Exodus 5:1 And afterward Moses and Aaron went in, and told Pharaoh, Thus said the LORD God of Israel, Let my people go… 1. The sense of his high commission enabled him to discharge the duty it laid upon him with dignity and boldness. The sinking of heart that had seized him upon its first announcement had passed away; and in its place had come "the spirit of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." 2. Aaron was with him; but the relation he sustained to the work is marked, as it is throughout the narrative, by the order of the names, Moses and Aaron — never Aaron and Moses — a companion, aa associate, but only as a helper, a support, a spokesman, though Aaron was the eider. There are chords in our nature that vibrate mysteriously to another's touch, a magnetism that works by laws imperfectly understood, by which the presence and sympathy of a companion, silent though it be, and without visible action, braces and enlivens the heart; and that, though the disparity be so great that the inferior who cares for us can only think as we think, and feel as we feel, without any contribution of useful counsel or active succour. "At my first answer," says St. Paul, "no man stood with me, but all men forsook me." Let us not say that we cannot help our friend because we are inferior and of small resources. It is too often but the cover of cowardice or coldness of heart. He that knows the magic there is in a look, a touch, or a word, to alleviate and quicken a pained or fainting soul, feels the falsehood. Nor let us, in our height of pride and self-sufficiency, despise the "fellowship of kindred minds" because they are below us, and, it may be, without manifest strength to aid. A little child's sympathy is not to be despised. Moses' commission was sole, but Aaron's presence facilitated its execution. There is a wonderful power in company. 3. What Moses first asked of Pharaoh for his people, then, was a religious privilege — liberty to go out into the wild country beyond the bounds of Goshen, and worship God; sacrifice to that great Being in whom their fathers had trusted, but whose image, we may well believe, had grown dim among them during their long period of depression and enslavement. Moses was a religious reformer. The revival of truth, faith, and loyalty to Jehovah, lay at the bottom of all the other great things he was to do for them. The feast in the wilderness was preliminary to all that was to follow, to stand as the frontispiece of that series of wonderful events in which their deliverance was to be accomplished, the prologue of the great drama of their entrance upon national life. 4. To Pharaoh, in this call, there was a test of faith, and of that obedience in which all real faith finds its true expression. God came forth from His obscurity and spoke to him. Would he hear that voice, recognize it as the voice of Him who is "King of kings"? In humanity there is a chord that ever vibrates to God's touch, and an ear that hears His voice. It was the call of God's mercy to Pharaoh, Jehovah's coming near to him to do him good. Alas! he "knew not the time of his visitation." But if the heart of Pharaoh towards God was tested by this call, so was his heart towards man. It was an appeal to his humanity. 5. See the wisdom of acting in great matters with judgment, moderation, and patience. Many a good design has been ruined by abruptness, haste, and grasping greed. Moses did not succeed in his embassy, but he adopted fit and judicious methods to obtain success; and if they failed to secure their object, it was simply because they encountered an opposition that no power or skill could overcome. The eagerness that will have all at once, loses all. The impatience that will reach the goal at a single bound, never reaches it. To have asked the immediate emancipation of the Israelites would have been manifestly useless. 6. Finally, beware of striving against God. It can end in nothing but destruction. Its gains are losses, its successes its most ruinous failures. (R. A. Hallam, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And afterward Moses and Aaron went in, and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness. |
    |