And Jehovah said, I have seen assuredly the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and their cry have I heard on account of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows.
God speaks to Moses from the burning bush and tells him what He has noticed: a nation of slaves, their cry, and their pain. Two questions grow out of this one sentence: why did God wait so long, and what finally moved Him to act?
(The ESV reads "I know their sufferings." The quotes below use an older translation: "I know their sorrows.")
The decisive word in the verse is the small one: God calls these slaves His own. That claim, not their condition, decides the outcome.
These words reveal a great basic principle in the ways of God. It is on the ground of what He is that He always acts. "I AM" secures everything for "MY PEOPLE." He was never going to leave His people among the brick kilns of Egypt, under the whip of Pharaoh's taskmasters. They were His people, and He would act toward them in a way worthy of Himself. To be His people settled everything. They were the favoured objects of Jehovah's electing love, the subjects of His unconditional promise. He had come down to deliver them. The combined power of earth and hell could not hold them captive one hour beyond His appointed time.
That title starts here, and it becomes the demand God makes of Pharaoh.
The first time we read of God calling Israel "My people" was when He spoke to Moses from the burning bush (Exodus 3:7). Following this, the first demand to Pharaoh (Exodus 5:1) was "Let My people go."
The verse stacks three statements together. They answer years that looked like silence.
He declared three things. First, His attention to the cry of His people and His sympathetic concern for their sorrows. For a century or two it must have seemed as though He was indifferent. But it was not so. God is never in a hurry and He intervenes in His own time, which is the right time. The three statements in verse 7 are very touching: He had seen; He had heard; He knew their sorrows. So it always is with all His people, with us among the rest.
God says He heard their cry — but not that they cried to Him. Several writers press this distinction.
But He does not add that the cry was to Him. We may say then, as a prophet did later, that they groaned; but they did not groan to God. It was only a selfish sense of suffering. They groaned only because of their wretchedness; but there was no looking out to God — no counting on His mercy.
If the cry was not aimed at God, then the reason God moved has to lie somewhere else.
This lesson gives the soul great strength: God always finds His motive within Himself. It is on the ground of what He is, and not on the ground of what we are… There is not a word to show that the children of Israel had cried to the Lord. But their misery had touched His heart. He "knew their sorrows, and had come down to deliver them." So "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)
Knowing here is not distant information. It is love that goes into detail.
He began to show more than His grace in giving His promises to the seed, which faith could lay hold of. He showed His own considerate love in caring for the need and sorrows of His people… He took notice of every circumstance of their trouble and sorrow.
Darby reads the "I" of these words as God stepping out of His own glory into a place strange to Him.
Is not this "I" the Lord placing Himself as coming down into Egypt? He came out of all that was natural to Himself and His glory. He placed Himself in the middle of what was strange to Him, to deliver them. "I have seen, I have seen the affliction of my people, and I have come down to deliver them." He speaks as identifying Himself with His people.
Writers read Israel's slavery as a picture of a condition shared by everyone, and their rescue as a picture of salvation.
Read Exodus 2:23 and 3:1-10. There we see the condition of the people in cruel bondage and slavery. It is an exact picture of our condition under the cruel bondage of sin and Satan. Their cries and groans came up to God… Such is the condition by nature of every man, whether he knows it or not. And note, the source of their deliverance was not in themselves. The source of our salvation is the love of God. God is love. He came down to deliver.
- Seen — God watched the affliction through long years that looked like indifference. He acts in His own time, and that is the right time.
- Heard — the cry reached Him, though it was not addressed to Him. Their misery alone moved Him, not their merit.
- Known — He noticed every circumstance of their trouble, not the general fact of it.
- Owned — "My people" is the word that settles the outcome; God acts on the ground of what He is, not what they are.
- Come down — He identifies Himself with them and steps into Egypt to deliver. The same love later sent Christ for sinners.
And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good and spacious land, unto a land flowing with milk and honey, unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.
God speaks to Moses from the burning bush. He tells him what He has already decided to do: come down, rescue a nation of slaves, and settle them in a land where six other peoples live. The verse is short. Yet commentators find in it the whole shape of redemption — where God starts, why He acts, and where He means to finish.
Nothing in the verse suggests Israel asked for this. One writer asks where God's motive comes from, and shows how little the people contributed:
God always finds His motive within Himself. He acts on the ground of what He is, not on the ground of what we are. The occasion of His action was the condition of His people. "The LORD said, 'I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters; I know their sufferings'" (v. 7). What infinite tenderness! There is not a word to show that the children of Israel had cried to the Lord. They had sighed and cried because of their bondage, but it does not appear that their hearts had turned to the Lord. But their misery had touched His heart. He "knew their sorrows, and had come down to deliver them." So "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom. 5:8).
God does not rescue Israel and then leave them to themselves. One writer notices that God calls these slaves His own before He does anything to improve them:
Who but God would have spoken so openly of a poor set of slaves as "My people"? Others would have delivered and dressed them up first. It is the same God who, as a father, falls on the neck of the returning prodigal son in his rags and kisses him. That comes before the honours poured on him later. But whether we look at the picture or at the reality behind it, one thing is vital to grasp. Redemption is the work of God, present in some sense, and delivering — not only from the enemy, but for Himself.
The verse contains two promises, not one, and they organise everything that follows:
The eighth verse points out the two parts of Exodus. The Lord announced two things He would do for His people. 1. I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians. 2. And to bring them up out of that land to a good land flowing with milk and honey. Exodus has two great parts which match these two statements.
God gave Moses both halves of that errand, and he managed only the first. Another writer sees the verse pointing past Moses to Christ:
God sent Moses to lead them out, and to bring them in (Exodus 3:8, 10, 12). He failed, but Christ does both. Meanwhile, as High Priest, Christ has gone in to keep us now joined to our true place of blessing, and in all the value of the blood, as God values it, until He puts us into actual possession at His coming again.
Between Egypt and Canaan lie forty years — and they are not mentioned here. Several writers make much of that silence:
If you look at Exodus 3, you will see that the wilderness formed no part of God's purpose... In Exodus 6 you find the same, and in Exodus 15, where faith celebrates redemption, you have the same thing. "You have guided them by your strength to your holy abode." This leaps right over the wilderness. He did bring them through the wilderness, but it was no part of His purpose for them.
The destination is described by what it produces without being forced. That contrast with Egypt is the point:
Not a word is said of the wilderness, and its forty years of endurance and toil. His plan was to test them there, which He did. But His purpose was to bring them to the place where He could dwell, to a land that "drinks water by the rain from heaven, a land that the LORD your God cares for" (Deut. 11).
after_note: DELETE He would bring us into a place where His own heart can be satisfied, and where He may dwell with and enjoy His people. How different from the land of slavery where nothing is to be had for nothing, where no man gives!
The promised land already has occupants, and God names them. One writer reads the names as a picture of what stands between a believer and enjoying what God has given:
The names here, as everywhere, are certainly significant. They stand for the powers of evil that hold the ground and would keep us from enjoying the inheritance God has given us in Christ. The Hittite, "child of terror" — how spiritual dread makes cowards of us all! The Amorite, "the talker," rather than the doer of the Word. The Canaanite, "the trafficker," companion to the talker, who turns the very truth of God into merchandise... while the Jebusite, "the treader down," never rests until it treads every divine thing underfoot. All these must be cast out.
- Down — God moves first; the people's misery, not their prayers, is what draws Him down.
- For Himself — He comes not only to break Egypt's grip but to take a people as His own, in their rags.
- Out — the first promise is rescue from Egypt, and it fills the first half of the book.
- In — the second promise is a land, and it is the goal; the desert was where He tested them, never His purpose for them.
- Kept — God sent Moses to bring them out and bring them in; he failed at the second, but Christ does both.
And now behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come unto me; and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them.
God speaks to Moses from the burning bush and tells him what He has seen and heard in Egypt. Two things move Him: a cry that has come to Him, and an oppression He has watched. So why does He act now?
The verse says the cry came to God. It does not say the people sent it to Him. One writer notices what is missing:
The Lord then brings His care before Moses, saying, "I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings." But He does not add that their cry was to Him. We may say, as a prophet did later, that they groaned. But they did not groan to God. It was only a selfish sense of suffering. They groaned because of their misery. There was no looking out to God — no counting on His mercy.
The verse adds sight to hearing. God has watched the taskmasters at work, and He notices the details:
He began to show more than His grace in giving the promises to the seed, which faith could lay hold of. He also showed His own thoughtful love in caring for the need and sorrows of His people... He took notice of every circumstance of their trouble and sorrow.
The verse says nothing about repentance or reform in Israel. Their condition alone moves God to act:
Here the absolute, free, unconditional grace of the God of Abraham, and of Abraham's seed, shines out in all its own brightness. Nothing holds it back — not the "ifs" and "buts," and not the vows, resolutions, and conditions of man's legal spirit... He had not come down to check whether the people His promise covered deserved His salvation. It was enough for Him that they needed it. Their oppressed state, their sorrows, their tears, their sighs, their heavy bondage had all passed in review before Him. For, blessed be His name, He counts His people's sighs and puts their tears into His bottle.
Another writer carries the same point into the New Testament. God loved people who were not looking for Him:
There is not a word to show that the children of Israel had cried to the Lord. They had sighed and cried because of their bondage, but it does not appear that their hearts had turned to the Lord. But their misery had touched His heart. He "knew their sorrows, and had come down to deliver them." So "God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Rom. 5:8.)
The verse calls them the people of Israel — slaves making bricks for a foreign king. God owns them before He rescues them:
Who but God would have spoken so openly of a poor set of slaves as "My people"? Others would have delivered and dressed them up first. It is the same God who, as a father, falls on the neck of the returning prodigal son in his rags and kisses him. That comes before all the honours given to him later... redemption is the work of God, present in some form and delivering — not only from the enemy, but for Himself.
Once God calls them His own, both the outcome and its timing are settled:
"I AM" secures everything for "MY PEOPLE." He was never going to leave His people among the brick-kilns of Egypt, under the lash of Pharaoh's taskmasters... He had come down to deliver them. The combined power of earth and hell could not keep them captive one hour beyond His appointed time.
God hears the cry, and then He sends a man. He comes down Himself, yet works through someone unfit for the job:
In verse 8 God says, "I have come down to deliver them…" Then in Exodus 3:10 He says, "Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring My people… out of Egypt." God in His sovereign wisdom had chosen a man whose later actions showed him to be weak and unfit. Yet God would be with His servant. He would give him such power and authority that everyone would see the excellence of the power belonged to God, and not to the instrument He had chosen.
- Cry — The groan was one of misery, not of faith; God heard a cry that was never sent to Him.
- Seen — He had watched every circumstance of the trouble, so nothing about their sorrow was news to Him.
- Grace — He did not come down to check their merit. Their need was enough, and He kept count of their tears.
- Owned — He calls slaves in rags "My people," and delivers them not only from the enemy but for Himself.
- Sent — The cry becomes a commission. God sends a weak man, so the power on show is His own.