Let My People Go — TDW Kids

God keeps His word. At the bush God told Moses that Aaron was already coming to meet him (4:14). Now it happens: Aaron “went and met him on the mountain of God, and kissed him” (4:27). God had answered Moses' fear with a helper, just as He said. The good news is shared. Moses told Aaron “all the words of the Lord,” and Aaron told the elders of Israel. Then Aaron “did the signs in the sight of the people” (4:28-30). The people heard the message and saw God's power. The people believed. “So the people believed; and when they heard that the Lord had visited the children of Israel and that He had looked on their affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshiped” (4:31). For years they had groaned. Now they learned that God had seen them. Worship comes first. Before anything changed in Egypt, before a single plague, the people worshiped. They had nothing yet except God's promise. That is often how faith works: we thank God for what He has said before we see it happen.

Fulfillment in small things (4:27). God's word in 4:14, “he is also coming out to meet you,” came true at once: “he went and met him on the mountain of God, and kissed him.” Small fulfillments build trust for the large ones. Word and sign (4:28-30). Aaron spoke “all the words which the Lord had spoken,” and the signs followed. In Scripture, signs do not replace the word; they confirm it. This follows what God said at the bush: “that they may believe” (4:5). “The Lord had visited” (4:31). The verb paqad (say: pah-KAHD), to visit or attend to, echoes Joseph's dying words: “God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land” (Genesis 50:24). The people recognized that the promise made centuries earlier was being kept. Faith that will be tested. The people believed and worshiped, but within days the same people would curse Moses (5:21). Faith can shake quickly when life turns hard. Faith that lasts rests on God's character, not on how things feel at the moment, and God would teach Israel that lesson again and again.

Moses was afraid to go back to Egypt. But God gave him a helper. His brother Aaron came to meet him. Aaron was happy to see Moses. Together they told God's people the good news. God had seen their trouble. God cared about them. God was going to set them free. The people believed it! They bowed down and worshiped God. Worship means telling God how great He is. We can worship God with songs and prayers. We can thank Him for caring about us. The people did not have their freedom yet. But they trusted God's promise. That is what faith looks like.

Moses and Aaron told the people God's words. The people believed. They were glad God cared.

God's message. “Thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘Let My people go, that they may hold a feast to Me in the wilderness’” (5:1). God calls them “My people.” They belonged to God, not to Pharaoh. Pharaoh's answer. “Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, nor will I let Israel go” (5:2). Pharaoh thought he was the most powerful person in the world. He did not think he had to listen to the God of slaves. Pride makes it worse. Pharaoh called the people “idle,” which means lazy (5:8, 17). He took away their straw but kept the number of bricks the same. He called God's message “false words” (5:9). Pride often treats God's people badly and God's word as a lie. Pharaoh would find out. Pharaoh asked, “Who is the Lord?” Through the plagues and the sea, God would show Pharaoh and Egypt exactly who He is. One day, the Bible says, every knee will bow to Jesus as Lord.

A feast in the wilderness (5:1-3). The request was for worship: “that they may hold a feast to Me in the wilderness.” The deepest purpose of the exodus is not only freedom from Egypt but freedom to serve God (compare 3:12, “you shall serve God on this mountain”). The Hebrew verb 'avad (say: ah-VAHD) can mean both “serve” and “work.” Israel would stop serving Pharaoh in order to serve the Lord. “I do not know the Lord” (5:2). Pharaoh meant it literally, and he said it in defiance. Egyptians believed their king was himself a god. The God of a slave people had no claim on him. God answered that claim again and again in the plagues: “that you may know that I am the Lord” (8:22; compare 7:17). Harder work (5:4-9). Pharaoh treated the request for worship as laziness: “they are idle; therefore they cry out.” He removed the straw but kept the quota, so that the slaves would spend their strength just surviving and “not regard false words.” He used hard labor to silence hope. Worse before better. The first visit to Pharaoh made things worse. Scripture does not promise that obedience will bring quick relief. Moses obeyed exactly, and the immediate result was suffering. God's timing and God's way are different from ours.

Moses and Aaron gave the king God's message. “Let my people go!” The king was proud. He said, “Who is the Lord?” He did not know God. The king wanted to obey only himself. So he made the work even harder. He wanted the people too tired to listen. He thought God's people were lazy. He thought Moses was lying. The king was wrong about everything. Soon he would find out who the Lord is. God is the King over every king. Proud people do not want to obey God. But God is always in charge.

The king said, “Who is the Lord?” He did not know God, and he did not want to obey. Soon he would learn how great God is.

Worse before better. The officers cried to Pharaoh, “Why are you dealing thus with your servants?” (5:15). Pharaoh only answered, “You are idle! Idle!” (5:17). The officers “saw that they were in trouble” (5:19). Blame. Coming out from Pharaoh, they met Moses and Aaron and said, “Let the Lord look on you and judge, because you have made us abhorrent in the sight of Pharaoh” (5:21). The people who had worshiped a few days before now blamed God's messengers. Moses' prayer. “So Moses returned to the Lord and said, ‘Lord, why have You brought trouble on this people? Why is it You have sent me?’” (5:22). Moses was confused and hurt, and he brought it straight to God. Honest prayer. The Bible is full of prayers like this. David prayed, “How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever?” (Psalm 13:1). God does not want fake prayers. “Pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us” (Psalm 62:8). God answered Moses with a promise, not a scolding.

The officers' appeal (5:15-19). The Hebrew foremen, beaten for missing a quota they could not possibly meet, took their case to Pharaoh with real boldness: “the fault is in your own people” (5:16). Pharaoh repeated his charge, “You are idle! Idle!” He would not listen to reason any more than to God. A curse on the messengers (5:21). “Let the Lord look on you and judge.” The phrase “made us abhorrent” is literally “made our smell stink” in Pharaoh's sight. In just a few days, Israel's trust had turned to resentment. Lament (5:22-23). Moses' prayer is a lament: a complaint addressed to God, in faith that God is the one to bring it to. We find prayers like this throughout the Psalms (Psalm 13:1-2) and the prophets: “O Lord, how long shall I cry, And You will not hear?” (Habakkuk 1:2). Lament is not unbelief; it is faith speaking honestly in pain. God's response (6:1). God did not rebuke Moses here. He answered: “Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh. For with a strong hand he will let them go.” “Now” meant God was about to act. When every human plan had failed, God was ready to show His power.

Moses did what God said. But things got worse, not better. The people worked harder than ever. Their leaders were beaten. The people blamed Moses and Aaron. Moses felt terrible. So what did Moses do? He went straight to God. He told God exactly how he felt. “Why did you let this happen?” God did not get angry at Moses. God listened and answered him. God was about to act. We can tell God how we really feel too. He wants to hear from us. He is never too busy.

Things got worse, and Moses was sad. Moses told God how he felt. We can always talk to God when we are sad.

“I am the Lord.” God begins and ends with His name (6:2, 8). Everything He promises rests on who He is. God remembers. “I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel… and I have remembered My covenant” (6:5). God had made promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and He had not forgotten one of them. “I will.” Listen to God's promises: “I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, I will rescue you from their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm” (6:6). “I will take you as My people, and I will be your God” (6:7). “And I will bring you into the land” (6:8). To redeem means to buy back or set free at a price. Too sad to listen. “But they did not heed Moses, because of anguish of spirit and cruel bondage” (6:9). The people were crushed. Yet God did not take back one promise. God's promises do not depend on how strong our faith feels on a bad day.

The name and the covenant (6:2-5). “I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by My name Lord I was not known to them.” The patriarchs used the name, but they had not experienced what it would mean in rescue. In the exodus, God would show what His name means by redeeming His people. The promises (6:6-8). God made promise after promise: bring out, rescue, redeem, take, be, bring in, give. They move from leaving Egypt to belonging to God to entering the land. The relationship stands at the center: “I will take you as My people, and I will be your God” (6:7), a promise that God repeats all through the Bible, all the way to Revelation 21:3. Redemption (6:6). “I will redeem you” uses ga'al (say: gah-AHL), the act of a kinsman-redeemer who buys back a relative from slavery or debt. The Lord presents Himself as Israel's next of kin: “Israel is My son, My firstborn” (4:22). “With an outstretched arm and with great judgments” describes the cost and power of the rescue. Anguish of spirit (6:9). The phrase qotser ruach (say: KOH-tser ROO-akh) is literally “shortness of breath” or “shortness of spirit.” Crushing labor had left them unable even to hope. The covenant does not wait for their faith to recover; God acts for a people who cannot yet believe.

God answered Moses with a list of promises. Each one starts with “I will.” I will save you. I will make you free. I will take you as my people. I will be your God. I will bring you to the land. God did not say, “Try harder.” God said what He would do. The people were too sad to listen. But God's promises were still true. God keeps His promises even when we feel sad. He never gives up on His people. To redeem means to buy back. God was going to buy His people back.

God said, “I will make you free.” “You will be My people.” God keeps His promises.