Friday, June 18

Exodus 3-4; Proverbs 8; Matthew 16

Exodus 3: List some reasons why Moses would have been apprehensive about returning to speak with Pharaoh? What help did the Lord tell him to expect?

Exodus 4:  What did Moses complain about to God? How did God respond to Moses’ complaints?  Why did God want to kill Moses?  Who was Zipporah?

Proverbs 4: What advice does the father give the son?

Matthew 16: What did the Pharisees want and why? What was Jesus referring to when he warned the disciples about the leaven of the Pharisees? 

Journal prompt: Compare verse 17 and verse 23 of Matthew 16 and write about this dichotomy.

Answers:

Exodus 3: First and foremost, in the previous chapter we read that Pharaoh wanted to kill him.  He was wanted for murder.  He probably would not have expected to receive a warm reception from the Hebrews either as he had grown up with the proverbial silver spoon while they were forced to live as slaves.  The Lord told him that the elders of the Hebrew community would listen to him and go alongside him to speak to Pharaoh.

Exodus 4: Moses felt that people wouldn’t believe him when He said God had spoken to him.He also felt he was the wrong man for the job (of leading the Hebrews and confronting Pharaoh).  So God provided for his staff to turn into a serpent and God gave Moses power to make people leprous.  God said if those signs didn’t work, then Moses could take water from the  Nile and turn it into blood. Then God got angry with Moses’ persistent hesitation. Ultimately God told Moses that his older brother Aaron could be the spokesman. Verse 24 says God wanted to kill Moses, so his wife Zipporah (daughter of  Jethro, the Midian priest that Moses had been living with for so many years) circumcised her son and touched Moses’s feet with it.  This appeased God.  Apparently Zipporah understood that God wanted Moses and his son to be circumcised, and we can only surmise that Moses was unwilling to do this.  So perhaps God was angry because of Moses’ disobedience.  Luckily Zipporah (Sephora in French!) took matters into her own hands!  She was apparently very beautiful  (this is not in the Bible but comes from comments in the midrash – the Jewish commentary on the Bible) which is probably why this French chain chose her name for the retail stores (either that or she used a lot of makeup!!) (Moses marries Zipporah in Exodus 2:21)

Proverbs 4:  The father tells the son to ‘get wisdom’ and to heed the father’s instructions.

Matthew 16:  The Pharisees wanted Jesus to perform a miracle, because they were trying to test him . . really to trap him.  The leaven that Jesus refers to is (imho) the hypocrisy – and the way that, like leaven, a little can multiply.  I believe Jesus is warning the disciples to be careful that a little bit of something which may seem good in and of itself (like studying scripture) can proliferate to an extent that is bad.  The Pharisees’ legalism in their approach to interpreting the scriptures and their desire to be ‘perfect’ and earn their way into God’s grace had actually driven them farther from God.