Scripture Passage for Today
Scripture Focus
“As Pharaoh approached, the people of Israel looked up and panicked when they saw the Egyptians overtaking them.” (Exodus 14:10 NLT)
Observation
Where to start…where to start. (Pick a verse, any verse!) What a rich passage!
I am appreciating, today especially, Israel’s knee-jerk reaction to Pharaoh’s charioteers pulling in behind them as they “camped beside the shore near Pi-hahiroth, across from Baal-zephon”—you know where that is, right? This particular translation says they “panicked”!
What’s easy to suggest is that the Hebrews should have been more faith-filled, more courageous, more lion-hearted! I mean, c’mon—they’ve just left Egypt loaded down with the wealth of the whole country…they’ve just been sent out at Pharaoh’s command. They didn’t cower as they left, or sneak away under cover of darkness—they marched out “like an army ready for battle” (13:17), delivered victoriously by their mighty God! So why (how?) the panic?
But I know how often and easily my first reaction is negative. (That’s more than a statement—it’s a confession!) I took a rather cryptic message at the office yesterday—the meaning wasn’t at all clear—and I assumed the worst. My attitude matched that reflected by the words of the Israelites here—“Why did you bring us out here to die in the wilderness? Weren’t there enough graves for us in Egypt?” (14:11).
Turns out the message was a simply question, simply answered—nothing more. It’s not that there won’t be days when an attacking army appears, and I need to be ready for battle—but why assume the worst? Beyond that, when the moment of battle arrived (another study in itself), all the people had to do was “stand still and watch the LORD rescue you” (14:13). Why such a panicked reaction? Why not one of trust and faith and expectation of all that’s good, instead?
2 comments:
Everything I have read so far in Exodus screams out to me " Trust in God". It really surprises me that God has done everything he has promised the Isrealites still are questioning if He will keep his promise to keep them safe. Their faith falters with every bump in the road. When the simple answer to everything is put your trust in the Lord. Lesson taken. Glen H
Mosaic alphabet:
Moses spent 40 days on mount Sinai with God and when he came down he had a tablet with words on it. Prior to this, mankind used cuneiform, script and symbols for recording events. God gave Moses an alphabet of 22 letters. There is more to the first alphabet, it is based on the most sophisticated and ultimate knowledge......that of the genetic code. The number ought to be familiar in this day and age. It is the number of human chromosomes when Adam was created, before the second manipulation the sex chromosomes "Y" and "X". (Eve)
Isaiah 45:11 "It is I who created the Letters...It is I who made the Earth and created the Adam upon it, thus sayeth Yahweh the Holy One of Israel.
Present-day computers use a binary code of "1"and "0" on and off flow of electrons. A genetic language of DNA, chains of DNA expressed as nucleotides CHTAGAATTCTGCGAACCTT and so on in chain of DNA letters (three letter words) bound as base-pairs in which the A binds with T,C with G. (long story short) "the information storage capacity of DNA is huge" A research paper published in Science (October 1997) stated. In nature, the genetic information encoded in the DNA is decoded, at lightning speed, by a messenger called RNA that transcribes and recombines the DNA "letters" into "words" consisting of three letters. These three-letter grouping, it has been established lie at the core of all life forms on earth because they spell out chemically and biologically the twenty amino acids whose chains form the proteins of which all life on Earth consists.
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