Departures

Poems & Meditations on the Book of Exodus

P. D. Gray

• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781725264830
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Religious Poetry
• Index: Literature

This is a devotional aid focused on the Book of Exodus, designed to take a New Testament lens to this second great inspired book in the Old Testament. It is this writer's view that all the pictures, types, and shadows dwelling in the Old Testament have more to say to the modern Christian of today than to the original inhabitants of those narratives.

Exodus 1

God’s dealings with the midwives as with so many things in the Old Testament are instructive for the modern-day Christian. They were blessed because they were elect persons of faith, trustees of the deliverance to come through the promised Seed. They “feared God”, no doubt recognizing the handiwork of the devil working through “the king of Egypt” (v.17) whom they disobeyed. Rendered 100% righteous in advance through the perfect obedience of the Messiah to come, their own personal obedience was on that journey of faith; imperfect, flawed, learning every day.

And so the midwives said unto Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women; for they are lively, and are delivered ere the midwives come in unto them” (v.19). In His omniscient justice, every slight distortion, called by the world a ‘white lie’, is abhorred by God. But what if they had outright defied Pharaoh to his face? Well, God surely would have made that the way for His perfect plan to have been fulfilled, the midwives receiving the commensurate honor ordained for them before time began. As it happened, a more (though not entirely) perfect obedience would be exemplified by Moses as a type of Christ.

Let us look then into our own lives and see how far we are actually, daily measuring up to the high and holy standard lived out by our perfect, righteous Representative. Oh how much we yearn to do better; how grateful we are to be viewed not in the flesh but in Christ: “Therefore God dealt well with the midwives: and the people multiplied, and waxed very mighty. And it came to pass, because the midwives feared God, that he made them houses” (v.20–21). Who among us has not received multitudinous blessings in the Spirit despite our faltering, flickering obedience towards His holy law?

A believer in the woman’s Seed now finds comfort in the company of believers, the pages of Scripture, the relief and respite of prayer. Such a one can no longer walk in a worldly way, or at least not without remorse and repentance, for “If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth” (1 John 1:6). A Christian is one who has fallen out of love with the world, the flesh, the devil, and now seeks albeit imperfectly to walk with God: “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (v.7). May we look therefore with the midwives beyond Moses to our perfect Mediator, for He not only awaits us but walks with us every day.

Verses upon which to meditate

(ideally in each chapter’s context)

1 John 1:6–7

If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth:

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.

We Midwives

In slavery we toil and strive

believing that we are alive,

while all the while taskmasters trick

adding to bondage, mortar, brick.

In darkness do we sleep and rise

these worldly plans to realize,

though there are feelings in the wings

midwives of faith our Father brings.

And so we’re sought and so we pray

Satan commands, must we obey?

our hearts reveal our desperate need

God buries us in holy Seed.

The devil’s strength tests our resolve

though in the Seed we rise, revolve,

our sins and Pharaoh drag out days

thank God we’re cleansed in Risen’s rays.

Exodus 2

There are some remarkable things about Exodus 2. Firstly, the extent to which Hebrews 11 complements and completes it. Into Exodus 2:10 Hebrews 11:24–27 perfectly slots and explains to us the miraculous conversion of a younger Moses, encapsulating the spiritual growth of his formative years. Thus it is that Scripture best interprets Scripture, and so it is that none of us but by the Holy Spirit would have had any spiritual interest, enslaved by and willfully enslaving ourselves to the pharaohs of this vainglorious world.

Second, there is the remarkable reality that Moses had, humanly speaking, nothing to gain and so very much to lose by his turning away from the exalted privilege of being an adopted member of the Egyptian royal family of that time. Like being a member of the British royal family of today or the son of a US President, to turn one’s back on all the the pyramids of wealth, spheres of political influence, exalted spires of learning and all manner of other benefits, is unthinkable. Coming from my background it is not something with which I can empathize and I can only imagine the frenzied depths of S...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Author’s Note
• Exodus 1
• Exodus 2
• Exodus 3
• Exodus 4
• Exodus 5
• Exodus 6
• Exodus 7
• Exodus 8
• Exodus 9
• Exodus 10
• Exodus 11
• Exodus 12
• Exodus 13
• Exodus 14
• Exodus 15
• Exodus 16
• Exodus 17
• Exodus 18
• Exodus 19
• Exodus 20
• Exodus 21
• Exodus 22
• Exodus 23
• Exodus 24
• Exodus 25
• Exodus 26
• Exodus 27
• Exodus 28
• Exodus 29
• Exodus 30
• Exodus 31
• Exodus 32
• Exodus 33
• Exodus 34
• Exodus 35
• Exodus 36
• Exodus 37
• Exodus 38
• Exodus 39
• Exodus 40