Reflection for Shemot
“God of the Living”
Matthew 22:23-33, 41-46
Mark 12:18-27, 35-37
Luke 20:27-44
Acts 3:12-15; 5:27-32; 7:17-36; 22:12-16; 24:14-16
Hebrews 11:23-26
excerpted from TorahScope Apostolic Scriptures Reflections
This week, we begin the Book of Exodus with Shemot (Exodus 1:1-6:1), as the accounts of the life of Moses and the deliverance of the Ancient Israelites from Egypt, begin to unfold. For the remaining four books of the Torah, the forty-year journey, from the fertile fields of Goshen to the plains of Moab overlooking the Promised Land, is detailed. Naturally, this pivotal transition for the Israelites—from once being Egyptian slaves to later being ready to occupy Canaan—is something which is quite significant for one’s reading of the entire Bible, being referred back to throughout the Prophets, Writings, and Apostolic Scriptures.
One of the most all-incorporating passages, which appeals to much of what we are considering this week in Shemot, is the general overview of these historical events found in Stephen’s discourse in Acts 7. Some additional insights into the upbringing of Moses are added to the narrative, so that a more comprehensive understanding of Moses’ life can be understood. Stephen included various references to Moses’ education, his knowledge of his Hebrew heritage, and the thought that he was going to be the deliverer of Israel at forty years of age:
“But as the time of the promise came close which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt, until there arose a different king who didn’t know Joseph [Exodus 2:2]. The same took advantage of our race and mistreated our fathers, and forced them to abandon their babies, so that they wouldn’t stay alive. At that time Moses was born, and was exceedingly handsome to God. He was nourished three months in his father’s house. When he was abandoned, Pharaoh’s daughter took him up and reared him as her own son. Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. He was mighty in his words and works. But when he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel. Seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him and avenged him who was oppressed, striking the Egyptian. He supposed that his brothers understood that God, by his hand, was giving them deliverance; but they didn’t understand. The day following, he appeared to them as they fought, and urged them to be at peace again, saying, ‘Sirs, you are brothers. Why do you wrong one another?’ But he who did his neighbor wrong pushed him away, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday [Exodus 2:13-14]?’ Moses fled at this saying, and became a stranger in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons. When forty years were fulfilled, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in a flame of fire in a bush [Exodus 3:2-3]. When Moses saw it, he wondered at the sight. As he came close to see, the voice of the Lord came to him, ‘I am the God of your fathers: the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ Moses trembled and dared not look. The Lord said to him, ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you stand is holy ground. I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their groaning. I have come down to deliver them. Now come, I will send you into Egypt.’ This Moses whom they refused, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge [Exodus 3:4-10]?’—God has sent him as both a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush. This man led them out, having worked wonders and signs in Egypt, in the Sea of Suf, and in the wilderness for forty years” (Acts 7:17-36, WMB).
Additionally, the author of Hebrews described some of the important aspects of Moses’ life in Egypt. In Hebrews 11, a chapter dedicated to various champions of Biblical faith, Moses is portrayed as a Hebrew who was willing to endure the ill-treatment of the Egyptians—even though his upbringing had entitled him to great privileges as the adopted son of Pharaoh’s daughter. The author of Hebrews concluded that Moses looked forward to the future rewards from the eternal, unseen God, whom he came to know more closely throughout the course of his life:
“By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw that he was a beautiful child; and they were not afraid of the king’s commandment. By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to share ill treatment with God’s people than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a time, considering the reproach of the Messiah greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he looked to the reward. By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible” (Hebrews 11:23-27, WMB).
But perhaps beyond the references to Moses’ life made by Stephen, and the further amplification of Moses’ choices as supplied by the author of Hebrews, one of the most important aspects in Shemot—the scene of the burning bush—was specifically appealed to by Yeshua in the Synoptic Gospels (Mark 12:27; Matthew 22:32; Luke 20:38). Yeshua directly took on the mistaken views of the Sadducees, who categorically denied the resurrection (Mark 12:18):
“Yeshua answered them, ‘Isn’t this because you are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God? For when they will rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. But about the dead, that they are raised, haven’t you read in the book of Moses about the Bush, how God spoke to him, saying, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac [Exodus 4:6, 15, 16], and the God of Jacob”? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are therefore badly mistaken’” (Mark 12:24-27).
The Sadducees questioning Yeshua, were trying to trick Him in their inquiries about life and death. Yeshua responded, by stating that when the dead are resurrected, their new existence with reanimated bodies will be similar to the angels. Resurrected people will not have sexual relations, like normal living people in the current age. The appeal made to Moses’ encounter at the burning bush, was that the Lord is God of the living—as all people will rise in the resurrection (Daniel 12:2). Because all will be resurrected, once someone dies God does not stop paying attention, quite contrary to the Saddusaical view that death was the ultimate end of a human being (influenced by Greek Epicureanism).[1]
The fact that God is concerned with His people, is seen in the wider message of what He spoke to Moses at the burning bush. While people will be resurrected in the future age, God is concerned about them in the current age. He heard the cries of Ancient Israel in Egyptian bondage, and responded to them by providing deliverance:
“The LORD’s angel appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the middle of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. Moses said, ‘I will go now, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.’ When the LORD saw that he came over to see, God called to him out of the middle of the bush, and said, ‘Moses! Moses!’ He said, ‘Here I am.’ He said, ‘Don’t come close. Take off your sandals, for the place you are standing on is holy ground.’ Moreover he said, ‘I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God. The LORD said, ‘I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey; to the place of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite. Now, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to me. Moreover I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. Come now therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt’” (Exodus 3:2-10, WMB).
If the Holy One saw the affliction of His people and heard their cries, and has a record of responding—should we not continually beseech Him for deliverance and protection today, from the ails of the moment? If He is the God of the living, will He not respond to the pleas of the living? Without reservation, as Moses’ generation received, Yeshua confirmed, and the Apostolic Scriptures elaborate—and countless followers of the Messiah since have witnessed—the Lord comes to the rescue of the living. You too can be counted among the living!
NOTES
[1] Editor’s note: Be aware that the Greek source text in Mark 12:27 uses the present active participle zōntōn for “living.” This is a strong clue that deceased figures like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are presently “living” to some degree, in a conscious intermediate afterlife, albeit disembodied, prior to resurrection.
