Lazy Workaholics - Exodus 5

Alright y’all, this one is a doozy!

To premise, Moses and Aaron go to Pharaoh and tell him to let the children of God have a feast for Him in the wilderness (Eeeeee crazy place to have a banquet if you ask me).

Pharaoh flat out refuses and does what God tries to undo for the rest of the Old Testament (and the New Testament too, depending on which of Paul’s letters you read).

Aight, get this! Pharaoh puts work on the people, saying, “why do you take the people away from their work? Get back to your burdens… You make them rest from their burdens.” (v4-5)

“If the devil can’t make you sin, he’ll make you busy.”

• Corrie ten Boom

Sometimes “busy” is a good thing. Sometimes work gives fantastic results. But you’ll remember the story of Martha. What did the scripture say about her?

“But Martha was distracted with much serving.”

• Luke 10v40

Back to the story, the Israeli foremen come to Pharaoh (not God, mind you) and say something that is key to pretty much the rest of the Bible.

“Why do you treat your servants like this?”

• Exodus 5:15

It seems that what Pharaoh was trying to do in chapter 1 has finally paid off. Rather than being servants of God, they became servants of Pharaoh.

But was Pharaoh merciful when the people came to him with their reasonable request?

“You are idle, you are idle…”

• Exodus 5:17

To recap so far…

Israel took Pharaoh on as their master. When he gave them an unreasonable task in order to get them away from worshiping YHWH, they turned to him for help rather than God. Then Pharaoh says they are not doing enough for him.

But what else does Pharaoh say?

“You are idle, you are idle; that is why you say, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to the LORD.’ Go now and work.”

• Exodus 5:17-18

The devil loves it when we work really hard, as long as we don’t take the time to stop and worship YHWH.

You would think that after this, the Israeli leaders would turn to God again and groan to Him as they did in chapter 2. But instead they blame Moses and Aaron because…

“You have made us stink in the sight of Pharaoh and his servants.”

• Exodus 5:20

When in reality, by looking for the approval of the wrong person, they made themselves stink.

The next thing that happens is the best thing that Moses could have done.

“Then Moses turned to the LORD…”

• Exodus 5:22

In all that happened, the people would not turn to God. Instead they kept turning to Pharaoh, the one who was putting work on them while simultaneously telling them that they were lazy!

You’ll remember the rest of Exodus, how God took the people out of Egypt, but was unable to take Egypt out of the people.

This was the sad turning point that would take thousands of years for God to correct.

Before these chapters, God’s people were His friends, His servants, His companions. From this point on, Israel wanted to be servants of another.

But there is hope. Verse 1 of chapter 6 says, “Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh.”

There is so much more to this chapter, y’all, but I encourage you to read it yourself and explore on your own or with a group of Exodudes!