God Delivers His People

MEMORY VERSE: “And I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God: and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God, which bringeth you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.” —Exodus 6:7

EXODUS 2:23-25; 3:7,8; 12:21,23-27; 14:30,31

JOSEPH was sold into Egypt as a slave, but in the providence of the Lord was exalted to a high position in the government. He became food administrator during the seven-year famine that blighted the country. The Pharaoh under whom this occurred was very favorable to Joseph, who invited his father, Jacob, and his family to come to Egypt where they could be taken care of.

Things went well for a time, but this Pharaoh died, as did also Jacob and Joseph, and there arose a pharaoh who did not know the circumstances under which the Hebrew children had been domiciled in Egypt, so he made slaves of them. However, the Lord remembered them, and in due course heard their cries for help and sent Moses to deliver them.

Forty years previous to this Moses, who had been reared in the court of Pharaoh, took it into his own hands to defend his people against the oppressive hand of the Egyptians. He failed, and fled into the land of Midian, where he married the daughter of Jethro, and cared for his flock. In other words he became a shepherd. But the Lord remembered him, and in his own due time spoke to Moses and commissioned him to lead the Hebrew children out of Egypt.

The Lord said to Moses, “I have surely seen the afflictions of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their task-masters; for I know their sorrows; and 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 and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey.”—Exod. 3:7,8

When Moses, together with his brother Aaron, arrived in Egypt to demand the release of the Israelites, he found that the resistance of Pharaoh to their liberation was very obstinate. In the Lord’s providence nine plagues were visited upon the land, and Pharaoh repeatedly promised to release the Hebrew children, but changed his mind as the plagues were lifted. Then came the plague of the death of Egypt’s firstborn.

God provided for the protection of his own people in this plague through the slaying of a lamb, and the sprinkling of its blood upon the lintels and door posts of their houses. This lamb became known as the Passover lamb, because the sprinkling of its blood caused the passing over of Israel’s firstborn at the time the firstborn of Egypt were all destroyed.

The Lord gave instructions that when the Israelites entered the Promised Land they were to regularly commemorate the slaying of the Passover lamb. In the New Testament we read, “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us: therefore let us keep the feast.” (I Cor. 5:7) The faithful followers of Jesus in this age are spoken of in the New Testament as the “firstborn.” (Heb. 12:23) These enter into a heavenly inheritance, being the first to be delivered from death through the blood of the antitypical Passover Lamb.

During the day following the slaying of Israel’s Passover lamb, all Israel was delivered from bondage to the Egyptians. This points forward to that wonderful time that follows the call and heavenly reward of all the firstborn of the present age, when all mankind will be delivered from bondage to sin and death.

When the Israelites were actually delivered from Egypt, and were taken safely across the Red Sea, and the Egyptian army which pursued them was destroyed, they recognized what a mighty miracle the Lord had wrought on their behalf.—Exod. 14:30,31

Previously God had said to Moses that he would take them out of Egypt to be his people; adding, “I will be to you a God: and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God which bringeth you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.” (Exod. 6:7) Israel did recognize that Jehovah was their God, but they did not remain steadfast in their faith, and throughout their wilderness journey rebelled against God and against Moses on a number of occasions. But God continued to love and to care for them.

QUESTIONS

What were the circumstances which resulted in Israel’s bondage in Israel?

How did God bring about the deliverance of his people from Egypt?

Explain the lesson of the passover lamb and the firstborn.

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