of “days to come” (49:1). The most interesting, of course, is the section on Judah (49:8-12). It is this tribe from which King David eventually comes, and it is this tribe that later gives its name to all that remains of the people of Israel. And especially, it is from this tribe that the Messiah, Jesus, comes. Themes are established here that will reappear even into the New Testament.
Joseph’s humane quality, his consistency of character, and his belief in God’s purposes come through magnificently both in his love for his father and in his generosity toward his brothers. Though Joseph had told them years before that they should not be distressed over the evil they had done to him because it was part of God’s purpose, nevertheless they are consumed with new fears now that their father is gone. They construct a story to convince Joseph, still not realizing that he needs no convincing. The shame of their long-ago deed still clouds their lives. After God and others have forgiven us, a harder task is to forgive ourselves.
“Am I in the place of God?” Joseph asks. Then, again, he reiterates what he said so long before: Though your intentions may have been for evil, “God intended it for good” (50:20).
That kind of faith gives all of life a quality of hope, dignity, and beauty.
PRAYER: Help me, O God, to believe that you can use even the darkest issues of life to my eventual good and to your honor. Amen.
What insights do you receive regarding the nature of guilt in the attitude of Joseph’s brothers?
| EXODUS 1–2; PSALMS 26–27 | Week 4, Day 3 |
When Jacob and his family came to Egypt, they were only the size of a good family reunion. As such they were welcome, particularly since one of their number, Joseph, was already established as a national hero. But when both Joseph and the generation that knew him died, and the family took on the proportions of a small city-state, their Egyptian neighbors began to fear them.
So the government set out to destroy Israel by killing each newborn baby boy. But the midwives frustrated their effort in general, and then one family in the house of Levi frustrated it in a particularly dramatic case. By faith and courage they saved the baby’s life; then, by God’s providence, the baby ended in Pharaoh’s palace, adopted by his daughter. So it was that the king who intended to destroy all Israelite male babies ended up preserving the very one who would one day deliver the Israelites from slavery, a man named Moses.
But it was not going to be easy. Moses received the best of training in his setting of preferment, yet somehow kept a heart for his own people, and apparently a sense of justice too. One day, while trying to protect an Israelite slave, Moses killed an Egyptian.
Just that suddenly the prince became a fugitive. He fled to Midian, where he could live in obscurity. There he became a shepherd, married, and started a family. End of the dream? Not with God.
PRAYER: Help me to see, dear Lord, that you are at work at all times and in all places, always and unfailingly. Thank you! Amen.
As you consider the down, up, and down again of Moses’ life in these two chapters, make a comparison and an application to your own life.
| EXODUS 3–4; PSALM 28 | Week 4, Day 4 |
As chapter 2 ended, we learned that God saw the pain of the people (2:23-25); but how is deliverance to come? God’s purposes are almost always achieved through persons. In this case the person is a likely/unlikely one, but this too is pretty typical of God’s working. This man was miraculously saved as an infant and raised as a prince, but he had spent most of his adult life on the back side of a desert, tending his father-in-law’s flock of sheep.
No wonder, then, that when God calls him, Moses has little self-confidence and quickly explains to God that he is not qualified; he has to be convinced and restored before he can be useful for any purpose. Yet see a marvel and an irony in this encounter. The marvel is that God allows the shepherd to argue with him, and the irony is that this man who says he is afraid to plead a case with Pharaoh is nevertheless bold to state his case before God.
And see the quality of God’s patience. Instead of giving Moses an ultimatum (“Shape up and do it my way or else”) or instead of simply overpowering him with divine reasoning, God cooperates with Moses’ feelings of inadequacy and provides help through his brother, Aaron.
“Two are better than one,” a wise one said, “for if they fall, one will lift up the other” (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10). Moses and Aaron will have opportunity for such lifting.
PRAYER: Forgive me, Lord, when I argue with you; but remember that I am dust and that sometimes I feel very weak; in Jesus’ name. Amen.
List Moses’ several objections to what God was asking him to do. Identify examples in yourself of similar hesitancy in responding to God’s call.
| EXODUS 5–7 | Week 4, Day 5 |
When Moses and Aaron come before Pharaoh in the name of the Lord, Pharaoh answers, “Who is the LORD, that I should heed him . . . ? I do not know the LORD” (5:2). Pharaoh’s answer is in the essential secular voice, one that denies any divine right except its own.
So Pharaoh flexes his muscle (“I’ll show them who’s king around here!”), and Moses finds himself caught between a resentful people and the commands of the Lord. No wonder he pleads, “Why did you ever send me?” (5:22).
God reassures Moses, reminding him that the ancestral revelation to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is coming to an even more wonderful focus now, and that the covenant (one of the wondrous words of Scripture) is indeed remembered. But the Israelites cannot hear Moses “because of their broken spirit and their cruel slavery” (6:9). The harshness of life can make us dull to even heaven’s assurance.
Now the grand dialogue begins between Pharaoh, on the hand of strength, and Moses and Aaron, on the side of weakness. Moses is warned that there will be a hardening of Pharaoh’s heart, but even this warning is insufficient when the full degree of that hardening shows itself. The encounter begins with an almost playful show of power, Aaron’s miraculous rod, a demonstration that Pharaoh’s magicians easily imitate, though they are bested when Aaron’s rod consumes theirs. When the water is changed to blood, however, we know the full battle is engaged.
PRAYER: Give me the grace, dear Lord, to stand with those who are broken in spirit by some slavery of life; in Christ. Amen.
God reassured Moses by reminding him of his ancestral faith line—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Take a few moments to record names from your faith heritage.
| EXODUS 8–10; PSALM 29 | Week 4, Day 6 |
The series of plagues follows a pattern of somewhat predictable disaster in the way
