Book Of Exodus

Words: 1589
Pages: 7

The average reader would be hard pressed to think of an example of when God directly addresses His people, the Israelites. He usually uses an intermediary such as a prophet to speak through or manipulates the natural world to convey His message if He desires to reach many people. Explanations for this method range from God being so great that He is above most petty human beings so that directly speaking to them may unfairly give them the impression that they are worthy of His presence to skeptics claiming that it is merely the uneducated or disingenuous declaring the natural to be divine to either understand the world or capitalize on the piety of believers. However, both sides could come to the consensus that in the Bible, God, the deity or …show more content…
Many generations have passed since the end of Genesis, and the new Pharaoh “did not know Joseph,” as in he was likely ignorant of the mutualistic symbiotic relationship between Joseph and the Egyptians presented in the previous book (Exodus 1:8). This new Pharaoh proved himself to be quite a xenophobe when he ordered the Hebrews to be placed into slavery to quell the perceived threat they posed to Egyptian rule. This eventually led to his mandate of all Hebrew sons to be cast into the Nile River. It was then that the prophet Moses was born. As a Hebrew child, he was hid and eventually placed in the Nile in a basket where he was found by the daughter of the Pharaoh. Moses continued to live as her child until he made the conscious decision to murder an Egyptian citizen. After intervening in a quarrel amongst two Hebrews, Moses learned he was not the stealthy killer he thought he was and fled to Midian to escape the warrant for Moses’ death that the Pharaoh had issued. While in Midian, Moses was welcomed into the house of a priest named Jethro and was given the priest’s daughter Zipporah, who gives birth to Moses’ first son. It was during these times that the Pharaoh had died. For some unexplained reason, the Hebrews as a whole decided this would be the best time to finally sigh and groan about their bondage. Now that His people had complained loud …show more content…
The burning bush makes the first explicit example of God manipulating the natural world to push forward his agenda in the book of Exodus. While Moses was tending to Jethro’s flock, God set a bush ablaze and showed himself to Moses in the form of an angel. Many times when God presents a form of Himself to humans they are unaware of the divine presence, and this occurrence is no different. At first, Moses merely thought the burning bush was rather peculiar. Now why did God choose to invoke his divine power through a shrub? Shrubs are one of the least useful types of plants to humans, and they have no connection or metaphorical relationship to God sans this one event. So if the bush itself has no reason to be chosen, perhaps its location is significant. As it is situated either upon or near “Horeb, the mountain of God,” this is likely the reason it was chosen. Because if God had chosen any other location, while He may have had His message reach its target sooner and consequently garner a more immediate conclusion, God would not appear as great or mystical. God only presents Himself in prime