These two chapters are, I suspect, often overlooked when we read the Exodus story, but a close reading of them is worthwhile, revealing stuff that is, to me anyway, worth a bit of reflection.

"Thus says the Lord..."

This section begins with Moses and Aaron boldy marching up to Pharaoh and, in the manner of the later major prophets declaring, "Thus says the Lord..."

Pharaoh is not intimidated by this apparent divine mandate, in fact Pharaoh is far from stupid here: quite possibly detecting a covert escape plan, he refuses.  Pharaoh is also an angry man who responds by making life harder for the Hebrews, now they must not only produce their daily quota of bricks, they must source the straw themselves... an impossible requirement, and so life gets even more unbearable.

"Thus says the Lord..." One of the phrases that is pretty much guaranteed to make a minister squirm, and/or be suspicious, is when a member of the congregation comes along and says "God has told me..." ?And usually what God has 'told' them is something we really don't like to hear!  But within the faith community, we can't simply disregard such claims as nonsense, as a minimum we must listen to what is said carefully, recognising that for the speaker, this is (usually) an honest belief... God has told me to leave this church, that you should should preach on such and such a book, that this church should undertake that work... Maybe they are right, but even so, we don't just capitulate, we test it first.

And of course there are, not in my church but in many others I have known, those who in the course of a church meeting will state a view, usually in such cases a strong opinion they hold contrary to the majority, and finish up by saying, "but of course we must seek the Lord in this..."  And there is no counter argument: of course we want to seek the Lord but this voice infers, perhaps rather strongly, that we are not so-doing.

I am always wary of bold assertions of divine manadate, far for open to 'I think that God might be saying...' or 'I wonder if...'

So much for the insider situations.  Here, Moses and Aaron are speaking, effectively to the secular powers... Can I imagine marching up to David Cameron or Nicola Sturgeon and announcing "God says you must do such-and-such..."?  No, of course I can't, it would be absurd.  I'm not pretending that twentyfirst century polictical leaders are similar to Pharaoh, even if sometimes their decisions may seem every bit as harsh or capricious, but I am recognising that there is a discontinuity of language, a different set of motivators and values, and that it is all too easy for religious people to sound like nutters!

I am very grateful for such organisations as the Joint Public Issues Team who speak for churches in the public arena, confident in their faith convictions, and informed in the ways of politics.  Perhaps Moses, having grown up in Pharaoh's court ought to have been better equipped to handle this mismatch than seems to have been the case?

You're making things worse...

When the Elders go to see Pharaoh and discover that he views them as 'lazy' their reaction is to be angry with Moses and Aaron - it was alright before you started stirring things up, now it's much worse.

Two things then happen.  Firstly, Moses takes his frustration to God... essentially, "you told me to do this and see what's happened already..."  In return, God reminds Moses of the Abramic Covenant which, it seems give Moses enough reassurance to speak again to the people.  However the people wouldn't listen "because of their broken spirit and their  cruel slavery".

The reminder of the Covenant, whether spoken by God or recalled by Moses, is an important principle, I feel.  One of the things that has stayed with me since my sense of call to ordained ministry is the advice of a friend along the lines of "when you aren't sure which way to go, go back to the last signpost".  Or, in other words, when it gets tough, remind yourself of the moments you were confident and/or remind yourself of the promises of God.  If nothing else strikes us from these two chapters, this is one worth holding onto - no matter what, God's Covenant promises remain true, this is something to cling to when all else seems uncertain.

The second thing is around the context... here is Moses who is newly arrived full of vim and vigour and wanting to change the world.  What he has managed to do is, it seems, make things worse.  And no matter how much he speaks of hope the people do not, perhaps cannot, hear him, because they are utterly dispirited.  Sometimes we find ourselves wondering why people don't stand up for themselves, don't take action, don't leave abusive relationships, don't do whatever it is... in these few words we are reminded that it is possible for the human spirit to be so brutally crushed that it is impossible to hear another voice.  This is salutory stuff, a reminder, were one needed, that we can't just boldly walk in and fix things - first we must gain the trust of those we would seek to liberate.

Genealogy...

It's oh so tempting to skip over these lists of names and ages and 'begats', but if we do, then we end up missing tiny nuggets of interest.

Here were have a partial genealogy of the descendents of Jacob, stopping when it reaches Moses and Aaron, and specifically locating them within the Levitical clan.

It's a curious list.  Firstly is Reuben, the eldest son of Jacob, whose four sons are named.  Then is Simeon and his five sons, with the note that the fifth was the son of a Canaanite woman - why, I wonder is this significant to include? 

Then begins a far more detailed genealogy of Levi who has three sons and lives to be 137... why we need to know this age, I have no idea.  The sons of these sons are now listed with a comment that the second son, Kohath, lived to be 133.  Amram, the first son of Kohath and who lived to be 137 married his aunt, named Jochabed and had two sons Moses and Aaron.  Aaron has a son called Eleazar who married the daughter of Putiel and they had a son called Phineas.

Then as abruptly as it began, the genealogy stops - the other nine tribes are not listed.   So why this partial genealogy?  Why these seemingly randon details about marriages and ages?

Two things I suspect, one is that the genealogy is an insertion - it doesn't neatly fit the flow of the text - and the other is that it establishes the credentials of Aaron and Moses within the priestly caste, which will later be important. (Though in fact for Moses this has already been done in the story of his birth, without naming his parents)

What it made me wonder is, when we tell the stories of our own faith communities, and when we listed the 'great and the good' who is it we include and exclude, and  why?  What is our purpose in naming Mrs Suchabody and not Mr Thingamajig?

Clumsy Connection or Reminder?

Immediately either side of the genealogy, we find almost identical paragraphs, which may well be a clue to some slightly clumsy editting of the text over time, or of the combining of two different strands (for those interested in the J E D P theories).

Immediately before it we have

Then the Lord spoke to Moses, ‘Go and tell Pharaoh king of Egypt to let the Israelites go out of his land.’ But Moses spoke to the Lord, ‘The Israelites have not listened to me; how then shall Pharaoh listen to me, poor speaker that I am?’ Thus the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, and gave them orders regarding the Israelites and Pharaoh king of Egypt, charging them to free the Israelites from the land of Egypt.

And immediately afterwards

It was this same Aaron and Moses to whom the Lord said, ‘Bring the Israelites out of the land of Egypt, company by company.’ It was they who spoke to Pharaoh king of Egypt to bring the Israelites out of Egypt, the same Moses and Aaron.

 On the day when the Lord spoke to Moses in the land of Egypt, he said to him, ‘I am the Lord; tell Pharaoh king of Egypt all that I am speaking to you.’ But Moses said in the Lord’s presence, ‘Since I am a poor speaker, why would Pharaoh listen to me?’

What midly amuses me here is that we are twice reminded by Moses that he is a poor speaker... whatever the origin of these verses, whichever oral traditions they arose within, it appears that Moses' lack of confidence in his speaking ability was well known.

Sometimes it does us good to be reminded that even thse 'Biblical greats' had their limitations, even those we admire were often conscious of their own short-comings.  God didn't miraculously transform Moses' speaking ability, but God never gave up on Moses because of it either.  To be reminded that the God who fully knows us (as per Jeremiah the other week) will call and employ us just as we are is, for me at least, greatly encouraging.