Week 4

12/29/2024

Winter 2025

 

As you read through Exodus 15-18, remember that during the Exodus and wilderness wanderings, Israel was only just beginning to know the God who covenanted with their fathers long ago. In their minds, gods were geographically confined to particular people groups, and their dominion pertained to a specific part of creation (i. e. god of fertility, god of medicine/peace, goddess of the sky, god of the sun, etc.). When God called them out of Egypt to wander in the wilderness, He began to train them in trust and obedience. He used one mediator (Moses) to communicate that He is their faithful covenantal God who has power over all things, not just specific locations and creation phenomena.


Thus, at several points when Israel grumbles against God and Moses (14:12; 15:24; 16:2-3; 17:2-3), their persistent thanklessness should stand out to us as scandalous, but God also used these moments to demonstrate His power and character, regardless of their location. In other words, unlike pagan gods, His authority extends to all of creation, not just a particular land/place. He continued the polemic lesson that the ten plagues revealed: He is not simply the God of one part of creation but all. He purified the water, sent quail, provided bread from heaven, provided water from a rock, and gave them victory in battle against the Amalekites (all the alleged domains of different pagan gods). Interestingly, the same staff that Moses used during the plagues and the Red Sea crossing is the same staff used to provide water from the rock (17:6) and assure victory in battle (17:9-13). God’s consistent use of the same staff drew Israel’s attention to the same God at work to provide bread, meat, water, and victory in battle. Their covenant God is not a one-trick pony like the gods of Egypt—He is the one all-powerful God over all creation, not just specific parts of it.

 

Notice the ways God trained Israel in the wilderness. First, God showed Moses a log in Exodus 15:25. The Hebrew word for showed often is translated as “teach” or “train.” This begins the theme found throughout these grumblings. Exodus 16:23 even heightens God’s training and demonstration with the first mention of the Sabbath in the Bible. God’s refusal to send the manna on the Sabbath forced Israel to imitate God’s sabbath. Though they may have often grow restless in their planning for the future (also true for many of us), God showed them the need for daily reliance on Him. He also showed them that obeying His command to rest would not cause them harm either. Though obedience can seem costly to misguided desires, obeying the Sabbath command brought no harm to the Israelites, for God provided abundantly on the sixth day. God’s commandments are never burdensome.

 

Last, remember that we have the luxury of reading through Israel’s wilderness wanderings in a few minutes. Though their thanklessness and forgetfulness of God’s care and protection naturally come out of the text, those are often familiar cycles for us as well. How soon after receiving deliverance from something do we forget the God of the resurrection who is our healer (cf. Ex 15:26)? How soon do we return to old patterns and forget the turmoil from which we first cried out to God for deliverance? And yet, how often is our God gracious, patient, and kind in His continued provision for us anyway? These grumbling passages do eventually lead to their climax in Numbers 14 when God punished this grumbling generation by not letting them enter the land, but instead of quickly writing off the Israelites as spiritually blind fools, take note that we spend a lifetime getting better acquainted with our generous God through cycles of forgetfulness and neediness. We don’t just download the information from one experience that God is the good gift giver and provider; we take a lifetime to be trained up to know God. Paul Miller says in A Praying Life, “…a praying life isn’t something you accomplish in a year. It is a journey of a lifetime. The same is true of learning how to love your spouse or a good friend. You never stop learning this side of heaven…there is far too much depth in God to capture prayer easily.”