The first request of Moses and Aaron to let the people go ended in failure. God Himself, however, had told Moses about this in advance when...
The first request of Moses and Aaron to let the people go ended in failure (vv. 1-2). God Himself, however, had told Moses about this in advance when He sent him to Egypt (Exod. 3:18-20). And then a completely natural question arises: does this mean that Pharaoh's decision was predetermined in advance?
No, it does not. This is about something else: God knows Pharaoh's heart, which is transparent to Him just as every human heart is transparent to Him, and therefore He knows that Pharaoh will not allow the people of God simply to leave the country. But what prevents Pharaoh? After all, at first Moses does not yet even speak about leaving forever; for now he asks only to let the people go for three days so that they may celebrate their religious festival and then return (vv. 1-4). But even this request is refused.
Of course, all this could be explained by administrative and economic considerations alone: such festivals distract the people from work (vv. 4-5). In addition, there was one more consideration, expressed by Pharaoh himself in the words, "I do not know the Lord" (v. 2). The Egyptian government undoubtedly had to be aware of the threat of an awakening of national or tribal self-consciousness among the tribes of the delta, who in that case could well remember other times, when their ancestors came to Egypt as conquerors and a Semitic dynasty sat on the throne of the pharaohs. In such a situation, allowing the Semites to remember their patron gods, and even more to worship them, would have been rash.
And yet the main reason was apparently elsewhere. It is no accident that immediately after the request voiced by Moses and Aaron, the discussion turns to idleness, to the fact that the people are apparently not sufficiently loaded with work, and because of idleness foolish thoughts and absurd ideas begin to enter their heads (vv. 6-9, 17). And here before us is no longer the specific logic of the Egyptian authorities, but a logic inherent in every authority in every age. In essence, every state is a social machine, a mechanism that functions more reliably and smoothly the less the "elements" that make it up think about extraneous things. From the point of view of the logic inherent in an ideally functioning state machine, it would be best for a person to be an ant or a bee, not because they are small, but because they are ideal worker-functionaries, never distracted from work by anything at all.
But a person is never farther from what God intended him to be than when he becomes like a bee or an ant. In the greatest sinner, the image of God is monstrously distorted; in the ant-person, it simply disappears. And therefore the conflict between God and every state is so ineradicable: God needs people, the state needs ants.
5 Moses and Aaron here deal with Pharaoh to get leave of him to go to worship in the wilderness.
- They demand leave in the name of God, Exo 5:1.
- They beg leave in the name of Israel, Exo 5:3.
These cruel orders were,and he answers their demand with a defiance of God, Exo 5:2.
and he answers their request with further orders to oppress Israel, Exo 5:4-9.
5:1 Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Let my people go - Moses, in treating with the elders of Israel, is directed to call God the God of their fathers; but, in treating with Pharaoh, they call him the God of Israel, and it is the first time we find him called so in scripture. He is called the God of Israel, the person, Gen 33:20, but here it is Israel the people. They are just beginning to be formed into a people when God is called their God. Let my people go - They were God's people, and therefore Pharaoh ought not to detain them in bondage. And he expected services and sacrifices from them, and therefore they must have leave to go where they could freely exercise their religion, without giving offence to, or receiving offence from, the Egyptians.
5:2 Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice? - Being summoned to surrender, he thus hangs out the flag of defiance. Who is Jehovah?I neither know him nor care for him; neither value nor fear him. It is a hard name that he never heard of before, but he resolves it shall be no bugbear to him. Israel was now a despised, oppressed people, and by the character they bore he makes his estimate of their God, and concludes that he made no better figure among the gods, than his people did among the nations.
5:3 We pray thee, let us go three days journey into the desert - And that on a good errand, and unexceptionable: we will sacrifice to the Lord our God - As other people do to theirs; lest if we quite cast off his worship, he fall upon us - With one judgment or other, and then Pharaoh will lose his vassals.
5:5 The people are many - Therefore your injury to me is the greater, in attempting to make them rest from their labours.
5:6 The task - masters, were Egyptians, the officers were Israelites employed under them.
5:7 Straw - To mix with the clay, or to burn the brick with.
5:8 They are idle - The cities they built for Pharaoh, were witnesses for them that they were not idle; yet he thus basely misrepresents them, that he might have a pretence to increase their burdens.
5:9 Vain words - Those of Moses and Aaron.
5:14 In thy own people - For if they had given us straw, we should have fulfilled our task.
5:21 The Lord look upon you, and judge - They should have humbled themselves before God, but instead of that they fly in the face of their best friends. Those that are called to public service for God and their generation, must expect to be tried not only by the threats of proud enemies, but by the unjust and unkind censures of unthinking friends.To put a sword in their hand to slay us - To give them the occasion they have long sought for.
5:22 He expostulated with him. He knew not how to reconcile the providence with the promise, and the commission he had received. Is this God's coming down to deliver Israel? Must I who hoped to be a blessing to them become a scourge to them? By this attempt to get them out of the pit, they are but sunk the farther into it. Wherefore hast thou so evil entreated this people - Even when God is coming towards his people in ways of mercy, yet sometimes he takes such methods that they may think themselves but ill - treated: when they think so, they should go to God by prayer, and that is the way to have better treatment in God's good time.Why is it that thou hast sent me - Pharaoh has done evil to this people, and not one step seems to be taken towards their deliverance. It cannot but sit very heavy upon the spirits of those whom God employs for him, to see that their labour doth no good, and much more to see that it doth hurt, eventually, though not designedly.