Exodus – 2000 years later

Thanks to Rob Bell’s book, God wants to save Christians, and the yet to be published book from the folks at the other Mars Hill, Redemption, as I read through the Bible this year I am more sensitive than ever to the prevailing theme of Exodus throughout scripture.

After God sends Moses to lead his family out of slavery in Egypt – granted it’s over a million family members, but they are family none the less – the family becomes a nation with an organized form of government, laws, and religion in a relatively short amount of time. After this critical moment in God’s interaction with us God continually references the Exodus events as his identification and as proof that He cares.

When God has had enough of the rebellion and a turning point is necessary for these people He uses Exodus language to announce through His prophets how He will discipline and how He will redeem.

I just finished Hosea, a prophet who lived 2000 years after the Exodus who announces the future destruction of the Northern Kingdom, Israel,

“5 They will return to Egypt
Assyria will rule over them
because they refuse to repent!” (Hosea11:5, NET)

The Northern Kingdom will again be taken into slavery because of their rebellion. It seems a cruel punishment. God even declares that pregnant women will have their wombs cut open and their babies heads will be dashed against the rocks. Wow! Pretty violent, and if we remove this discipline from the context of 2000 years of patience shown to the Israelites by God I think we might have an opinion of God as merciless. However, He’s given them 2000 years to follow Him. He rescued them from slavery in order to follow Him. Instead the people of the Northern Kingdom and especially their kings disobeyed the law and worshiped other gods. I think 2000 years is about 1999 years longer than I would have given them.

What about you? Is God patient, merciful, gracious, kind, and just? Or is God some kind of malicious, jealous, and enraged ogre?