Douglas K. Stuart > Quotes

“From Moses' point of view, he was now permanently separated both from what he regarded as his homeland, Egypt, and also from the people he now identified with as his own, Israel. Consider, then, the spiritual challenge that was his. He was a failure as a deliverer of his people, a failure as a citizen of Egypt, unwelcome among either of the nations he might have called his own, a wanted man, a now-permanent resident of an obscure place, alone and far from his origins, and among people of a different religion (however much or little Midianite religion may have shared some features with whatever unwritten Israelite religion existed at this time). His character, as we have seen, was clearly that of a deliverer. His circumstances, however, offered no support for any calling appropriate to that character. It would surely require an amazing supernatural action of a sovereign God for this washed-up exile to play any role in Israel's future. Moses knew this, and his statement, “I have become an alien in a foreign land,” resignedly confirms it 152”
― Douglas K. Stuart, Exodus: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture (The New American Commentary Book 2)

“Sin is whatever offends God, and sin is an enslaver. But this slavery can be escaped—not by skill or cunning but by changing masters from sin to God.48 This comes about not by human initiative but by God's gift, to which humans can only respond.49 In Exodus, likewise, freedom from bondage is accomplished only by God. The Israelites are portrayed as having no chance whatever to save themselves. God must make the demands (“Let my people go!”); the people on their own, with or without Moses, would never have dared even asked.”
― Douglas K. Stuart, Exodus: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture (The New American Commentary Book 2)

“(3) Theology of Exodus: A Covenant People “I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God” (Exod 6:7). When God first demanded that the Egyptian Pharaoh let Israel leave Egypt, he referred to Israel as “my … people.” Again and again he said those famous words to Pharaoh, Let my people go.56 Pharaoh may not have known who Yahweh was,57 but Yahweh certainly knew Israel. He knew them not just as a nation needing rescue but as his own people needing to be closely bound to him by the beneficent covenant he had in store for them once they reached the place he was taking them to himself, out of harm's way, and into his sacred space.58 To be in the image of God is to have a job assignment. God's “image”59 is supposed to represent him on earth and accomplish his purposes here. Reasoning from a degenerate form of this truth, pagan religions thought that an image (idol) in the form of something they fashioned would convey to its worshipers the presence of a god or goddess. But the real purpose of the heavenly decision described in 1:26 was not to have a humanlike statue as a representative of God on earth but to have humans do his work here, as the Lord's Prayer asks (“your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” Matt 6:10). Although the fall of humanity as described in Genesis 3 corrupted the ability of humans to function properly in the image of God, the divine plan of redemption was hardly thwarted. It took the form of the calling of Abraham and the promises to him of a special people. In both Exod 6:6–8 and 19:4–6 God reiterates his plan to develop a people that will be his very own, a special people that, in distinction from all other peoples of the earth, will belong to him and accomplish his purposes, being as Exod 19:6 says “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” Since the essence of holiness is belonging to God, by belonging to God this people became holy, reflecting the character of their Lord as well as being obedient to his purposes. No other nation in the ancient world ever claimed Yahweh as its God, and Yahweh never claimed any other nation as his people. This is not to say that he did not love and care for other nations60 but only to say that he chose Israel as the focus of his plan of redemption for the world. In the New Testament, Israel becomes all who will place faith in Jesus Christ—not an ethnic or political entity at all but now a spiritual entity, a family of God. Thus the New Testament speaks of the true Israel as defined by conversion to Christ in rebirth and not by physical birth at all. But in the Old Covenant, the true Israel was the people group that, from the various ethnic groups that gathered at Sinai, agreed to accept God's covenant and therefore to benefit from this abiding presence among them (see comments on Exod 33:12–24:28). Exodus is the place in the Bible where God's full covenant with a nation—as opposed to a person or small group—emerges, and the language of Exod 6:7, “I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God,” is language predicting that covenant establishment.61”
― Douglas K. Stuart, Exodus: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture (The New American Commentary Book 2)

“Most often the people in Exodus have contact with God by representative only; it is Moses who has the personal connection to and interaction with God, not the Israelite people, but he does so on their behalf, not his own. Exodus also shows how the high priest will represent the people in his actions of worship ritual so they can be assured of access to the (limited) presence of God and the benefits of that close proximity to eternal and universal sovereignty.52”
― Douglas K. Stuart, Exodus: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture (The New American Commentary Book 2)

“The fact that Zipporah's name occurs twice is also no accident, inasmuch as the reader is now introduced to the woman who will have a prominent role in God's plans for Moses. It is not entirely incidental that this prominent attention is paid to Moses' marrying a non-Israelite; contrary to popular impression, the composition of the Israelites was simply not genetically/ethnically monolithic but rather a matter of faith as opposed to flesh.149”
― Douglas K. Stuart, Exodus: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture (The New American Commentary Book 2)

“In Exod 6:6–8 God lays before the Israelites an outline of what he is doing for them and a definition of how they are to think of themselves in relation to him:42 Therefore, say to the Israelites: “I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. And I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am the LORD.” These three verses can be understood to more or less sum up the theological message that Moses was required to relay to the Israelites, and, we submit, that the reader is expected to recognize as the principal statement of the theology of the book.”
― Douglas K. Stuart, Exodus: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture (The New American Commentary Book 2)

“The ancient pagan notion of the presence of gods derived from the assumption in paganism that the gods could (collectively, not individually) do virtually anything but feed themselves. Therefore it was generally thought that unless people were regularly feeding a god (i.e., bringing food offerings to shrines devoted to him), that god would not hang around those people; in other words, gods gravitated to those places, and only those places, where food was “sent up” to them via sacrifice.72 In the New Covenant, however, it is possible to say that wherever God's people are gathered, he is in fact present there in a special way. This is the result not of the ability of God's people to create a setting of holiness but of God's gracious promise to inhabit his people—each one and all of them—so that where any sort of gathering of two or more Christian believers occurs, their Lord is present.73”
― Douglas K. Stuart, Exodus: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture (The New American Commentary Book 2)

“The book of Exodus is bifid in composition, meaning that its material is presented to the reader in two main parts. A first part tells the story of God's rescue of the people of Israel from Egypt and his bringing them to Mount Sinai (chaps. 1–19), and a second part describes his covenant with them, made as they encamped at Mount Sinai (chaps. 20–40). Many possible subdivisions are found within these two major halves of the book (as, indeed, this commentary takes note of), but it is hard to miss the basic division of stories of Israel on their way to Sinai and accounts of God's covenant provision for them (including confirmations of and threats to that covenant relationship) after they are there.1 Exodus may thus be divided into two broad topics: (1) deliverance of a group of people from submission to their oppressors to submission to God and (2) the constitution of that group as a people of God. Put another way, Exodus is about rescue from human bondage and rescue from sin's bondage.2 Yet another way to think of the two parts of the book is through the idea of servitude: in Egypt, Israel was the servant of pharaoh; at Sinai they became God's servants.”
― Douglas K. Stuart, Exodus: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture (The New American Commentary Book 2)

“What does a knowledge of God provide? The reformer Melanchthon said it well: “Hoc est Christum cognoscere: beneficia euis cognoscere” (“To know Christ is to know his benefits”). It is not an emotive matter; it is a reception into a family whose paterfamilias is God himself, loving and benefiting in all full appropriateness the people he has made his own in covenant.54 That is what gets underway in the book of Exodus, not by anything Israel can do for itself but because of God's kindly seeking to adopt to himself a people, consistent with his oft-repeated earlier promises.”
― Douglas K. Stuart, Exodus: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture (The New American Commentary Book 2)

“She was no use at maths homework, and some days you could starve rather than get a hot meal from her, but Shuggie looked at her now and understood this was where she excelled. Everyday with the make-up on and her hair done, she climbed out of her grave and held her head high. When she had disgraced herself with drink, she got up the next day, put on her best coat, and faced the world. When her belly was empty and her weans were hungry, she did her hair and let the world think otherwise.
It was hard at first to start moving again, the feel the music, to go to that other place in your head where you keep your confidence. It didn't go together, the shuffling feet and the jangly limbs, but like a slow train it caught speed and soon he was flying again. He tried to tone down the big showy moves, the shaking hips and the big sweeping arms. But it was in him, and as it poured out, he found he was helpless to stop it.”
― Douglas Stuart

“The book is not about liberation in general or about political and religious freedom in particular, but about deliverance from bad servitude to good servitude. The Israelites served (abad) Pharaoh but were called by God to serve (again, abad) him instead.44”
― Douglas K. Stuart, Exodus: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture (The New American Commentary Book 2)

“2:1 This verse might seem at first glance to provide only incidental and minor information to the reader, but it does more. It demonstrates that Moses was a chosen child from the only proper tribe for his future calling, fully in compliance with the law that God had not yet revealed to Israel but would reveal within Moses' lifetime. In other words, the verse assures the reader that Moses was prequalified for the service God later gave him, even in advance of the revelation that would make that qualification necessary. The verse pointedly tells the reader that Moses was fully a Levite, that is, from Levite stock on both his father's and his mother's side. This means that he was unquestionably of the tribe that would soon be specially designated by God to provide the religious and spiritual leadership for the people of Israel (Exod 32:26–29; Num 3:12; 8:6–26; Deut 10:8–9)—the tribe that showed itself readily loyal to Yahweh (e.g., Exod 32:26), the tribe that would supply the priests to bridge the holiness gap between God and Israel (Exod 28–30) and the tribe selected to provide most of Israel's regular court judges (Deut 21:5).”
― Douglas K. Stuart, Exodus: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture (The New American Commentary Book 2)

“2:5–6 There was surely no attempt to place Moses in his little ark at a location where he was likely to be discovered. The whole intent was just the opposite. Yet he was discovered—and by an Egyptian! In the story's surprising twist, however, the discovery by an Egyptian, under other conditions likely to lead to the boy's death, leads instead to a perfect protection of his life. This is God at work, providing deliverance in an unanticipated yet wonderful way.”
― Douglas K. Stuart, Exodus: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture (The New American Commentary Book 2)

“What does a knowledge of God provide? The reformer Melanchthon said it well: “Hoc est Christum cognoscere: beneficia euis cognoscere” (“To know Christ is to know his benefits”). It is not an emotive matter; it is a reception into a family whose paterfamilias is God himself, loving and benefiting in all full appropriateness the people he has made his own in covenant.54 That is what gets underway in the book of Exodus, not by anything Israel can do for itself but because of God's kindly seeking to adopt to himself a people, consistent with his oft-repeated earlier promises.55”
― Douglas K. Stuart, Exodus: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture (The New American Commentary Book 2)

“12:38 This verse confirms that the Israelites of the exodus (and thereafter) were actually a mixed people ethnically—something that most Christians are unaware of. The verse would best be translated as follows: “A huge ethnically diverse group also went up with them, and very many cattle, both flocks and herds.”84 To what was Moses referring? To the fact that many other persons who were not descended from Abraham or Israel joined the Israelites as they left Egypt. These people had observed the miraculous work of Yahweh, Israel's God, and had become convinced that conversion to him and life among his people would represent their best hope for the future. In this regard they were predecessors to Ruth, who declared to Naomi, “Your people will be my people and your God my God” (Ruth 1:16).85”
― Douglas K. Stuart, Exodus: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture (The New American Commentary Book 2)

“In all of this portion of the book (1:1–2:25), Moses carefully avoided mention of the divine name Yahweh (the LORD) which he does not reintroduce until 3:2, even though he used it 175 times throughout Genesis. His purpose for this is almost certainly a desire to heighten for the reader the significance of the rerevelation of the divine name to the people of God, the centerpiece of chap. 3)14 and the focus of the covenantal theology that dominates the rest of the Pentateuch.”
― Douglas K. Stuart, Exodus: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture (The New American Commentary Book 2)

“The Israelites of Exodus were a people on the go, not a people who had yet arrived at their ultimate destination.”
― Douglas K. Stuart, Exodus: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture (The New American Commentary Book 2)