Messianic Education Trust
		Shemot   (Ex 1:1 - 6:1)

Shemot/Exodus 5:22   And Moshe went back to the L-rd and he said, "My Master, why have you brought evil to the people? For what was this: You sent me?"

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Moshe is bursting with exasperation. Hotly following the cry "Why have you done this?" (Shemot 5:15) of the Israelite foremen to Pharaoh, Pharaoh implicitly pointing to Moshe "You are lazy, very lazy; therefore you say, 'Let us go and sacrifice to the L-RD'" (v. 17, NASB) and the foremen heaping their frustration and invective upon Moshe and Aharon - "May the L-RD look upon you and punish you for making us loathsome to Pharaoh and his courtiers" (v. 21, NJPS) - Moshe turns sharply to The Name ...

HaShem: literally, Hebrew for 'The Name' - an allusion used to avoid pronouncing the Tetragrammaton, the so-called 'ineffable' name of G–d
HaShem and promptly explodes. Everybody is looking for someone to blame and Moshe can't take the pressure. "The Israelite officers blamed Moshe (and Aharon), not Pharaoh, for their new troubles;" Leon Kass reports, while "Moshe for his part, shifts the blame to the L-rd: Why have You dealt ill with this people? Forgetting G-d's earlier warnings about Pharaoh's intransigence, Moshe challenges the L-rd to explain his (Moshe's) own participation in the story."¹ He has hit the bottom.

At this moment, Moshe sounds just like the disgruntled Jonah griping at HaShem because He hadn't destroyed the city of Nineveh with all its inhabitants: "Isn't that exactly what I said would happen back at the beginning? That's why I tried to get away to Tarshish. I know You ..." (Jonah 4:2, my paraphrase). Jonah felt that he had egg all over his face because the destruction he had announced in HaShem's name hadn't happened. Moshe feels exactly the same; not only has the redemption that he and Aharon have announced to the people in HaShem's name not happened, but, on the contrary, things have got worse. As David Stern's translation phrases it, "What has been the value of sending me?" (Shemot 5:22, CJB). Pharaoh just reacts, as Walter Brueggemann points out: "as in any exploitative regime, Pharaoh has begun a policy of escalation, believing that more repression, applied a little at a time, is a workable policy"² and will quell any thoughts of rebellion.

What is upsetting Moshe? Who Is ...

Abraham Ibn Ezra: (1089-1167 CE), born in Tudela, Spain; died in the South of France after wandering all around the shores of the Mediterranean and England; a philosopher, astronomer, doctor, poet and linguist; wrote a Hebrew grammar and a commentary on the Bible
Ibn Ezra suggests that "Moshe was angry that G-d had not warned him that such distress would come upon Israel in the meantime. He had expected that their burdens would be lightened a bit; he was totally unprepared for them to be increased and had no reply when the foremen complained to him." Moshe didn't know what HaShem's plan was. How could he, since all HaShem had said was, "Come, therefore, I will send you to Pharaoh, and you shall free My people, the Israelites, from Egypt" (3:10, NJPS), followed by the only slightly less vague, "I will stretch out My hand and smite Egypt with various wonders which I will work upon them; after that he shall let you go" (3:20, NJPS). Has Moshe taken His eye off the ball? Peter Enns suggests that he has: "Moshe is undone; his focus is on the disastrous outcome of his first encounter with Pharaoh, not on the character of the G-d who has called him. Moshe has not yet learned that there is more at stake here than how he is doing. G-d's character is at stake; He has a promise to keep to Avraham, Yitz'khak and Ya'akov."³

Nahum Sarna proposes that "Moshe's deep disappointment at his initial failure shows he had unrealistic expectations of early success. The bitterness of his outburst traces back to his original reluctance to accept the divine commission." This is a chain reaction. Thomas Dozeman wonders if Moshe is starting to think that "Yahweh mistreated the people by sending Moshe, prompting Pharaoh to mistreat the people through increased slave labour."⁴ Reviving the connection with the prophet Jonah, Rabbi Who Is ...

Hirsch: Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888 CE), German rabbi, author and educator; staunch opponent of the Reform movement in Germany and one of the fathers of Orthodox Judaism
Hirsch says that Moshe "thought he had utterly failed in his mission, and returned to the One who has entrusted him with it, two questions. To what purposes have You dealt this people whom You would save, fresh misery which certainly does not further their deliverance? And why, for what reason, did You send me, just the most incapable, who, from the very beginning felt his utter incapability, which I now see so fully confirmed?" Moshe really has a very low self-esteem.

Isaiah's second so-called Servant Song voices something of the same frustration by HaShem's Servant: "I have laboured in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity; yet surely my right is with the L-RD, and my recompense with my G-d" (Isaiah 49:4, ESV). The Servant has been working hard, expending all his effort in order to accomplish HaShem's work but - seemingly - to no purpose. He has done everything he know how to do, but has no results to show; it looks as is nothing has been accomplished. Unlike Moshe, however, while he cannot see any outcome from his labours, he is not downcast; instead, he expresses real faith in G-d's over-arching sovereignty and purpose, both for himself and for G-d's mission entrusted to him. The word translated 'right' is , mishpat, more often translated justice or judgement; G-d Himself will be the Servant's justice and reward.

The Isaiah verse pivots around the word , acheyn, 'yet'; here it has the adversative sense of 'however' or 'nevertheless' and calls attention to a contrary or alternative truth that cannot be seen by those in the first part of the verse. Everything may have been done, but the final resolution depends on G-d, not the Servant; He is not limited by the Servant's vision or abilities. So it is with Moshe. Everything in the process of redeeming Israel from Egypt depends on G-d, not Moshe. G-d is not limited by Moshe's vision or abilities and will work out His purposes to call down justice or judgement upon the gods of Egypt, upon Pharaoh and upon all the Egyptians who oppose Him. The redemption that Moshe glimpsed and expected will come but HaShem's words at Sinai - "I will stretch out My hand and smite Egypt with various wonders which I will work upon them; after that he shall let you go" (Shemot 3:20, NJPS) will take a little more time to work through. As Terence Fretheim observes, "overcoming oppression is a matter for struggle, even for G-d. Evil will not give up without a fight; G-d cannot wave a magic wand and make it all go away in an instant; protracted conflict is inevitable when evil is so deep-seated."⁵

Moshe is exhausted and doesn't know where to turn, so he hits out at G-d. The Servant too is at the end of his own physical resources, yet waits upon the L-rd G-d to renew him. In that he will be sustained and will both endure and succeed, despite the immediate signs of failure. Consider the thoughts and emotions of the two disciples walking out from Jerusalem on the road to Emmaus. They are deep in conversation, when they are overtaken by a stranger who asks to know what they are talking about. One of them replies, "Concerning Yeshua of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before G-d and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered Him up to be condemned to death, and crucified Him. But we had hoped that He was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened" (Luke 24:19-21, ESV) Are they sounding rather like Moshe in our text? In the days after the crucifixion, things looked like a disaster, a complete failure, as the two disciples told Yeshua. Without the resurrection, Yeshua's life and ministry looked like a failure, but everything changed when He was revealed alive again.

Let's carry on the conversation and see how Yeshua handles the uncertainty the disciples are feeling: "'O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and enter into His glory?' And beginning with Moshe and all the Prophets, He interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself" (vv. 25-27, ESV). These things had to happen, He explains. Just as Pharaoh's heart had to harden and the ten plagues had to come to destroy and discredit all the gods of Egypt before Israel was redeemed, so Yeshua had to go through the experience of the cross - the beating, the jeering and humiliation, the physical agony and death - and the resurrection, in order to win our salvation, to keep G-d's promises to Israel and the nations, and to break the power of sin and death.

From where the disciples were before the conversation with Yeshua, everything was lost, as Rav Sha'ul makes clear: "if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Messiah has been raised. And if Messiah has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain" (1 Corinthians 15:13-14, ESV). But the resurrection did happen and so everything works; Sha'ul again: "in fact Messiah has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Messiah shall all be made alive" (vv. 20-22, ESV). Once they had the revelation of seeing Yeshua, their world was back the right way up again. We need to make sure that we have had that revelation, that we know who Yeshua really is. Then our work, which may seem at times to be going nowhere and achieving nothing, doesn't rest on us but on Him. He is our righteousness and our reward and He will accomplish everything that is necessary to fulfil His purposes. Our task is to be obedient, to press on and to give everything we have to His work. He is the One who will make it succeed, beyond our wildest dreams or expectations.

1. - Leon R. Kass, Founding G-d's Nation - Reading Exodus (New Have, Yale University Press, 2021), page 105.

2. - Walter Brueggemann, "Exodus", in The New Interpreter's Bible Commentary Vol I, edited by Leander E. Keck, (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2015), page 320.

3. - Peter Enns, Exodus, The NIV Application Commentary, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2000), page 172.

4. - Thomas B. Dozeman, Exodus, Eerdmans Critical Commentaries, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmanns, 2009), page 159.

5. - Terence E. Fretheim, Exodus, Interpretation, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), pages 87-88.

Further Study: Isaiah 65:19-23; Romans 5:1-5; Hebrews 12:1-3

Application: Are you struggling in a time of burn-out, suffering from exhaustion and feeling that you have nothing more to give? Then you need a fresh revelation of Yeshua to turn your world back up the right way. Call out to Him today and don't let go until He answers - persist and He will come through for you!

Comment - 16:41 31Dec23 Nanci Craig: I am drawn to Exodus 4:24-26 where we see that even with this assignment from the Father to lead Israel to freedom, Moses' sin was possibly going to end his life before he got a chance to fulfill the prophecy. No matter how great a man or woman of God we become or the magnificent assignment God gives us we are NEVER above the Law of God, He will find another who is obedient, His will be done with another if we chose wrongly. May we always be examining our own hearts before the Lord and be accountable.

Comment - 16:27 03Jan24 GJ: Thankfully we can find this season (outside traditional activities) a perfect time to draw aside for personal renewal and reception with Yeshua.

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© Jonathan Allen, 2023

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