Free at Last in the Promised Land

Timothy Best

• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781638446910
• eBook ISBN: 9781638446927
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Free at Last in the Promised Land goes into detail as how and why Moses, a common person, and the people of Israel left the slavery of Egypt to enter the promised land. Moses, the leader of the people of Israel, with great sacrifice and with God's help, forced Egypt's Pharaoh to let the people of Israel go, which put them on their way to the promised land. On their way to the promised land, the people of Israel committed great sins against God, and they were punished for their behaviors. Moses also disobeyed God, which caused him and his brother Aaron to not be allowed to enter the promised land. Also, along the way to the promised land, Moses and the people of Israel fought with their own distant relatives, and they were able to defeat them with God's help and with God turning them into a great nation, as promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

There may be many who don't know that there were two partings during Moses's and the people of Israel's march to the promised land: God's parting of the Red Sea and Jordan River. There were also other major partings from the beginning—God separated the waters of heavens and of the earth. Elijah and Elisha were allowed to part the Jordan River with God's help. Free at Last in the Promised Land is an essential reading for anyone who wonders about the deepest parts of the journey of Moses and the people of Israel's march toward the promised land.

Exodus Chapter 1

These are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt with Jacob, each with his family: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah; Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin; Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher. The descendants of Jacob numbered seventy in all; Joseph was already in Egypt.

Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died, but Israelites were fruitful and multiplied greatly and became exceedingly numerous so that the land was filled with them.

Then a new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt, “Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become much too numerous for us. Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.”

So, they put slaves masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptian came to dread the Israelites and worked them ruthlessly. They made their lives bitter with hard labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their hard labor the Egyptians used them ruthlessly.

The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, “When you help the Hebrew women in childbirth and observe them on the delivery stool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it a girl, let her live.” The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live. Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?”

The midwives answered Pharaoh, “Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.”

So, God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.

Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people; “Every boy that is born you much throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.” (Exodus 1:1–22)

Exodus Chapter 2

Now a man of the house of Levi married a Levite woman, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.

Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her slave girl to get it. She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This is one of the Hebrew babies,” she said.

Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?”

“Yes, go” she answered. And the girl went and got the baby’s mother. Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you.” So the woman took the baby and nursed him. When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, “I drew him out of the water.” (Exodus 2:1–10)

Let’s take a closer look at Exodus chapters 1–19 as far as the Israelites, Moses, Pharaoh and his wife, and the march out of Egypt to Mount Sinai are concerned. These next chapters seem to be a fearful time for the Israelites now that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph’s generation had passed away, and Pharaoh made their fearfulness much worse. He and the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites simply because they were fruitful, and they multiplied greatly, and the land became filled with them. This Pharaoh was nothing like the pharaoh of Joseph’s time. This Pharaoh appears to be a very mean Pharaoh, who, apparently, was the first to order the Hebrew midwives to kill all of the baby boys, but let the girls live. What was on his mind?

When what appears to be the first time Pharaoh’s Order was not obeyed and when that wasn’t enough, he ordered his people to throw all of the Hebrews boys that were born into the Nile, but let the girls live. Imagine Adam (who could have saved the day), Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph witnessing his activities. Now Moses, a Levi, one of Jacob’s son’s relatives, was spared when he was found by Pharaoh’s daughter in a basket among the Nile’s reeds. He became similar to Joseph, having a major place in Pharaoh’s household until he decided to kill a man and was forced to flee from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian.

Abraham’s fourth son by wife, Keturah, was named Midian. And it was said that Jacob’s sons sold Joseph to the Midianites, who were also called Ishmaelites (Abraham’s son, Ishmael, by his maidservant Hagar). Midian was defeated by Esau, the father of the Edomites, and they ruled the land of Edom before the Israelites’ king reigned. Moses, in reality, ran to his distant relatives, and they took care of him, and the priest of Midian allowed him to marry his daughter Zipporah. Moses appears to have become a shepherd because he was tending the flocks of his father-in-law, the Priest of Midian, when the angel of God appeared appeared in the flames of the brush. What so powerful about God is that the bush didn’t burn up.

Moses was so amazed, he tried to walk on God’s holy ground with his sandals. Then God stopped Moses progress and Moses respected God when he turned in fear of looking at God. Moses was summoned by God to go back to Egypt to free his suffering people. Moses didn’t think that he was qualified because he was slow of speech and tongue. God burned with anger for his doubts about his ability to lead until God suggested that Moses’s brother, Aaron, will be his modern-day spokesman. Upon learning that all of the men who wanted to kill him had died, Moses returned to Egypt. Along with his wife and sons, his brother, Aaron, and he took his staff to perform miraculous signs with it. Moses didn’t appear to be rich or powerful with the likes of Esau, Jacob, or Joseph; he only needed God by his side.

There were quite a few great patriarchs in Genesis—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—but Exodus focused on Moses becoming the leader of the main great kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Similar to Jesus Christ became the Great God of the Great patriarchs of Genesis and true liberators of all races in the New Testament. Unlike Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob’s times and similar to Jesus Christ, Moses became primarily the Great Liberator of the Israelites from slavery. He did not simply walk into Egypt and liberated the Israelites, God had to perform some historical miraculous signs to stubborn Pharaoh to let the Israelites go. Sometimes, God would harden Pharaoh’s heart to prove his power over him, when Pharaoh appears to think that he was above God just because he was king. Even the King of kings, Jesus Christ, knew not to think that he was above God when he said that he was put on earth to do the will of God. Similar to Moses, who was going back to Egypt to do the will of God. Jesus came to the earth and fasted for forty days and forty nights, Similar to Moses’s forty days and forty nights of fasting on Mount Sinai and Elijah’s forty days and forty nights of fasting.

It appears that fasting like that brought them closer to doing the will of God. And the Bible is silent on whether Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and the other great people of Genesis ever fasted.

It appears that after the fast, neither Moses nor Jesus sinned. However, while Jesus was tempted by Satan, he never went the ways of Satan, but the people of Israel while Moses was on Mount Sinai went the ways of Satan. It appears that Jesus never disobeyed God’s command, while Moses disobeyed God’s command at the waters of Meribah, Moses struck the rock rather than speak to it.

Jesus came to the earth, and similar to Moses, witnessed God’s power and miraculous signs. Aaron witnessed God turning Moses staff into a snake, and Moses staff swallowed Pharaoh’s wise men, sorcerers, and Egyptian magicians’ Snake (when their staffs were turned into a snake). Jesus witnessed God’s healing the boy with an evil spirit and a blind man at Bethsaida. Moses witnessed God turning the water of the Nile River into the blood while Jesus witnessed God turning water into wine. Moses witnessed God striking Pharaoh and his people with plagues like never seen before—frogs, gnats, flies, locusts, hail storms, boils, darkness, and a plague on their livestock. Jesus witnessed God heal a man with leprosy, a paralytic, demon-possessed man, a woman bleeding for twelve years, and healed a deaf-mute man. Jesus witnessed miraculous signs, when God allowed Jesus to calm the storm, walk on water and feed five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fish. Jesus witnessed God’s miraculous signs by allowing him to feed five thousand people with seven loaves of bread and a few small fish. Jesus witnessed God’s miraculous signs when he transfigured him and allowed him to talk to Elijah and Moses on a high mountain. Jesus witnessed God’s miraculous Power when God allowed Jesus to bring back the dead girl and Lazarus to life.

Moses witnessed God’s miraculous power when he brought one more plague on Pharaoh and Egypt, which caused Pharaoh to let the people go. After Moses told Stubborn Pharaoh, God would strike down his firstborn and all firstborn sons in Egypt, firstborn of the slave girls, and firstborn of the cattle as well at midnight, he still refused to listen to Moses. On that day, it appears that this brought the first Passover, which continues to this modern-day Jewish tradition of roasting meat over a fire and cooking bread without yeast (which is much faster). The fast cooking was a signs that was how fast Mose...

Table of contents

• Exodus Chapter 1
• Exodus Chapter 2
• Exodus Chapter 20
• Exodus Chapters 20–40
• Leviticus Chapters 1–27
• Numbers Chapters 1–36
• Deuteronomy Chapters 1–3
• Deuteronomy Chapters 4–25
• Chapters 26–34