By Kenneth O. Gangel
Now the people cried anew to Jehovah for help, and He heard them. Five times in Exodus 2:24-25 the text mentions God’s name or a pronoun referring to God. What a contrast between this section and the first part of our passage! There we find only Moses; now we see only God. Before, we saw the fleshly action of one man; now the God of the universe will take over.
Moses had no idea what it would take to get the people of Israel out of Egypt. The Exodus is one of the major miracles of Old Testament history. Six hundred thousand men besides children and “a mixed multitude” left Egypt at that time (Exod. 12:37-38). Liberal theologians and commentators have rejected this claim for many years. But if we believe the Bible, the total number of escapees would have been somewhere between two and three million people. Someone has estimated that two and a half million people marching in a column of fours would extend for three hundred and fifty miles!
Advertisement
Those who cannot accept the miraculous record of Scripture argue that the number represents a misplaced census from the time of David. They translate the word “thousand” as “clan” or offer the theory of accommodation and suggest that the Bible writer was anticipating what Israel might become someday rather than stating the literal figure at the time.
But with God all things are possible. And now He was ready to deliver two and a half million people out of Egypt, to feed them for forty years, and to bring them into the land He had promised to Abraham many decades earlier. And He would do this through the brash young prince who had started his ministry by killing an Egyptian and hiding the body in the sand.
As in the days of Moses, so today ministry that really glorifies God must function according to His plan and in His power. Someone has said that knowledge is no substitute for activity and activity is no substitute for spirituality. Christians who attempt to serve God by fleshly action may someday wake up to discover that they have been doing nothing more than hiding corpses in the sand.
___________________
Kenneth O. Gangel is Professor Emeritus of Dallas Theological Seminary and Scholar in Residence at Toccoa Falls College.