Exodus 3:7-9 And the LORD said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt… I. THE GREAT NEED. It is a need carefully observed by God and well known to him. This has been recorded already, although hardly so emphatically, in Exodus 2:23-25. It is one thing to have intelligence of God's interest communicated by some third person; quite another to hear the words of pity warm and tender from God himself. Moses and many of the Israelites may have thought that they knew the need only too well, bitter as their experiences had been; but, with all their experiences, they knew not that need as God knew it, looking down from heaven, seeing all things with his searching eye, and having a correct and complete knowledge of them. It is with great force that God represents himself seeing as well as hearing. Hearing indicated that he noted the representation of their troubles and needs which the people themselves made; seeing indicated the investigation he made for himself. God was not dependent upon the complaints of the people for his knowledge of their troubles. The cries of men are not always worthy of pity, any more than the cry of a spoilt child. Such cries can only be left unheeded, with the hope that they may end in wisdom and submission. But the cry of Israel was the cry of the oppressed, the cry of God's people; and, as God saw their state, there was ample evidence of the oppression and the cruelty. When he came down to meet Moses at Horeb, he needed not to listen to a long account of Israel's troubles; he came not in order that he might inquire, but because of what he already fully knew. II. THE LARGE PROMISE. God may be long unmanifested, but, when he appears, it is with indubitable proofs of his presence; he may be long silent, but when he speaks, it is with statements and promises worthy of himself. He does not merely utter an expression of sympathy with suffering Israel; that expression is only the starting word of a large undertaking for the future. He repeats, emphatically, the essence of all he had ever said to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob concerning their posterity. He has distinctly in view, not only the removal of a burden, but a future of liberty, independence, and blessedness. Thus it became manifest that the deliverance had not come earlier in time because the matter of deliverance was not the only thing in question. It had to be considered how liberty should be used when acquired. Israel needed a leader, and the leaders whom God approves are not made in a day. Israel had to wait while Moses went through his eighty years of varied discipline, Then, moreover, the people were going into a good land and a large, a land flowing with milk and honey, a land of rich pastures and great fertility, a land inhabited by six strong and warlike nations; and therefore they must not go as a handful of people. Thus, while the people were going through these great afflictions, groaning as if in despair, God was doing two things of the greatest moment. He was training Moses and increasing Israel in numbers. What a lesson to us in the midst of our afflictions, with all their consequent murmuring and unbelief! If God seemed to have little to do with Israel during these years of oppression, it was that he might have all the more to do with them, manifestly, in the years to come. Little did either Moses or Israel dream how closely God would keep to them in the future. By the word of God to him here, the thoughts of Moses were brought as at one bound from the darkness of midnight to the blaze of noonday. God does not confine himself to telling Moses that he will deliver Israel. Deliverance for its own sake was as nothing; it was for the sake of what lay beyond it. He does not say that he will deliver, and wait till the time of deliverance comes, to speak of the glories and blessings of Canaan. All these things had been spoken of generations before. God was but taking, as it were, out of some muniment-room, his old plan, first shown to Abraham; unfolding it, and showing also to Moses that it still remained in all its integrity. - Y. Parallel Verses KJV: And the LORD said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; |
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