Therefore say unto the children of Israel, I am Jehovah, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from their service, and I will redeem you with a stretched-out arm, and with great judgments.
Slavery has worn Israel down, and Moses' first approach to Pharaoh only made the work harder. God's answer does not start with the people's condition but with His own name. From that name comes a chain of promises: He will bring them out, free them, and redeem them.
God gives His name before He gives His promises. One writer explains what that name says about the God who takes it.
"JEHOVAH" is the title He takes as the Deliverer of His people. He takes it on the ground of His covenant of pure and sovereign grace. He shows Himself as the great self-existing Source of redeeming love. He sets up His purposes, keeps His promises, and rescues His chosen people from every enemy and every evil. Israel's privilege was to stay always under the safe cover of that meaningful title. It is a title that shows God acting for His own glory, taking up His oppressed people to display that glory in them.
The promise does not stop with this verse. It runs to the end of verse 8, and one writer counts what God pledges there.
Note the seven "I wills." Seven in Scripture is always the number of spiritual completeness... It begins with, "I am the LORD," and it closes with, "I am the LORD." His "I will" never fails, and faith always rests on God's Word. I recommend you take God's seven "I wills" to your heart. I can hear you saying, "I have had a good many doubts." You will never have any more if you hold on to those "I wills." God will not fail His word. He always carries out His purpose. Your redemption and mine does not depend upon what we are, it depends upon God.
Every promise here is something God will do. The verse asks nothing of Israel in return.
God knew all about us — He knew the very worst of us, when He showed His love to us in the gift of His Son. He knew what we needed, and He provided it. He knew what was due, and He paid it. He knew what had to be done, and He did it. His own requirements had to be met, and He met them. It is all His own work. So He says to Israel: "I will bring you out." "I will bring you in." "I will take you to me." "I will give you the land." "I am Jehovah." It was all what He could do, and it rested on what He was.
The word "redeem" in this verse is not limited to pardon. It describes God breaking a power that held His people.
By redemption I do not mean here the forgiveness of sins by blood. I mean the word as used for God's power at work in freeing Israel from Egypt. That involves the blood-shedding and the forgiveness, but went much further. It was the carrying out of the statement to Moses (Ex. 6:6-7), when God's judgment destroyed Pharaoh's power and title, as it destroyed Satan's for us.
God's outstretched arm works for Israel and against Egypt. But Israel had sinned too. One writer explains what made it right for a holy God to take their side.
God is holy, so He had to be against His people while they were sinners in Egypt. Now, because of the blood of the lamb, He could be for them without going against anything He is. And the blood of the lamb, under which they sheltered, was the only ground of all His later acting for them.
Nine chapters later, Israel sings at the Red Sea. One writer traces that song straight back to this promise.
Jehovah, in the character of Redeemer, had now displayed Himself. What He promised Israel in Exodus 6:6 had come about. On the first morning of their deliverance His redeemed people announced it: "You have led in your steadfast love the people whom you have redeemed" (15:13). What redemption was — redemption by power — they now understood, and began to enjoy it. God had worked in Egypt for them. He had sheltered them there from His judgment. He had redeemed them with an outstretched arm at the Red Sea.
- Name first. "I am the LORD" opens and closes the promise. That is the title God takes as Deliverer, so the guarantee rests on who He is, not on who Israel was.
- Seven pledges. Verses 6 to 8 hold seven "I wills" — a complete chain. Out of the burdens, out of the slavery, redeemed, taken as His people, given a God, brought in, given the land.
- All His work. The verse asks nothing of the slaves. What was due, He paid; what needed doing, He did.
- Redemption is power. "Redeem" here means more than forgiveness. It means God breaking the power that held His people captive.
- Sung, not just said. God promised in Egypt; Israel sang at the Red Sea. There the rescued people understood redemption and began to enjoy it.
And I will take you to me for a people, and will be your God; and ye shall know that I, Jehovah your God, am he who bringeth you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.
Israel is still under Egyptian slavery, and God answers with a chain of promises. This verse sits at the heart of it: rescue is not the goal — belonging to God is.
The verse is not a stray promise. It is part of a sequence, held together at both ends by God's own name.
Linked with His name "Jehovah," He makes three statements about what He has done: "I have also established My covenant"; "I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel"; "I have remembered My covenant" (vv. 3-5). Then come seven "I wills." Because He is Jehovah, He says, "I will bring you out"; "I will rescue you"; "I will redeem you"; "I will take you to Me"; "I will be to you a God"; "I will bring you in"; "I will give it (the land) to you" (vv. 6-8). He concludes as He had begun, "I am the Lord."
Earlier God had promised to bring them out and bring them in. This verse adds something more.
Jehovah told Moses that He would bring Israel out of Egypt (Exodus 3:8) and bring them into the land of Canaan. He was not just releasing them. He had a definite purpose and place in view for the redeemed nation. Chapter 6:7 adds to this, "I will take you to be my people." That goes beyond the earlier promise, which meant only a move from one place to another. It announces that they were to be Jehovah's own portion and people. No earthly blessing could be higher. For us it is in still higher measure as predestined "for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ" (Eph. 1:5), and "All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself" (2 Cor. 5:18).
Israel brought nothing to this rescue. The reason for it lies entirely in God.
All this speaks the purest, freest, richest grace. Jehovah presents Himself to the hearts of His people as the One who would act in them, for them, and with them, to display His own glory. They were ruined and helpless, yet He had come down to show His glory, to display His grace, and to give a sample of His power in their full deliverance. His glory and their salvation could not be separated.
The verse ties knowing God to one act: He brought them out of Egypt.
Long ago, God asked the Jews to know Him as God on this very ground. He claimed their worship as the one and only God, because He had shown Himself to be their Redeemer. "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me." In this action He had made Himself known as God, full of grace and power for captive sinners; and if we do not know Him like this, we do not truly know Him. Any thought about God that clashes with this is only a darkened creature busy with its own idolatry. The true God is the One who reveals Himself in redeeming grace and power. And here is a blessed truth: to know God is to know myself a sinner saved by grace.
Belonging to God carries a consequence. Israel's later history shows how seriously He held them to it.
You see separation clearly in the call of Israel out from among the nations of the earth to be "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation" (Ex. 19:6). And when this people failed to stay separate from evil in the wilderness, God judged them twice in the clearest way… So, when they worshipped the golden calf, God removed His dwelling place from their midst to the tent pitched by Moses outside the camp (Ex. 33:7-10). How solemn it is to see God withdrawing His presence from the defiled camp of Israel, and that because they were His people, and He could not approve what they were willing to allow.
The promise runs straight from Egypt to Canaan. One stage of the journey never appears in it.
That was God's purpose, that was what He had come down for… That is out of Egypt into the land of Canaan, and no thought of the wilderness. He tells them He is going to do as He had said.
- Out — the seven "I wills" begin and end with "I am the LORD." The promise rests on who God is, not on what slaves could bring.
- His — leaving Egypt was only the start. "I will take you to be my people" makes them God's own portion. For believers now the place is higher still.
- Free — He acted while they were ruined and helpless. His glory and their salvation stand or fall together.
- Known — God asks His people to know Him as the One who brought them out. To know Him truly is to know Him as Redeemer — and to know yourself as a sinner saved by grace.
- Kept — a people taken to God is a people set apart, and He will not endorse in them what He has redeemed them from.