After ending our second week with Joseph being betrayed by his brothers and sold into slavery in Egypt, our passages in Week 3 continue the story of Abraham’s descendants in Egypt — from Joseph finding himself empowered by one Pharaoh to Moses finding himself called to resist against another.

Egypt’s status as a power player in the Ancient Near East is well known, but unfortunately the wider history of Abraham’s descendants — primarily referred to in Exodus as the Hebrew people — and their time in Egypt is blurry at best. There seem to be at least a couple of hundred years of history in between Joseph and Moses, all covered in a single enigmatic verse from Exodus 1:8: “Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.”

Thankfully the rest of Exodus is far richer in detail as we read about Moses growing from a young boy in Pharaoh’s courts to being called by God at Mount Horeb (better known as Mount Sinai) to lead the oppressed Hebrew people out of Egypt, fulfilling the promise that God made to Abraham and his descendants. Moses’ efforts to resist Pharaoh will culminate in the Hebrew people’s exodus from Egypt (Greek: exodos, meaning “the road out”), accompanied by a vivid display of God’s power as the Red Sea is parted. These passages — beginning with Joseph’s divinely gifted ability to interpret dreams and continuing through Moses’ trust in God’s guidance — are a celebration of how faith in God can reverse one’s fortunes, even when things look truly dire.

Unfortunately for the Hebrew people, though, their triumphal escape ends up only being the beginning — as “the road out” ends up leading them on an unexpectedly long journey, soon accompanied by rumblings and grumblings that will build as the people head deeper into the wilderness in our readings next week.

— Matt Helms, Associate Pastor

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