God’s people, servants of Pharaoh (Exod 5:1-21)

When I was growing up, my family lived in an apartment next door to a man who regularly abused his partner, an intelligent woman with a secure job. It was distressing to hear her running footsteps and screams most nights and for years I wondered why she stayed. Surely, anything was better than this! As I reflect on today’s reading, I am reminded that such a move is harder than it looks. There is uncertainty in change and the path that gets us to disengage from an existing bondage is often hard. The Israelites, too, were stuck in a punishing situation and their reaction suggests that they would rather have lived with the status quo than go through the unsettling days that will eventually move them out of it.

To rewind the story, we concluded the early chapters of Exodus with Moses’ return to Egypt, when he and his brother Aaron told Israel God’s message and performed the signs to convince them (Exod 4:28-30). The response was promising: the people believed and worshipped (Exod 4:31). Yet, in the next chapter things go steadily downhill. The elders were supposed to accompany Moses and Aaron (Exod 3:18), but perhaps they got cold feet and they fail to turn up. Worse is to follow. Pharaoh’s response to the Israelites’ request to worship their God, is a contemptuous question (‘Who is the LORD?’) and a refusal to acknowledge Him (Exod 5:2). This is a battle between Yahweh, Israel’s God, and Pharaoh, son of the sun god. The question is, who is more powerful and the true God?

Pharaoh is in fact flexing his muscles to show who is boss and increases the Israelites’ workload in order to divert their thoughts from any change (Exod 5:7-9). Straw was necessary in brickmaking to make the clay malleable and stop it shrinking as it dried out. Now the people needed to cut and collect this ingredient themselves and had to make do with the hard stubble left after the harvest (Exod 5:12). If our days are filled with busy-ness and back-breaking work, we have no time or energy to think of making changes and living a different life. Our passage repeats over and over again that the Israelites are not going to be given any straw: first, Pharaoh instructs his taskmasters (Exod 5:7-8), who in turn tell the people (Exod 5:11-13), then the foremen complain in a petition to Pharaoh (Exod 5:16) and Pharaoh in his response confirms his decision (Exod 5:18). At every turn, Scripture drives home the point that the people were under savage enslavement enduring unfair accusations (Exod 5:17), an increased workload, and beatings (Exod 5:14).

Given such harsh service, it is all the more striking that the Israelite foremen ultimately lay the blame not on Pharaoh, but on Moses (Exod 5:21). It is easier to attack the person who upsets the status quo, then to go through the changes needed to live a new life. The challenge of the exodus is: will Israel serve Pharaoh or God? Although the foremen resent the burden added to their lot by the Egyptians, their identity is firmly locked in place. They are Pharaoh’s servants (note the threefold repetition in Exod 5:15-16).

When we look at our own lives, we may see similar patterns. We may be God’s people, but our lives can become enslaved to sinful habits, or simply show an absence of serving God. When we try to make time and space for the worship of God, Satan might crack the whip. Our lives become busy, the projects we are working on difficult, so that we have no time to fit God into it or even reflect on our spiritual condition. For many around the world, these weeks of lockdown may have brought frantic activity trying to keep children at bay while simultaneously getting work done. For others, time might have slowed down and brought the opportunity of questions. Regardless, the issue for all of us is ‘Whom will we serve?’ and will we make the necessary changes to serve the living God? If we do serve the Lord, perhaps we know others we love who drifted away from Him and need our prayers. May we take encouragement from the fact that, as in the story of the exodus, God is at work and can enable us and those we pray for to become fully His servants.