. She was the daughter of a despot who was oppressing and killing Israelites. She worshiped the Egyptian gods and goddesses. Yet God used her, as Moses’ adoptive parent, in one of the most important roles played by any mother in human history. Today’s post is an excerpt from Chapter One, “The Birth of Moses,” from my latest book, Moses: In the Footsteps of the Reluctant Prophet. Click here to find more information about all Moses products, including the primary book, a Leader Guide, a Children's Leader Guide, and a Youth Study book.  

Moses: In the Footsteps of the Reluctant Prophet

David Burns on May 3, 2017

Moses. He is the single most important figure in the Hebrew Bible (the Christian Old Testament). His presence is felt throughout the Christian New Testament. The epic account of his life, together with the deliverance of the Israelite slaves from bondage in Egypt, is the defining story of the Jewish people. For Christians, Moses’ life serves as the backdrop for much that is found in the Gospels, including the story of Jesus’ flight to Egypt, the Sermon on the Mount, many of Jesus’ sayings in the Gospel of John, the activities of Jesus around Jerusalem, the Last Supper, and the Crucifixion. In the Gospel account of Christ’s transfiguration, Moses actually appears to Jesus and speaks to him. He is mentioned by name more than seventy times in the New Testament, and his life, story, and commands are alluded to in nearly every New Testament book. Throughout history, his story has continued to speak to each successive generation. American slaves composed songs about Moses as they yearned for freedom. Moses is enshrined in the architecture of the U.S. Supreme Court—inside on the south frieze as one of the great lawgivers of history and outside on the eastern pediment. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in his final sermon delivered the night before his death, drew upon the story of Moses ascending Mount Nebo. King proclaimed that he had “been to the mountaintop,” where, like Moses, he claimed to have seen the Promised Land. Moses’ story has been captured in art, music, literature, and film.  Among the many things I appreciate about Moses’ story is what an unlikely hero he was. He was a Hebrew adopted into Pharaoh’s family. He was a murderer and fugitive from the law. He was an elderly sheepherder from the desert whom God called to deliver the Israelites. He appears to have had some kind of speech impediment, yet became Israel’s greatest prophet. He was imperfect, afraid, reluctant, and often frustrated, all of which makes him so very human. Yet, despite all of this, the Book of Deuteronomy closes with these words: “No prophet like Moses has yet emerged in Israel; Moses knew the Lord face-to-face!” (Deuteronomy 34:10). During the next few weeks on the blog, I’ll be sharing excerpts from my latest book, Moses: In the Footsteps of the Reluctant Prophet. As I prepared to write this book, I traveled to Egypt with a film crew to see the places associated with Moses and the Exodus.  We filmed the small group videos there – the footage is amazing.  In the small group DVD  I’ll take your group to the pyramids and into the Luxor and Karnak temples.  We’ll sail down the Nile, and travel up to the Land of Goshen.  We’ll pass by the Red Sea, through the desert, and up Mount Sinai before completing our journey on Mt. Nebo in Jordan where Moses died. The book includes maps, charts, photos and historical material that will help illuminate Moses’ life.  Then in each chapter I hope to help the reader see how Moses’ life, and the story of the Exodus, still speaks to our lives today. I have included a promo video that you might find a helpful introduction to the book. Just click on the triangle on the image at the top of the blog post.  Click here to find more information about all Moses products, including the primary book, a Leader Guide, a Children's Leader Guide, and a Youth Study book.