Day 5: Exodus 1:1-Exodus 15:18 - 90 Day Challenge

Let's Dive into Exodus!

The journey of Moses, the ten plagues of Egypt, and the beginning of the Israelite Exodus from Egypt to the Promised Land.

(This is a longer post, but a lot of it is summary, don't worry!)
  1. Several generations had passed since the time of Joseph and his brothers and the Egyptians had now made the Israelites (That is, the descendants of Jacob a.k.a. Israel) perform slave labor for the country of Egypt with harsh punishment. The king of Egypt had every baby boy who was born to the Israelites killed. 
  2. A woman had a baby boy, laid him in a basket, and put the basket in the river. The Pharaoh's daughter found the baby and adopted him. She named him Moses. When Moses grew up, he went out to the Israelites and saw the hard labor they were doing. When he came across an Egyptian beating a Hebrew (Israelite) he killed the Egyptian. The Pharaoh found out about this and tried to have Moses killed, but Moses fled and married one of the daughters in the home that he stayed in. 
  3. God sent a sign to Moses: a bush on fire that did not burn up. God told Moses that he would lead the Israelites out of Egypt.When Moses asked "Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" God responded by saying "I will be with you" (Exodus 3:11-12)
  4. The Lord gave Moses three signs, to show the Egyptians that he was chosen by God to bring the Israelites out of Egypt. The first was his staff, when thrown on the ground, became a snake. When pick up, it became a staff again. The second was when Moses stuck his hand in his cloak, it became like snow, but when he put it back in his cloak and withdrew it again, it was back to normal. The third sign was that the water from the Nile river, when poured on dry ground by Moses, would become blood. 
  5. When Moses returns to Egypt to speak to the Pharaoh to let the Israelites go, but the Pharaoh accuses them of trying to take the Israelites away from their work. So the Pharaoh commands the Israelites to continue making the same amount of bricks, but no longer provides the straw needed to make them. When Moses reported God's message to the Israelites--that He will deliver them from the Egyptians--they did not believe him because they were so discouraged. 
  6. When Moses went to the Pharaoh to show him the first sign of God (staff becomes snake), the Pharaoh had some Egyptian magicians try to replicate it, and they were able to. So the Pharaoh did not believe Moses. Then Moses showed the Egyptians how he was able to turn all the water in the Nile into blood, and the Egyptian magicians were able to do the same. The Pharaoh still did not fear God. This was the first plague--the plague of blood. 
  7. God sends a plague of frogs, a plague of gnats, and a plague of flies to Egypt, where they swarm and take over their land. He then sends a plague of livestock (where all the livestock died) on the Egyptians, a plague of boils, a plague of hail (mind you, this is Egypt. Hail would be pretty unusual), a plague of locusts, and a plague of darkness. All of these plagues struck the Egyptians, but none of them touched the Israelites. Still, the Pharaoh does not let the Israelites go. 
  8. The final plague that was sent was the plague of the firstborn. The firstborn child of everyone would die. The first born of every live stock would die. Moses warned the Pharaoh, but the Pharaoh did not listen. The Lord commanded that the Israelites observed the Passover so they would be "passed over" when this plague struck. The specific rituals of the Passover are detailed in Exodus 12:1-20. Passover is still observed and celebrated by many Jewish people. Then, God struck down every firstborn in Egypt. Following the final plague, the Pharaoh commanded the Israelites to leave Egypt. 
  9. God led them on a journey to the promised land, but the Egyptians had changed their mind about the Israelites. The Egyptians began to pursue them. The Lord blessed Moses, and parted the Red Sea for the Israelites--he caused a strong wind to split the sea and allow safe passage for the Israelites. Once they had crossed the sea, God sealed the sea back up, trapping the Egyptians who were pursuing the Israelites back into it. 
  10. Our reading ends with the Song of Moses and Miriam. Even so early in the Old Testament, we are shown the importance of Praise and Worship. Throughout the Bible, there are constant references to rejoicing in the Lord's blessings through song. In fact, the longest book in the Bible is Psalms, which is entirely poetry and songs glorifying the name of God. (I think you all will find that chapter interesting and inspiring!)

And so, we've begun our journey with Moses as he leads the Israelites to the promised land. We've discovered the reason for the name of the book "Exodus!" (An Exodus refers to a mass departure of people). 
Again, we have seen the Lord provide. 
We have seen him provide Moses with life, though he was destined to be killed. We saw God provide Moses with a public relations representative (so to speak) with his brother Aaron (if you missed this, Moses said he would be unable to articulate God's words--so God sent Aaron, Moses's brother, to act as a prophet and speak to the Pharaohs and Israelites for him, a sort of spokesperson. Exodus 4:10-17). We saw the Lord provide the catalyst necessary for the Israelites to leave Egypt. He also provided them safety in escaping, by blessing Moses and allowing him to guide the Israelites safely through a sea. 

Exodus 14:14 says: The Lord will fight for you, you need only to be still.

It is easy to become overwhelmed. Moses certainly would know. He had the fate of an entire nation weighing on his shoulders. He had to confront the King of the land that was oppressing his people. Anyone would have been overwhelmed! But if we just let the Lord take over our lives, and we allow his love to seep into our souls, there is nothing that will be to big for us to overcome, and nothing to hard to make it through. 

This is the last weekday post of our first week!!!
The weekend posts will be much shorter, and will not include summaries. I'd like the weekend blogs to be more of a "what I got out of this," "these are my thoughts," "these are my questions," and "this is how I think it can be applied to our lives" sort of post. Let me know how you feel about it! And you are all encouraged to provide you own interpretations, thoughts, and opinions *but these are encouraged every day!

Tomorrow's reading will be: Exodus 15:19-Exodus 28:43.
Have a wonderful and blessed weekend!
Jill Jafarace
Director of Youth Ministry
New Leaf UMC

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