EXPOSITION
On quitting the presence of Pharaoh, the officers of the Israelites, burning with the sense of the injustice done them, and deeply apprehensive with respect to their own future, found Moses and Aaron waiting in the precincts of the court to know the result of their application. It need cause no surprise that they poured out their pent-up indignation upon them. Were not Moses and Aaron the sole cause of the existing state of things? Did not the extreme affliction of the people, did not their own sufferings in the past, did not their apprehended sufferings in the future, originate wholly in the seductive words which the two brothers had addressed to them at the assembly of the people? (Exodus 4:29-2). Accordingly, they denounced, almost cursed their officious would-be deliverers (Exodus 5:21). "The Lord look upon you, and judge" between you and us, whether the blame of this whole matter does not lie upon you, its initiators—you have made us to be abhorred in the sight of Pharaoh, and of the Egyptians generally you have brought us into danger of our lives—the Lord judge you!"
Who stood in the way. Rather, "who waited to meet them." It was not accident, but design, that had brought the two brothers to the spot. They were as anxious as the officers to know what course Pharaoh would take—whether he would relax the burthens of the people or no—whether he would have compassion or the contrary.
They said unto them. The officers were too full of their wrongs to wait until questioned. They took the word, and, without relating the result of their interview, implied it. The Lord look upon you, and judge, they said, meaning "the Lord (Jehovah) consider your conduct, and judge it" not exactly, "condemn it and punish it" (Keil and Delitzsch)—but "pass sentence on it," "judge whether it has been right or not." We make this appeal because ye have at any rate done us a great injury—ye have made our savour to be abhorred in the eyes of Pharaoh. (Note the mixed metaphor, which shows- perhaps rather that "in the eyes" had lost its original meaning, and come to signify no more than "with" or "in respect of," than that the literal meaning of making a person's savour to "stink" did not occur to the writer.) Nay, ye have done more—ye have put a sword in the hand of his servants to slay us. That is to say, "ye have armed them with a weapon wherewith we expect that they will take our lives." Either they will beat us to death—and death is a not infrequent result of a repeated employment of the bastinado—or when they find that punishment unavailing they will execute us as traitors. On the use of the bastinado as a punishment in Egypt, see Chabas, 'Melanges Egyptologiques,' 3me serie, vol. 1. pp. 100-6.
HOMILETICS
The servants of God liable to reproach from friends no less than enemies,
Moses and Aaron had borne the reproaches and scoffs of Pharaoh (Exodus 5:4-2) without flinching. It was natural that an enemy should revile them. Pharaoh might tax them with idleness and insincerity in religion, if he pleased. The stab did not penetrate very deep, nor cause a very grievous smart. But when their brethren turned upon them and uttered reproaches, it was different. Then the wound went to the heart; the pain was bitter, scarce endurable. It made them misdoubt themselves. Had they really not acted for the best? Had they been self-seeking, or vainglorious, or reckless, or even injudicious? Such thoughts will always occur even to the best men, if on their plans seeming to have miscarried their friends reproach them. The best men best know their own frailty, and how easy it is for man to mar God's work by his own imperfections. It requires a very brave soul to bear up against the reproaches of friends, especially when there seems to be a ground for them. The more careful therefore should friends be not to reproach God's servants causelessly, or unless they can point out where they have been wrong. Actions are not to be always judged by their results, or, at any rate, not by their immediate results. Moses and Aaron had done quite right; they had obeyed God; they were bound to act as they had acted. It had not pleased God to give success to their efforts as yet. The officers should have had patience, should have prayed to God for relief, but should have forborne from reproaching the innocent.
HOMILIES BY J. ORR
Murmuring and faith.
The Israelites were naturally sorely disappointed at the issue of the interview with Pharaoh; and with the unreasonableness so often seen in those whose expectations have received a check, they turned on Moses and Aaron, and accused these innocent men of being the authors of their misfortune. Moses and Aaron themselves were almost as dumbfounded as their accusers at the turn events had taken; but one of them, at least, behaved with wisdom. The Israelites accused men: Moses took his complaint to God, and opened up to him all the soreness of his heart. This portion of the narrative suggests the following reflections:—
I. GOD'S PROVIDENCE OFTEN ASSUMES AN ASPECT OF GREAT MYSTERY TO US. It did so to Moses and the Israelites (Exodus 5:22, Exodus 5:23). They had concluded that now that God had taken up their cause, their trials and sorrows were at an end; but in entertaining so comfortable a hope, they found they were deceived. The first step on the road to the promised deliverance had plunged them into a worse plight than ever. They had almost felt the breath of liberty on their cheeks, when suddenly their hopes are dashed from them, and the situation darkens till in its pitiless rigour it becomes well-nigh unendurable. So God's providence is often to the godliest a sore and perplexing mystery. It is not merely that things are not going as we wish, or as fast as we expect—this need not surprise us, though oftentimes it does—but that Jehovah seems acting contrary to his own perfections, to his character, to his revealed purpose, to the promise on which he has encouraged us to trust. The wicked prosper; the righteous are afflicted (Psalms 37:1-19.; Psalms 73.). Prayers seem unanswered, and the hopes we had begun to cherish, the expectations we had built upon his Word, are bitterly disappointed. The race seems to the swift, and the battle to the strong of this world, while "waters of a full cup are wrung out" to the saints whom God has pledged himself to bless and to protect. This is what distresses us, and the distress is not surprising.
II. THE MYSTERY WHICH MEETS US IN GOD'S PROVIDENCE ACTS AS A TEST OF CHARACTER. It drove Moses to prayer, but the multitude to murmurings and reproaches. As this storm burst over Israel, the thoughts of many hearts would be revealed (Luke 2:35). Doubters would curse themselves for trusting to one whom, they would declare, they had always suspected of deceiving them; the timid would be heard reiterating, "We told you it would come to this; we saw it from the first!" while the profane would break out into open blasphemies, and the superficial crowd—those who had been most carried away by the enthusiasm—would groan and weep in utter disconsolateness, and pour out rash accusations against Heaven and against Moses and Aaron, who had brought them into all this trouble. Yet with foolish inconsistency they would call on the God they were mistrusting to judge between them and the men who had brought to them his message (Exodus 5:21). Comp. Christian and Pliable at the Slough of Despond in 'Pilgrim's Progress.' Mystery in God's providence, in itself a moral necessity and inevitable, is thus used by him for important ends in the testing and disciplining of character. It brings to light our weaknesses; sifts the chaff from the wheat; educates us to trust; convinces us of ignorance; disenchants us of illusive hopes; leads us to prayer and wrestling with God. Thus it prepares us for further discoveries of the Divine wisdom when the time comes for the veil being removed, and educates us for higher service.
III. THE MYSTERY WHICH ENSHROUDS GOD'S PROVIDENCE ARISES FROM OUR PARTIAL AND IMPERFECT COMPREHENSION OF HIS PLAN. Had God's purpose been simply to get Israel out of Egypt in the easiest way possible, and with least cost of suffering to the people, the permission of this new cruelty would indeed have been inexplicable. But it is not in this way, or for such ends, or on these terms, that God Conducts the government of his world. The error of Israel lay in looking on this one little bit of an unfinished work, and in judging of it without reference to the whole design of which it was a part. For God's purpose was not merely that the people should be delivered, but that they should be delivered in such a way, and with such accompaniments of power and judgment, as should illustriously glorify his own perfections, and print the memory of his goodness on their hearts for ever; while, as regards Pharaoh, his desire was to glorify his power upon him (Exodus 9:16), and make him an example to all after ages of the folly of resisting the Almighty. This being the end, it was obviously indispensable that events should not be unduly hastened, but allowed, as far as possible, to take a natural course. Time and scope must be given to Pharaoh to develop his real disposition, and the development must not be prematurely interfered with. The people must be led by a way they knew not, and in paths they had not known; the way chosen could not be the absolutely shortest, but must include many turnings and windings, and even seem at times to be bending backwards; but the end would be "to make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight" (Isaiah 42:16). And this is truly the explanation of all our difficulties with regard to Divine providence. It is not God who is at fault, but our own haste and shortsightedness, that perceive not all the ends he has in view, nor how wonderfully he is working towards those ends by the very circumstances which perplex and baffle us. We know but "in part" (1 Corinthians 13:12). The thoughts of Infinite Wisdom cannot all be made plain to us. The little that is before us we see, but how much lies beyond which is involved in the hiding of his power! (Habakkuk 3:4.) Our walking must be "by faith;" not "by sight" (2 Corinthians 5:7).—J.O.
HOMILIES BY D. YOUNG
Thoughtless smiters of a brother in adversity.
This whole chapter particularly abounds in illustrations of human ignorance and error. We have seen in what dense darkness was the mind of Pharaoh; and under what utter misapprehensions he multiplied the sorrows of Israel. Now we are introduced to the leaders of Israel, treating Moses with equal injustice, because they are not able to see the difference between the human instrument and the Divine hand that holds it. No more than Pharaoh can they pierce through Moses to the mighty God behind him. It says in Exodus 4:31, that when the people saw the signs they believed; here is conduct which shows for how little their faith counted. As soon as they were set to make bricks without straw, their faith utterly vanished. Yet surely the truth of God remained. Present human cruelty, let it press ever so hard, cannot alter past manifestations of Divine power. The God who gave his Son the parable of the Sower was prepared for such a lapse into unbelief on the part of his people. His signs were like the seeds which found no depth of earth; when persecution arose because of the message of Moses, the people were straightway offended. Consider—
I. IN WHAT A STATE OF MIND MOSES WOULD BE WHEN THESE OFFICERS ATTACKED HIM. We know from his own language (Exodus 4:22, Exodus 4:23)what his state of mind was after the attack; but even before it he must have been a prey to deep grief and gloomy apprehensions. We may be sure that when these officers came upon him, they did not find proofs of indifference and carelessness in his face. lie must have been very popular just after he had wrought the signs; as popular as Jesus was after he had fed the five thousand. Aaron, doubtless, had been instructed by him to enlarge on the history of Abraham, IsaActs and Jacob, and bring out into the boldest relief the terms of the Divine promises. Thus the confidence and expectation of the people—a reception altogether beyond his hopes—would lift him also into a confidence and expectation all the more precious because of his previous despondency. And now, as he sees the condition of his brethren, that despondency is more painful than ever. No imagination of ours can exaggerate the perplexity and sadness into which Moses would be thrown.
II. THUS WE ARE CALLED TO NOTICE THE INDIFFERENCE OF MOSES' BRETHREN TO HIS PAINFUL POSITION. He thought a great deal more upon their Sorrows than they did upon his. The grief of selfish people, in the reckless abandonment with which it speaks and acts, furnishes as painful evidence as we can find of the extent to which human nature has fallen from its first estate. It is a greedy, insatiable feeling. It is an awful thing to consider that the very concentration of our thoughts on our own sufferings makes us to increase the sufferings of others. Why, even when others are to blame, we might safely leave them to the observant, unforgetting God, to their own consciences, and to the ultimate harvest which every doer of wrong must reap; and very often they are not to blame at all. If only these smarting Israelites had been able, in a right spirit, to look at the heart of Moses, they would have seen occasion for supporting him with the greatest tenderness, gratitude, and patient endurance. What right had they to complain of Moses? lie had told them a coherent, straightforward story, given them the signs; and they, in return, had believed him for the very works' sake. If there is any time when we should be slow to speak, it is in our sorrow. We do well then to be silent, until such times as God has purged out of our minds all selfish desires and groundless expectations. When all these are gone, and the truth which he alone can plant is also ripened, then we shall be able to say, "It was good for us to be afflicted;' at present Israel said that it was bad—as bad as bad could be—and Moses was the convenient person on whom they could lay the blame.
III. THESE OFFICERS HAD NOT INSIGHT ENOUGH TO LOOK BEYOND FIRST CONSEQUENCES. They could not look through the pain of the present to a future which was only attainable through that present. Thus the disciples spoke in deep perplexity and disappointment concerning their missing Master as if he had vanished like a dream,, of the night. "We trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel. So they spoke, not having appreciated his recent word, "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone." We shall do well to consider in every enterprise, that first consequences are very deceptive. When they bring hardship we must not, therefore, turn back; when they bring pleasure, we must not therefore conclude that still greater pleasures lie beyond. Israel had no right to make any assumptions whatever as to the first consequences of Moses' visit to Pharaoh. The true and only safe position for Israel to take up was this: "Here are these signs; they are signs that Jehovah has sent Moses, and is with him; let us accept them in full and patient reliance." A man does not dispute the truth of the finger-post which points him into the right road, because soon after he has passed it he comes to a worse bit of travelling than any he has had before. There is a profound and admonitory generalisation in that way of indicating Christian experience which puts the Slough of Despond so early in the pilgrim's journey: and if first consequences that bring hardship are to be mistrusted, surely we must be even more cautious when the first consequences are full of pleasure. Though we be told to remember our Creator in the days of our youth—his claims, his expectations, and his judgment-day—the danger is that we shall only too easily forget all this, and remember only that we are strong, ambitious, able to enjoy, and with abundant opportunities for enjoyment. We must always mistrust the mere pleasure of our senses; the pleasure of tastes and likings. Liking a thing is never a sufficient reason for doing it; disliking never a sufficient reason for refusing to do it. God appeals to our prudence, to our conscience, to our pity, to our fears, but never to our tastes. And. be it ever remembered, that there is one first consequence which never deceives nor disappoints those who put themselves in the way of it. Do that which is right in the sight of God, and there is an immediate and pure pleasure at the heart, which all the waves and. billows of adversity cannot wash away. For instance, we cannot believe for a moment that Moses regretted his compliance with the commands of Jehovah. They had been clear and imperative, steady and unrelaxing in their pressure on his conscience. The pain from the reproaches of Israel was bad enough; but it would have been a far worse pain, if he had sought to flee from the test of the burning bush, and, Jonah-like, bury himself with his sheep in the very depths of the wilderness.—Y.