Scripture Daily

Context No. 481 of 4322 · Exodus

Context · Reflection

Exodus 12:33-42: in context

33The Egyptians were urgent with the people, to send them out of the land in haste, for they said, “We are all dead men.” 34The people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading troughs being bound up in their clothes on their shoulders. 35The children of Israel did according to the word of Moses; and they asked of the Egyptians jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and clothing. 36The LORD gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they let them have what they asked. They plundered the Egyptians. 37The children of Israel traveled from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand on foot who were men, in addition to children. 38A mixed multitude went up also with them, with flocks, herds, and even very much livestock. 39They baked unleavened cakes of the dough which they brought out of Egypt; for it wasn’t leavened, because they were thrust out of Egypt, and couldn’t wait, and they had not prepared any food for themselves. 40Now the time that the children of Israel lived in Egypt was four hundred thirty years. 41At the end of four hundred thirty years, to the day, all of the LORD’s armies went out from the land of Egypt. 42It is a night to be much observed to the LORD for bringing them out from the land of Egypt. This is that night of the LORD, to be much observed by all the children of Israel throughout their generations.

This is the night everything the book has been building toward finally happens: Israel walks out of Egypt. And two details in the account, easy to read past, hold a strange tension together. The first is the haste. The Egyptians are so desperate to be rid of them after the final plague that they thrust the people out, and there is no time even to let the bread rise. The Israelites sling their kneading troughs over their shoulders with the dough still unleavened and bake flat cakes on the way, because, the text says, they were thrust out of Egypt and could not wait. When deliverance finally came, it came so suddenly there was no time to prepare.

And yet the second detail says the opposite about the timing. Now the time that the children of Israel lived in Egypt was four hundred thirty years, and at the end of four hundred thirty years, to the very day, all of the LORD's armies went out from the land of Egypt. Four hundred and thirty years. Generations were born, enslaved, and died in that stretch, and it must have felt like a wait with no end, as if God had forgotten them entirely. But the deliverance did not come late, and it did not come early. It came to the very day, on an appointed schedule that had been set all along, even through centuries that felt like abandonment. The long, unbearable wait and the sudden, unprepared rush out the door were both held inside God's exact timing.

That tension speaks to how waiting on God usually feels. Right now a deliverance I have been praying for can seem so delayed that I wonder whether it will ever come, whether God is paying attention at all. Exodus insists that the wait, however long, has an appointed day I cannot see, and that when the moment comes it may come so fast I have to move with the bread still unrisen. When I am in a long wait that feels like it will never end, can I trust that God's deliverance has an exact day already set, and am I ready to get up and go the moment it arrives?

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