Ex. 12:31-42
THE LORD had previously said: “Yet will I bring one plague more upon Pharaoh, and upon Egypt; afterward he will let you go... he shall surely thrust you out hence altogether.” This is exactly what now took place. With the cries of his people ringing in his ears, fearful of further disaster, Pharaoh did not wait for morning light but “called for Moses and Aaron by night, and said, Rise up, and get you forth from among my people, both ye and the children of Israel; and go, serve the LORD, as ye have said.” No longer seeking to withhold some of the company, as in the past, he desperately exclaimed: “Also take your flocks and your herds, as ye have said, and be gone.”
No doubt Moses had often thought back on the promise: “I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will reem you with a stretched out arm, and with great judgments.” Now he saw the event taking place before his eyes. God had manifested His power and authority, while Pharaoh’s stubborn resistance had only brought disaster upon himself and his people. Now he was compelled to humble himself. Formerly employing every means to keep the Israelites in the land, he now implored them to depart. Such are God’s wondrous ways for His people that He can change the purposes and acts of the world’s greatest powers at His will.
The people of Egypt, too, mourning their dead, exerted every effort to hasten the departure, lavishing upon the Israelites “jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment: and the LORD gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they lent unto them such things as they required: and they spoiled the Egyptians.” But this was only what the Egyptians had long owed the people of Israel whom they had treated as slaves. God saw to it that they recompensed His people for their service to the Egyptians.
God had providentially prepared the people for just such a departure. They had eaten their passover supper in haste, shoes were on their feet, their loins girded, and a staff in the hand of each, even as the word to leave was given. There were “about six hundred thousand on foot that were men, beside children. And a mixed multitude went up also with them; and flocks, and herds, even very much cattle.” vv. 37-38. It was an imposing number who forsook the land of Egypt. God alone could bring about the circumstances that thus brought their release after those several hundred years of dwelling there, and most of those years were in servitude and suffering. “And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, even the self-same day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt. It is a night to be much observed unto the LORD for bringing them out from the land of Egypt.”
Thus, too, was fulfilled the word of the Lord to Abraham, long bore the Israelites appeared on the scene: “Thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years; And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance.” Gen. 15:13. What God had promised He was able also to perform (Rom. 4:21).
ML-04/27/1969