We are in chapter six of Exodus. If you remember God is answering Moses who is struggling with why things are worse instead of better all because they did what God told them to do. Our word is one of the three things God says he will be doing: bringing them up out of the burdens of the Egyptians, delivering them from slavery, and redeeming them. Let’s look at our word for today. נָצַל pull out, save, be saved, strip, plunder, deliver, snatch away, tear from, remove. It is used 213 times in the Old Testament. A good example of this word is seen in David’s understanding of God working in his life to rescue. 1 Samuel 17:35-37 I went after it, struck it and וְהִצַּ֣לְתִּי rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. The Lord who הִצִּלַ֜נִי rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will יַצִּילֵ֔נִי rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.” The people were stuck with no way out from Goliath unless God rescued them which he did through David. This is how our word is used in our chapter today. Exodus 6:6 Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will וְהִצַּלְתִּ֥י deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. God freeing from slavery will be an ongoing theme throughout the Bible. We see Jesus talking about this. John 8:32-33 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?” The religious leaders were thinking about physical slavery but Jesus tells them of another kind of slavery that will keep us separated from God. John 8:34 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. The good news is that just as God used Moses to deliver the people from the physical slavery they were in. Jesus has come and died in our place for our sins to deliver us from the slavery of sin. God explains how this slavery to sin works speaking through Paul to the Christians in Rome. Romans 6:16-18, 20-23 Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness … When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
I’ll close with the Messianic prophecy that predicted Jesus death on the cross where people mocked him for trusting in God who is not saving him but instead letting him die the horrible death of crucifixion. God didn’t save Jesus from the cross so he could deliver us from the slavery of sin. Psalm 22:7-8 All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads. “He trusts in the Lord,” they say, “let the Lord rescue him. Let him יַ֝צִּילֵ֗הוּdeliver him, since he delights in him.”
