• Exodus
• Chapters
• Israel suffers in Egypt
• Moses is born in
• Egypt
• Moses flees to Midian (Saudi Arabia)

God speaks to Moses from the burning bush

Moses and Aaron are chosen to lead Israel out of Egypt and to perform miraculous signs

• Moses returns to Egypt
• Key Verses and Themes
• Chapter 2
• Abraham’s Covenant & Bondage of Israel:

Exod. 2:23-25

God remembers His covenant, and also, shows his righteousness towards afflicted, like we read in

• Gen 18:20-21

with Him hearing the outcry in Sodom & Gomorrah.

(Outcry of Sodom & Gom. also means a “cry” of debauchery, here cry means more for help)

• Chapter 3
• Burning Bush:
• Exod. 3:2

See the discussion questions for more.

• God of the living:

Exod. 3:6

God says He IS the God of the living, not WAS. See how Christ references this to put the Sadducees to shame in the NT references section.

• Abraham’s Covenant:

Exod. 3:6, 15-16

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are mentioned again! Why? Because God delivers on His promises, and Exodus is the beginning of His divine plan to do so.

• God’s name:
• Exod. 3:14

See the discussion questions for more on this “puzzling”name.

• Chapter 4
• Moses’s speech impediment:
• Exod. 4:10

Moses was a bad speaker; believed to have a stutter!

• Aaron chosen too:

Exod. 4:14-16

Aaron, Moses’s older brother, is chosen alongside Moses to lead the Israelites as a sort of “spokesperson” for Moses. Aaron’s role will grow as we progress.

• Pharaoh's “heart hardened”:

Exod. 4:21

A recurring phrase throughout Exodus, see the discussion questions to see what it means.

• Israel my Son/Firstborn:

Exod. 4:22

This idea of the Israelites being God’s firstborn is where we get the often misinterpreted phrase of the Jews as “God’s chosen people” See the NT references to see what it means.

References to the New Testament & our Church practices

• Bondage of Israel & Sin

John 8:31-36

Jews have been in bondage, to Egypt! So they lied when talking to Christ in this passage, but Christ ignores this to instead focus on our spiritual bondage, which is sin. See the discussion questions to see how parallels between our lives and the Hebrew’s lives in Egypt.

• Church practice

Exodus 3:5

The clergy takes off their shoes before entering the altar if they don’t have the shoes that have been consecrated specifically to be worn inside the altar, because the altar is a holy ground that has been consecrated!

• God of the living

Matthew 22:23-32

The Sadducees, a sect of the Pharisees (Jewish high priests) who denied the resurrection, tried to use Moses to stump Christ; He uses Moses to disprove their false doctrine! Since Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were physical dead at the time that God appeared to Moses in Exodus chapter 3, but God refers to Himself as currently being their God, it shows that they are alive, which we know is true in a spiritual sense, meaning their is a resurrection where the soul will once again have a body. Now we know that in Christ’s 2nd coming (and there are no others!) that this resurrection will not be to the bodies we have now, but to transformed ones, angel-like ones, as Christ states.

• God’s name

John 8:56-59 & Nicene Creed

Jesus says “I AM” because He is God! See the discussion questions for more on the name “I AM”.

• Israel my Son/Firstborn

Luke 8:11-12

The sons of the Kingdom are these Jews that rejected Christ as their Savior and Messiah. They are called sons because they are the “firstborn son”, see

Exod. 4:22!

Those from the east = the gentiles, like the centurion in

• Luke 8
• Discussion Questions

EXODUS 1

What happened to the Israelites after Joseph and the old Pharaoh died, and a new Pharaoh came into power?

The new Pharoah feared that the Israelites were growing as a population too much and that they could turn on them during a war, so the Egyptians made their lives hard with labor, and Pharoah said to kill all Israeli babies that were male as they were born.

• EXODUS 2

How was God okay with Moses murdering someone?

Some church fathers see this as allegorical, i.e. Moses killed the Egyptian means Moses killed his old, sinful self, which lived in the royal palaces of the Egyptians. etc.

Others say that this was before Moses was complete in virtue, remind us that this was a human act, not God’s, and that Moses did it out of defence of the oppressed and for justice.

Who was Moses’s wife?

It was Zipporah, the daughter of a pagan “priest” (not like our priests!) of Midian, so she was a foreigner, keep that in mind…

Based on what we read in John 8:31:36, how can we compare Christ, ourselves, sin, and the devil to Moses, the Israelites, slavery, and the Pharaoh?

*Since we know that Moses will eventually lead the Israelites OUT of Egypt (spoiler alert!), out of the hand of the Pharaoh.

St. Augustine

“We have been led out of Egypt where we were serving the devil as a pharaoh, where we were doing works of clay amid earthly desires, and we were laboring much in them. For Christ cried out to us, as if we were making bricks like the Israelites in

• Exod. 1:14

“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened.”,

• in

Matthew 11:28

.” This is why Jacob wanted to be buried outside of Egypt, and Joseph asked for his bones to be carried out of Egypt when the Israelites left

(remembering God’s promise to give them the land of Canaan)

, which they were as we will read later in Exodus. Egypt stands in for sorcery, paganism, evil, etc., and Israel, as we know, God’s promised land, which stands in for the Kingdom of Heaven. So Christ brought us out of that Egypt, and wants to lead us to His promised Kingdom… the question is will we follow Him and accept Him? Let’s keep reading in the next weeks to see how it went with Moses and the Israelites…

Why/How did the midwives get away with lying?

St. Augustine

“It is unclear whether God, in his mercy, pardoned the lie or judged that the lie itself deserved a reward. For the midwives did one thing by letting the infant boys live and another by lying to Pharaoh. In letting them live they performed a work of mercy; but they used that lie for their own ends, to keep Pharaoh from harming the infants. This act could be the occasion not for praise but for pardon”

EXODUS 3

Was an angel in the burning bush, or God? Because 3:2 says “angel”, but 3:4 and 3:6 says “God”

Whether angel or God is not too important, in that what was heard was “God’s voice”, so even if it is an angel, it is one that is speaking “as” God (giving His message). Now, we are inclined to believe it is God, because the burning bush represents the Virgin Mary and the conception of Christ in the flesh. How?

• Fire = God’s Holy spirit

— Remember Week 1, “God is a consuming fire”.

Hebrews 12:29.

• See also

Acts 2:3, Ex. 19:18, 2 Thessalonians 1:7-8, Matthew 3:11

, to see the relationship between God’s Spirit and fire.

• Bush = Mary

— Fire is enveloping bush, God’s holy spirit overshadowed Mary,

• Luke 1:35
• Bush unconsumed= Mary’s perpetual virginity

God speaking from bush = Jesus Christ, the Word of God in the womb

What is the meaning of God’s name in Exod. 3:14

The Catholic translation is a little easier, simply “I AM WHO AM”, or in Aramaic “I AM”, meaning God’s name is just to always exist. God is existence, He Himself is just simply at all times been existence itself, in fact outside of our realm of time. God is the cause of existence to all those to whom He has imparted existence from Himself. From this we also know God is unchangeable, and He was not created. That’s why the first sentence in the Nicene Creed we recite is “We believe in one God, the Father Almighty,

Maker of all things visible and invisible”.

Remember, Christ is God, so all these things apply to Him too! That’s why the Creed also says of Jesus “before all worlds and

• not made
• true God of true God
• , of one essence with His Father; by

Whose hands the worlds were established and all things were created”

, because He did create, as God!

That being said, no one can truly explain God’s name, because He is God! Remember from Week 1’s website video; if we could understand God with our 3 pound brains, He would not be worth worshipping. No one can explain God

always existing

because humans always think with a starting and ending point for things, there has to be a start and a finish, because we are bound (limited?) by time.

What “happened” to Moses in this chapter?

He was called by God, namely to lead the Israelites out of Egypt in accordance to God’s promise to Abraham and his descendants.

EXODUS 4

What happened as a result of Moses’s doubt about being able to lead the Israelites, particularly because of his speaking issues?

He angered God, because Moses lacked faith and trust in the Lord to strengthen and guide him for this position he was being given, but nonetheless, God has mercy on human weakness, so He appointed Moses’s older brother, Aaron, to lead alongside him, and to speak on Moses’s behalf. Still also, in

• Exod. 4:12

, God promises to help Moses deal with his worries, saying

“I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say”

. Remember too that the Lord Christ opened His mouth and said to the disciples

• , and re-assured them that

“the Holy Spirit will teach you at that time what you should say”

• in
• Luke 12:11-12
• . Elsewhere in the Psalms it says
• “Open your mouth and I shall fill it”

(Psalm 81:10).

So what do we learn!

2 things

Have faith in God! Moses, the most revered Old Testament figure, still doubted God a little bit. Review the Assurance of Guidance to see how we can have a stronger hope and faith!

• God will provide if we accept, because in

Psalm 81:11

, the verse right after, God says “But My people would not listen to Me; Israel would not submit to Me”. If we do accept, submit, pray, and hope, the good things we wish for, i.e, to overcomb evil desires, sin, sickness, hate, etc., within ourselves and amongst others, will be given by God to us! The Assurances of answered prayer and seeking what is important apply here as well. Keep in mind, Christ promised us (!!!)

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened”

Matthew 7:7-8

Why does God say He will “harden” Pharaoh's heart in Exod. 4:21, isn’t that taking away his free will?

This phrase will be repeated several times throughout Exodus, so what gives? It’s not that God first heartened Pharoah’s heart, but rather allowed Pharoah’s heart to remain hardened after Pharoah hardened it himself, by not letting the Israelites go after each plague.

Let’s imagine it like water. Excessive cold makes water freeze (harden) into ice, but if the heat of the sun hits it, it turns back into water. So too the love, mercy, empathy, etc. of men freezes because of the excessive coldness of their sins, and they become as hard as ice; however, when the warmth of God’s mercy comes upon them again, they are melted.

So God “heardened” Pharoah’s heart by respecting Pharoah’s decision to be cold and stubborn, and by taking away His grace in accordance with Pharoah’s will, He “hardened” his heart. Just like how people go to hell because God allows their free will actions to lead them there, instead of forcefully stopping them.

Why did God want to kill Moses in Exod. 4:24, and why did Zipporah throwing their son’s foreskin at his feet prevent that?

Mar Aprem explains that Moses, who had been separated from his wife from seeing God in the burnish bush on Mt. Horeb, until now, had not kept the sign of the covenant, which was circumcision, because his non-Israeli wife and her people, the Midianites, did not practice it.

The Lord appeared to Moses in anger because the Hebrews/Israelites had not stop circumcision in spite of the death of their children in Egypt, but Moses

did

, under less severe circumstances. Now whom should Moses have feared, God, who prescribed circumcision, or his wife, who had stood in the way of circumcision?

So when Moses’s wife saw he was about to be killed, she performed the circumcision, and basically said “Do not cause suffering on the day of the celebration of circumcision.” Because there was great joy on the day Abraham circumcised Isaac, and when he was weened, as we had read in

Gen 21:8.

She says “husband of blood” because circumcision was barbarous to the Midians and she was displeased she had to do it to spare their lives.

This Week's Study

If you did not have your binder, pencils/pens, & highlighters for this week, have them ready for Week 2!