David Bahn – Reflections

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These devotions are part of the Follow the Word Bible reading program at St. John Lutheran Church in Cypress, Texas. This year we are reading through the Scriptures together, listening for how God speaks through his Word day by day. I hope you will join me on this journey.

Today’s readings are Exodus 2-4; Psalm 44.

Exodus 2:1-10

Now a man from the house of Levi went and took as his wife a Levite woman. ² The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him three months. ³ When she could hide him no longer, she took for him a basket made of bulrushes and daubed it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds by the river bank. ⁴ And his sister stood at a distance to know what would be done to him. ⁵ Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her young women walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her servant woman, and she took it. ⁶ When she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the baby was crying. She took pity on him and said, “This is one of the Hebrews’ children.” ⁷ Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” ⁸ And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Go.” So the girl went and called the child’s mother. ⁹ And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child away and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed him. ¹⁰ When the child grew older, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses, “Because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.”

A Levite man marries a Levite woman, they have a child who is threatened because of the edict of Pharaoh to kill all the baby boys born to Israelite women. The boy child was born and placed into a basket, put into the reeds by the river, rescued by a Pharaoh’s daughter, and providentially given to his own mother to nurse and care for! He is given the name Moses.

Think of what we know of this Moses – beyond the vigilante murder of the Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew slave. Think of how quickly we learn of Moses’ marriage to Zipphora, their child, Gershom, and Moses’ encounter with God in the desert. God is going to send Moses back to Egypt, for he has “heard [the Israelites’] groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.” (Exodus 2:24-25)

I love that thought: God knew. He is not unaware of the suffering of his people. He is not unaware of our need for his rescue. He is not unaware of injustice, or the manner in which his promises sometimes hang by a thread in the winds of life’s storms. So he acts. He will send Moses to tell Pharaoh, “Let my people go!”

Our God has a name – I AM WHO I AM. His name is tied to redemption and salvation. His name is tied to sending, and his name is given to Jesus in the New Testament, “Lord.”

Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” ¹⁴ God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” ¹⁵ God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘The LORD (YHWH), the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations. 

There is a direct connection between God’s holy name YHWH and the sending of Moses. It is also implied by the mention that his name is to be remembered throughout all generations. So let’s use God’s name in prayer and praise, in witness and rescue, and in comfort and encouragement. Ours is not a generic god, ours is the Rescuer and Redeemer of Israel and of all who put their faith in him. His name is known and to be known. And so he sends us to make his name known, and to tell people of his great love and salvation.