Exodus 5:10-23
“And the taskmasters of the people went out, and their officers, and they spake to the people, saying, Thus saith Pharaoh, I will not give you straw. Go ye, get you straw where ye can find it: yet not ought of your work shall be diminished... And the officers of the children of Israel, which Pharaoh’s taskmasters had set over them, were beaten, and demanded, Wherefore have ye not fulfilled your task in making brick both yesterday and today, as heretofore? And (they) did see that they were in evil case, after it was said, Ye shall not minish ought from your bricks of your daily task.”
The people of Israel, now in bitter disappointment, found the oppressor—rather than yielding—increasing in hatred and ruthlessness. Tally dismayed at this harsh turn of things, in their anger they charged Moses and Aaron with being the occasion of increasing the pressure of their slavery. “And they said unto them, The LORD look upon you, and judge; because ye have made our savor to be abhorred in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of his servants, to put a sword in their hand to slay us.” vv. 20,21.
Trying as was Pharaoh’s defiant refusal, it was a much sorer trial to Moses when his own people, whom he loved and befriended, accused him of being the cause of their dilemma. Cast down by their reproaches, Moses bows before the blast. Doubt even springs up within his heart, yet in this trying circumstance he turns to the Lord, saying, “Lord, wherefore hast Thou so evil entreated this people? Why is it that Thou hast sent me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Thy name, he hath done evil to this people; neither hast Thou delivered Thy people at all.” 10:22,23. Thus Moses shared in the disappointment and impatience of the people. He had not yet learned to walk by faith and not by sight, to rest in the Lord and to wait patiently for Him. He had forgotten the word of the Lord to him at Horeb, “I am sure that the king of Egypt will not let you go... And I will stretch out My hand, and smite Egypt with all My wonders... after that he will let you go.”
Yet even his failure arose from sympathy with his oppressed people, for he had identified himself with their condition. Pharaoh was but the tool of Satan employed against God and His people. Aware that God was about to take up the cause of Israel, he employed every means to defeat His purposes. Thus it was really Satan that worked in Pharaoh to turn him with such vengeance against an already abused people. Yet God permitted this increased resistance. Through it the people’s faith would be more profitably exercised; they would more fully see the evil character of Egypt and its people among whom they had settled in some comfort, and thus they would desire more sincerely to be delivered from it. God had taught both Moses and the people the character of their oppressor, and the nature of their yoke. He had produced in them a conviction of the hopelessness of their condition, and this is God’s way of salvation to souls now. He waits until men know that they are guilty and undone, and then as soon as they are willing to acknowledge themselves lost, then He stands before them as the Saviour of sinners.
The greater the efforts of the enemy to resist God, the more His power and authority would be displayed when, in His own time, ultimate deliverance would take place.
ML 09/15/1968