Exo 5:6-18 | KingComments | STEP | Pharaoh sends Moses and Aaron about their business, accusing them of avoiding their labors and of wanting to stop the people laboring. His reaction is that he makes the people work even harder. He even gives the command on “the same day” ( ). What the Israelites get first, straw, is now being withheld from them. They have to gather it themselves. Pharaoh asks the impossible. Satan works in the same way. He takes more and more. If he gives something, it is to take it back later and take much more. Every trace of charity is missing. Satan comes only “to steal and kill and destroy” ( ). He is “a murderer from the beginning” ( ). He finds the greatest pleasure in the misery of his slaves. Pharaoh calls what Moses and Aaron say “false words”. Here too we see how satan works. He always twists the truth of God, he reverses it. He “does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own [nature], for he is a liar and the father of lies” ( ).

‏ Exodus 5:6-18

Increase of Hard Labor

Pharaoh sends Moses and Aaron about their business, accusing them of avoiding their labors and of wanting to stop the people laboring. His reaction is that he makes the people work even harder. He even gives the command on “the same day” (Exo 5:6). What the Israelites get first, straw, is now being withheld from them. They have to gather it themselves. Pharaoh asks the impossible.

Satan works in the same way. He takes more and more. If he gives something, it is to take it back later and take much more. Every trace of charity is missing. Satan comes only “to steal and kill and destroy” (Jn 10:10a). He is “a murderer from the beginning” (Jn 8:44a). He finds the greatest pleasure in the misery of his slaves.

Pharaoh calls what Moses and Aaron say “false words”. Here too we see how satan works. He always twists the truth of God, he reverses it. He “does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own [nature], for he is a liar and the father of lies” (Jn 8:44b).

The Request for Relieve Rejected

In their distress, the Israelites cry out to Pharaoh, but he is not the right one to appeal to. They have to go to the LORD. They don’t think about that yet. They subserviently call themselves “your servants” to Pharaoh several times, but all attempts by the people to get relief from slavery, he answers with ruthless harshness. He makes unreasonable demands on them. He shows his true nature.

The people are beginning to understand how hopeless their situation is. A person must first come to the lowest point of his misery if he wants to experience the redemption God offers. A sinner is not really set free if he is redeemed by God at the first sigh for salvation. God wants to teach us what true salvation is, what His great power is, and how great salvation is. If Pharaoh had let them go straight away, they would have thanked him. Where then would be their honor of God?

It is with the people as with the man in Romans 7. There the experience is described of a man whose soul is awakened by the gospel. Then he discovers the power of sin within him and the impossibility of overcoming sin dwelling in him. The gospel, which first seemed (and is!) a happy message, seems to become a torment for him.

When he comes to the acknowledgment that his struggle against sin in him is a hopeless struggle, he exclaims: “Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free” (Rom 7:24)? Then he is where he should be, for immediately afterwards comes thanks: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Rom 7:25a). He is ready to believe the gospel in its fullness. Now he is free. Romans 8 describes the situation in which he has arrived (Rom 8:1-3 ; 10-14).

The people must first discover that they have no strength to work out their own deliverance. The same goes for the sinner, who has to learn that he is in the flesh and under the power of satan. God allows this to test the faith of His people and get them used to His way of doing things. He also allows it in order to give a glorious revelation of His power in the area where satan had established his authority.

The slavery of Israel in Egypt is an appropriate type of our slavery to sin (Rom 6:17; Tit 3:3). Being dominated by sin is fatally exhausting. No matter how we beg for relief, it does not come, rather desperation. In the gospel comes relief, deliverance, freedom. That was brought by the Lord Jesus. It is written of Him: “THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS UPON ME, BECAUSE HE ANOINTED ME TO PREACH THE GOSPEL TO THE POOR. HE HAS SENT ME TO PROCLAIM RELEASE TO THE CAPTIVES, AND RECOVERY OF SIGHT TO THE BLIND, TO SET FREE THOSE WHO ARE OPPRESSED, TO PROCLAIM THE FAVORABLE YEAR OF THE LORD”” (Lk 4:18-19).