BEMA Episode Link: 19: A Strengthened Heart
Episode Length: 35:01
Published Date: Thu, 16 Feb 2017 01:00:00 -0800
Session 1
About this episode:

Marty Solomon and Brent Billings dive into the story of the Passover and its plagues, God’s interaction with Pharaoh, and the call of God’s rescued people.

Discussion Video for BEMA 19

The Exodus You Almost Passed Over by Rabbi David Fohrman

kavad — Blue Letter Bible

hazak — Blue Letter Bible

Transcript for BEMA 19

Notes

*Note: The following notes are handwritten by me, Adam, and I reserve the right to be wrong.

  • Rabbis like to start by asking a lot of questions.
    • Fohrman does that in his book and then answers them in reverse.
    • First: Passover. Why name it Passover?
      • Isn’t the whole story of Passover about liberation and freedom? Why focus on one of the plagues where G-d saves the Israelites from the plague of the firstborn.
      • Tefillin: Write them to your hearts, bind them to your forehead.
        • In them they put:
          • the Shema
          • Love the Lord your G-d with all your hear…
          • The law of the first born donkey.
            • Why this law? Why the obsession with the first born?
            • When Moshe gets to Pharaoh, G-d says, “if you won’t give me your firstborn, I’ll take yours.”
            • But the Israelites aren’t G-d’s first born… what is that about?
    • Second: If you were all powerful, would it take you ten plagues to rescue the Israelites from Egypt? Is it a sick game?
    • Third: When Moshe finally gets the Pharaoh, he asks Pharaoh to let his people go for three days? Why ask for three when he should be asking for all time?
    • Fourth: There is an issue with Pharaoh changing his mind, is it Pharaoh hardening his own heart or is G-d doing it?
      • How does this play into Arminianism and Calvinism?
    • Fifth: Why does he seem to be so concerned about the wrong things?
      • Plague 2, frogs: When do you want the frogs gone? Pharaoh says, tomorrow, not yesterday. Why?
      • Livestock Plague: He doesn’t seem to care about his own livestock, merely where or not the livestock of the Israelites are also affected.
      • Pharaoh seems to be unphased by power: The power of the plague.
        • I would be concerned about how powerful these plagues are.
        • Pharaoh seems to be concerned by precision. He wants to know can you really control when the frogs go away and not whether the livestock go away but if WHICH livestock go away.
        • Two speeches Moshe gives to Pharaoh: [Exodus 5:1]
          • “Who is Adonai that I should listen to his voice? I don’t know Adonai.”
          • It would make sense to Moshe to either retreat or up the ante.
          • However, Moshe does something different that doesn’t make any sense. He basically says, Pharaoh, we’re afraid of our G-d and what he might do to us.
    • Sixth: G-d has never seemed to care about the names used to refer to him.
      • In Exodus, he seems to start caring about this.
      • Why does G-d start caring now?
      • It seems like G-d gives himself a new name but if we look closely, it’s not a new name and in fact, it’s been there all throughout Genesis.
  • Answers
    • Sixth
      • El was a common name for G-d.
      • The Patriarchs new him as El Shaddai, which doesn’t seem to mean anything but if you were to take the consonants from the name and create a sentence from them, his name would be, “Mi she’Amar Dai L’olamo” (מי שאמר די לעולמו) or “The One Who Said To His World Enough”
      • G-d’s fundamental posture is not about power. It’s about something else.
      • I used to be known as El Shaddai but I want to be known as something else, “YHWH”.
        • Overlaying the Hebrew for, I was, I am, I Will Be, you get YHWH.
          • It implies to the Rabbis and the Sages that G-d is timeless.
        • Fohrman Illustration: Monopoly pieces attempting to describe Parker, the company that created the game. It’s impossible for the pieces to explain “Parker” using anything but language related to the game.
          • G-d is doing something similar with Moshe. I was, am, will be is about as good as it’s going to get.
          • Fohrman explains this is the problem with pagan polytheism. We have created gods in the image of the things on the board game. Why does it rain? because the rain god is doing its thing. Pagan gods are limited.
            • This is why Pharaoh is so concerned about precision instead of power.
            • All of the gods are powerful but they are chaotic. None of them are precise.
            • Hail Plague: Hail had fire in it. The fire god and the ice god do NOT work together. That is unique.
          • Monotheism DEMANDS direct relationship. If there is one god, that means, there is only one god in charge of everything and I have to be part of his divine plan. Monotheism demands direct relationship.
          • Polytheism demands INDIRECT relationship. Moshe goes to Pharaoh saying they have to go to the desert to be with their G-d and Pharaoh says, “No thanks”. Moshe then rephrases the request according this Pharaoh’s world view, “Our G-d will be angry”
            • Pharaoh says no and G-d begins to pursue Pharaoh’s heart.
      • There are TWO words used for hardening Pharaoh’s heart.
        • kavad — Blue Letter Bible
          • Hebrew: כָּבַד
          • Transliteration: kāḇaḏ
          • Pronounciation: kaw-bad’
          • Biblical Usage: I. to be heavy, be weighty, be grievous, be hard, be rich, be honorable, be glorious, be burdensome, be honored
          • Times where his hard is stubborned where Pharaoh just doesn’t get it. Sometimes G-d will do this, sometimes Pharaoh will do this.
        • hazak — Blue Letter Bible
          • Hebrew: חָזַק
          • Transliteration: ḥāzaq
          • Pronounciation: khaw-zak’
          • Biblical Usage: I. to strengthen, prevail, harden, be strong, become strong, be courageous, be firm, grow firm, be resolute, be sore
          • Sometimes Pharaoh will see “it” and will decide, with resolve, to push through. Sometimes G-d will do this, sometimes Pharaoh will do this.
      • What is free will?
        • G-d is trying very hard to make Pharaoh make a choice which explains why G-d takes so long. Ten plagues? Yes. G-d wants to make sure that even Pharaoh will understand and make the right choice.
        • “I do this so that Pharaoh might know that I am G-d.”
          • G-d is at war with the Egyptian WORLDVIEW.
        • Pharaoh finally let’s them go but still doesn’t get it.
          • G-d says, I don’t just want you to let my people go, I want you to get it. I want to know if you’ll actually bow the knee. Not just in submission but give yourself to a worldview that is going to make a bigger difference in this world. Until I know that is the choice you’re making, we’re not done yet. It’s at this point that G-d “hazak”s Pharaoh’s heart.
          • At some point in the midst of the plagues, Pharaoh is going to get it.
            • “I get it. I understand what it is and I am CHOOSING to hazak my own heart… I see it and I just say no.”
            • G-d responds with, ok, we’ll finish in a way that everyone else understands what’s really going on.
      • We come back to the first question, “Why ‘Passover’?”
        • Because it’s not that Israel IS their firstborn, G-d is looking for a people who WANT to be his firstborn, his bechor.
          • If you are truly trying to honor your father AS his bechor, you would try to convince your siblings to also honor your father’s legacy.
          • A Kingdom of Priests: G-d started with Moshe, a man who would go and BE the message, not just BRING the message.
          • Now he’s inviting all of Israel to not just bring a message but to BE the message.
          • That will mean that they will have to be BORN AGAIN AS G-D’S bechor”
            • Marty uses this language intentionally because he argues that this is what the conversation with Nicodemus in John 3 is all about. “Water and Spirit” is all about the Exodus.
            • He’s inviting Nicodemus to join G-d and his great project just as G-d invited the Israelites in the passover story.
            • Rabbi Akiva pointed out that when the Israelites left, they put blood on their “thresholds” (the bottom and the top and the sides) they would have left in haste through a bloody door, as a newborn child enters the world through a bloody door.
            • Rabbis always spoke of the Red Sea as a birth canal. This was their chance to be born again and be born as G-d’s bechor; To go and show the world what G-d is like.
            • So we end up with this mission.
      • Part Four of Fohrman’s book, The Exodus You Almost Passed Over covers “The Exodus That Might Have Been. He goes all the way back to Joseph.
        • He answers the question, “Why does Moshe say three days and not forever.”
        • Fohrman says, if you know your Joseph story, you know that if Pharaoh is supposed to say yes and if he says yes, they wouldn’t have left.

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