BEMA 20: With All Your Heart (2025)

Transcription Status

19 May 25 — Initial public release

18 May 25 — Transcript approved for release

Transcription Volunteers: Sergey Bazylko, Sheree Belfils, Cameron Carter, Beth DuPriest

With All Your Heart

Brent Billings: This is the BEMA Podcast with Marty Solomon. I’m his co-host Brent Billings. Today we are joined by Reed Dent to look at the story of the Israelites crossing the Red Sea and dissect their first test on the way to Mount Sinai.

Marty Solomon: Hi, Reed.

Reed Dent: Hey everybody!

Marty: Reed is back.

Reed: I’m back, baby!

Marty: Your name’s going to come up in the next—it’s going to come up in this episode. We’ll have to find out where. Let’s do a brief review real quick. Let’s make this quick.

Brent: [laughs]

Marty: We got a preface and an introduction in God’s larger narrative. That larger narrative starts in Exodus. That means that our preface and introduction is in Genesis. Genesis 1–11 is this preface that we talk about where God introduces us to the goodness of creation. And there’s this invitation for humanity to trust, trust Him, trust that creation is good, trust that they’re loved. Of course, they struggle with that.

That leads us into the introduction, where we meet the family of God: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph. And this is a family that’s learning, and they’re trusting. They’re not doing it perfect, but they’re learning how to trust, and they’re trusting. And then that gets us to the starting of the narrative.

The narrative of God, which begins in the story of the Exodus, begins with a tale of two kingdoms. It’s these two kingdoms, Empire versus Shalom, these two kingdoms, Pharaoh versus God, these two kingdoms, fear versus trust, coercion versus invitation, domination versus service. I’ve heard you, Reed, talk about right-handed power versus left-handed power. We’ll have to do that someday on the podcast.

Reed: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It’s good stuff.

Marty: Yeah, absolutely. That’s what I always think of now, whenever I think of these two kingdoms, right- versus left-handed power. It’s a different kind of power. We have the story of God pursuing Pharaoh’s heart and the Exodus. He’s trying to get Pharaoh. He’s not just trying to get His people out of Egypt, He’s trying to get Pharaoh’s heart too.

There’s nobody that God doesn’t want to find His love and His restoration and His wholeness. And so then he rescues his people out of empire, invites them to be His bechor, His firstborn. There’s a partnership here, “I need you to be my firstborn son that shares my values with the rest of my kids, that helps me accomplish my goals as the father.” And that’s what He invites them to do.

In order to do that, He’s got to get not just them out of Egypt. That’s the easy part. We’ve been saying He’s got to get Egypt out of them. And the only way He’s going to get Egypt out of them, at least as the story goes, is He’s got to take them to the desert. The desert is going to be this refining fire, if that makes sense.

And it’s going to be this place where they are formed and they are shaped and they’re made, they’re transformed. They’re made into something that God wants them to be. So off to the desert they go, and that’s kind of right where we’re at so far. We got a presentation today, Brent, right?

Brent: Yeah, we got a couple maps, a few notes to share with people.

Marty: Excellent. Well, with no further ado, Reed, you got anything you got to say before we jump into the Bible?

Reed: I’m just smirking to myself over here because I know we’re pressed for time, but we just fly right by, and I know you guys already talked about it before, but the whole thing about God actually wanting to transform Pharaoh. Because I remember when that idea first came to me, that was like the most mind-blowing 180 that I’ve maybe ever had Bible reading.

And you’re just like, “Yeah, we know that God wanted to pursue Pharaoh.” I know it’s the recap, but it just made me kind of smile because it’s like complete mind explosion. You could talk about that for days. But it sounds like a pretty good story so far, so let’s go.

Marty: Sounds pretty good, alright. Well, Brent, give us the first part. Let’s start in Exodus 14 and see what happens.

Brent: Then the Lord said to Moses, “Tell the Israelites to turn back and encamp near Pi Hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea. They are to encamp by the sea, directly opposite Baal Zephon. Pharaoh will think, ‘The Israelites are wandering around the land in confusion, hemmed in by the desert.’ And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will pursue them. But I will gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord.” So the Israelites did this.

Marty: Alright, so the thing that’s going to help us here for these first four verses is to look at a map, to get a visual of what’s being said here. On that first slide there, you’re going to have this map in front of you, which first of all, before we even get started, you can see we’re going to put on the map here where they start.

They start in the land of Goshen, and you can just see and appreciate on that map—Brent, you were with us on that episode, we talked about the green abundance. You can see it on that map, huh? The land of Goshen is something, right?

Brent: Yeah, it is a stark change. So many times you look at a satellite image and you’re like, I think that might be there. If you’re really familiar with an area, you can kind of tell what’s what. But here, you don’t have to know anything. You don’t have to have been there. This image, it so clearly shows the transition.

Marty: Absolutely. That is why they were there. That’s why you go there for a famine. That’s where they were living in the land of Goshen, and they are now leaving that and heading out into all the stuff on that map that doesn’t look green. They are headed out to the desert and that visual alone is worth the map.

But as they head out, they head east. Now, in order to get where they need to go, in order to find freedom, they need to go—like if you’re just looking at the map, they need to go east and north. They just need to follow the coast. There’s even a highway there that I believe they called the Way of Kings.

Even back then, this is the main highway. They just take the road and get out of there, take off. But God tells them to head south, which if you’re looking at that, they head south before they get beyond the Gulf, the sea. So if they head south, they’re going to be hemmed in. They’re heading essentially towards a dead end.

Now, we always talk about the Red Sea, like they’re headed to the Red Sea. The problem is the word in the Hebrew doesn’t mean Red Sea. It’s not like it can mean Red Sea. No, it just does not mean Red Sea. The body of water there today we call the Red Sea, but the Hebrew just literally is not the Red Sea. It is literally the Sea of Reeds. It is the Reed Sea. There you go. Reed, there’s your body of water.

Reed: It’s the sea of me’s.

Brent: [laughs]

Marty: Whenever Reed says it, he’ll say the “Me sea.”

Reed: The “me sea.”

Marty: The me sea. They’re heading to the Reed Sea, the Sea of Reeds. Now the Sea of Reeds today is that little marshy area just to the north of that. There’s kind of like these two fingers of the Red Sea, of the Gulf, that form the Sinai Peninsula. And there’s that finger to the left, and right above that left finger of the water there, you’ll see another body of water. That whole area there is kind of marshy.

And that whole marshy area is still known today, as far as we know, it’s been known for centuries and centuries, potentially even thousands of years, as the Sea of Reeds. And it makes a ton of sense that that’s where they’re headed.

A lot of scholars, by the way, believe that’s exactly where the crossing happened. I remember Bruce Feiler had a book, and I’m trying to remember which one you could link, Brent, if it’s in Walking the Bible. Did he do a book on Moses? He did a book on Abraham. He did a book on where God lives. I think it’s Walking the Bible where he talks about the Exodus story.

A lot of scholars, a lot of secular scholars, are going to put the crossing of the Red Sea right there in the Sea of Reeds. Not a body of water, they make it through this marshy area and Pharaoh and his chariots, they don’t make it through. And that’s fine. Maybe that’s exactly what happens.

But as you read the story, most of us have a problem with that because the story very clearly depicts walls of water. They’re walking through walls of water on dry ground. It’s hard to square that kind of academic secular viewpoint with what we’re reading in the actual Text, which that’s the way I like to lean.

I like to lean towards the Text. So I’m going to say that they probably head even further south beyond that marshy area and they end up crossing where we’ve depicted there on the map. They end up crossing there.

And this is the setup because Pharaoh does exactly what God says He’s going to do. He changes his mind. He comes after the Israelites and everything’s going to seem off. Why have they headed south? Why have they gone this way? They’re now going to be stuck. They’re at a dead end. They have pushed themselves into a situation where they cannot go north, south.

They now have Pharaoh behind them, the mountainous region to the west of the water, and the water in front of them. There’s nowhere that they can go. And this is the drama of the crossing of the Red Sea. So that’s where we’re at. I don’t know if anybody has anything to add, but otherwise, let’s just jump down a few more verses to verse 10. Brent?

Brent: As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the Lord. They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone, let us serve the Egyptians? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert.” Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”

Marty: You need only to be still. It’s one of my favorite little portions of this story based on a teaching I heard from Ray a long, long time ago. The command from Moses here, the old NIV used to say, “Stand and watch.” I think yours said, “Stand there” or “Stand still and you will see.” I think the old NIV used to say, “Stand and watch.”

Brent: “Stand firm” is what it says.

Marty: Stand firm. There you go. Stand firm and you will see. So “Stand and watch” was this lesson that I heard. And this is the lesson for today.

On this day, not today for us on the podcast, but for them on that day, their lesson was, “I just want you to stand there and watch.” There will come a time later where they are supposed to have grown with God, and God’s going to say, “Now I want you to move and I’ll show up. I want you to move first.”

But today, as they’re learning about who this God is, God says, “I just want you to watch, you watch what I’m going to do. I want you to stand and I want you to watch. The next time I’m going to ask you to put your faith in what you’ve seen. But this time, on this day, it’s just stand and watch.”

Sometimes God looks at us and says, “All I need you to do is just shut up, be still, and watch what I’m going to do.” Sometimes God looks at us and says, “I want to see your faith in action.” But today on this day, it was stand and watch. Give us a couple more verses, Brent.

Brent: Then the Lord said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on. Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground.”

Marty: I love that word. Why are you standing here talking to me? Get on with it.

Reed: Well, is the word “stand and watch?” Cause that’s Moses’s word to the people. And I love this verse. You need only to be still, the Lord will fight for you. Yes and amen. But it’s literally the next verse where God is like, “Why are you crying to me? Move. Tell them to go.”

Marty: It is true. It’s like God’s like, “That’s great. This is a great poetic moment, but the Pharaoh is behind you. Let’s get a move on it.” Yeah, that’s great.

Reed: Well, maybe we’ll get to this, but it’s interesting how the angel is traveling in front of the people at first, like goading them on, like we’re going this way. And then later it moves behind to protect them.

Marty: Yeah, absolutely. Let’s skip a few verses, jump a little bit further down for the sake of time. Brent, start in verse 19.

Brent: Then the angel of God, who had been traveling in front of Israel’s army, withdrew and went behind them. The pillar of cloud also moved from in front and stood behind them, coming between the armies of Egypt and Israel. Throughout the night the cloud brought darkness to the one side and light to the other side; so neither went near the other all night long.

Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the Lord drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided, and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left.

Marty: There’s those walls of water. It makes it hard to not see walls of water when it’s described that way. Reed, when you hear this section, what is it that you see in here?

Reed: I think about the walls of water and the sort of miraculousness of it. And then all of the scholarly things also come into my mind. I think it’s interesting. It’s kind of a fun exercise if you compare this with Chapter 15. I remember BibleProject did a thing on this a while ago where they’re both an account of this event that happened—[Chapters] 14 and 15—but that 14 is told in more of a straightforward language kind of way.

Marty: Sure.

Reed: For example, it is Moses stretches out his arm or it is a strong east wind that is blowing. And then when you get to Chapter 15, it takes on this whole other poetic flavor because it’s this song, and now it’s the right hand of God.

And now it’s the nostrils, the breath from the nostrils. It’s not wind. You know what I mean? And it’s like, well, which is it? And I think the point is it’s a both/and, it’s not an either/or.

There’s an interesting book called the Poetics of Biblical Narrative, and this guy, Meir Sternberg, talks about a threefold dimension to the Text. Those three folds are—one is historiographic. They’re trying to say what happened. Another is the ideological—they’re trying to convey a conviction that they have about God, about the people. And then the third one is aesthetic, which is the language itself, the poetics. He kind of talks about it as if there are levers. They’re not opposing forces, they’re just turned up in different ways.

And so in Chapter 15 here, it feels like the aesthetics and the ideological levers are pushed up. And in Chapter 14 it feels like maybe more of the historiographical is pushed up trying to—not that it is necessarily just a straightforward account—but that it’s trying to kind of hit more in that register. Does that make sense?

Marty: Yep, totally.

Reed: And so I think it’s a nice third way for me, where I don’t have to choose between either it happened or it didn’t happen exactly like this. But to think about what is the author’s intent, or could be the author’s intent with these different levers? And why that would be. It’s cool because here you have it back-to-back with the same incident, but being talked about in two pretty stylistically different ways. And they’re both valuable.

Marty: Right.

Brent: I think it’s actually distinct even here in 14, because verse 21, Moses stretches out his hand over the sea. And all that night, the Lord drove back the sea with a strong east wind, the waters were divided. That’s how I think of this story in my mind. But back in verse 16, God says to Moses, “Raise your staff and stretch out your hand to divide the water.” And it doesn’t say anything about God actually doing it. It’s God telling Moses to do it. And then Moses is not quite doing it, so God actually does it. I mean, whatever.

This is the thing, who’s actually functioning here? What’s actually happening? But I think even here in 14, there's that tension between who’s actually doing this? Does Moses have enough faith to do it himself? God’s actually going to do it in the end. Obviously, it’s God’s power behind it all, but whatever.

Reed: Yeah, and I think throughout the Moses story there is a lot of playing with, are we talking about Moses or are we talking about God? And at times they are very distinct and at times they seem like almost the same agent.

Not that Moses is God, but that there is a kind of a blurred line in the Text where Moses is this kind of special sort of agent of God. I don’t know exactly how you’d want to say that. Can I read this quote I found from Martin—

Marty: I was going to say, you have a Buber quote and a Brueggemann quote, and if you don’t read them, I’m gonna be very sad.

Reed: The Martin Buber quote I found in this amazing commentary that I have, that my friend Dr. Jennifer Jesse gave me by W. Gunther Plaut, and it’s on Torah. And this Martin Buber quote says, “What is vital is only that what happened was experienced while it happened as the act of God. The people saw in whatever it was they saw, the wondrous power which the Lord had wielded, and they had faith in the Lord. From the biblical viewpoint, history always contains an element of wonder.”

And so I feel like this is the point that I’m always trying to make, that the basis of the Text, there is a historical event. There is a real experience of the people with God. But then the question becomes, as Buber is saying, whatever they experienced, their experiences of the act of God, how do you convey to an audience your experience with an act of God?

What’s the best way? Is it poems? Is it songs? Is it epic tales? Brueggemann calls it an imaginative remembering, where simply the dry facts won’t account for the greatness of the saving experience of God. We’ve got to say it in another way. And so that’s why I think we have in 14, it’s a strong east wind. In 15, it becomes the breath from the very nostrils of God.

And actually thematically, I see a purpose here. This feels creation language to me. It’s being breathed out, the waters are being separated, dry ground is emerging. And what is happening is something completely new that is rooted in this amazing belief and conviction of the people of God that this is how the world was created.

And now our new world and freedom is being created in a similar way. And so we’re tying them together in a poetic way. And I think that's not to the detriment of the Text. That doesn’t make it less believable. That puts a fire in me to believe it more.

Marty: Yeah, and the Midrash would even agree with your connection to creation. There’s a Midrash about how when they walk through the walls of water, there were fruit trees growing in the walls of the water, and they were picking fruit as they walked.

Reed: Dang!

Marty: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s pretty good.

Reed: Oh that is juicy, literally juicy. Also really happy that the Midrash agrees with me. Very happy anytime that happens.

Marty: Absolutely, 100%.

Reed: That’s good though.

Marty: That is. So Reed brought out Exodus 15, and it’s this whole chapter of singing and dancing. By the way, RVL, my teacher, has some dynamite teaching on—we gotta learn how to dance. You gotta learn how to do what Reed was just talking about.

You gotta learn how to stop and tell the story well, celebrate the story. We have to teach our children how to dance. The exact language that I’m thinking of is on volume—of his That the World May Know series. There’s a DVD volume. I’m sure you can probably get it in non-DVD form these days. I have the DVD. Volume 8 of That the World May Know, titled God Heard Their Cry. I think we’ve even talked about this already in Session 1.

The last lesson is called “The Lord Reigns, the Red Sea.” Actually, the last two lessons are great, but the one I’m specifically thinking of is lesson number five on Volume 8. But then if you go to Volume 9, like the first couple lessons on that one are going to be fantastic too, picking up at the Red Sea.

So there’s some recommendations for you when it comes to RVL, but this whole idea that we have to learn how to celebrate, how to dance, how to tell the story, how to pass it on to our kids. I think I see some more notes in here from you, Reed. What do you got?

Reed: I just found this great little nugget from Midrash and Exodus Rabbah that talks about, just to paraphrase, that in these various encounters that we’ve had so far, these kind of saving experiences, no one has busted out in song.

This is the first time that you get that. It talks about Abraham, he did not recite a song. Isaac did not recite a song. Jacob did not recite a song. But Israel comes to the sea and it’s split. And it says that Moses and the children of Israel sang.

And then the Midrash says, “The Holy One, blessed be He said, ‘I have been waiting for these.’” I have been waiting for people like this to recite a song like this. That here finally is the appropriate expression of gratitude and busting out in song and dance because of what God has done.

And of course, as people, gratitude is often the thing we forget to do, you know? We’re in it when we desperately need something, and then once we’ve got it we can kind of easily move on. But that God would be waiting for us to bust out in song.

And that’s kind of like the saving act sort of finishes there. Not just when they get through the sea, but when they have rejoiced and given thanks and praise. That was a convicting thing for me, for sure.

Marty: It serves as a perfect segue, because it’s usually here where I would introduce the concept of what Jews have taught as a threefold coming of the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God comes when three things happen. There are three things that have to happen or the Kingdom of God doesn’t come.

And when I say Kingdom of God, I’m not talking about salvation. I’m not talking about going to heaven. I’m talking about experiencing the Kingdom of God, experiencing the intention of God, the reign of the Kingdom of God on earth today. If you want to experience the world as God intended it to be, the rabbis said three things have to happen.

The first one is that the finger of God has to move. The finger of God has to move. Reed, you already pointed out the fact that God is doing something. There’s a God moment behind all this stuff. There’s a God impulse. God is moving. Sometimes it feels like Moses and his stick, but God’s in the middle of this. The finger of God moves.

We can think all the way back in the Exodus story, if you remember the magicians, they come to Pharaoh and they say, “Pharaoh, we’re out, because what you’re experiencing right now in these early plagues is the little finger of God.” I’ve been told the Hebrew there implies the little finger, not even a thumb or an index finger. “You’re experiencing the pinky finger of God, Pharaoh. So you need to get out. We’re out. Catch you later.” The finger of God moves.

The second thing that has to happen is that people have to call Him Lord. And that’s what you’re talking about, Reed, is there’s this moment—I love the Midrash there. I’ve been waiting for this. I’ve been waiting for people such as this to recite this song. It’s the first time in the story, some have pointed out, that we’re told they directly, from their own mouth, call Him Adonai.

And the song that they sing, Adonai yimloch l’olam va’ed. Adonai yimloch l’olam va’ed. The Lord is reigning forever and ever. The Lord is reigning forever and ever. The people call Him Lord. But there’s a third piece, and that is that the people have to respond in obedience. And when all three of those things happen, you get the Kingdom of God.

Obviously the teaching is, for a lot of us Christians, we love it when the finger of God moves. God has come to rescue us. That’s amazing. We call Him “Lord” and we act like the story stops there. But God takes them from here to Mount Sinai because the next thing that has to happen is they’re gonna have to respond.

If Kingdom’s gonna come, they’re gonna have to respond in obedience. I would say the flip is also—I don’t know about you, Reed, I’ve experienced all kinds of times in my life where God has moved and people are responding in obedience. And you’re like, “This is the stuff of God. This is the good stuff.” But they’re not quite calling Him “Lord” and so there’s still an element that’s missing.

But it’s just as much Kingdom as what we typically experience when we call Him “Lord” but don’t walk in obedience. And yet, we’ll be in another space that doesn’t call Him “Lord,” but walks in obedience. And you’re tasting Kingdom, but it’s not really fully there.

Reed: Man, I feel the conviction on all sides. And I’m like, we gotta get together, you know?

Marty: Yeah.

Reed: The people who are responding in obedience and the people who are calling on Him as Lord, don’t be enemies. We gotta come together and learn from each other. How do you obey and how do you praise God like that?

Marty: Absolutely.

Reed: Yeah, that’s good.

Marty: So God’s gonna take them from here to that last part of the Kingdom coming. He’s gonna take them to an invitation to respond with obedience. God’s gonna take them to Sinai. Jewish tradition, and I would say the Bible, says it’s gonna take them 40 days on their way to Mount Sinai, see if they’re gonna respond in obedience.

Along the way, between here, the Red Sea, and Mount Sinai, they’re gonna have at least 3 tests, called “tests” in the Text. They’re gonna be tested three times, at least three times.

God’s gonna test their heart, God’s gonna test their soul, and God’s gonna test their might. I find it interesting, not surprising, that it took—how long did I say, Brent or Reed? How long was it gonna take to get to Sinai?

Brent: 40 days.

Marty: And that’s the time of?

Brent: Testing.

Reed: Testing.

Marty: Testing, alright. I think this is not a surprise. They've got a 40-day journey ahead of them. God’s going to test them three times. So today, before we close, I want to go through the first test. We’re going to go through the first test here.

Testing. Let’s talk about testing first. Testing, not a pass/fail. We’re used to in the Western world, a test is I either pass a test or I fail the test.  

Reed: Such an important distinction to make here.

Marty: Oh, absolutely.

Reed: Crucial to understanding who God is and what the story is about. Crucial.

Marty: Absolutely. Deuteronomy will say in Deuteronomy 8 that He tested them in order to know what was in their heart. God wants to know? Reed, talk to me about what feels off about that. What’s the problem with God tested them to know what was in their heart?

Reed: I thought God was omniscient, that God already knew everything there was to know, all the data, all the facts.

Marty: [laughs] Right. He knows the data. And in fact, what Reed’s tone is already communicating is that this word for “know” in the Hebrew is not the data “know.” It’s not the cerebral knowing. The word for “know” here is the word yada, to yada. Let me give you an example of where it’s used. Adam yada-ed, knew, his wife Eve—

Reed: And then what happened?

Marty: And she conceived and bore a son.

Reed: Oh!

Marty: So this knowing is a very, we shall say, experiential knowing. This knowing is a very intimate knowing. And we don’t get weird with that. It shows, it communicates the depth of the knowing. God wants to know what’s in our heart.

God wants to experience our growth. He wants to experience our journey with us. He doesn’t want to just know it. He doesn’t just want to know the data of it. He doesn’t just want to have a cerebral gnosis knowledge. He wants to actually know—yada—it. God wants to experience it.

Brent: What would be a better word than “test” that would give us a clearer image of that? Because in a Western setting to hear the word test and not think of some sort of a pass/fail thing. Is there a better word?

Marty: I think the word is okay, but we think of the wrong one. We think of the test that a teacher puts down in front of us at school, rather than the test strips that I put in the hot tub to see where the water is.

There’s a way to test something to see, where is it? What do we need to do next? Do I need to add some pH? Do I need to adjust the chlorine? There’s a testing that’s not about pass and fail, it’s just getting a measurement. Then there’s a test that is—you get an A, a B, you fail it.

Reed: Would examine be a good word?

Marty: Sure? Of course, then I just hear the word exam, but nevertheless, yeah.

Brent: Something for people to wrestle with in discussion groups, maybe. Rewrite the Bible.

Marty: Our phone lines are open. They’re really not. We don’t have any, but let us know what you come up with. But God doesn’t test you just to see if you’re going to pass. He tests you because He wants to live life together with you.

And in the Jewish conversation and in the Jewish mind, a test is always about two things, what you give and what you get. There’s an outward and an inward. A test is an opportunity to show God you’re giving something. You’re showing God what’s in your heart. You get to show God who you are and where you’re at and what you want. You get to show Him the real thing. You get to give Him receipts.

On the other side, a test is always an opportunity to learn something new from God about who you’re becoming. You never arrive. You’re never fully there. So every test is an opportunity to grow, and every test is also an opportunity to show. To show God and to grow in God. So Brent, let’s get over to Exodus 15 and read me some Exodus 15.

Brent: Then Moses led Israel from the Red Sea and they went into the desert of Shur. For three days they traveled in the desert without finding water. When they came to Marah, they could not drink its water because it was bitter. (That is why the place is called Marah.) So the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What are we to drink?”

Then Moses cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a piece of wood. He threw it into the water, and the water became fit to drink.

There the Lord issued a ruling and instruction for them and put them to the test. He said, “If you listen carefully to the Lord your God and do what is right in His eyes, if you pay attention to His commands and keep all His decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, who heals you.”

Marty: So this is the first test. This is the story. They’re going to test the heart, going to test the soul, going to test their might. This is the first test. God wants to test their heart. Now, the heart in the Hebraic mind is a little different than we think of it in our world.

The heart, the vav, that’s what you call it in the Hebrew, the vav is the seat of the will. It’s where your choice comes from. It’s a place of volition. This is whether or not you’re going to choose. Are you going to choose to do what I say or choose to not do what I say?

The test of the heart is what are you going to choose? I ask Brent to read all the time and you’re here, Reed, so would you read Deuteronomy? Would you read, Reed? Read Deuteronomy 8:1–3.

Reed: Making me feel like I’m in second grade again.

Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land that the Lord promised on oath to your forefathers. Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the desert these 40 years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands.

He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

Marty: Alright, so God did this in order to test you because He wanted to know—there’s all these ideas we’re just talking about. He tested you because He wanted to know what was in your heart. And in this first test, to know whether or not you would follow His commands. It’s a test of the will. It’s a test of choice. It’s a test of volition.

Will you choose to do what I invite you to do? Will you learn to live by every word? We’ll come back to that in just a moment. So the Israelites are brought to this bitter well. The well is named Marah, which makes all kinds of sense, because marah means bitter. But marah has another connotation to bitter.

There’s a rebellious son in the book of Leviticus? Deuteronomy? Deuteronomy. To be a rebel is to be a marah. So marah can be bitter, and marah can be rebellious. It can be rebellion. And so there’s this play on words. Where are the people at? They’re in danger of being in this rebellious state. And so God wants to test them.

I’ll give you bitter water to see if you are a bitter, rebellious people. So they get there and they do. They have some complaints that they offer to Moses. So God tells Moses to get a stick, a stick, not the stick. Not the staff he’s been using. Get a random old stick, throw it into the well, and the well becomes sweet.

But then we were told that God gives them a law and a statute to—and here’s the test—to test their heart. So here’s the test. God gives them a law and a statute. He wants to know, will they follow this command? He gives them a law and a statute to see: will they do what he commands. Now, what was the statue?

I think a lot of us read this passage, and we think Brent read the statute. It says He gave them a law and a statute, and then the next two verses are the statute. But if you go back and look at that, Brent, that’s not actually a statute. There’s no statute in those two verses. There’s no command. There’s no law.

The Midrash points this out and says the statute isn’t listed here, but don’t worry, the Midrash has got us. The Midrash says I’ll tell you what the statute was. The statute said that the weak and the marginalized go first. So there’s this one well, it’s bitter, it’s got bitter water. God makes it sweet.

And now everybody can drink, but they have to let those who are older, those who are sick, those who have less ability, they have to go first and drink from the well. And God teaches them this to see, will you follow the rule?

And we’re not necessarily told how that goes or what they do. But there’s a hint at this in the last verse we left out. Give me verse 27, Brent. There was one verse we stopped short of.

Brent: Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs and seventy palm trees, and they camped there near the water.

Marty: They camped there near the water. 12 wells and 70 palm trees. That rings of some Jewish numerology. 12, what do I think of? What do you think of, Brent or Reed? Reed, what do you think of when you hear the word 12?

Reed: The tribes.

Marty: It’s the people of God. 12 is always enough for—and how many wells were they working with just before this?

Reed: One.

Marty: One bitter well. And they had to learn this whole lesson. They walk right around the corner and now there’s 12 wells. And by the way, 70 palm trees, 70 is another number for community. 70 is the number of leaders on the Sanhedrin. 70 is the number of leadership.

So there was enough for everybody if they just would have waited on the word—man does not live by bread alone, we heard in Deuteronomy, but on every word. God’s trying to test them to see, will you do what I ask you to do? Will you learn? So He gets to see what’s in their heart. He also gets to teach them, if you just wait for what I give you, there’ll be more than enough.

And I wonder were these brand new wells that Moses—because Moses wandered in these deserts for 40 years. Were these miraculous wells? Did Moses know that there were 70 palm trees right around the corner? Did he know there were 12 wells or, I don’t know, I wish I would know the backstory, but who knows?

Reed: So is there a difference between a spring and a well? We’re calling it a well, but it says spring. And so just when you asked the question, did Moses know about these? Are they new? I wonder if it’s a spring, this is not something that somebody dug or made, but it’s something that is issuing forth that God is maybe more directly providing.

Marty: Yeah that's a good point. Those are different words and they’re often similar concepts, but a spring is also better than a well. So I love what you’re pointing out there. It’s like God provided something that was, obviously not only not bitter, but even better.

Reed: Like super abundant.

Marty: Yeah. Alright, so that’s there. They’re in the middle of this first test. They’re getting to show God, and God gets to experience. It’s not that they failed. This is where they’re at today. And they’re getting to show God this is where we’re at. And we’re gonna assume that they learned the lessons for now. We’re going to give them the benefit of the doubt.

We’re going to assume they learn lessons, that they’re learning to take care of those on the fringes and they’re learning to wait on every word. So they’re learning and they’re showing. They’re growing and they’re able to show God what is in their own heart.

I think we have some time. Let’s push on. This test keeps going for a little bit. Let’s get into Exodus 16 for a bit. Give us the first few verses here.

Brent: The whole Israelite community set out from Elim and came to the Desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had come out of Egypt. In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.”

Marty: So we hear this and we immediately start asking the question, have they learned anything? Did they learn anything at the well of Marah? Now before we go too far down this road, let’s eat a slice of humble pie here a little bit. Reed, have you ever been in a Bible study? What have you experienced in your typical church setting when we study the Israelites in the desert? What’s the tone that we take?

Reed: Kind of condescending, to be honest. Like, “Oh those kind of dumb Israelites.” You just got through this amazing miracle at the sea, and now you’re complaining? How could you possibly be complaining? Like, “Oh, you’re so slow to learn.” I think we kind of make a caricature out of them, and we maybe assume too that if we were in that spot, we would be so pious and so grateful.

Marty: And Brent’s been with me a few times in Israel. Reed, you’ve been with me at least once in Israel. Having been in the desert, having gotten to taste for a moment some of these things, does the experience you had give you any perspective?

They didn’t have a charter bus or a hotel at the end of the night. They didn’t have any bottled water we made sure that we’re filling our packs with. Do you have a new appreciation for this?

Reed: Oh, man. Yeah. There was the day that we were hiking in that wadi. We were hiking right up next to a cliff face. And I remember I could feel the heat actually radiating off of that wall and it literally felt like I was baking in an oven. I mean it was so hot.

Brent: [laughs]

Reed: And it didn’t matter that I, just the night before, had been in a nice hotel with a nice buffet spread out before me. That was enough in that moment to be like, “Oh my gosh. I don’t know if I’m gonna make it. Did Marty bring me out here to die?”

Marty: That’s exactly right. I remember on my first trip, there was a pastor from Alabama with this thick Southern drawl that kept saying that in the back of the group. We were all the way in the back and he was like, “Why did Ray bring us down to this desert to die?” And it was just so great.

And so it’s a good question. “Have they learned anything?” I think is the right question, but we should ask it with more appreciation, that if we were honest, I think we’d hear an awful lot of our own voices in these verses.

So let’s not make it a caricature when we ask this question, but we do want to ask the question, “Have they learned anything? Did this test do anything for them?” Give us another verse here, Brent.

Brent: Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way, I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions.”

Marty: Alright, so there’s that word again, I’m going to “test” them. And this feels to me, like still a test of the heart, because He very clearly says, “I want to see if they will follow my instructions.” So this is still the heart test. This is still God saying, “I want to know what’s in your heart.” Go ahead and give me another verse and a half here, Brent.

Brent: On the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days. So Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites…

Marty: Okay, so that sounds to me like one of those—remember how we’ve talked about those breaks before? Somebody says something, and then somebody says something again, but there’s nothing in between. It sounds to me like this whole discourse, they’re talking to the people and the people are like, “Mmm, okay.”

They got nothing to say. And then they keep giving a little bit more instruction, but the people say nothing. We could be reading too much into that, but that’s what it feels like to me as I read this. But go ahead and go back to verse 6 and give us 6–8, Brent.

Brent: Is that actually the part that’s in verse 8? Because it was God talking in verse 4 and 5, and then Moses talking in verse 6.

Marty: Oh, sure.

Brent: And in verse 8 it says, “Moses also said.”

Marty: Okay, maybe that’s it. I probably missed that. You’re probably right. Yep. Listen to that as we hear these verses. I’ll put it that way.

Brent: Okay.

So Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites, “In the evening you will know that it was the Lord who brought you out of Egypt, and in the morning you will see the glory of the Lord, because He has heard your grumbling against Him. Who are we, that you should grumble against us?”

Moses also said, “You will know that it was the Lord when He gives you meat to eat in the evening and all the bread you want in the morning, because he has heard your grumbling against him. Who are we? You are not grumbling against us, but against the Lord.”

Marty: Alright, that was the one I actually wanted, Brent, you were totally right. I stopped you on the wrong verse. It’s that second one, because it feels like they don’t answer, and so Moses doubles down, because did God say anything about meat, Brent?

Brent: No.

Marty: That comes out of nowhere. It almost is like Moses doubles down and goes, “You know what? Not only bread, but meat too!” And God’s going to honor that in this story, which is crazy to me.

But Moses seems to bring this up outside of God’s instruction. God said nothing about meat at this point. Moses brings up meat, and that’s what I find so interesting. Reed, anything stand out to you? Anything about these words?

Reed: Well, you kind of already touched on it, but just that God’s response throughout is kind of crazy all around. That the people are grumbling, so not only does God honor Moses saying, “Yeah, you’re going to get meat too,” but even before that, when they’re grumbling, it’s just met with, “You know what? I will feed you.” You know what I mean?

They’re complaining and I don’t want to say that they haven’t learned anything, but again, bringing up, “Man, it would be better if we were dead.” And instead of any number of reactions that I could imagine, God says, “Okay, I’ll take care of you. I’ll rain it from the sky.”

It’s gonna be more than you can know what to do with. You’ll be tempted to take even more than what you need is how much is gonna be coming down. And that just feels like a very kind and compassionate and long suffering kind of response from the Lord here.

Marty: Absolutely. Alright, Brent, I’m just gonna turn you loose. You just read and I’m just gonna interrupt you. How about that? We’re just gonna go for it.

Brent: A classic approach.

Marty: [laughs]

Brent: Then Moses told Aaron, “Say to the entire Israelite community, ‘Come before the Lord, for he has heard your grumbling.’”

While Aaron was speaking to the whole Israelite community, they looked toward the desert, and there was the glory of the Lord appearing in the cloud.

The Lord said to Moses, “I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites. Tell them, ‘At twilight you will eat meat, and in the morning you will be filled with bread.’”

Marty: Alright, so there’s God, He’s affirming Moses said this, I’m good with it. Kind of like—well, we’re way ahead of ourselves, but if you’ve listened already, if you’re coming back to the reboot, we talk about Elijah binding God to His word. There’s this moment where God’s like, “Alright, sure. I’ll see you upping the ante and I’ll call you, Moses.” Go ahead.

Brent: “Then you will know that I am the Lord your God.” That evening quail came and covered the camp, and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp.

Marty: Then you will know, by the way, then you will know, yada.

Brent: Mmmmm.

Marty: So God also uses that word for, “You’re not just gonna know, you’re going to experience that I am the Lord your God when I give you meat and manna.” Go ahead.

Brent: When the dew was gone, thin flakes like frost on the ground appeared on the desert floor. When the Israelites saw it, they said to each other, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was.

Moses said to them, “It is the bread the Lord has given you to eat. This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Everyone is to gather as much as they need. Take an omer for each person you have in your tent.’”

Marty: We’ve talked before—I remember the first time we did this discussion, Brent, you asked the question of what was an omer. And it’s a good question because there’s a debate and a discrepancy.

An omer, a biblical omer is typically described as just under a liter. But there’s a lot of scholarship that’s like well, they just came out of Egypt. And in Egypt, they have what’s called a homer. A homer is just about a cup.

It would make sense that they would be thinking about an Egyptian omer because that’s where they just lived for centuries, but maybe it’s not. So we have somewhere between a cup and just under a liter. We’re not talking about a ton. Maybe it’s like flour. Maybe it expands.

I don’t know what manna did, but it’s not a whole bunch of manna. That’s the amount we’re talking. We need to have the right picture. They’re not doing a whole basket full of manna. They’re not getting a bushel of manna every morning. They’re getting a cup, a little bit over a cup of manna every day. That’s that’s the thing.

Brent: I like that we’re potentially mixing Egyptian and Israelite systems of measurement and you’re also mixing US and metric systems of measurement.

Marty: Absolutely. Yeah 100%. I didn’t realize I was doing that but how clever.

Reed: Just as a note on the omer, too: in verse 36, the final verse of the chapter, it’s kind of a weird—almost feels like a footnote—but it just says the omer is a tenth of an ephah. And so whatever that would be, whether it is more or less, to me it seems like it doesn’t really matter though whatever the actual designation is because the point of the story is that everybody comes away with exactly what they need.

Marty: Sure, yep. Well said, to which point, Brent, we’re just gonna keep you reading. Let’s get out of here.

Brent: The Israelites did as they were told; some gathered much, some little. And when they measured it by the omer, the one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little. Everyone had gathered just as much as they needed.

Then Moses said to them, “No one is to keep any of it until morning.”

However, some of them paid no attention to Moses; they kept part of it until morning, but it was full of maggots and began to smell. So Moses was angry with them.

Marty: So God has this opportunity to see what’s in their heart. At least not everybody learned a perfect lesson, because there are still people that are like, “Ugh.” And I would have been one. Let’s be clear.

I would have been one of those anxiety ridden worry warts that’s like, “But what if it doesn’t come tomorrow? I’m just going to eat half as much. God will be good with that. That’s being a good steward.” And it would have been all full of maggots.

God gets to see what you do and what’s in your heart and how you trust. And why. Because He even sees those parts in those corners of our hearts. And He gets to experience that. That’s the test at work. But keep going, Brent.

Brent: Each morning everyone gathered as much as they needed, and when the sun grew hot, it melted away. On the sixth day, they gathered twice as much—two omers for each person.

Marty: There’s no way this is going to work because we’ve seen it now. This is where my brain would have been. I would not have done—this is not a test I would have, quote-unquote, “passed.”

Because listen, it’s worked one way for five whole days. For five days, this has worked. There’s no way that this is going to be different just because it’s Friday. Go ahead.

Brent: The leaders of the community came and reported this to Moses. He said to them, “This is what the Lord commanded: ‘Tomorrow is to be a day of Sabbath rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord. So bake what you want to bake and boil what you want to boil. Save whatever is left and keep it until morning.’”

So they saved it until morning, as Moses commanded, and it did not stink or get maggots in it. “Eat it today,” Moses said, “because today is a Sabbath to the Lord. You will not find any of it on the ground today. Six days you are to gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will not be any.”

Marty: So they’re learning as they go, that not only are they showing God what’s in their heart, they’re learning from God what it means, “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word.” They’re learning how to follow God’s word.

They’re learning how to follow those instructions. They’re learning how to follow those commandments. And they’re showing God where they’re at in the journey. And it’s this beautiful experience that they’re having together. Go ahead and finish this out, Brent.

Brent: Nevertheless, some of the people went out on the seventh day to gather, but they found none. Then the Lord said to Moses, “How long will you refuse to keep my commands and my instructions? Bear in mind that the Lord has given you the Sabbath; that is why on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days. Everyone is to stay where they are on the seventh day; no one is to go out.” So the people rested on the seventh day.

Marty: So I wanted to close by circling back to this one reference that was made, because I think it shows in the rabbis’ mind, it’s a beautiful depiction of what happens in these tests, this idea of testing.

There was that verse that you read, Brent, that talked about, “Some people gathered a lot and some people gathered a little, but at the end of the day, everybody had the same amount,” which I always read—which verse was that, Brent, that I’m talking about? Can you find it?

Brent: Verse 18.

Marty: Verse 18. So if anyone wants to go back and look at that, I always read that and I was like, “Ooh, some special voodoo magic.” Like they would go out there and some people worked really hard and some people didn’t even work at all. And the more faith you had, the less work you did. And at the end of the day, they came back and it was magically all the same amount. Poof.

But the rabbis say, “No, no, no, no, no. This is something else.” They learned the lesson at the well of Marah. They’re struggling. There’s still some people that aren’t following instructions. There’s still some people that are struggling. But the community learned something about taking care—because there are some folks that could not have gone out, whether they’ve got a broken leg, they’re sick, they’re elderly, they’re blind, they’re whatever.

There are people that could not have gone out to gather manna for a whole list of reasons. And then there are people that have more than enough ability and time and resources and energy and everything they need to gather a little bit extra.

So the rabbis say what happened was everybody went out and gathered. Some people gathered more. Some people couldn’t gather at all. But by the time they all got back home that night, everybody always had exactly what they needed.

And it’s this beautiful picture of generosity and testing and what it looks like to show God what’s in your heart, and also learn from God what you’re needing to learn to grow. And all of these beautiful moments coming together in this messy spiritual formation mess of a collision, it’s just a beautiful little piece of rabbinical wisdom.

But Reed, did you see anything in there? Have you heard anything about anything like that that you would add?

Reed: Just a little. I’ll drop a little crumb, a little hint on the treasure map.

Marty: Oh, “a little crumb.” Look at this guy.

Reed: Just that there was another teacher much later down the road who I think was clued into this same communal phenomenon of sharing and generosity. Go look at               2 Corinthians 8 sometime and just maybe see what you find there.

Marty: Maybe Paul was aware of such midrash, such midrashim.

Reed: Maybe.

Marty: Seems to be tapping into this.

Reed: Such an amazing—and I love that it kind of helps lift, all of this helps lift the sort of veil of cynicism that we have about the Israelites in the wilderness, where it’s like—

Marty: Yes! Yes.

Reed: —man, maybe they did get it. Maybe not perfectly, but to me, that’s like, Oh! That’s encouraging for me, because maybe I can get it too.

Marty: Absolutely, I love that. Well, Brent, we’ve talked for far too long this episode, but man, this is one of those reboot episodes that’s been better the second time, I’m confident.

Brent: Well, there’s plenty of other stuff to dig into, plenty of text to examine together as a group. So if you want to get into a group, definitely go to bemadiscipleship.com, go to the groups page, check the map.

We are adding new groups to that map all the time, usually several groups a week. So it’s always changing. If you haven’t checked it, please come back to it. If you want to be on the map, use the contact page to get in touch with us.

We will dump a whole bunch of resources on you. You don’t even need the resources. But if you want resources, like we will help you get a group started, whatever it takes. So get in touch with us there. But thanks for joining us on the BEMA Podcast today. We’ll talk to you again soon.

Peter Orr: Hi, I’m Peter Orr, a BEMA listener in Seattle, Washington, and here is the prayer from Episode 20’s Companion.

We sing to You, Lord, for You are highly exalted. May you move around us and within us as we lift up Your name and call You Lord of all the earth and everything in it.

May we respond in obedience—even when we don’t understand—that we may show you what lies in our hearts, and learn and grow in You. May we never stop trusting and loving You with all our heart.

May we continue to choose every day to be and bring and reveal Your Kingdom on Earth. Amen.