Study Desk

So God treated the midwives well, and the people multiplied and became very strong.

And because the midwives feared God, he made households for them.

During that long period of time the king of Egypt died, and the Israelites groaned because of the slave labor. They cried out, and their desperate cry because of their slave labor went up to God.

God heard their groaning, God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob,

God saw the Israelites, and God understood….

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

When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to look, God called to him from within the bush and said, "Moses, Moses!" And Moses said, "Here I am."

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

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

Moses said to God, "Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, or that I should bring the Israelites out of Egypt?"

He replied, "Surely I will be with you, and this will be the sign to you that I have sent you: When you bring the people out of Egypt, you and they will serve God on this mountain."

Moses said to God, "If I go to the Israelites and tell them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, ‘What is his name?'—what should I say to them?"

God said to Moses, " I am that I am ." And he said, "You must say this to the Israelites, ‘ I am has sent me to you.'"

God also said to Moses, "You must say this 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 my memorial from generation to generation.'

"Go and bring together the elders of Israel and tell them, ‘The Lord , the God of your fathers, appeared to me—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—saying, "I have attended carefully to you and to what has been done to you in Egypt,

"The elders will listen to you, and then you and the elders of Israel must go to the king of Egypt and tell him, ‘The Lord , the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. So now, let us go three days' journey into the wilderness, so that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God.'

"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 for you to the people, and it will be as if he were your mouth and as if you were his God.

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

The Lord said to Aaron, "Go to the wilderness to meet Moses. So he went and met him at the mountain of God and greeted him with a kiss.