Stephen
Terry, Director
Oppression:
The Background and the Birth of Moses
Commentary
for the July 5, 2025, Sabbath School Lesson
"The
Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help
because of their slavery went up to God. God heard their groaning, and he
remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. So, God looked
on the Israelites and was concerned about them."
Exodus 2:23b-25, NIV
From
the days when Cain slew his brother Abel, violence and oppression have plagued
humanity. Often this is driven by what texters call FOMO or Fear of Missing
Out. When Abel's offering was accepted by God and Cain's
was not, Cain felt he was missing out on God's
blessing. Irrationally, he rose up and killed his brother perhaps
thinking this would leave God no choice in who should be
blessed. It did not work out that way. Cain became a pariah, breaking
the hearts of Adam and Eve. With the loss of Abel, they felt some of the pain
when they wandered away from God through their own fear of missing out that the
serpent exploited. (Genesis
3) To this day, whether it is in the workplace, in school, or in the
family, people live in fear that they are missing out on
something. The serpent's hiss is just as loud now as it was then, constantly
warning us that someone is going to take something that should rightfully be
ours and give it to someone else, and if we were to rid ourselves of that "other"
as Cain did with Abel, everything would be set right again.
We
see this with the actions of the Pharaohs in the time of Moses. They used this
fear to manipulate the people. It is like a man that has a hoard of cookies and
tells the man who only has one that someone else is out to steal his lone
cookie. In fear, that man watches that no one takes his remaining cookie, and
thinking the person who told him is on his side, overlooks the hoard the other
man has and fails to realize the true reason for why he only has one. Pharaoh
told his people that the poor Israelite slaves were going to take everything if
they did not take immediate action. The male babies were to be killed. At that
time, warfare was conducted by men only. This would remove the threat of an
uprising. Also, as the males perished at hard labor, disease, or old age, the
Egyptians could do what they wished with the women who remained. This provided
an added benefit of preoccupying his own people with the artificial peril presented
concerning the Israelites so they would not chafe under the harshness of their
own rulers, the Egyptian nobility and the priesthood.
We
see this same scenario play out in our day. Oligarchs, who can never hoard
enough of the wealth of the world, tell the people, struggling with an
inflating economy, that it is all the fault of Sergio[i],
the pizza maker, whom we have known for decades. Although he has provided
delicious pizzas for many a party through the years for birthdays, graduations,
and sports events, since he has been living here on a Green Card, he must go as
he threatens our American way of life. He is out to take our remaining cookies.
Never mind, that the pile of cookies hoarded by the oligarchs gets steadily
larger and that Sergio has no more cookies than the rest of us, he is the
threat. Besides, he has an accent, and his skin is slightly darker than ours.
At the urging of those who want him gone, who remind us about the missing
cookies that could be hidden in his pizzeria, we rise up and strike Sergio just
as Cain struck Abel. Whisked away by masked assailants, he ends up in another
country by virtue of his DNA, a country he has never known. The pizzeria is now
closed. No hidden cookies were found. But we are told there are plenty of
others who must be hiding them, and the arrests and renditions continue.
As I
noted, this fear has been used for manipulation from the beginning and will continue
to be used by those in power to the end of time. Periodically, some realize
what is happening, and decry the abuse, but for the masses, it is like Chicken
Little's cry that the sky is falling. Everyone is too busy chasing lost cookies
where there are none to be found, and no one listens or cares. The cry is ignored,
and the manipulation goes on.
Just
as with Pharoah and Moses, the easiest group to vilify are foreigners. Their different
speech, customs, clothing, and physical attributes make them easy to single
out. This is not only true in the United States. It is true in every country
where powerful, wealthy rulers are seeking to manipulate the populace and avoid
losing power and control. The prophet Habakkuk struggled with why God allows
this. He wrote, "Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate
wrongdoing. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while
the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves? You have made
people like the fish in the sea, like the sea creatures that have no ruler. The
wicked foe pulls all of them up with hooks, he catches them in his net, he
gathers them up in his dragnet; and so he rejoices and is glad. Therefore, he
sacrifices to his net and burns incense to his dragnet, for by his net he lives
in luxury and enjoys the choicest food. Is he to keep on emptying his net,
destroying nations without mercy?" (Habakkuk 1:13-17)
Habakkuk
learned that God is involved in dealing with the predatory manipulators. God's
character is revealed in his counsel through Moses to the Israelites who had
experienced oppression as foreigners in Egypt. "Do not mistreat or oppress a
foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt." (Exodus 22:21) "Do not oppress a
foreigner; you yourselves know how it feels to be foreigners, because you were
foreigners in Egypt." (Exodus 23:9) "When a foreigner resides among you in your
land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as
your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am
the Lord your God." (Leviticus 19:33-34) "The community is to have the same
rules for you and for the foreigner residing among you; this is a lasting
ordinance for the generations to come. You and the foreigner shall be the same
before the Lord: The same laws and regulations will apply both to you and to
the foreigner residing among you." (Numbers 15:15-16)
This
command was repeated so frequently in Torah, it is as if God knew we would
follow the ways of Pharaoh and despise and mistreat the foreigner. While there
are many who wear their little gold crosses on chains around their necks who are
endorsing this treatment of others, they are a stench in God's nostrils. No
amount of little gold crosses can hide their treatment of others. Jesus tells a
parable of an overseer left in charge of other servants while the master was
away. He abused those servants and lived high on his master's wealth. But one
day the master returned in judgment and that unfaithful servant found he was
drinking and feasting his own impending death as a just end for his abuses. (Matthew
24:45-51)
Manipulators
are able to speak the serpent's language to listening ears because of our fear
of missing out on what we have convinced ourselves we must have. Jesus, in the
Sermon on the Mount, tried to teach us that our needs are provided for by God
and that it is not an attribute of citizens of his kingdom to fear we will not
be provided for. (Matthew
6:25-34) He even asserted that worrying about these things is a pagan
activity. Strangely, those who decry paganism associated with certain holidays
never seem to see the paganism in worry and fear that makes them susceptible to
manipulation by the serpent or his ilk. In his sermon, Jesus was reminding us
of King David's words, "I was young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the
righteous forsaken or their children begging bread." (Psalm 37:25)
For
those who want to trust the hissing of those wearing those little gold crosses
or are tempted to wear them themselves, take heed to Paul's second letter to
the Corinthian church. "For such people are false apostles, deceitful workers,
masquerading as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself
masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants
also masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their
actions deserve." (2 Corinthians 11:13-15) Satan is the serpent (Revelation
12:9), and many, like Eve, are afraid of missing out if they do not listen
to that siren song to greed. Like the sailors with Odysseus, we should plug our
ears against the siren call of that ancient hiss. It only leads us to live in fear and to abuse
others because of those fears. There is no excuse but our own greed to do
otherwise.