Exodus 1-6 Part 2 • Dr. Krystal Pierce • Mar. 23-29 • Come, Follow Me

This was a great plan until now. I'm coming. I'm going to deliver my people to a land of

milk and honey. Moses, like, this is a great plan. I love it.

“I agree with all of this. That's why, in verse 11, what does he say? He says, "Who am I?"”

His identity, "Who am I?" An Egyptian who's going to go in there and change things in my Hebrew and I'm going there and saving them in my Midian night. Why me? I don't even know who I am at this point. How can I do anything? I've been gone for many years. You don't want me. I promise I'm not your guy. I love God's answer to him. I'll be with you. You know who you are. You're my son. You're my prophet. That's who you are. This word, it's

translated as certainly in this word. God is saying, "You can't fail because I'm with you." I'm going to give you a sign. And the sign is, someday you'll come back to this mountain with all of those people and you'll be able to build a sanctuary here and worship me. He says, "That's your sign. Some day you'll come back." I really like in verse 12. He says, "When you have brought forth the people out of Egypt,

it's not if." And John, I love it when you say, when he says, "Who am I?" He doesn't say, "Come on Moses. Let's work on yourself. Let's have a self-esteem class. Let's tell you how awesome you are." He just says, "I'll be with you." And that's the promise that we hear every week at this argument table that we can have his spirit to be with us. Love

that. How often we hear that. You're never ever alone.

I mean, get some hints here that the reason why Moses failed before is because he just charged in in his own strength. Now at this point, God's like, "No, I'm with you. You're going in the strength of the Lord now." Which changes everything. It's interesting because we look at Moses as a great prophet. You know, the Jewish community looks at him as the best

“prophet. If the prophets need help from God, like how much do I need help from God?”

John, it reminds me of B.H. Roberts. I don't know how to read. I'm my favorite stories. Truman Madsen wrote a biography of B.H. Roberts. Have you heard this crystal? He saw a newspaper blow by. He was on a begging tour with some people. His mother had already gone to American left him with a convert couple, the tovies, whose conversion was marginal. He sees a newspaper blow by. And he just thinks it's so magical that these little marks can speak to people.

And it is pretty cool. He says out loud, "Well, these marks ever speak to me. Will I ever read books?" He said. He heard a soul voice that said, "I, like A.Y.E.I." And you'll write them too. It's the best story. He said, "I sat in silence for a long time until

mother tovie woke up and we resumed our begging tour." Finally, when he got to Utah, a teacher

named Hannah Holbrook. There's an elementary school named after her up in Bountiful Utah. Tott him to cipher is what Truman Madsen said. He learned to read. He finally wrote a comprehensive history of the church. The cool thing Truman Madsen said is, "Be a Trauberts had to take over. If I'm getting the facts right when his mission president was ill, he became the acting mission president there. And I think in the southern states, he would

send copies of his comprehensive history to his former missionaries. And he would put his name and then underneath his name he would put "I," and he'll write them too. What a great story.

“I love that. And it's the same Lord doing this. I will be with you and you should see”

your future. It looks really weird. You're going to come back to this moment. He knows our true potential. He just has to convince us. Yeah. Moses has an interesting question here, Crystal. He says, "Okay, when I go to the children of Israel and say, "Yes, who is?" I'm here to save you. They are going to say, "Okay, who sent you? What do you want me to say?" Moses keeps it real. He's I need to be able to tell them exactly who sent

me. This is where we get the meaning behind the name Jehovah. He says, "This is what you're going to tell him. I am that I am. What better way to explain who God is than that he exists." He's there. That's the most basic foundational testimony. I believe God exists. I believe in God. This is important to Moses if we want to do like a little bit of context

says, "They're going to want to know which God this is." Jehovah answers and says, "I am

“the God, the only God." Above all of these other Egyptian deities, this is the meaning”

of my name. Then he clarifies he says, "The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." This is who you're going to tell them that I am. People translate this in different ways of some people say, "Oh, well, it's a present. I am." Some people translate it as, "I will be in the future."

Then he mentions Abraham as well. I have existed. I now exist and I will exist. Basically

saying, "I'm infinity. I'm eternity. I'm God. I'm everything." Which is perfect. Perfect description of God. Oh, so good. I don't know. Maybe I'm reading into Moses, but he's got to be thinking, "Do you realize what they're going to say to me when I tell them I'm here to answer their prayers?" They haven't had a prophet in a while. Also, and he's going to show up and say, "God speaking to me. First of all, who are you? Second of all, who

is God?" These are legit questions. He wants to be prepared when he goes back. He says, "First thing you're doing is going to gather the elders. These are probably the heads of the families, the households, the patriarchs. They still had some hierarchy, even among them,

“even while they're in Egypt." He says, "You need to go talk to them first." He basically”

says, "You're going to give them these code words. I have surely visited you." Now, these were the same words prophesied by Joseph in Genesis 50. They'll believe you. He tells them they're going to believe you. They're going to listen to you, and then you're going to go with them to the king, and you're going to ask the king for something very specific. This is in verse 18. He says, "You're going to ask him to let you go and worship your

God." He says, "You're going to ask them to let you go out into the wilderness to a holy space, build an altar, sacrifice an animal, and worship your God." The small request. He's not asking for them to leave yet. Ask if we can worship. We want to extend it weekend. Let us go. We're going to go for three days. Which is exactly how the pharaoh takes when he hears it. He's like, "You want time off? No." That's not going to happen. Crystal,

here they're calling in King of Egypt, but it's still the pharaoh. Does it pharaoh mean something about a house? Pharaoh in Egyptian is pair A, which means the great house. Originally it referred to actually the palace in the same way we would call the white house. We all know what that means. They called it the great house, and then eventually it becomes

an actual title much later for the king of Egypt. Crystal, I'd never seen this. Moses quotes

Joseph of Egypt, and I wonder if is this something that the elders of Israel might go, "How do you know that?" Maybe, yeah. Yeah, it would be a sign for sure. It had been 40 years. Maybe some of them, if they're the elders, the older ones, then they did know who Moses was or his story or things like that. But maybe some of them didn't, too. But would definitely be interesting that Moses all said in his quoting this. He's quoting Joseph. I like moments

like that, where they don't believe him. They don't believe him. He says, "Well, here's where he sold me to tell you." Wait. He said, "What?" That's right out of Genesis. But of course, who knows? He tells them you get together with the elders. Then all of you are going to go to Pharaoh and ask him for a three day weekend. He's going to say no. He tries to make it very clear to Moses that verse 19, he's not going to let you go. He says this over and over again. It's

“not going to happen. I think Moses is thinking of other things at this point because he seems”

to forget this. The Lord warned him and even when the Pharaoh was like, "Okay, you can go.

But now I'm going to chase after you." He never really fully let them go. He says in verse 20,

"I'll stretch out my hand and smite Egypt." He's using an Egyptian symbol here against the Egyptians. Because we have this thing in Egyptian art called the smiting scene. Every Pharaoh shows himself with his hand raised above his head with prisoners or captives or foreigners and he's got a mace or some sort of weapon and he's smiting. This is definitely meant to be, the Pharaoh is not going to be doing the smiting anymore. The true power comes from God. He's the one that is going to

prophecy. He says, "And actually, by the time you need to leave, you'll have favor in the side

“of the Egyptians." You won't even leave empty handed. The Egyptians are going to give you all of”

this stuff when you leave. And there's some bad translations here. So this word "barrow," the word and Hebrews just ask. They didn't "barrow," they didn't steal. They didn't take. They asked the Egyptians. Will you give us stuff? And some of the Egyptians were friendly with them. And probably were like, "You're leaving." We love you, actually. Take this stuff and go on your journey on your way. Some of the other Egyptians probably more of them were like, "Get out." We will pay you to leave.

We will pay you so the plagues never happen again. Please. Not only will they let you go,

they'll pay you to leave. What? Take my gold as long as you never come back and take those plagues and things with you. Crystal, John, I noticed that even though Moses has had this reassurance from God, he still is not super convinced. This chapter four verse one. Moses answered and said, "But be hold." They won't believe me. They will not believe me. And they're not going to obey me because I know what they're going to say. They're going to say the Lord has not appeared to you. Here's God reassuring

him and Moses is very human. "Everybody needs space. Everybody, the prophets, us, everybody doubts themselves sometimes and God's trying to help us feel strong and confident.

“He has our back." No wonder I think in chapter four the Lord gets a little frustrated finally and says,”

"Done with the self doubt. Go and do what I told you to do." He does try to work with Moses where Moses is at. Then he says, "Okay, Moses, I'm going to give you three miracles you can perform. And if you perform these three miracles for the elders, they'll know that these are divine miracles and God is speaking to you and God is instructing you." Moses says, "They're not going to believe me on this and the Lord asks him a question. He responds, "What's in your hand?" Moses looks down

and he's a shepherd. He's turned off from the sheep and everything and he's like, "Oh, it's a rod, but it's a shepherd's crook." Jehovah says, "Throw it on the ground." So he does it. He throws it on the ground. It becomes a serpent and Moses runs away. Moses is so real. He's the one who just did this and he runs away. He's like, "A snake." I hope that made the Lord smile crystal. I hope the Lord I have run away from him. The Lord, he has a sense of humor. We see it sometimes as lost on us because

the translation and culture and things. There might have been a little giggle. There had to be a laugh there. It's interesting because then he says, "Pick up the snake by the tail, which is not how you pick up a snake. If you've ever seen snake wranglers go for the head, you secure the head, you secure the fangs, you secure the venom." To me, this shows progression and faith because Moses

does it. First he's running away and now he's back picking it up by the tail and it becomes a

rod back in his hand. There's so much symbolism here in terms of ancient Egypt. These signs are for people who are Egyptian or who have lived in Egypt for hundreds of years. The shepherd's crook is a symbol of kingship, power and authority. The Pharaoh's hold him. Exactly. So he has the crook in the flail. The shepherd's crook is the mercy. So he uses it to pull the people in. The flail, which is sort of like a whip, is justice. Not to beat the people when they're bad. And the

kings boast to be this balance of justice and mercy. This sign of authority, strength, mercy,

“is now being saying, who carries the rod now? Who carries the authority now? Who has the power now?”

And it's the same thing with the serpent. Of course, there are serpent deities in Egypt and there was one specifically tied to the king. Her name is Wajit. She is on the crown. So even if we go back to King Tut, the Eureus, the cobra, that's Wajit. Wajit protected the king by spitting fire. She's described as spitting fire venom at the king's enemies and protecting the king. It's a symbol of a deity has your back. So what is this a symbol of? Who has the divine power now? Who has gods

So fascinating. Don't you love having an expert here? The sign, the symbol of the snake here belongs

to Jehovah, belongs to Jesus Christ. It's interesting because we never think snake and Jesus Christ

together. Crystal, this is a discussion for a later time, but is that similar to why Moses describes Satan as trying to be a serpent in the garden. He's trying to be divine. Yeah, and that word for serpent and the garden means to trick someone to try and be crafty and trick somebody and make them think something that's not true. So it fits. This is a stuff that I'll just get excited about. Your worlds are coming together here. Your scripture

is nothing God and your Egyptian, your love of Egypt. All my favorite things all together.

“That's what happened in Ether. When we did Ether, what's your five, I remember. Gonna new word today,”

"Wadjet". Yes, "Wadjet". Last time was Deshret. No, it's "Wadjet". Manna is what is it? This is "Wadjet".

"Wadjet". These are signs that are supposed to produce faith. These are signs that Jehovah is giving to Moses to let the elders of Israel know he's a prophet, a true messenger. Moses anticipating the elders saying, "You're not a prophet of Jehovah". He's saying, "Here's a couple things you can use to let them know that I did God." If snakes represent this deity, it also shows that Jehovah and Moses have power over this Egyptian goddess too. That's really what the

plagues are about. All of these Egyptian gods are represented by each plague. They're nothing compared

“to Jehovah in his power. The battle of the gods. The plagues are always against the gods of Egypt.”

They're not just random, let's try frogs. Each plague represents an Egyptian deity and most of them are creator deities. Hi, whole, Kermity Plague here. They are everywhere. They're in the oven. They're in the chamber. They're everywhere. You're hit deep in frogs. So what's the next miracle? What's the next sign? The next sign, he says, "Put your hand into your robe." When he pulls it out, he sees that it is lepros as snow. This word lepros,

we think of Hansen's disease, a very specific form of skin disease. When we think of leprosy, but this covered all types of skin diseases. Some of them, when they get really bad, the skin

“would turn white and flake off. That's what's this whitest snow. It's the worst type of skin disease”

you can get. What's interesting about this is they believed at this time that when you had some sort of typically a physical ailment, it's because God gave it to you as a punishment. They believed this in Egypt all over the ancient Near East. The only way you would get rid of it is if God took it away. This is definitely supposed to send a message that this is divine. This sign, giving leprosy, healing leprosy, instantly, God is involved. God is giving Moses this power. Only God could

do something like this. I'm looking in the other translations and quite a few don't use lepros, they use diseased. Yeah, and that makes a little more sense. In Israel come to pass if they will

not believe thee, neither harp into the voice of the first sign that they will believe the voice of

the latter sign. So here's two. Just in case the whole snake thing doesn't impress them, try the hand trick. Yeah, they're progressively supposed to be more miraculous. When we get to verse nine, he says to the last sign, the biggest sign is taking water from the Nile and pouring it on the land and then it becomes blood upon the land. Kind of hinting at future plagues. For shadowing, yeah. This again is control over nature. Of course, the Nile was represented by an Egyptian god.

His name was Hopi. This is saying in Hopi's blue. So it's this idea of Hopi doesn't control the Nile. The Egyptian god's Pharaoh doesn't. Jehovah does. And Jehovah's in charge of what happens with nature and creation. So to us, these are miracles, but to them, they'd speak even louder, given their environment being in Egypt. Exactly. These are meant for people who are Egyptian or have lived in

than they had ever seen before. Yeah. Crystal, is it okay if I laugh at the next part where he's given

“him these three miracles? And then Moses says, I don't think this is going to work. The Lord”

finally gets frustrated with it seems. He really does. It's almost like Moses is like,

"Oh, that's great in everything." But I'm not good at speaking. It doesn't matter if I can do miracles. I'm not eloquent. I'm slow of speech. I have a slow tongue in the Joseph Smith translation. He tells us, because Moses keeps saying this over and over and over again. He puts in stammering lips. And some people believe that Moses had an actual speech impediment. Some sort of speech impediment. What he's asking here is possibly cure my speech impediment. He'll me, cure me. You just gave me

leprosy and cured it. Let's do this because I'm not confident in the way I speak. Now some people do think that maybe this is more of, I haven't been in Egypt for 40 years. My Egyptian is rusty. My Hebrew is a little rusty too because we do think the Midianites spoke their own dialect, their own Semitic language. How am I supposed to talk to Pharaoh in Egyptian or Hebrew to the children of Israel? He sounds like he's not confident about his speech at all. I love the Lord just

says, "Well, you just go. Who made your mouth? Who's the creator? You're speaking to the creator. I'll be with your mouth. I'll tell you what to say. You don't have to worry about that. Don't worry about that. Just go and do it." Listen to the contemporary English version. Does this not sound

like almost anyone who has to speak? I've never been a good speaker. I wasn't one before you spoke

“to me and I'm not one now. I can never think of what to say. I think we've all felt that at some”

point. Every time I stand up in front of my students, please Lord help me know what to say and not have stammering lips and be eloquent and know what they need. I worry about it too. We're probably projecting onto the Lord here, but I just like the idea that Moses keeps coming up with reasons why this isn't going to work. And I do think this is kind of the height of this identity thing because by telling him in verse 12, I will be with thy mouth and teach me what to say. He's saying, "You are a prophet.

This is how we define prophets in the Old Testament." They speak the words of God. They speak on behalf of God. Moses says, "I can't do it. I'm not eloquent. I don't know Egyptian. I don't know Hebrew. I can't speak. Who am I? What am I doing?" And God says, "You're a prophet." And I'm with you. And you're a child of God. And you're a child of the covenant. You can do it. And all those other things. Those are secondary. We'll figure those out. All that matters is that I'm with you.

Crystal, I don't know exactly how to read the next verse. Is Tim saying still objecting?

Yes, this is a bad translation. He basically says, "I'll go if you make me,

but if there's anyone else you can send, please send them." That's basically what he's saying. Please send someone else, but if you can't find any other person on the earth to send, then I'll go.

“And that's why verse 14 is, "Mangar of the Lord was Kindle."”

He's like, "I literally just told you I'll be with you and I'll tell you what to say." And you're still doubting yourself. It's interesting because this word anger here in Hebrew. It actually is the same word as nose or face. And it means rapid breathing. Like you're trying to stay calm in patient. You're trying to not lose it. And I think of God as he's being patient. And he gives him an act of mercy. He says, "What about Aaron?"

Aaron is confident in his speech. He'll be happy to see you. I love this. They haven't seen each other for 40 years. He's like, "Okay, it's great though because he doesn't say, so I'll tell Aaron what to say." He doesn't say that. He says what we're going to do is, "I'm going to tell you what to say and then you're going to tell Aaron what to say." And then Aaron's going to tell the children of Israel. Sending Aaron is so merciful. It's almost training Moses to become

confident and a prophet himself. Because eventually, God goes straight through Moses. God tells Moses and Moses tells the children. He doesn't need Aaron anymore. As the intermediary, this sort of in between, he knows at this point, this is what Moses needs. Moses didn't need his speech, whether it was an impediment or language healed, cured. He knew Moses needed some support,

able to do it. Man, I'm following this exchange. It seems so human. I see this miraculous burning bush. I come over. Moses, you're my son. I don't think so. I don't think I'm your guy. I will be with you. I'm going to help you. What am I supposed to say? Here's this cool thing that Joseph of Egypt said. Give them that. They're not going to believe me. Here's some miracles. Let's give you that. I don't think I can talk very well. Who do you think made man's mouth?

Please send someone else. This is an exchange that a lot of us have had with the Lord. Is there anyone else that can do it? Yeah. There's a line in the come follow me less than manual that says God gives power to people he calls to do his work.

“President Benson used to say whom God calls God qualifies. That's what the Lord is telling you over”

and over. Finally says, we'll take your brother with you. Yeah. The Lord knows he can do it.

Moses doesn't believe he can do it. To me, this is such an act of mercy. Sometimes God answers our prayers, not through taking away the hardship or directly answering it, but he sends people to answer our prayers. He works through people. This is the way God speaks to me. This is the way God answers my prayers. This resonates with me. That he sends people. The strangest thing happened 10 years ago in my life. I know it was 10 years ago because my son was a newborn and now he's 10. I was going

through a major transition in my life at that point, having to choose between two paths. Both paths were good. There's one of those ones where making choices about my career or my

“future and I felt God telling me to go down one path to make one choice and he was being very”

clear about it. But I felt other people and society and my friends had other advice and had thought maybe this other path was the proper way to go. I was struggling taking that leap of faith going against what everybody else was saying and to what I felt like God was telling me to do. In the middle of all of this, we were up late one night. It was like one or two in the morning as parents are when they have a newborn in the house pretty late and we heard a knock on the door.

George goes down, he looks, I'm like, who is it? What is it? And he says, there's a girl out there crying and he's like, what do we do? And I was like, let her in, open the door, get her inside, you know, because that's my instincts right or immediately like crying girl. So it opened the door

and there's this young girl there. I'm she's like 19 or 20. She's sobbing, never seen her before,

had no idea who she was. We invited her in, it came and sat with her on the couch. She said that she had graduated from high school and she had met this guy fallen in love with him and he had convinced her to run away with him. We've out of her house and he had promised her all these things. We'll get married. We're going to do all these things and in the process, she had kind of had a falling out with her family because they felt like she was making the wrong decision. She had been

with him for a few months and had realized she had made the wrong decision. They would never get married. He wasn't going to keep these promises and she felt lost and hopeless and she didn't know what to do. She felt like she couldn't reach out to her family because they wouldn't accept her back in. She said she was driving around that night, just sobbing crying, trying to decide what to do and she heard a voice say, go to that house right now, knock on the door, ask for help. And it was our

house. I sat with her for quite a while talking and saying, you know, call your mom, you know, call your

mom, call your parents. You never know what will happen if you don't try and eventually I

asked her to do on a blessing and she said yes. Called George, George called the bishop. I'm sure he was like, who what is going on? But he comes over straight over. They give her a blessing. She didn't really want us to know her name or specifics about her. After the blessing, she looked up and she said, I know what I need to do. I'm going to call my mom and she was gone out the door. Thank you,

“bye. Never saw her again. Sometimes even when I think back on it, I'm like, was she an angel or a real person?”

Like, who was that? The thing is is later when I was thinking about this, I started to realize that

faith is. If this young girl who was 19 and felt like she wasn't keeping her covenants could listen to

“God and immediately stop and knock on a stranger's door at two in the morning, I could take it a leap of”

faith. I could see what God wanted for me and do what he said, do what he told me to do and make that decision and block out whatever the else was saying. Now in hindsight, it looked back and it was the

right decision and it was incredible. I don't know what happened to her, but I know what happened to me.

This is one of those examples to me, just like Moses and Aaron, where God sent somebody because I didn't have the confidence to make that decision to take that leap, but that girl who came out of nowhere and disappeared taught me that it changed everything for me. This just reminded me of it. President Kimball might say, God does notice us and he watches over us, but it is usually through another person that he meets our needs. And that's a cool story, Crystal.

I know I thought if she can do it, I can do it. God knows who you are. Crystal, that's so cool. He had been sending me this message and this happens to me so often. He tells me what to do and I doubt myself. I'm not sure and that somebody else comes along and makes it very clear what I'm supposed to do.

“In our day, we could have likened this to a mission companion. I can't do this. Well, that's why I'm”

going to give you a companion. Yeah, and that's Aaron. You do the thinking, Aaron, I'll do the talking, all right? You guys go together. I think every parent has reached this point that the Lord gets to, which is, all right. What do you need to go? If you're that scared here, I'll give it Aaron, he'll help you get underway. Let's just get going. And it gives Moses enough confidence to go, because he goes right back to Jeff throw and he says, I got to get back to my brothers. He uses the

term brothers again. He's getting back into this. I got to get back to my people. I'm going to save my people and I got to get back to my brother because he's going to be the one to really help me. Neapaks up his wife and his sons and they head towards Egypt. It's funny because the Lord reminds

“him again in verse 21. He says, by the way, I've already mentioned this, but when you ask Pharaoh,”

he's not going to let you go. It's interesting because it says, I will harden his heart. I think we immediately are like, whoa, wait a minute, whoa, God doesn't go around hardening people's hearts. The commentaries grapple with this and they try all kinds of language gymnastics to make this work and what do we have? We have the Joseph Smith translation. JST says, Pharaoh will harden his heart. He makes it very clear we're talking about Pharaoh. Thank you to Joseph Smith. Thank you

to that prophet who is teaching us about this prophet here. It's incredible. Now what a blessing to

not have to grapple with that. It makes sense. He does this so many times throughout all of these. He clarifies, he adds some of that's from his own hard work in knowledge and studying of Hebrew and a lot of that is from revelation from God having God help him better understand these passages. It's incredible. Crystal, you're reminding us of that because you said Moses is going to seem to forget this part. Yeah, he forgets. He says, this is exactly what you're going to say to Pharaoh.

This is in verse 22. We get the thus sayeth the Lord, which is a mark of a prophet. When a prophet says thus sayeth the Lord, it's almost like God says, quote, Israel is my son,

even my first born. Let my son go that he may serve worship sacrifice for me. And if

thou refuse, then your son, your first born, will be killed. That went intense pretty quickly. Yeah, you don't let him go. If you look at this, it says first born that he says sign and then first born. This means there's a covenantal relationship here. When we covenant with Heavenly Father, we covenant with the Savior, there's a relationship. That means we have promises and they have promises. When the covenant is broken, which is what he's saying here, if you don't

let them worship, the covenant is broken, there's justice coming and they're not going to die. You might think, well, the Lord's being a little over the top here. Well, he made a covenant with Abraham. He made a promise to Abraham that this family was going to bless all the families of the earth.

mercy and there's covenantal justice. The justice is going to fall on the Pharaoh, because he's the

one who is affecting all of these covenantal promises, posterity, prosperity, priesthood. They're not allowed to worship. They're not allowed to sacrifice. They're not allowed to go to Canaan. He says, you go warn the Pharaoh. This is a problem. Yeah, it reminds me, John, I bet you can reference this. The Lord says, you might as well stretch forth your puny arm and stop the Missouri River, Missouri. And it's decreed, of course,

then to, to the revelations coming down on the heads of the Latter Day Saints, to hinder the almighty from pouring down knowledge from heaven upon the heads of the Latter Day Saints. He's like,

“don't try to stop this. What happens is he going to do it? Like, is he actually going to do this?”

Okay, you want me to walk into Pharaoh? Like, okay. And it's interesting because there's this is a heavy moment. He's like, this is what you're going to say. And all of a sudden, we get verse 24 where it says, Moses is traveling, the Lord met him and sought to kill him. And you're like, no, wait, what? We don't think of the Lord hardening hearts or killing people. We tend not to think of it in that way. The Joseph Smith translation makes it clear. It says his hand was about to fall upon him to kill

him, but it gives us a reason. So the Joseph Smith translation, it says, because he had not circumcised his son. We are meant to tie this situation with exactly what Jehovah just said, covenantal bonds, keeping the commandments. And of course, under the Abrahamic covenant, circumcision was a token of the covenant. Moses, for some reason, hadn't circumcised his son.

“He had broken the covenantal bond. We see, it's actually that's what this word, the word,”

kill here in Hebrew. It usually signifies a covenantal breach or a sin. So he's basically saying,

Moses, how can we expect you to go and talk about the covenant and say, justice is coming? When you haven't kept your covenant, you got to take care of yourself first before you can start to help other people. You've got to live the covenant before you can teach it. Exactly. Putting it this way is really hard, but it's interesting because this idea of circumcision, it's related to the word the Hebrew word to make a covenant. The word is to cut, to cut a covenant.

Formally it's to cut in stone. It's formal binding legal cut in stone. That's why we see every token of the covenant has something to do with cutting or bleeding, cut or blood, even this word to kill. This is another cut word. You didn't keep your cut

“covenants by cutting circumcision. You'll be cut. There's all of this symbolism here. That's why”

we have animal sacrifice. This is why we have circumcision. This is why we have some people when they keep or fulfill a covenant. We'll see this in the Old Testament. They cut their hair. There's all kinds of cutting. So we have the Passover with the blood. Even when Jesus says the law of animal sacrifices fulfilled, He says there's a new law of sacrifice. It's still cutting. I think about a broken heart and a contrite spirit. It's still a cut heart and a cut spirit. It's still continues.

So there's so much symbolism here. He says if you cut this covenant, but you're not following the covenant, there's justice. There's a cutting. There's a justice here. Of course, all of it is covered by the atonement of Jesus Christ, all of it. Although cuttings the blood, the sacrifice,

everything was meant to point to him, always. His sacrifice, his cutting, being cut, his bleeding

from every poor, him being on the cross, all of those things, covered all of these other cuttings, all of these other things. It's beautiful how it just all ties together like that. They probably learned this from Jethro? Do you think? Yeah. And he wasn't living it. Yeah. He didn't, for some reason, and we're not sure why. He didn't circumcise one of his sons. There are different theories. Like, he was preoccupied with other things.

Like, speaking to God in the fiery bush and traveling to Egypt and becoming a prophet, that he kind of forgot about his most basic covenant he had already made. Sometimes we get distracted, preoccupied, and we forget our very basic foundational covenants that we've made,

12 and 13-year-olds when I get there. I hope it's the other teacher that week. Gospel God.

“We're not under the law of circumcision anymore. But the principle is still there that you”

have to live the Gospel before you can teach the Gospel. And that his wife helps him live the Gospel. Suppose, like, let me take the reins here or the knife. It's fascinating because Moses could have just done it. Moses could have been like, "I'm the prophet. I'm the father. I'm doing this, but it's a poor who sticks in." She takes a flint. This is a flint knife. These were much more hygienic, sharper, more readily available. She uses that to circumcise her son.

She steps in. It's the same reason when they said that when they make a covenant, he says, "Put your hand under my thigh." The idea is like posterity. Yeah, it goes back to creation. You know, and this is why she calls him a bloody husband, which sounds

awful or like you're swearing or something in another country. It's basically, she's saying,

"Your covenant is restored. Your covenantal relationship is restored." Through support, through the actions of this woman, then verse 26, it says, "So he let him go. This is so Jehovah, let Moses go." Joseph Smith gives us that, too, in the translation. He makes it very clear. Because of the poor, it's quick thinking, quick action. She is able to basically save, save Moses, restore that covenantal relationship for him. So he becomes, once again, a husband

of the cutting, a husband of blood. The footnote says, "There is some covenant significance in this,

also verse 26." I keep just said. Yeah. Crystal, so he let him go. That's going to be the same

language they use with Pharaoh. Yeah. If you keep the covenant, you'll be delivered. That's the promise. If you don't, then justice comes. Yeah. It's a lesson here of live this privately and you'll be let go. Okay. Now go do that. Same thing publicly. You're going to go. Talk to Pharaoh. Keep your covenants. Maybe the Lord really wasn't trying to kill him, but teach him. Yeah. It's justice. When we sin, we spiritually die. We're spiritually killed when we sin. We are separated from God

“even more and more. And the only way to overcome that is to restore that relationship through”

repentance, through the atonement. I think this is the lesson here. And I love it. Support is the one who steps in and helps him. Moses has all of this support so much support as he goes through this. I think that this is an absolutely true principle. One, we have to live what we teach. There's no power in trying to teach principles. You don't live. And two, your spouse can help you live what you teach. No one would know the intimate parts of your life like your spouse.

I can say that in my life. I try to teach the gospel and I try to live what I teach and my wonderful wife Sarah helps me live what I teach. There's a great story here, even though it's a little bit and told in an odd way. Yeah, and I love that support as name means a little bird,

“but she is not a little bird. I think in her mind, she's like, I'm going to save my husband.”

I'm going to save my child and I will do whatever it takes to help my family and step in and save them. You brought that up about spouses because I know it's the same for me with George. We're so different from each other that we fill in the gaps for each other. We're puzzle pieces that he's laid back and he's chill and he takes giant leaps of faith. So giant, I'm like, scared for him. You know, and he believes it's going to work out. And it does. And for me,

I'm like, it'll work out if I have a spreadsheet and a 20 step plan. But we work together. We balance each other out in that way. I love that Moses and Sephora. They balance each other out too. I think it was Elder Maxwell that talked about Mary's someone with compensating competencies. That's good. You're strong or I'm weak and vice versa. And if your wife has a sharp flint, Moses flat. Moses flat. She just acts. I love it. Moses says he's the one who wants the instructions

and confidence and she's just jumps into it. Let's do it. That's so great. I usually say if I'm doing something wrong, the Lord will tell me or he'll tell my wife. That's usually how it goes.

my wife. Something needs to change. Now he's ready, Crystal. Man, this has been a lot of tutoring

“and a lot of mentoring. Yeah. A lot of training back and forth with God. Yeah. If Moses is the best”

and this is what he goes through, we got to go through some things too to get to where our full potential is. And we kind of think at this point, support and the kids go back. It's time for them to go back. Baby's just been circumcised. They need to take care of that. But Moses goes on. Aaron is told to go and meet him. And I love it. It says when they meet together, they're so excited. It's been 40 years since these brothers have seen each other.

And maybe even Aaron is like, is Moses dead? And Moses is like, is Aaron still alive? They see each other. And it says they kiss. And this kiss many times when we see this in Hebrew, it signals a restored relationship. He saw and Jacob kiss when they see each other. David and Absalom kiss when they see each other. It's a like, we're back together. We're inseparable. We are going to do this together. Almost representative again of a covenantal relationship. Moses tells Aaron, I wonder if

Aaron's like, what? Do you imagine telling this story? And then he said this. And I said that. And then he said, throw the serpent on the ground. Aaron's going. And Aaron's like, last time I saw you, you had killed an Egyptian and left.

“Now he's like, you're a prophet? What happened? What's going on?”

But he believes him. He accepts him. He says, let's go. Verse 29, it says, they go to the elders. And they do the signs. And verse 31, it says, the people believed. The people believed. Moses is

probably like success. Finally, finally, my people believe me. They accept me. This is going to work out great.

That takes us into chapter five. They get to Pharaoh. They do the thus saith. Say, here, we're going to tell you. The Lord God of Israel says, let my people go so that they can hold a feast, a sacrifice, worship in the wilderness, exactly what the Lord told him to say. And Pharaoh's answer. Who? Who is Jehovah? You just said Jehovah? Who? Why would I obey him? I don't know who Jehovah is? You can imagine Moses is like, oh, no. But for Pharaoh, it's a legitimate question.

He's like, I know 2,000 Egyptian gods and I just went through him. I don't recognize that name Jehovah. Who is that? But the Pharaoh is eventually going to regret asking that. He's Jehovah's like, you want to know who I am? I will show you exactly who I am. They turn to explain to him. He's the god of the Hebrews. He met with us. He's like, I just told you he's the god of Israel. He is the god of the Hebrews. Please let us go. We need to fulfill our covenantal obligations

through worship and sacrifice or justices coming. He warns the Pharaoh. Justices coming because if you're keeping us from these things, pestilence, the sword, all sorts of things could happen. Which Pharaoh should understand because they also believed if you didn't keep your gods happy, they would send wars and diseases and all sorts of things. But Pharaoh's still like, I don't know who you're talking about. Who is this? Because the Egyptians also believed that the

Pharaoh was part divine. The Pharaoh's probably thinking, no, no, no, I, I'm a god, typically throughout Egyptian history. The Pharaoh represented the god Horus on earth and then after the Pharaoh died, he became deified fully divine. They would build temples to these kings, to these Pharaohs and they'd go in them and worship them. But some Egyptian kings, in a great example of this is Ramsey's the

second, decided they wanted to be worshiped in life, so they deified themselves fully into gods

while they're alive. Ramsey's liked himself so much. He built so many temples where people could worship him. He even built a temple and there are scenes in the temple of himself worshiping himself as a god. This is how strongly they felt. He liked himself a lot. I can see the Pharaoh is also like, no, no, no, no. There's no god stronger than me. There's no god stronger than the Egyptian god of

“Pharaoh. And that's why I sang, who is this? He has no power. And he tells them to get back to work.”

He basically accuses Moses and Aaron of trying to ask for time off for the children of Israel. He's like,

If I just let them go and take three days into the wilderness, all the sacrifices and then three days

“but that's a week off. I'm not going to do that. This is an excuse. He says. And so Pharaoh says,”

you know, if you have so much time to ask for time off, you feel so far ahead of your work. Well, we're going to give you some more work. We're going to actually double your work. He goes to the task masters and the task masters are the Egyptians who are in charge of the work crews in verse 6. Their officers and the officers are actually some of the Hebrew people. The word here for officer, it's related to the word for scribe. And so these are the ones of the children of Israel who

are recording what's being accomplished in terms of the work. They're keeping track of how many bricks

are made, how many days. And he says, okay, then we'll just tell the officers and the task masters, they don't get straw deliveries anymore. They have to go find their own straw, their own binding agents. If they have so much time to ask for a vacation, we'll give them more work to do. I'll give you something to cry about. It's in this verse 8. It says the tale of the bricks. This is an odd translation for saying the quota. He says the quota won't change. Even though now you have

to go find all your own straw, which means going to the fields, cutting the straw, chopping it up, taking it back to the brick making site and then starting the brick making process. But doubles

“their time. But he says you should make the same amount. And then in verse 90 says, maybe then they will”

not regard vain words saying, Moses and Aaron, maybe they won't believe Moses and Aaron any more, if we make life even worse for them. They'll think Moses is a liar and a fraud, because God told him to do this and he wasn't successful. So how could Moses not be a liar? He's definitely trying to sow some discord among the people for sure. Moses a little like Nephi. Okay, that did not go. That did not go as planned. Poor Moses. I don't know. The poor guy has his ups and downs and

even though God told him, this isn't going to work. Pharaoh will never let you go. Moses seems to have

forgotten that completely. So the Pharaoh ends up doing it. He says to the people, In verse 10, it's interesting. So the task masters and the officers, they say, thus sayeth Pharaoh.

“This is mocking Moses, thus sayeth our God, Pharaoh. And they're not able to keep up clearly”

and they get beaten for it. The officers end up going back to the Pharaoh and say, why are you beating us? Somebody hasn't delivered the straw. Your people aren't delivering the straw. And the Pharaoh says, actually, somebody came in here and asked if you could have some time off. So you could go and do these sacrifices. And since you have all the extra time, then we're going to give you extra work. Then they know, oh, it was Moses and Aaron who came in. And what do they do? They go to confront

them. Verse 20. They go to confront Aaron and Moses. They're upset. They are really upset. They say the Lord look upon you and judge that, calling down judgment on them. This word's savor. This is Stank. He's like, you have made us stanky in the eyes of the Pharaoh. We are the worst smell to them ever. You can think of Moses, probably being like, wait, didn't the Lord tell me that by the time we leave, the Egyptians will have favor and give us stuff. Now, this is the opposite. Here's the contemporary

English version of verse 21. Then the men said, we hope the Lord will punish both of you for making the king and his officials hate us. Now they even have an excuse to kill us. Thanks a lot. Thanks for the help. No, man, that backfired. Now everything's worse. Even worse than it was. And that's like 22 and 23. Moses returned to the Lord and said, "Wherefore has Thou so

evil and treated this people? Why is it that that was sent me since I came to Pharaoh to speak in the name. He's done evil to this people. He either has Thou delivered thy people at all." Moses, like, I told you it wouldn't work. Yeah, things are way worse than they ever were before. This word evil here is sometimes translated as breaking. It's almost like Moses is accusing

You promised all of these different things. There's no delivery. Things are even worse than before. How many times have we felt that way? Yeah. God just seems to wait till the last minute. The Lord had told him this several times. This was going to happen. It's the same for us.

“God says, "I want you to do this." And you're like, "Hey, I think I can do it." And he's like,”

"It's going to be really hard and awful." You might fail four times along the way. Okay,

God it. And then the first time you fail, "Well, what happened? You promised me this would work."

I think we do the same thing. We forget sometimes. Don't you think everybody listening can probably identify a moment in their life where they said, "I did what you said my life got worse." Yeah, definitely. And sometimes over and over and over, and it kind of makes you question, "Did I hear it right? Am I doing what I'm supposed to?" And I think that's Satan kind of creeping in, making you doubt yourself, making you doubt what you're

hearing. I think this is why in the scriptures, it says, "Remember, remember, remember, remember,

“because we need to remember that he warns us it's going to be hard. You will fail. That's okay.”

Keep going." I think we could all sit in our Exodus 5 23 moments. And notice the Lord doesn't get mad at him. He seems pretty patient with him. I have the Lord's like, "It's time. It is time for Pharaoh to truly learn who Jehovah is." And it's interesting, because he says, "It's sort of hard with the translation here,

but the first strong hand is from Jehovah." He'll see. It's that smiting again.

The smiting is going to be from Jehovah. The second strong hand is this idea. He's like, "Pharaoh's going to want you to go so badly, he's going to push you out with a strong hand." That's how this is actually going to work. And this is what he's trying to tell Moses. This is going to happen. And he says, "I am Jehovah." I love it. He keeps telling him, "This is who I am. This is what I do." Then we get a confusing verse in verse 3. He says, "Aberham Isaac Jacob,

they didn't know me by Jehovah." Once again, the commentary is going nuts over this, because the name Jehovah shows up twice in Genesis. People are like trying to, "Oh, what is this? Of course they knew the name, or they didn't know the name, they knew him by this title, but not his name. They knew the name, they didn't know what it meant. Again, if we turn to the Joseph Smith translation, clears it up. It's sort of like a rhetorical question. And it actually says, "Didn't they know me by

that name?" And was not my name known unto them and the footnote. Exactly. And so with the question work. President Oaks has said, "Oh, they knew the name of God. They absolutely knew. For sure. I love it. It's cleared up again. We don't have to fight with this. It makes sense to us." He says, "I established my covenant with them. I have heard. Is this the same place crystal? I have heard. I have seen." Yeah, we get the, I remember the covenant, I've heard. I remember, I will bring

you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. This is actually the word deliver. It's the same word we've been seeing. It would be helpful if it actually said deliver. Yeah, the footnote says, he brewed deliver. Footnote 6C. This is the whole point. We are meant to get from this that this physical deliverance from bondage and captivity is meant to teach us about spiritual deliverance from sin and spiritual death. It's about redemption. I circled all of the eye pronouns and it's

just red polka dots. Lord's going to do this. He's going to use Moses and Aaron, but I'm going to do it. Yeah, I love it. He's like, it's time. It's time to get you out. Pharaoh was given a chance to use his agency. Now what Jehovah does next is just. Yep. Yeah, here it comes. And he was warned so many times,

“which is what the Lord does. Moses asks, I think I counted like six times for them just to go worship.”

Not even to let him go. Just let us go worship. He asked six times and he says, if you don't,

just as in judgment is coming, the Pharaoh's been warned. It's not like he had never heard this.

He's aware. Yeah, and not only does he not let him go, he makes it harder for them so they'll never be able to worship Jehovah. You're exactly right, Chris Alias, the question. Who is Jehovah?

gets a little bit weird here in a minute. Maybe not weirder than before, but there are some beautiful

“verses here in seven and eight. He says, I will take you to me for a people. I love this. You are my”

people. I am your God. This is a covenantal relationship and this is sort of preemptive of this mosaic covenant that they're going to enter into in the future. These were things that were promised to Abraham, right? He will be your God. You will be his people. You will be together. There's the subtext here. Jehovah's also saying that I'm going to be your leader, your ruler, your guide, your instructor, your logiver, the Pharaoh, you are not his people. You don't belong to the Pharaoh.

You belong to me. From now on, if we can get you out and you're going to build that sanctuary,

that tabernacle, I'm going to give you new laws to follow. I'm going to protect you. I'm going to help you and it's this beautiful promise of what a covenantal relationship is. You covenant with him, your his people. I love in verse eight. It says that he swore that like God swore and in Hebrew, this is lifted up the hand. Like God takes an oath here. He makes a promise. It's a binding promise. I made this promise to Abraham Isaac and Jacob and it's your heritage. Then Joseph Smith tells us at

the end here. It's not I am the Lord, but I the Lord will do it. I promise. When the Lord says he's going to do something, he does it. It's beautiful these verses. When we get to verse nine, it's so sad because he goes to the children of Israel. They didn't listen because of anguish of spirit and cruel bondage. They've given up hope. I don't even think that they look at Moses and say we

“don't believe you. I think they've given up. They're not sure anything good is going to happen.”

Anguish of spirit. Yeah, and Hebrew, it's it's literally shortness of breath. They can't breathe. They're being crushed by their burdens so much that they can barely breathe. Almost like they're barely alive. So it makes sense sometimes when we see this in their reaction. We get to points in our life too when we feel like we can't breathe and we feel like nothing can pull us out. Nothing can deliver us and help us. This is the moment where things change. They're at their

lowest really at this point. Everything can only look up from there. I think of the enabling power of the atonement. The elder bednar has talked about. We focus so much on the redeeming, but the enabling power gives us the strength from God to be able to not maybe even pull ourselves out of these things but to survive them. Isn't crushed the same as contrite? It means crushed like pottery that's been trampled and turned into dust. The broken heart is a shattered heart

and the contrite spirit. It shows up in Psalms so we can actually look at the Hebrew and learn

more about the Book of Mormon. The crushed spirit means crushed into dust and it basically means

there's no way to take that thing that's been broken and crushed and put it back together. There's no way any human being can take those things and put it back together. So what do we do we give it to him? We give it to the Savior. That's the sacrifice. We hand it to him and we say, "Put me back together, please." Rebuild me so I'm stronger than I was before. Here's all my broken parts help me come back. You're at a point where he's the only one who can do it.

“I'm sure both of you remember October 2013, Elder Holland's talk like a broken vessel.”

Elder Holland says the apostle Peter wrote that the disciples of Jesus Christ are to have compassion one of another. In that spirit I wish to speak to those who suffer from some form of mental illness or emotional disorder. He then started to talk about depression, major depressive disorder. He says it's an affliction so severe that it significantly restricts a person's ability to function. That sounds like verse 9. He says this dark night of the mind and spirit is more than just

discouragement. I've seen it come to an absolutely angelic man when his beloved spouse of 50 years passed away. I've seen it in new mothers with what is euphemistically labeled as after baby blues, postpartum depression. I've seen it strike anxious students, military veterans and grandmothers

trying to provide for their families." In that regard I once terrifyingly saw it in myself.

At one point in our married life, when financial fears collided with staggering fatigue, I took a psychic blow that was as unanticipated as it was real. With the grace of God and the love of my family I kept functioning and kept even after all these years I continued to feel a deep sympathy for others more chronically or deeply afflicted with such gloom than I was. Then he finished. Whatever your struggle my brothers and sisters mental or emotional or physical

or otherwise do not vote against the preciousness of life by ending it. Trust in God, hold on in his love, know that one day the dawn will break brightly and all shadows of mortality will flee.

“Though we may feel we are like a broken vessel, as the Salma says, we must remember that vessel”

is in the hands of the divine Potter. Moses has lost some hope here too. We can see that in the next verses. He says, "They won't listen to me. Why would Pharaoh listen?" And then he calls himself as having

uncircumcised lips, basically, lips that are covered, lips that can't perform their function,

lips that are not able to speak. This is used sometimes for years that can't hear as well. It's hard. They're at this point where this is a turning. This is a change. This is where Jehovah can come in and deliver them and save them. And that's the message here. Only through Jesus Christ can we be saved. Crystal, lead us into next week. What's about to happen? Sounds like the tensions building. It's funny because all of a sudden it just breaks off here

and we get a long list of names. Of course. But this is meant to set us up. Huge things are coming. Covenants are going to be fulfilled. Deliverance is nigh. This is meant to remind all of the people and all of us, it's happening now. It's time, it's happening. It's meant to tell us there's four generations. They trace the Levites because they are showing authority of Moses and Aaron. They're setting up the Levite priesthood here. That's kind of like the purpose of all of this.

And then the last three verses are like, okay, now back to the story. Here's the story. It's just as cliffhanger. The children of Israel at their lowest. Moses is kind of out as lowest. What's going to happen next? We know that deliverance is coming. Covenantial promises are coming and everything changes in the next few chapters. We have people who feel that

“anguish of spirit and cruel bondage. So if we have somebody listening, what should we say to them?”

It's coming. Next week on follow him. Yeah. Stay tuned. There's hope smiling brightly before us and we know that deliverance is an eye. Boy, the Lord waits until the last minute, sometimes. If we go all the way back to our four themes, all of those themes can be tied into this idea of hope.

Hope for the future. Our first theme was, who is Jehovah? What does he do? What does he care about?

Well, clearly we've been told. He cares about us. He loves us. He sees you. He knows you. He hears you. He works on a different timeframe than we do. I mean, we've gone through six chapters of posterity and oppression. Those are our lives too. The second was Covenants. Does he keep Covenants? Absolutely. We see this 100%. And a huge part of that is don't give up hope. Don't give up. It's coming. Those promises, those blessings, they are coming. It just might take some time.

Then we have deliverance from bondage. That's perfect. You will be delivered someday. Redemption is coming. And that last one about identity, we saw Moses struggle with all of these things.

“And if the only thing you take away from these chapters is that you are a child of God,”

you're a child of the Covenant and you're a disciple of Jesus Christ. That's the foundation of everything that can keep us going and keep trying. Yeah, I love it. I hope anyone's sitting in there. Exodus chapters one through six. If you'll just keep turning the page. Yeah, hold on. The Red Sea parts. Yeah, the Exodus, it's the story of our life. And we're trying

Exodus teaches us we're going to have ups and downs, but we'll make it.

“And he sends prophets who don't think they can be prophets. He's sending help. He sends help.”

I'd love it. Crystal, thank you so much for your time today. Just so everybody knows who's

listening out there. I get to talk to Crystal just on a one-on-one basis in the hallway and she

is as good as you think she is. Oh, that's so kind. Thank you. Well, with that we want to thank Dr. Crystal Pierce for joining us again on follow him. We want to thank our executive producer,

“Shannon Sournson, our sponsors, David, and Verla Sournson. In every episode we remember our founder,”

Steve Sournson. We hope you'll join us next week because we know that deliverance is nigh on follow him. As a thank you to our wonderful listeners, we'd love to give to you the

“digital version of our book, Finding Jesus Christ in the Old Testament. It offers short,”

meaningful insights drawn from our past Old Testament episodes. Visit follow him.co, that's follow him.co, to download your free copy today, and you'll also find the link to purchase the print edition. Thank you for being part of our follow him family. Of course none of this could happen without our incredible production crew. David Perry, Lisa Spice, Will Stokedon, Crystal Roberts, R. E. L. Cuatro, Heather Barlow, Amelia Kabuica, Sydney Smith,

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