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;
I have surely seen the affliction of my people ... literally, seeing I have seen. The verb has here the sense of looking with the watchful eye and sympathetic feeling of love.
And have heard their cry - a vehement cry throughout the land of their dispersion; a cry of oppressed anguish against the oppressor; a cry of pain, resentment, and helpless despondency. Thus the servitude of the Israelites themselves, as well as the cruel destruction of their male children, which followed the accession of the new dynasty in Egypt, effected the subjective preparation of that people for the exodus, by awakening in the general bosom intense longings for release.
Verse 8. I am come down to deliver them (see the note at Genesis 11:5; Genesis 11:7; Genesis 18:21).
And to bring them ... unto a good land and a large - i:e., broad, compared with the narrow belt of land in Egypt.
A land flowing with milk and honey - i:e., a region of extraordinary productiveness, abounding in all things necessary for the support and comfort of life. "Milk" (see the note at Genesis 49:12); "honey" х dªbaash (H1706)] - various articles are often denoted by this term; but it evidently refers here to natural honey, which, by universal testimony, has always abounded in this land, even the most remote and uninhabited parts of the country being stocked with bees, which deposit their treasure of sweetness in the crevices of the rocks, and in hollow trees (cf. Deuteronomy 32:13; 1 Samuel 14:25-27; Isaiah 7:15; Matthew 3:4).
Unto the place of the Canaanites. "The Canaanites" sometimes stand for the whole aborigines of the country. In this passage the word is used to designate a particular tribe in ancient Canaan (cf. Exodus 13:5; Genesis 15:21; Joshua 3:10). There was a fortified place in the same parallel as Tyre, and afterward within the territory of Asher (Joshua 19:28), called х Qaanaah (H7071)] Kanah; and it is possible that, notwithstanding the difference in spelling, this city, with its surrounding district, gave name to the people. (See further on this and the other Hamite tribes here mentioned, Genesis 10:15-17; Genesis 15:11-21.)
Verse 10. Come now therefore, and I will send thee. Considering the patriotic views that had formerly animated the Breast of Moses, we might have anticipated that no mission could have been more welcome to his heart than to be employed in the national emancipation of Israel. But he evinced great reluctance to it, and stated a variety of objections, all of which were successively met and removed; and the happy issue of his labours was minutely described.
Verse 11. Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh? ... Formerly he had volunteered his services as a patriotic defender of his countrymen. But he had acted from impetuosity of temper, and without any authorized misson. Having learned humility in the school of adversity, he had been led to distrust his own qualifications; and, especially considering his obscure condition as a shepherd, he felt himself too insignificant to wait upon Pharaoh.
Verse 12. Certainly I will be with thee. This promise was fulfilled not only by the divine presence and aid being given to Moses in a remarkable manner, during all the preliminary negotiations with Pharaoh, but until his extraordinary legation was accomplished.
Ye shall serve God upon this mountain, [Septuagint, latreusate too Theoo en too orei toutoo] - meaning not merely by sacrifice, although sacrifices entered very largely into the sacred observances of the Hebrews, but by the erection of the tabernacle, and the regular institution in that edifice, of the ordinances of religious worship (Exodus 24:1-18; Exodus 34:1-35, and subsequent chapters). But how could this, which was an event as yet future, be a "token" or sign to Moses to stimulate him to enter upon the mission to Egypt? The relevancy of the term х 'owt (H226)] sign, in application to some future event, the simple pre-intimation of which was designed to induce to present action, appears from the fact that the word is thus applied in several passages of Scripture (cf. 1 Samuel 2:34; Jeremiah 44:29-30). In both these cases it is employed precisely as in the passage before us, with reference to what was afterward to take place. And assuredly the evidence of his divine mission afforded by the fulfillment of this prediction must have contributed in no ordinary degree to support and encourage the mind of Moses amid the prolonged sojourn and the harassing vicissitudes of the wilderness.
Verse 13. What is his name? what shall I say unto them? The pagans generally gave names to their gods, and the Egyptians in particular plumed themselves on the invention of appropriate names to the various idols they worshipped. The name was significant of the character or attributes of the deity; and, therefore, a desire to know the name by which the Divine Being meant Himself to be distinguished was not only natural in an ambassador about to be employed in negotiating in His name with his countrymen who had become to a great extent assimilated to the sentiments, the manners, and even the idolatry of the Egyptians (Exodus 3:22; 1 Chronicles 4:21; Ezekiel 20:1), but necessary, after the communications that were so frequently made to the patriarchs had long ceased, that he might understand whether God now intended to reveal Himself in a new manner, or in different relations to His people.
Verse 14. I AM THAT I AM, х 'ehªyeh (H1961) 'ªsher (H834) 'ehªyeh (H1961)]. God here proclaims his name to Moses by an expansion of the title Yahweh, or Jahve (see the note at Genesis 27:29: also Gesenius). Different opinions are entertained as to the precise idea it was designed to express: some, as Hengstenberg ('Authenticity of the Pentateuch,' 1:, p. 254), considering it denotes the personality, the self-existence, and immutability of the Divine Being; and so the Septuagint translates it as: Egoo eimi ho oon, I am the existing One. The Vulgate has: Ego sum gui sum, which has been evidently followed by our translators (Revelation 1:8). Others interpret it, 'He who will be'-meaning the Being who was in the fullness of time to appear in the form of humanity as the promised Messiah; while a third class of writers take it rather to refer to God's manifestation of Himself to His Church-its use in this special form being designed to rouse attention to its deep significance.
That this is the import of the name-namely, as describing the revealed relations of God to man-appears, in their view, confirmed by the circumstance that, when the Lord pronounced it from the bush, he proceeded to declare Himself to be "the Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob." In two remarkable occasions in the historical development of those revealed relations, Yahweh (the Lord) is identified with 'Elohiym (H430) (God) - namely, in the covenant made with man (Genesis 2:1-25), and in the covenant here about to be entered into with Israel. Those different views of the ideas involved in the name may be very well combined; because it was doubtless with a design to impress the Israelites with a sense of the unity both of His essence and of His love to the Church that God so frequently designed Himself from the relation that He bore to their fathers. He was pleased to take such names in succession, as if He meant to inform them that, notwithstanding the lapse of time and the changes of persons, He is still the same. As on the occasion before us He used this language in the present time, especially in connection with the wonderful name "I am," while it proves the unchangeableness of His love to the patriarchs, as still existing in a separate state, it proclaims also the same unchangeable love to all their spiritual seed.
Verse 16. Go, and gather the elders of Israel together. While in Egypt, the Israelites remained a separate class-a regularly organized body-who even during the period of servitude were governed by rulers of their own, the heads of tribes and families. It is the former that are here referred to, called х zªqeeniym (H2205)], old men, elders; equivalent to the shiekhs of Arab tribes. These were recognized as the public representatives of the people, to whom Moses was instructed, in the first instance, to communicate the intelligence of his divine mission to deliver his countrymen from bondage, and in conjunction with whom he was to appear before Pharaoh.
Verse 18. Let us go, we beseech thee, three days' journey into the wilderness ... It may seem strange that God should instruct Moses to make such a request for a temporary absence, when the real design was a total withdrawal from the country. But God was pleased to put it on that ground at first, in order that by the king's refusal of so small and so reasonable a request, the unyielding, tyrannical character of the Egyptian monarch might be the more strikingly displayed. Since the worship of the Israelites consisted, according to the rites of their forefathers, in sacrificing sheep and oxen, which were deemed sacred in the eyes of the Egyptians, they could not celebrate any religious festival without giving offence to that people, and therefore must of necessity have crossed the border into the Arabian wilderness, which would have been a "three days' journey." It was not unusual for parties from Egypt to hold festivals in the wilderness, across the border; and Dr. Robinson ('Biblical Researches') mentions a mountain at Sarabet-el-Khadin, the summit of which consisted of an extensive table-land, where were the ruins of a temple, bearing hieroglyphic inscriptions, religious symbols, and priests offering sacrifice-all conveying the impression that anciently that place had been the scene of sacred pilgrimage from Egypt.
Verse 19-22. The king of Egypt will not let you go, no, not by a mighty hand. Here, for encouraging the faith of Moses, some additional details are given of the incidents that should mark his mission in Egypt. The protracted struggle with the reigning despot, the terrible prodigies that should subdue his pride, and wring from him a reluctant consent to the departure of the Israelites; the friendly and domestic contact of the Israelites and Egyptians, and the bestowment by the latter of certain small articles in gold, silver, and apparel, which would be indispensable necessaries for a distant journey-all these were pre- intimated to him by his Divine Employer so distinctly, that were the future changed into the past tense, the passage might serve as an epitomized history of what actually occurred (see the note at Exodus 12:36).