Exodus 1-3

Welcome to a new book!  Bonnie and I did a big Hi-5 today in church because we have done 2 books already....

The author of this book is Moses.  Exodus means "mass exit".  The book opens with the covenant promise being fulfilled.  The Isrealites have grown into a huge nation.  Some scholars say there were probably 2 million of them.  The new Pharaoah feels threatened and feels that the Isrealites could organize, join other ranks and fight the Egyptians...and here is where the slavery begins.  The Isrealites are heavily opressed.   The Pharaoah wants the first born males killed (perhaps you know the story of when Jesus was born and the first born male sons were ordered to be killed....quite a parallel), and the midwives feared God more than Pharoah.

Moses is born from the Levite tribe.  God strategically places Moses sister (you'll learn her name is Miriam later) to see her baby brother rescued by the Pharoah's daughter.  She asks Pharoah's daughter if she needs a nursemaid, and Moses is reunited (secretly) with his own mother.  Moses means Drawn Out, as in Drawn Out from the water.  Who else but God can get a Hebrew slave raised in in the Pharoah's palace?   (you'll see something similar in the Book of Esther)

Moses grows, and kills an Egyptian in defense of a Hebrew mistreatment.  Pharoah finds out and Moses must flee. He goes to Midian (owned by priests rather than Pharoah) and marries into Priest Reuel/Jethro's family via Zipporah. He has a son, Gershom, meaning an alien in a foreign land.

God hears of his people's suffering and appears to Moses in a burning bush. and tells Moses that he will be the deliverer of the Isrealites.  Moses makes excuses, and the Lord is patient with him.   God's name of YHWH is revealed (I am who I am).    God reveals that the Isrealite elders will accept his message, and the Egyptians will not.    The Egyptian women are to be asked for silver, gold and clothing on their way out (later to be used for the tabernacle).....Can you imagine how this must seem to Moses?   Here's a plan...now execute it for me....another note, Horeb and Sinai are different names for the same mountain.