Study Desk

So God was good to the midwives, and the people multiplied and became even more numerous.

And because the midwives feared God, He gave them families of their own.

After a long time, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned and cried out under their burden of slavery, and their cry for deliverance from bondage ascended to God.

So God heard their groaning, and He remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

God saw the Israelites and took notice.

Meanwhile, Moses was shepherding the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian. He led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.

When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called out to him from within the bush, "Moses, Moses!" "Here I am," he answered.

"Do not come any closer," God said. "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground."

Then He said, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." At this, Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

But Moses asked God, "Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?"

"I will surely be with you," God said, "and this will be the sign to you that I have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, all of you will worship God on this mountain."

Then Moses asked God, "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is His name?' What should I tell them?"

God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you.'"

God also told Moses, "Say to the Israelites, 'The LORD, the God of your fathers-the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob-has sent me to you.' This is My name forever, and this is how I am to be remembered in every generation.

Go, assemble the elders of Israel and say to them, 'The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, has appeared to me and said: I have surely attended to you and have seen what has been done to you in Egypt.

The elders of Israel will listen to what you say, and you must go with them to the king of Egypt and tell him, 'The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. Now please let us take a three-day journey into the wilderness, so that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God.'

"This is so that they may believe that the LORD, the God of their fathers-the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob-has appeared to you."

He will speak to the people for you. He will be your spokesman, and it will be as if you were God to him.

So Moses took his wife and sons, put them on a donkey, and headed back to Egypt. And he took the staff of God in his hand.

Meanwhile, the LORD had said to Aaron, "Go and meet Moses in the wilderness." So he went and met Moses at the mountain of God and kissed him.