We are continuing our “Journey to the 10 (commandments)” as our ancestors of old went the first time. We see God’s “high hand” redeem our ancestors from the Egyptians once and for all. Then they continue for three more days until they reached Marah on the 24th of Aviv.
Category: Appointments With God
The people of Israel arrive at the edge of the Red Sea. They have walked day and night for 7 days to reach this point. As they set their eyes on the Red Sea in front of them, they see the Egyptians coming behind. God has one last “elohim” of Egypt to judge before he takes the Israelites away from Egypt for good.
After a temporary lack of faith, God guides them through the water and they walk in “martial array” to the other side. The Egyptians, blindly follow them in and God creates havoc and it is the Egyptians who start to panic just before the sea swallows them whole. They are never a threat to Israel again.
Passages discussed.: 1st Corinthians 11; Exodus 13; 1st Corinthians 5; Matt. 16:1-12; 2nd Tim. 2:18-21.
Today is the 15th day of the first month, also called Aviv in the Bible. We are continuing our “Journey To the 10” which is the retelling of the journey from Egypt to Sinai.
Hindsight can be a beautiful thing but sometimes hindsight blinds us rather than illuminates us. As the people of Israel are ready to leave Egypt for good, they have little idea of the epic journey has in store for them. As we read the story of Yeshua’s life in the New Testament, we have the same benefit and “curse” of hindsight as we read about the last few weeks of his life. We tend to be a little judgmental towards His favorite disciples because of they lacked a true understanding of Yeshua’s mission until after His death and resurrection. Today, ignore hindsight and discover some truths in these stories that hindsight otherwise obscures.
The exile of the Israelites in the land of Egypt comes to a climatic end with the 10th plague — the death of the firstborn — and the first Passover, or Pesakh in Hebrew.
One common smear against God in recent times is that He is “an absentee landlord” or “a blind watchmaker” Who may have set everything in motion but now doesn’t care or doesn’t get involved. Many then blame Him for the evil and suffering that goes on in the world, particularly to those who it appears to us don’t deserve it, such as a dying family member or a starving child. A common slight against the book of Esther is that it doesn’t directly mention the name of the LORD, as the other books of the Bible do. However, the clear totality of the account is that He is very much at work in making evil plans turn back upon themselves to bring the promise of a blessing for the whole world — Messiah — through Abraham’s descendants. This would happen, even when the promise seemed to have been abandoned along with the people of Israel in Persia.
Hallel Fellowship celebrated Purim with a fun take on the deadly serious account of the thwarted genocide of the Yehudim (Jews) living in exile in Persia in the fifth century B.C.E.