How the Jewish people suffered from slavery in Egypt. Their burdens were systematically increased. The pressure became ever heavier. First came the supervisors—slave- drivers who forced the people into slave labour. When that did not break the people’s strength, the Egyptians resorted to maltreatment. When that did not help, they made their lives miserable by hard slavery, forcing them to perform with straw, clay and bricks and with all kinds of tasks in the fields— all torturous work in which the slave-drivers used and abused them ruthlessly. “So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labour, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites and worked them ruthlessly. They made their lives bitter with harsh labour in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their harsh labour the Egyptians worked them ruthlessly,” just like how Jews were tortured with slave-labour in factories around Nazi-concentration camps.1 When that still did not break the Hebrew people, the Egyptians started to commit murder, ordering that new born Hebrew boys had to be killed. What sadness that must have caused across the homes in the land of Goshen, in the little houses and huts, over there, where the Jews lived in a kind of ‘ghetto’. And when Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh to tell him: “Let My people go, says God”, the initial result was simply an increase of the pressure upon the Jewish people. While the straw needed to make the bricks (bricks of clay—very fine clay—mixed with straw, burnt and baked in the oven,2 or dried hard in the sun) were initially placed at their disposal, and they only had to fetch the heavy clay and put it into the moulds, they now had to collect the straw as well and nevertheless produce the same quantity of bricks.3 What then, will that do to your faith? Will you believe in a soon, a quick and swift deliverance, as Moses and Aaron had promised? The only thing the people of Israel did understand and were absolutely sure about was how bad their circumstances were.4 The Israelites’ reaction was very understandable. They did not listen to Moses’ fine words,5 even though he was indeed speaking on God’s behalf. How many will have sighed during the hot, sun-burned days ‘Will deliverance ever come?’ During the centuries that lie behind us, many ‘oppressed and persecuted’ people had that same thought. And many do today as well. Perhaps, they were even that desperate that they were convinced that ‘things really cannot get worse that they are right now! Why don’t we simply give up and give in to the pressure. And try to be just like everybody else. Why keep up the faith and the hope?’ This was the case in the Church at Thessalonica, for example. Paul encouraged them with these words: “They [these persecutors] will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the Glory of His might on the day He comes to be glorified in His holy people and to be marvelled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.” Vengeance will be taken on your oppressors, and you will receive recompense according to your works, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from Heaven.”6 But before that will happen, things first have to take place as the Lord foretold through His prophets. First the coming of the ‘anti-Christ’, and the great ‘falling-away’. “Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion/apostasy occurs and the ‘man of lawlessness’ is revealed, the ‘man doomed to destruction.’“ Do not quickly be shaken from your composure or be disturbed. He really is Coming quickly.7 Churchill said in the blackest of days facing total defeat: ‘Never give up, never give in!’. Putting up his two fingers in a ‘V’-sign, and he said: “V” stands for Victory! And finally he won, and Europe was liberated from a ‘demonic’ oppression. Free at last!
The pressure also looked to be unbearable for Israel under the Medes and Persians, when the great anti-Semite, Haman, seemed to be able to do as he liked. Deliverance did come, however, through Esther and Mordecai. And instead of dreading the day on which the enemies of the Jews had hoped to overpower them, it became the day on which those who hated the Jews were overcome.8 And Haman, the anti-Semite, came to a terrible end.9 Until this very day the Jewish people remember their deliverance in those days and celebrate this on the ‘Feast of Purim’. Look at their final destiny, says the Bible, when we sometimes feel as if we are going to succumb to the pressure and are tempted to go and do like the others.10 “Look at the nations and watch—and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told.”11 This refers to the punishment meted out by the Chaldeans / Babylonians on Israel, but exactly the opposite will be the case in the end-times. Then the oppressors of Israel will be finished. The Saviour assures us for the second time in this passage: “Look, I am Coming soon, quickly! My reward is with Me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done.”
Do not allow yourself to become frustrated. Continue calmly doing what you know He wants you to do, and in the manner in which He wants us to do it. And your reward will be great in Heaven.12
• We must do our works for the Lord, not to be praised by men. Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.13 Whoever does good to be praised by men, already has his reward.14 That is paid out immediately by the little compliments and praise of the people. It is better to receive Heaven’s reward, don’t you think?
• Purim (“lots”), also called the ‘Festival of Lots’, is a Jewish holiday that commemorates the saving of the Jewish people from Haman, an Achaemenid Persian Empire official who was planning to kill all the Jews, as recounted in the Book of Esther, usually dated to the 4th century BC. According to the Scroll of Esther, “they should make them days of feasting and gladness, and of sending portions one to another, and gifts to the poor.”
Bible References:
1.Exodus 1:11–14 2.Genesis 11:3 3.Exodus 5:7–8 4.Exodus 5:15-21 5.Exodus 6:9 6.2 Thessalonians 1:3–10 NIV 7.2 Thessalonians 2:1–3 8.Esther 9:1 9.Esther 9 10.Psalm 73:13 11.Habakkuk 1:5 12.Mark 9:41; Luke 6:23 13.Matthew 6:3 14.Matthew 6:2, 5, 16
