भाष्य सध्या फक्त इंग्रजीत उपलब्ध आहे. मराठी भाषांतर प्रगतीपथावर आहे.
Exodus 5 — Who Is the Lord, That I Should Obey His Voice?
Moses and Aaron stand before Pharaoh demanding release for the people to hold a feast in the wilderness. Pharaoh refuses, calls them disturbers of work, and increases the burden — no more straw provided, same brick quota. The Hebrew foremen are beaten. They turn on Moses. Moses cries to the Lord.
“Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go.”
— Exodus 5:2
- v.1-5 Moses' demand; Pharaoh's defiance
- v.6-14 The increased burden — bricks without straw
- v.15-19 The foremen complain to Pharaoh
- v.20-23 The foremen turn on Moses; Moses cries to God
Pharaoh's response to God's demand is to multiply oppression. The man who says I know not the Lord responds to God's claim by making His people suffer more.
Notice the strategy. The enemy of God's people often increases the pressure after deliverance is promised. The pattern recurs in the believer's life — sometimes the worst attack comes after the first announcement of God's purpose.
The same quota with reduced resources. The classic pattern of Egyptian oppression — and of every system that wants to grind God's people into dust.
The Hebrews had to do double work for the same output. The text records the impossibility deliberately. God allowed the suffering to deepen because the deliverance He was about to bring needed to be impossible from any human perspective.
The foremen blame Moses. The deliverer is hated by the people he came to deliver. The first response to God's commissioned servant from those he is trying to save is often rejection.
Christ knew this pattern. He came unto his own, and his own received him not (John 1:11). Moses tasted it before Christ. So has every honest servant of God who proposed deliverance to a people too sunk in their bondage to want what would set them free.
Moses' first prayer after the first attempt at deliverance. Not victory — confusion. Why is it that thou hast sent me? The mission that began with the burning bush has produced apparent failure.
Honest prayer in disappointment is permitted. Moses does not pretend everything is fine. He asks God directly. The next chapter contains God's answer.
Neither hast thou delivered thy people at all. From Moses' perspective in chapter 5, the mission has failed. From God's perspective in chapter 6, it has barely begun.
There is a moment in every divine mission when the servant cannot see the next chapter. The end of Exodus 5 is one of those moments. The beginning of Exodus 6 contains the answer.
When the announcement of God's purpose for your life makes things worse before they get better, do not assume you have misheard Him. Pharaoh's response to Moses was to crush Israel harder. The plagues had not yet started. The Red Sea had not yet opened. The end of Exodus 5 is not the end of the story. Neither is yours.
Christ's first announcement at Nazareth was answered by His own town trying to throw Him off a cliff (Luke 4:29). His ministry began with rejection just as Moses' did. The pattern of the rejected deliverer is consistent — and it never determines the final outcome. Moses returned with twelve tribes; Christ returned with the keys of death and hell.
The verse that defines the contest of the book. Who is the Lord? The next twelve chapters are Pharaoh's answer — given against his will, written in plagues, sealed in a sea.
A defiant question asked by every age. Who is the Lord? The book of Exodus answers in deeds, not just words. He is the One whose plagues find every false god, whose hand splits the sea, whose voice shakes Sinai.