Exodus 4:18-31

I.   Introduction

God has a claim on all of life based on his kingship and ownership.  It is a neglected theology today.  But the fact and nature thereof is explained here.

II. God claims Pharaoh(18-23), Gershom(24-26), and the sons of Israel(27f).

1.  Our text has three movements.  They all stress the divine right of God as creator both physically and spiritually.  By right, I mean ownership.  As owner of the creation, he proposes and disposes as he wills.  Illus:  home. 

2.  The story begins and will continue with a stark claim upon the court of Egypt.  Moses secures permission from his father-in-law to return to Egypt. And God instructs him (21) to perform miracles.  I take this to include all of the plagues.  But the plagues are not meant to soften or induce Pharaoh to compassion.  The text reads “I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go.”  Illus:  English syntax (subject, object, cause-effect).  They are meant to destroy him in an act of reprobation to prevent him from softening. Many cry “foul” (no chance) at this interpretation and the apparent denial of free will, and we will speak more of it, but God owns Pharaoh.  He has become an idol; idols are lifeless affronts to God.  God is about to exercise his right of kingship and make him lifeless.  See Romans 9:14ff.  In Egypt, Pharaoh was the incarnation of the sun king; his sons would perpetuate the dynasty.  The contest then is competing deities, and God will win.  In the after life, the heart was placed on a scale and would confess sins followed by judgment.  A scarab was placed on the heart of Pharaoh to harden it so he would not confess sin and escape judgment.   God hardens him in life.  But in 9:27, he does confess.  God turns Egyptian theology on end.  The sun god confesses before the true God.  In greater irony, Israel will eventually go the way of idolatry, and God will harden her.  See Isaiah 6:9-10, Psalm 115:4-8.  God exercises his right to supremacy in worship.  Appl:  any object of worship today.

3.  Pharaoh’s response to the hardening is that he will refuse the request.  The counterclaim is that Israel is my son, my first-born (22).  God is claiming the right of father.  In the ANE, the first-born received a double portion of the inheritance and blessings.  The irony is that so many nations preceded Israel, were richer, and more powerful.  God unconditionally takes Israel.  Israel belongs to him and not Pharaoh.  And for misappropriating his property, he takes Egypt’s first born too (23)!  See Exodus 11:5.  Appl:  Everything belongs to God, and we must preserve that claim.

4.  The text also has God claiming the service of his son Israel (23).  Pharaoh has misappropriated that service.  God wants it now (serve me).  The word is often used in the context of worship.  See 3:12, 10:26, No. 3:7, and 2 Kings 21:3.  It is the purpose for which God adopts sons.  This theology is lost today, but the claim God has upon all sons is worship.  Your engagements in the world today are not secular vocations; they are spiritual and priestly.  Furthermore, they are not for your private ends.  They are by God, for God, and of God.  There is nothing at all secular about your life.  We must recover this.  Illus:  typing pool in UK/RCC has convents and monasteries where the sacred withdraw from the secular.  They have the sacrament of ordination.  In contrast, we live in the world and reject the sacrament for we are all priests.  Illus:  you have become what I have always been (ordination).

5.  From his claim upon his son Israel and the sons of Egypt, we move to his claim upon the son of Moses.  God interdicts the family on the way to Egypt.  A serious breach of covenantal loyalty has occurred.  See Genesis 17:9-12, 14.  For some reason, Moses did not have his son circumcised meaning he is not marked as a son of God.  As such, the lad is liable for wrath for the disobedience of the parents.  God comes to collect.  Zipporah responds.  And the sign of the covenant checks the divine claim.  The young lad is brought into the protection of the covenant community.  As a covenantal sign, it also signifies cursing should the child not continue faithful.  See Deuteronomy 10:16, 30:6, and Jeremiah 4:4.    More than the sign is the thing signified.  It is parallel to Genesis 15.  An oath is implied for covenantal loyalty.  The judgment that would ensue for covenant violation is symbolized by the cutting (cutting off from the people of God.).  Illus:  cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.  In the ANE, this was a puberty rite; here it is a rite at birth.  God does have a claim on children.  Appl:  child abuse today (spiritual). The NT analog is baptism.  See Colossians 2:11-12.  The thing signified is death to the old way of life and resurrection by the life of Christ to the newness of life in Christ.  While I do not want to entertain the debate about infant baptism, I affirm this too is a covenant sign.  Without it, you are marked as outside the covenant of grace and under wrath because you are living in disobedience.  Likewise, to partake of the sacrament and then forsake loyalty to Christ, makes it a sign of judgment (flood).  Whether you were baptized as an infant or adult, it is the thing signified that is critical. 

6.  Our text closes with a partial expression of the realization of the claims of God.  In 27-31, the people believed and bowed low in worship (31).  Tragically, they do not continue to meet the claim.

7.  God is sovereign and supreme.  He has a claim on our lives (“mine”).

It can only be met in Christ.  Her is the true Son who succeeds where the corporate son failed.  His death not only purchases the claim but the nature of it in continuance.