After a long time, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned and cried out under their burden of slavery, and their cry for deliverance from bondage ascended to God. After a long timeThis phrase indicates a significant passage of time, suggesting a period of waiting and enduring hardship. In Hebrew, the word for "long time" is "רַבִּים" (rabbim), which can imply a multitude or abundance, often used to describe a prolonged period. This sets the stage for God's timing, which often requires patience and faith from His people. The Israelites' endurance during this time reflects the perseverance required in the Christian walk, trusting in God's perfect timing. the king of Egypt died
The death of the Pharaoh marks a pivotal moment in the narrative. Historically, the death of a king could lead to political instability or change, offering a glimmer of hope for the oppressed. In the biblical context, this event signifies a potential shift in the Israelites' circumstances. Theologically, it reminds believers that earthly powers are temporary and subject to God's sovereign plan. and the Israelites groaned
The Hebrew word for "groaned" is "נָאַק" (na'aq), which conveys a deep, visceral expression of pain and suffering. This groaning is not just physical but also spiritual, reflecting the Israelites' desperate need for deliverance. It serves as a reminder that God hears the cries of His people, and their suffering does not go unnoticed. In a broader sense, it symbolizes the groaning of creation awaiting redemption, as mentioned in Romans 8:22. because of their bondage
The term "bondage" refers to the harsh slavery imposed on the Israelites by the Egyptians. The Hebrew word "עֲבֹדָה" (avodah) can mean labor or service, often used in the context of servitude. This bondage is a physical representation of spiritual enslavement to sin, from which Christ delivers believers. It highlights the need for divine intervention to break the chains of oppression. and cried out
The act of crying out signifies a turning point, where the Israelites actively seek God's intervention. The Hebrew "זָעַק" (za'aq) implies a loud, urgent plea for help. This cry is an act of faith, acknowledging their dependence on God. It encourages believers to bring their burdens to the Lord, trusting in His power to save and deliver. and their cry for deliverance from slavery
This phrase emphasizes the specific nature of their plea—deliverance from slavery. The Hebrew "שַׁוְעָה" (shav'ah) for "cry" is a call for help, while "מִן הָעֲבֹדָה" (min ha'avodah) specifies the desire to be freed from forced labor. It reflects the human longing for freedom and redemption, pointing to the ultimate deliverance found in Jesus Christ, who frees humanity from the bondage of sin. ascended to God
The imagery of their cry ascending to God suggests that their prayers reached the divine throne. The Hebrew "עָלָה" (alah) means to go up or ascend, indicating that God is attentive to the prayers of His people. This ascent signifies God's readiness to act on behalf of His children. It reassures believers that their prayers are heard and valued by God, who is compassionate and responsive to their needs. Persons / Places / Events 1. King of EgyptThe Pharaoh who had enslaved the Israelites. His death marks a significant turning point in the account. 2. IsraelitesThe descendants of Jacob, living in Egypt under harsh slavery, longing for deliverance. 3. EgyptThe land where the Israelites were enslaved, representing a place of oppression and suffering. 4. BondageThe state of slavery and oppression experienced by the Israelites, prompting their cries to God. 5. GodThe Almighty who hears the cries of His people and is about to act on their behalf. Teaching Points God Hears Our CriesJust as God heard the Israelites, He hears our cries today. We can be assured that our prayers and pleas do not go unnoticed by Him. The Timing of GodThe Israelites waited a long time for deliverance. God's timing is perfect, even when it seems delayed to us. Trust in His timing and plan. The Role of SufferingSuffering can lead us to a deeper dependence on God. The Israelites' bondage led them to cry out to God, which initiated their deliverance. Hope in OppressionEven in the darkest times, there is hope. The Israelites' situation seemed hopeless, yet God was preparing their deliverance. God's Faithfulness to His PromisesGod had promised deliverance to Abraham, and He was faithful to fulfill it. We can trust in God's promises to us today. Bible Study Questions 1. How does the death of the Pharaoh signify a change in the account for the Israelites, and what does this teach us about God's timing? 2. In what ways can we relate the Israelites' cries for help to our own experiences of calling out to God in times of distress? 3. How does understanding God's response to the Israelites' cries in Exodus 3:7-10 encourage us in our prayer life? 4. What can we learn from the Israelites' experience about maintaining hope and faith during prolonged periods of suffering? 5. How do the themes of bondage and deliverance in Exodus 2:23 connect to the New Testament understanding of spiritual freedom in Christ? Connections to Other Scriptures Genesis 15:13-14God's prophecy to Abraham about his descendants being enslaved and mistreated in a foreign land, which sets the stage for the events in Exodus. Exodus 3:7-10God's response to the cries of the Israelites, where He reveals His plan to deliver them through Moses. Psalm 34:17The assurance that God hears the cries of the righteous and delivers them from their troubles. James 5:4The cries of the oppressed reaching the ears of the Lord, emphasizing God's awareness and justice. Revelation 6:10The cries of the martyrs for justice, paralleling the Israelites' cries for deliverance. People Gershom, Isaac, Israelites, Jacob, Levi, Moses, Pharaoh, Reuel, ZipporahPlaces Egypt, Midian, Nile RiverTopics Ascended, Bondage, Course, Cried, Cry, Crying, Died, Dieth, During, Ears, Egypt, Grief, Groaned, Israelites, Pass, Period, Process, Reason, Rose, Service, Sigh, Sighed, Slavery, Sons, WeightDictionary of Bible Themes Exodus 2:23 5230 beggars
5246 captivity
5418 monotony
5562 suffering, innocent
5569 suffering, hardship
6701 peace, search for
8224 dependence
8610 prayer, asking God Exodus 2:23-24 5522 servants, work conditions
6688 mercy, demonstration of God's Exodus 2:23-25 5078 Abraham, significance
5196 voice
6160 fathers, sin of
8614 prayer, answers
8670 remembering Library The Ark among the Flags
'And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi. 2. And the woman conceived, and bare a son: and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months. 3. And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river's brink. 4. And his sister stood afar off, to wit what would be done to him. 5. And the daughter of Pharaoh came …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy ScriptureHome as a Stewardship.
"Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages."--EXODUS II., 9. "For look, how many souls in thy house be, With just as many souls God trusteth thee!" The Christian home is a stewardship. The parents are stewards of God. A steward is a servant of a particular kind, to whom the master commits a certain portion of his interest to be prosecuted in his name and by his authority, and according to his laws and regulations. The steward must act according to the will of his …
Samuel Philips—The Christian Home The Upbringing of Jewish Children
The tenderness of the bond which united Jewish parents to their children appears even in the multiplicity and pictorialness of the expressions by which the various stages of child-life are designated in the Hebrew. Besides such general words as "ben" and "bath"--"son" and "daughter"--we find no fewer than nine different terms, each depicting a fresh stage of life. The first of these simply designates the babe as the newly--"born"--the "jeled," or, in the feminine, "jaldah"--as in Exodus 2:3, 6, 8. …
Alfred Edersheim—Sketches of Jewish Social Life The Secret of Its Greatness
[Illustration: (drop cap G) The Great Pyramid] God always chooses the right kind of people to do His work. Not only so, He always gives to those whom He chooses just the sort of life which will best prepare them for the work He will one day call them to do. That is why God put it into the heart of Pharaoh's daughter to bring up Moses as her own son in the Egyptian palace. The most important part of Moses' training was that his heart should be right with God, and therefore he was allowed to remain …
Mildred Duff—The Bible in its Making Motives to Holy Mourning
Let me exhort Christians to holy mourning. I now persuade to such a mourning as will prepare the soul for blessedness. Oh that our hearts were spiritual limbecs, distilling the water of holy tears! Christ's doves weep. They that escape shall be like doves of the valleys, all of them mourning, every one for his iniquity' (Ezekiel 7:16). There are several divine motives to holy mourning: 1 Tears cannot be put to a better use. If you weep for outward losses, you lose your tears. It is like a shower …
Thomas Watson—The Beatitudes: An Exposition of Matthew 5:1-12 The Faith of Moses.
"By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months by his parents, because they saw he was a goodly child; and they were not afraid of the king's commandment. By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; choosing rather to be evil entreated with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; accounting the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt: for he looked unto the recompense of reward. By faith he forsook …
Thomas Charles Edwards—The Expositor's Bible: The Epistle to the Hebrews Jesus Sets Out from Judæa for Galilee.
Subdivision B. At Jacob's Well, and at Sychar. ^D John IV. 5-42. ^d 5 So he cometh to a city of Samaria, called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. 6 and Jacob's well was there. [Commentators long made the mistake of supposing that Shechem, now called Nablous, was the town here called Sychar. Sheckem lies a mile and a half west of Jacob's well, while the real Sychar, now called 'Askar, lies scarcely half a mile north of the well. It was a small town, loosely called …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel Consolations against Impatience in Sickness.
If in thy sickness by extremity of pain thou be driven to impatience, meditate-- 1. That thy sins have deserved the pains of hell; therefore thou mayest with greater patience endure these fatherly corrections. 2. That these are the scourges of thy heavenly Father, and the rod is in his hand. If thou didst suffer with reverence, being a child, the corrections of thy earthly parents, how much rather shouldst thou now subject thyself, being the child of God, to the chastisement of thy heavenly Father, …
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety Man's Misery by the Fall
Q-19: WHAT IS THE MISERY OF THAT ESTATE WHEREINTO MAN FELL? A: All mankind by their fall lost communion with God, are under his wrath and curse, and so made liable to all the miseries in this life, to death itself, and to the pains of hell for ever. 'And were by nature children of wrath.' Eph 2:2. Adam left an unhappy portion to his posterity, Sin and Misery. Having considered the first of these, original sin, we shall now advert to the misery of that state. In the first, we have seen mankind offending; …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity Genealogy According to Luke.
^C Luke III. 23-38. ^c 23 And Jesus himself [Luke has been speaking about John the Baptist, he now turns to speak of Jesus himself], when he began to teach, was about thirty years of age [the age when a Levite entered upon God's service--Num. iv. 46, 47], being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph, the son [this may mean that Jesus was grandson of Heli, or that Joseph was counted as a son of Heli because he was his son-in-law] of Heli, 24 the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Melchi, the …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel Adoption
'As many as received him to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.' John 1:12. Having spoken of the great points of faith and justification, we come next to adoption. The qualification of the persons is, As many as received him.' Receiving is put for believing, as is clear by the last words, to them that believe in his name.' The specification of the privilege is, to them gave he power to become the sons of God.' The Greek word for power, exousia, signifies …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity Appendix xii. The Baptism of Proselytes
ONLY those who have made study of it can have any idea how large, and sometimes bewildering, is the literature on the subject of Jewish Proselytes and their Baptism. Our present remarks will be confined to the Baptism of Proselytes. 1. Generally, as regards proselytes (Gerim) we have to distinguish between the Ger ha-Shaar (proselyte of the gate) and Ger Toshabh (sojourner,' settled among Israel), and again the Ger hatstsedeq (proselyte of righteousness) and Ger habberith (proselyte of the covenant). …
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah Appendix ii. Philo of Alexandria and Rabbinic Theology.
(Ad. vol. i. p. 42, note 4.) In comparing the allegorical Canons of Philo with those of Jewish traditionalism, we think first of all of the seven exegetical canons which are ascribed to Hillel. These bear chiefly the character of logical deductions, and as such were largely applied in the Halakhah. These seven canons were next expanded by R. Ishmael (in the first century) into thirteen, by the analysis of one of them (the 5th) into six, and the addition of this sound exegetical rule, that where two …
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah John the Baptist's Person and Preaching.
(in the Wilderness of Judæa, and on the Banks of the Jordan, Occupying Several Months, Probably a.d. 25 or 26.) ^A Matt. III. 1-12; ^B Mark I. 1-8; ^C Luke III. 1-18. ^b 1 The beginning of the gospel [John begins his Gospel from eternity, where the Word is found coexistent with God. Matthew begins with Jesus, the humanly generated son of Abraham and David, born in the days of Herod the king. Luke begins with the birth of John the Baptist, the Messiah's herald; and Mark begins with the ministry …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel Exodus
The book of Exodus--so named in the Greek version from the march of Israel out of Egypt--opens upon a scene of oppression very different from the prosperity and triumph in which Genesis had closed. Israel is being cruelly crushed by the new dynasty which has arisen in Egypt (i.) and the story of the book is the story of her redemption. Ultimately it is Israel's God that is her redeemer, but He operates largely by human means; and the first step is the preparation of a deliverer, Moses, whose parentage, …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament Links Exodus 2:23 NIVExodus 2:23 NLTExodus 2:23 ESVExodus 2:23 NASBExodus 2:23 KJV
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