Egypt
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“Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.” – 1 Corinthians 10:11–12
The greatest danger for Israel did not lie dead at the bottom of the Red Sea that day. Israel, now free from Egyptian whips and swords, sang their song of deliverance against the lesser foe: Pharaoh and his armies.
“I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously;
the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea.
The Lord is my strength and my song,
and he has become my salvation;
this is my God, and I will praise him,
my father’s God, and I will exalt him.
The Lord is a man of war;
the Lord is his name.
Pharaoh’s chariots and his host he cast into the sea,
and his chosen officers were sunk in the Red Sea.
the floods covered them;
they went down into the depths like a stone.” – Exodus 15:1–5
The Lord triumphed gloriously. He became Israel’s strength and song and salvation. The Lord went forth armed as the man of war; Yahweh is his name. Pharaoh’s chariots — great in power and might — sank to the bottom like a stone cast into the waters.
Yet for all of this deliverance, for all of this triumph, “with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness” (1 Corinthians 10:5). A greater threat to this people survived that day.
Living Enemy
The late Tim Keller commented that it is easier to take the man out of slavery than the slavery out of the man. It would be easier to get them out of Egypt than Egypt out of them. So it was. These liberated multitudes gathered on the shore to sing about God’s great redemption — but how quickly the lyrics changed. By the end of the same chapter and into the next, we read,
“The whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, and the people of Israel said to them, ‘Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.’” – Exodus 16:2–3
They complain because they do not have food. And instead of trusting their all-powerful and gracious God, they wish they had died back in Egypt — at least they had food there.
God’s firstborn son, the child for whom he smote the Egyptian nation, was also a grumbling, sexually immoral, idolatrous people. God liberated them from their physical bondage, but they still wore unseen shackles. He gave them a new situation; they needed new hearts. God had conquered their enemies, but he had not conquered them.
Heart of the Matter
The greatest danger for Israel did not lie dead at the bottom of the Red Sea that day. As they sang of enemies sinking as stone, their greatest enemy survived. It walking through the sea along with them: their polluted hearts. They loved the release more than the God who redeemed them. They would test God many times. That generation who walked out of Egypt as adults would proceed to fall in the wilderness under the displeasure of their God because of sin and unbelief growing from rotten hearts. Paul cites this people saved from Egypt — not to praise them but to warn us:
“Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.” – 1 Corinthians 10:11–12
God’s Greater Gift
Reader, it is one thing for God to free us from what ails us physically — to heal us, sustain us, strengthen us. He is worthy of praise for intervening and altering our unjust or severe circumstances. It is marvelous for him to hear our groaning and act on our behalf.
But the true miracle — denied to so many who experienced all of the rest firsthand — was the gift of new hearts that love God. “To this day the Lord has not given you a heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear,” Moses would declare to the people at the end of his ministry (Deuteronomy 29:4). Their great deliverance did not lead to great devotion; their great liberation did not lead to a great love to God.
Is it so with you? Have you eyes and ears and a heart not only to praise him for his deliverance from Egypt, but to sing for who he is — chiefly revealed in the Person and work of his Son, Jesus Christ? God saves out of Egypt to bring us to himself.
