Can any one deny that the old Israelites conceived Jahveh not only in the image of a man, but in that of a changeable, irritable, and, occasionally, violent man?
What we need is what the ancient Israelites called hochma - the science of the heart. . . the capacity to see, to feel, and then to act as if the future depended on you. Believe me, it does.
If Moses had operated through committees the Israelites never would have got across the Red Sea.
Commit yourself then to God! He will be your guide. He Himself will travel with you, as we are told He did with the Israelites, to bring them step by step across the desert to the promised land. Ah! what will be your blessedness, if you will but surrender yourself into the hands of God, permitting Him to do whatever He will, not according to your desires, but according to His own good pleasure?
The Israelites' slavery in Egypt is the equivalent of our slavery to sin. God sent Moses to deliver them from bondage, and He sent Jesus Christ to set us free.
Egypt: Where the Israelites would still be if Moses had been a bureaucrat.
Moses warned them [Israelites] that the leading spiritual danger they would face on entering the [promise] land would be forgetting the Lord. What adversity would not do, prosperity and satisfaction could. They were to be on their guard against spiritual lethargy.
Holy Father, forgive me for grumbling. I know I've sounded just like the Israelites. I long to dwell not on the If Onlys but on You. Make me wise like the old woodcutter - content with what I know, not perturbed by what I don't know.
Get the right perspective. When Goliath came against the Israelites, the soldiers all thought, "He is so big. We can never kill him. " David looked at the same giant and thought, "He is so big. I can't miss. "
Moses, who said to the Israelites, Stop calling me Charlton! Never got a dinner!
