Hank Smith:                      00:00:00             Coming up in this episode on followHIM.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:00:04             I think a huge part of this is God is patient. He is patient with us. He knows we’re gonna mess up and sometimes it’s a big mess up. Sometimes it’s little mess ups, but he’s gonna keep trying. That’s what we see with Moses. Every time Moses pushes back, God says, okay, let’s keep trying. Let’s keep going. Let’s do this. His timing is way different from our timing. We want things now. We want things immediately, answers, blessings. He’s got a better concept of time, I think, and how it works.

Hank Smith:                      00:00:39             Welcome to another episode of followHIM. My name is Hank Smith. I am your host. I am here with my eloquent co-host, John, Bytheway, he is not slow of speech and he has a quick tongue. John, that’s you. You are eloquent.

John Bytheway:               00:00:58             I’m so el- ecli- ele-, that thing you said, yeah.

Hank Smith:                      00:01:04             John, Moses tells the Lord, “I am not eloquent. I am of slow speech. I have a slow tongue.” The Lord gets after him. Who made man’s mouth? Who maketh the dumb, or the deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? Have not I? I love it. John, we are privileged, honored, excited to have back Dr. Krystal Pierce. She’s been with us before. Krystal, welcome back to followHIM.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:01:32             Thank you. I’m so excited to be back. So excited to talk about the Old Testament.

Hank Smith:                      00:01:37             The last time you were on with your amazing husband, Dr. George Pierce, for the book of Ether. We missed you. John, we’ve just gone through the story of Joseph of Egypt forgiving his brothers. We had an incredible time walking through that story. Between pages 78 and 79 is a huge gap of time. We start a brand new book. When you think Exodus, I know you think Charlton Heston. Am I right?

John Bytheway:               00:02:04             A lot of people over the years have compared me to Chuck Heston.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:02:08             Yeah.

John Bytheway:               00:02:09             Close personal friend. I grew up watching the 10 Commandments that used to be on around Easter. Now everything’s on demand, but back in my day, you had to just wait and hope certain things came on.

Hank Smith:                      00:02:22             I think of Nephi because it seems whenever Nephi needs strength, this is the story he calls on. Whenever his brothers say, you can’t do that, he says, well, God commanded Moses, therefore I can do … Fill in the blank. I can build a ship. Yeah. I can get the plates.

John Bytheway:               00:02:41             It’s a great deliverance story, and it’s fun in the Book of Mormon later when they have their own deliverance story they can look back on, but for a long time, it’s, hey, if Moses can do this, maybe we can, too.

Hank Smith:                      00:02:52             Even Isaiah says, “The gathering of Israel will be like the parting of the Red Sea. God prepares a way for Israel to return.” Krystal, as you’ve been preparing for today, what do you wanna do? What are you hoping our listeners take away?

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:03:08             Like I said, I’m so excited to talk about this. Not only just because Egypt appears in these chapters quite a bit- … There are some big themes here. These first six chapters are really meant to answer some questions that we might have in our own lives and in Moses’ life, four main themes that I picked up on. The first one is about revealing Jehovah. Who is Jehovah? What is his name? What does it mean? What does he do? What are his powers? Does he care about people? Does he remember his covenants? It’s perfect for us because Jehovah is the premortal Jesus Christ. We learn about Jesus through studying Jehovah here. The second one is about covenants. The word covenant or to make a covenant shows up 27 times in the book of Exodus. There’s this focus on going back to the Abrahamic covenant. There are a lot of questions that people ask in these chapters.

                                           00:04:11             Does God remember his covenants? They’re looking for those blessings and wondering why are those blessings not coming? This can teach us a lot about our own covenants because we’re still under the Abrahamic covenant. And then the third one is deliverance. This is, if I’m going through a hard time, if I feel like I’m in bondage or oppression, does God notice me? Does he know who I am? Is he listening to me? Is he worried about me? And then the fourth one I think is really great. It’s about identity. We see this so much through these first six chapters. Moses is saying, “Who am I? ” He’s born a part of the children of Israel, but he grows up Egyptian and then he ends up with the Midianites. Through this whole thing, he’s questioning who am I? What’s important? What’s my role? We see, of course, with him, type and shadow of Jesus Christ, teaches us about Jesus later, along with all of the women that show up in these chapters. We have six women that are clearly meant to teach us about the later ministry and sacrifice of Jesus Christ as well. Their identities and our own divine identities, all of those things I think come out.

Hank Smith:                      00:05:20             That’s why we love it when Krystal Pierce is here. She is a prolific teacher of the scriptures. John, besides that, what is she? What do we know?

John Bytheway:               00:05:30             Krystal was born in Logan, Utah, and I love this list raised in Taylorsville and lived in California, Idaho, now everybody hold on, Egypt, and Israel. Received a PhD in Egyptian archeology and near Eastern languages and cultures from UCLA. Masters and Bachelors in Near Eastern studies from UC Berkeley. She’s taught classes on Egyptology and ancient near Eastern studies at the BYU Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies, UCLA and UC Berkeley. She’s participated in archeological excavations and surveys at sites in Egypt and Israel. She published in 2021, Approaching Holiness, exploring the history and teachings of the Old Testament. As you mentioned, Hank, she and her husband, Professor George Pierce, one time they came on together, have two children and they live in Vineyard. That sounds so scriptural to live in Vineyard. That’s such a Jacob 5 place to live.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:06:31             There are no vineyards there, unfortunately.

John Bytheway:               00:06:33             No, yeah.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:06:35             There were at one point, probably.

John Bytheway:               00:06:36             Yeah, at one point. Krystal, what is it that you love so much about Egypt? I’m curious.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:06:44             I have loved Egypt ever since the fifth grade. Wow. When I took a summer school class on ancient Egypt and I fell in love with it and dove full into it, everything I could learn. Once I realized you could major in it, in college, I thought, “Well, that’s it. That’s what I wanna do. ” I love Egypt and I love BYU. I love this podcast because I get to talk about my favorite things. Egypt, and that’s Jesus Christ and the gospel, the Restoration, and that’s what makes me happy.

Hank Smith:                      00:07:17             And it makes our listeners happy. Makes John and I happy. There’s something about passion that’s contagious. She loves this and she’s making me love this. Let’s jump in. The lesson this week is I have remembered my covenant. The invitation to live in Egypt saved Jacob’s family. But after hundreds of years, their descendants were enslaved and terrorized by a new Pharaoh who knew not Joseph. It would’ve been natural for the Israelites to wonder why God allowed this to happen to them, His covenant people. Did he remember the covenant he made with them? Were they still his people? Could he see how much they were suffering? There may be times when you’ve felt like asking similar questions. You might wonder, “Does God know what I’m going through? Can he hear my pleas for help?” Israel’s deliverance from Egypt answers such questions clearly. God does not forget his people. He remembers his covenants with us and will fulfill them in his own time and way. “I will redeem you with a stretched out arm,” he declares, “I am the Lord your God, which bringeth you out from under your burdens.” All right, Krystal, how do we start the book of Exodus?

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:08:30             It’s great because usually you think, “Okay, we gotta do a little bit of recap to get us into this new book,” but Exodus actually does it for us. It starts out with, like, backtracking just a bit into Genesis for us. It starts with saying, “Here are the names of the children of Israel.” This is talking about literally the sons of the man Israel here. These are the ones who came into Egypt. Here we have the 11 sons, because then it says in verse five, Joseph was already there. Then it says that there were 70 of them. Now, this number 70 seems low, especially if we look in chapter 12 when they escape, there, it says there are 600,000 of them by that point. We have to remember, too, that this list of 70 doesn’t include the wives, the children, the household workers, the servants, and people estimate that of these original 70, there were probably 2,000 people who actually first came into Egypt with Jacob.

                                           00:09:30             Quite a big group of people. We’re also supposed to say these numbers are so different. How do you go from 70 or even 2,000 to 600,000? And we’re immediately supposed to think of prosperity and posterity, which signals two of the promises given to Abraham back in Genesis. This is meant to signal to us right at the beginning that even the times when they were suffering, they were still multiplying greatly. That’s tied directly back to the Abrahamic covenant and those promises.

Hank Smith:                      00:10:08             It does say they increased abundantly and multiplied and waxed exceedingly mighty.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:10:14             What’s interesting to that, when you hear the words, fruitful, multiply, and maybe we’ll add replenish, what do you think of?

John Bytheway:               00:10:24             Garden of Eden.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:10:25             Yeah, this is going back to those creation guidelines. God said this is what I want you to do when you’re on the earth. And those things aren’t just about having children. Be fruitful is produce good fruit, right? Produce good fruit. Multiply, become better than you are right now, and replenish means to complete the earth. When they’re doing what God asked them to do, they’re going to continue to be prosperous.

Hank Smith:                      00:10:51             Krystal, if they’re doing so well, how do they, how do they get enslaved? I’ve seen Prince of Egypt. I know how it starts.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:10:59             Yeah, we have to get to that eventually. It is good to acknowledge that they had a time in Egypt when they were very prosperous. And then in verse eight, it says, “There was a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph.” He didn’t know Joseph as in he didn’t know him personally. It means he didn’t even know about him, his story, how he had saved Egypt and interpreted dreams and brought his family in and all those different things. He just didn’t know about it at all. It says there’s a new king, and this word new here when it’s used for king in Hebrew, it means not necessarily a traditional king in a dynastic structure. When Egypt usually the heir to the throne was the eldest son, and then the eldest son, and the eldest son, and we have these dynasties. This is telling us that something happened.

                                           00:11:47             Something changed in Egypt. This was not the eldest son of the last king. Egyptologists, of course, are looking at this thinking about what kings are we talking here, what periods? We do have this period in Egyptian history that Egyptologists called the Hyksos period or Dynasty 15. This is about the 16th, 17th century’s BC. And the Hyksos, this comes from the Egyptian term Hekahukasut, rulers of foreign lands. They were these group of people. We believe that they were Semitic or Canaanite people. They slowly were moving into Egypt, especially Northern Egypt during this period. Eventually, they took over rulership of Egypt. But then eventually, the Southern Egyptians in Thieves decided we wanna kick these foreigners out, these Hyksos kings. They don’t belong here. They shouldn’t be ruling Egypt. There’s a big war, and eventually they chase them out back to Canaan, and the Hyksos are gone. Some people think that possibly this new king could be that one who chased the Hyksos out, could be a king hundreds of years after that.

                                           00:12:55             I mean, it’s very vague about the timing of all of this here, but there’s definitely a huge shift that changes everything. When the king is saying in verse nine, “The children of Israel are more and mightier than we.” He’s thinking, you know, we could get in trouble again. We could have another Hyksos period if we’re not careful. And in verse 10, he even says, What if they joined up with our enemies? What if the Canaanites came and they joined up with them? We’ve got to do something. He’s like, we’ve got to curb the population. We’ve got to basically break their spirits and make sure that Egypt can never be taken over again by foreigners.

Hank Smith:                      00:13:35             Hmm. Any idea how much time has passed from Joseph until verse eight?

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:13:44             We’re not exactly sure how much time has passed. We do know that they’re in affliction and bondage for about 400 years, 430 years by the time we get to the end, and part of that’s prophecies that were given in Genesis, and part of that is what Stephen tells us in Acts seven. He also gives us the age of Moses and timing of when things happen because, of course, he’s comparing a lot of what Moses goes through with Jesus Christ. Moses is a type and shadow of Jesus Christ, and Stephen does a really good job of comparing those two. It’s probably hundreds of years. We do eventually get some names of cities here in verse 11, which is interesting. The Pharaoh is trying to figure out how can we curb the population? How can we make it so that they don’t wanna, you know, rise up and revolt against us or join with our enemies?

                                           00:14:40             He decides we’re gonna afflict them. We’re going to have them build. In verse 11, it says treasure cities. In the Hebrew, it’s storage cities. Big cities with lots of warehouses and storehouses. And a lot of times these types of cities are on borders and border zones because they’re meant to supply troops and military, also hubs for trade. It actually names two cities here, which you would think would help. Oh, I bet now we can know exactly where we are and what time period and who’s the Pharaoh. But of course, that’s not always how it works. We do know that these two cities, they’re in these border zones, they are full of warehouses, storehouses. Then we get to Ramses. And of course, everybody recognizes this word, Ramses, because you think of the king, King Ramses. The problem is, is that there are actually 11 Ramses. There are 11 kings named Ramses and they ruled for hundreds of years.

                                           00:15:41             And this is a city name. This is a place name. There are also, of course, because we know the Old Testament, we have our original authors, and then we have editors, redactors, compilers, translators, and it’s possible that whatever Moses wrote down is the original city names. Some later editor, redactor, compiler, translator was like, oh, I don’t know that one, but I know Ramses and that’s close by, and inserted that. And it’s always good to be careful with those sort of things. That’s why we have our article of faith that we’re very careful reading the Bible because we know the long history of where it got to us, that there’s a lot of people involved to get it to us. The Pharaoh’s plan kind of backfires because when we look at verse 12, it says, “The more affliction they had, the more they multiplied and grew.” This definitely has to be a miracle because it’s pretty well known that the harder physical labor, the harder phys- like emotional, mental, physical health was tied to maternal health.

                                           00:16:52             Places that have really hard labor, not enough food, high death rate, have a low birth rate. This is absolutely a miracle that they are actually growing. And these two words multiplied and grew, these were the two things that were told to Abraham. Those words were the ones that said, “If you keep your covenants and you try your best, you will multiply and grow.” And I love this because we do focus on the oppression side of things. There are so many miracles in this as well. Sometimes for us, when we’re keeping our covenants, we do feel those times of prosperity. We do feel those blessings strongly, so when they stop, it’s even more apparent that we feel a loss of those sometimes too.

Hank Smith:                      00:17:40             Miracles are happening even in slavery.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:17:44             Yeah. They’re still multiplying and growing. It seems like nothing stops that. The posterity never stops, and we’ll see Pharaoh comes with all kinds of plans to stop it, and it doesn’t work. The prosperity, of course, drops off. Their ability to worship gets taken away, too, which causes a lot of problems for them. I think he’s saying, no matter how much we oppress them, they’re still strong. They’re still able to perform everything that we’re having them do. We’re not necessarily breaking them down in the way we think that they are. He’s worried. They’re gonna rise up against him or join up with their enemies. He comes up with all kinds of ideas. They’re … It’s kind of crazy when you think about it because this is his workforce. You want them to continue working. You’ve got to make it so that they can continue working, and he doesn’t seem to care about that at some point. It just, it doesn’t even seem to matter to him.

Hank Smith:                      00:18:40             It says, “They are made to serve with rigor.” I bet my children would say that. Our father and mother make us serve with rigor.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:18:50             And this word rigor in Hebrew, it means to crush into small pieces, is what this means. It’s so, you know, and rigor-

Hank Smith:                      00:18:58             Nevermind.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:18:59             That’s a good, it’s a good translation, but, like, they’re trying to crush them, crush their spirits, crush that there’s gonna be more of them, and nothing seems to work. In verse 14, I love some of the specifics in this story. We find out one of the things that they have to do is make bricks. You could easily just pass over this and be like, okay, yeah, they’re making bricks. That’s hard. We know a lot about brick making in Egypt, and we’re not talking about the bricks that we make today and we bake in an oven. We’re talking about what we call mud bricks. Making these bricks was, it was backbreaking work. They had to go and get the mud from the Nile or dirt. They had to haul water. They had to go and get what we call binding agents for the bricks. Because they just baked in the sun, they easily fell apart, so they would have to put straw or reeds or sticks, and sometimes even animal hair, we know, had to be mixed in these, and we have artistic representations of people mixing with their feet, kneading in all of these materials to make it.

                                           00:20:06             Then they would put the bricks in molds and let them sit out in the sun for several days, and then they baked. Then they could haul them to the work site. We don’t think about it, because when we think of Egypt, we think of stone. We think of stone pyramids and stone temples, but most everything was built of mud brick because it was readily available. They could make a lot. Every site I’ve excavated at in Egypt, there’s mud brick everywhere. Way more mud brick houses, administrative buildings, walls. And I’ll tell you, it is a nightmare to excavate mud brick after thousands of years. In fact, it’s pretty well known among Egyptologists or archeologists that we have this thing we call melted mud brick. This just dried clay. After thousands of years, it just melts, and you can’t see the bricks, you can’t see the mortar. And when you’re excavating and you’re trying to … Is this a wall? You can’t even tell because it’s just melted mud brick. It makes 100% sense that this is what they’re having them do. The Pharaoh’s trying to use this to break them down.

Hank Smith:                      00:21:17             I never saw this lesson before. The more they’re afflicted, the stronger they get. They’re like anti-fragile. They get stronger with adversity, not weaker.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:21:29             Yeah, I think it’s the same with us. Sometimes we have to be broken down to, like, rebuild ourselves back stronger than we were before. I think that is part of the message here.

Hank Smith:                      00:21:40             Maybe Jehovah hasn’t abandoned them. Maybe he’s with them in this, they just don’t know it.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:21:47             This reminds me, last week, I had a student come up after class and say, “I’m keeping my covenants. I’m keeping my commandments. I’m doing what I’m supposed to, and I’m not seeing the blessings. Where are my blessings?” ‘Cause we had had a big discussion about covenantal promises, and he said, “I have this friend who’s not keeping his covenants and the commandments, and he seems to have all kinds of blessings.” He wants me to answer that. Okay. I was like, “Well, let me ask you, how do you define what a blessing is? What’s a blessing?” I think he was … Is this a trap of some sort, this question? He thought about it for a bit, and he said, “Something that makes me happy.” And I said, “Okay, so something that makes you emotionally happy?” He said, “Yes.” And I said, “Financially happy?” And he said, “Yes.”

                                           00:22:36             And I said, “So it’s something that helps you feel happy. What about something that helps you learn, like you learn something? Do you think that makes you happy that’s a blessing?” He says, “Yes.” But he’s sort of kind of looking at me suspiciously. Yeah. ‘Cause then I said, “What about something that helps you grow or progress or change or become better?” And he’s like, “Hmm. Yeah.” Then he just went. He said, “Okay, so it’s not necessarily things that make me happy right now. Maybe it’s happy in, in the future. Maybe those are blessings and maybe I don’t even see the blessings now, but then in the future, I’ll look back and I’ll see that, that they were blessings.” He took off with it and he started to realize that sometimes the way we define blessings is in the middle of a bondage and oppression, it doesn’t feel like a blessing at all. Sometimes when we look back, we can see it.

Hank Smith:                      00:23:36             I mean, it’s just the story we went through. The last few weeks, Joseph’s gotta be thinking, where are the blessings? I’m doing what you asked me to do and I’m being betrayed, thrown into prison, forgotten. Thank you. You keep using that word blessings. I don’t think it means what you think it means. You’re absolutely right, Krystal. What do we define as a blessing?

John Bytheway:               00:24:04             I think it’s an old saying that a blessing is anything that moves us closer to God, but I think if you choose to have it move you closer to God, it could move you to bitterness or it could move you closer to God. I think you get to decide. Like Krystal was saying, that’s that thing that’s been passed around the internet a million times. I prayed for wisdom and God gave me problems to learn to solve. I prayed for strength and God gave me trials to become strong. I prayed for courage, God gave me danger to conquer. I prayed for love, God gave me people to help. It just goes on and on and the outcome is you’re getting blessed, but the method might be through a trial.

Hank Smith:                      00:24:45             Keep my commandments and you shall prosper. I want, I want it in writing. What’s your definition of prosper? Yeah.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:24:51             Yeah, what’s your def?

John Bytheway:               00:24:51             By prosper, did you mean …

Hank Smith:                      00:24:54             Yeah. Yeah. What did you mean by that? ‘Cause I think, I’m thinking Ferraris and huge houses. What do you mean by prosper? And the Lord’s like, oh, growth, education. Becoming more like me.

John Bytheway:               00:25:06             I heard someone say once, God is more interested in our growth than he is in our comfort. Could he please be more interested in my comfort? No, he’s actually more interested in our growth.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:25:20             He sees our true potential. He sees the end game. He knows where we’re headed, and sometimes I don’t think we see that. We don’t see that with our mortal understanding. We have to trust him. We see that in the story, the trust kind of goes up and down, up and down, which is real life. It’s real stories about real people. We connect with them.

Hank Smith:                      00:25:42             One thing about the Lord is that he does call it upon us to suffer, but like a true leader, he comes and suffers as well. One of the best signs of good leadership is I’ll never ask you to do something I’m not willing to do myself and the son of man hath descended below them all. I’m right here with you in suffering.

John Bytheway:               00:26:07             I mean, I was trying to think how I might answer that question and I heard somebody say it once, “Well, maybe the Lord loves you too much to let your life be easy.” ‘Cause, because the growth comes from the hard stuff. It doesn’t come from the easy stuff, you know?

Hank Smith:                      00:26:22             I wish he’d stop loving me so much.

John Bytheway:               00:26:24             Yeah, I know.

Hank Smith:                      00:26:28             All right, Krystal, what do we do next?

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:26:31             We’re really getting into some good stuff here because the King realizes it’s not working. Population’s not getting curbed, they’re not getting broken down, and so he decides to go straight to the source, the children, where the children are coming from. So in verse 15, he goes to the Hebrew midwives. We actually have the names of them here, Shiphrah and Puah. Of course, they had way more midwives than just these two, but it seems like these two were the head. They were the two main midwives who instructed the others and helped the others. Their names are incredible. I always love talking about the meaning behind names. Shiphrah in Hebrew, people usually translate it as beautiful, but it actually has more to do with the clear sky, the beautiful, clear, bright sky. Puah means to sparkle, to shine, to be brilliant. When we see what they end up doing, it’s perfect.

                                           00:27:27             This is our introduction to the first two of the six women who basically make it so that Exodus happens. Without these six women in these first six chapters, we would have no Moses, we would have no Exodus, we would have no, no, no, no, no, all the way until their roles bring us Jesus Christ eventually. So he goes to them and he says, when you are helping the Hebrew women give birth, and we have to make a note here because it says in verse 16, “When you see them upon the stools,” which sounds really strange, and you could easily just be like, I don’t know what that is. In Hebrew, it actually says two stones when they’re on the two stones. We know in ancient Egypt, one of the ways that women gave birth was they had two stones or two bricks, and they put one foot on each brick and they crouched and they gave birth.

                                           00:28:20             We have artistic representations, we have texts, one of the ways they gave birth. I don’t know the full logistics of it and how it worked. I mean, I’ve given birth, but not in that way. So I have no idea how that worked. It’s an interesting note. We’re being told things about these ancient women and learning about things we have in common with them and things that were different, things that were harder. So he says, When you’re helping them with this, if they have a son, it says you’re gonna kill him. You’re gonna kill this baby. And in verse 17, we quickly read, it says, “The midwives feared God,” but this word in Hebrew, nowadays we’d probably translate more as respect or honor as opposed to being afraid in that sense. They respected and honored God, and they did not as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they saved the children alive.

                                           00:29:14             This is incredible. They’re already in oppression, they’re already struggling, and they decide to go against what the king has told them to do. They could lose their jobs, they could lose their lives, they could lose everything. They do what they know is right. They know that this is not a righteous law, this law that this king has given them. Like I mentioned before, all of these women, we see types and shadows of Jesus Christ in this. They’re literally saving these babies, and Jesus, of course, is the Savior. I love that they’re named and the Pharaoh’s not named. It’s great. They’re given that honor of having their names and setting the stage for the Exodus. Without them of course, we wouldn’t have Moses. They are definitely God’s instruments, 100% in this. I love the midwives answer. They throw some shade on the Egyptian women. The Egyptian women are weak and timid and need our help. But the Hebrew women, they’ve already given birth and they’re done before we can even get there. They don’t need us. They are alive.

Hank Smith:                      00:30:24             These women are standing on these two bricks. They’re delivering a baby and they’re out of there before we even can show up to find out if it was a boy or a girl.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:30:33             We see what comes from it. I love that we hear what happens with them. It’s always very simple. God dealt well with the midwives. Very simple, but there’s a lot in that. He made them houses and this word house here, that’s more like household descendants. Because they saved the house of Israel, they get their houses. They get house of Puah, house of Shiphrah, tons of descendants. They save children, they get tons of descendants and children because of that. We see these little sparks of prosperity in this time, oppression, when people are making the right decisions and they’re being blessed because of it, even surrounded by all these hardships and other horrible things that are happening.

Hank Smith:                      00:31:20             Krystal, I think those stories right there, we frequently look in the scriptures for female heroes who maybe we should stop in Exodus one and talk about these two, who put their lives on the line, to do the will of God.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:31:34             It’s incredible because not only do they save these children, and so we say, oh, this is a symbol of Christ, right? Saving Heavenly Father’s children. But also, they went against the Pharaoh. Think about Jesus and his mortal life and ministry. He many times said, there are problems with our leadership. There are problems with misinterpreting the law. He was not afraid to do that, and that’s eventually led to the trials and the crucifixion. Standing up for what we know is right, even when we’re told the opposite. That takes a lot of courage.

Hank Smith:                      00:32:12             Just on a side note, you guys, I think I’ve always maybe thought in my head that they were in bondage for these hundreds of years, but that doesn’t say that. Maybe they weren’t in bondage for a long time.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:32:22             I think it went up and down, maybe depending on the king, because after the king dies, it kind of gives a hint that they’re hoping, like, okay, the next king is going to not necessarily set us free, but let us have more freedoms. We are told in other places in the Old Testament that there were times when they had their own land and they farmed. Some of them became wealthy. We hear that some of them actually have roles in the government. Some of them were friendly with the Egyptians and worked in their houses. That’s probably why some of the Egyptians gave them some of these gifts, these parting gifts, beyond just some of them wanting them to leave.

Hank Smith:                      00:32:57             Also, may explain more why they want to go back sometimes. Would they tell Moses, we were better off in Egypt.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:33:05             They remember the good food of Egypt and that they had a house and water and land at some points in their history. That brings us to the end of chapter one. Our last verse here, the Pharaoh has seen that all of his different ideas have not worked to curb the population. He comes up with this idea. No matter who you are, what’s going on, you see a male Hebrew child be born, you’re going to throw him into the river. This is his plan. Like I said before, it’s a little bit … He’s not thinking clearly because he’s destroying his workforce. He’s not clearly thinking this through. Part of this too, I mean, immediately when you think a ruler issues a decree to kill the male children, immediately you think of, ah, here we go, tying Moses and Jesus Christ together. They actually go to Egypt and then he comes out of Egypt. There are so many parallels between Moses and the Savior.

Hank Smith:                      00:34:06             And Matthew, who’s writing to Jews is going to really push that narrative, second Moses.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:34:14             And Stephen too. Unfortunately, they did not like what Stephen had to say. They did not like him comparing Moses and Jesus together.

John Bytheway:               00:34:23             When you’re watching the movie, The 10 Commandments , at the beginning, it says it uses the Old Testament and the works of Josephus, all these sources. If I recall correctly, the priests of the Pharaoh are saying there’s rumors of a deliverer among the Hebrews. And then one of the priests goes, “A star proclaims his birth.” That’s not in the Old Testament, but it’s in Josephus that when Moses was born, there was a new star, which is another pretty cool parallel to the Savior.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:34:58             Yeah, some of these Greek writers say that the Pharaoh had a dream, that he actually had a dream about what was going to happen about this child, and that’s why he issues this decree, specifically targeting male children of a certain age. I love how the historians can add even more information to what we have.

Hank Smith:                      00:35:18             All right, let’s keep going, Krystal, chapter two.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:35:22             All right. Chapter two is exciting because we get introduced to Moses’ parents. In verse one, it says, “There was a man at the house of Levi, and he took to wife a daughter of Levi.” Of course, this isn’t literal daughter, this means descendant. Why does it matter that they’re descendants of Levi, they’re in the tribe of Levi? This tribe plays a really important role under the future law of Moses as being the priestly tribe who takes care of the sacrifices, and so it’s very important that we know that his family, which means Moses and Aaron and Miriam, they’re all from this tribe. It doesn’t say their names here, but we do know their names from later. His dad’s name is Amram, and his mother’s name is Jochebed. In verse two, it says, “Jochebed conceived she bore a son.” This is Moses. Miriam and Aaron are already born.

                                           00:36:12             Stephen tells us that Aaron and Moses are three years apart. Aaron’s three years older than Moses. It’s interesting here because it says in verse two, “When she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months.” This goodly thing, what is this? In Hebrew, it’s tov, it means good. Let me say it this way. He’s born. When she looked at him, when she saw him, she saw he was good. It was good. Which is creation. These are the same words used in creation. God created the light, and he saw it, and he saw it was good. And I love this idea of you guys are tying it back to Eden and Eve and creation and all these different things. It’s the same sort of idea that we’re getting here that Jochebed, she knew that he was destined for greatness. Some people translate this as he was beautiful.

                                           00:37:10             He was a nice looking baby, so she decided to save him. There’s so much more if we’re talking about God creating things, seeing that they’re good. They’re perfect. She hides him. Just like Puah and Shiphrah, she says I’m gonna go against this king’s decree. She hides him for several months until he’s too big. He’s probably big and loud at this point. It’s hard to hide him anymore. I can’t even imagine making this decision that she’s gonna put him in an ark of bull rushes. The bull rushes here, this is a reference to reeds that grow in the water. A lot of people think it’s actually papyrus that’s being talked about here. She daubs it with slime and pitch. This is tar bitumen makes it waterproof. She puts him in and she laid it in the flags. Sometimes we have to do a translation of the English into today’s English. The flags, it’s the reeds.

Hank Smith:                      00:38:11             Not like in Prince of Egypt where it goes between the boats and the crocodiles try to eat it, so that’s not actual footage. Okay, that’s good to know.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:38:20             Yeah. I think she knows if I keep him close to the riverbank, he’s more likely to be found by somebody who can help him. And some people even think Jochebed worked in the palace or around the palace or something, so she was familiar with this area and who might be likely to find him. In verse three, it says an ark. We always think of a basket like a woven basket, which is true, but it’s translated as ark here because this is the exact same word that’s used for Noah’s ark. They are the same words. Once again, we get this idea that Noah built this ark to save his people. Jochebed built this ark to save her people. We get all these parallel stories. We’ve had Puah, Shiphrah, now we’re on Jochebed. We’re on our third woman here who basically saves Israel. Plays such an enormous role.

John Bytheway:               00:39:12             Is the word tevah?

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:39:14             Yep. We have a tiny ark and then we have a giant ark, both used to save people.

Hank Smith:                      00:39:21             Krystal, would you say that a definite reference to Noah? The author’s doing that on purpose, right?

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:39:27             Yeah. Purposefully that they are trying to tie it back to this idea of somebody building this thing with the help of God to save an entire people. And for Jochebed, she had to have so much faith let him float down the river and hope that that saves him. That’s a lot of strength. Who knows Puah and Shiphrah may have even helped her give birth to Moses and saved the child then too. We see all of these women working together, really.

Hank Smith:                      00:39:57             Yeah. She kept the commandment. Pharaoh said, if it’s a boy, you put it in the river. She was like,

John Bytheway:               00:40:02             In the river. Yeah.

Hank Smith:                      00:40:03             I did it.

John Bytheway:               00:40:03             I put him … I didn’t cast him exactly. I cast him in an ark and then put him in.

Hank Smith:                      00:40:08             But I did put him in the river. She’s not lying. She’s trusting that he’s gonna be found by someone who’s not gonna follow that command.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:40:17             Yeah, and you think about that foresight. If she did work for the palace or knew where she put him in the river was by the palace. To think about that, if an Egyptian finds him, what happens? What’s this Egyptian gonna do? She had to have a lot of faith, and I think some planning here. I don’t think she just put him in the river. ‘Cause we do see the sister, right in verse four, it says, “His sister stood afar off, and she watched.” So here’s our introduction to Miriam. The word that’s used to describe her later, she’s probably around 14 or 15 at this age, so 14 or 15 years older than Moses. It says here she stood afar off, but in the Hebrew, it says she took a stand. She planted herself. She was gonna make sure that that ark went to the right place, to the right person at the right time. She was guiding that thing, you know, for sure. And so we get our fourth woman here, all working together to save Moses and save their people.

John Bytheway:               00:41:18             She was in denial, but in a different sort of a word.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:41:23             And that’s a good point. When it says water or river, it’s the Nile. That’s exactly what they’re talking about.

Hank Smith:                      00:41:29             Thank you, John. She knows that it’s one of the Hebrew children when she sees it.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:41:37             Yeah. The daughter of Pharaoh, it says that she’s near the river, is what it says, and she’s with her attendants, and she sees the ark and she sends one of them to get it. When she opened it, it says she saw the child and the babe wept. And then it says she had compassion and she knew it was one of their children. She had to have known, and there are a lot of theories about that. Who’s gonna put their baby in an ark floating down the river? She knew this was a mother trying to save their child. I think she knew that. She not only had compassion for the child, but probably compassion for the mother as well. One thing I like about this too is it says she opened it. She saw the child, the baby, crying, and she had compassion. These exact same words are used again in these chapters.

                                           00:42:28             God heard the cries of the children of Israel, and he had compassion. He heard their cries, and he had compassion. We get some foreshadowing that she’s playing a role of Jehovah here in having compassion on this crying child. I mean, she’s an Egyptian. She’s the daughter of Pharaoh, and she’s not named. When we hear daughter of Pharaoh, we think, oh, this is a powerful princess, maybe even heir to the throne, but of course, that’s not how it worked in Egypt at all. Even if we take the example of Ramses II, for example, he had 100 children. He had eight wives, 100 children. We actually have the names of 40 of his daughters. She’s going against her father, basically. Another one to add to the list of who decides, this child shouldn’t die. I have compassion. This word compassion is used to describe Jehovah over and over and over again. It’s such a founding characteristic of Jehovah, this compassion. Although sometimes we tend not to think that. Sometimes we forget about that whole merciful, compassionate side of Jehovah.

Hank Smith:                      00:43:33             Especially in the Old Testament, we think.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:43:35             Yeah, that’s what I mean.

Hank Smith:                      00:43:37             He’s angry, and Jesus in the New Testament, he’s nice. These two compete, but-

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:43:42             Yeah.

Hank Smith:                      00:43:43             Same guy on both books.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:43:46             He’s the perfect balance of justice and mercy.

Hank Smith:                      00:43:49             And then Moses’ sister jumps in here. She’s kind of sneaky. Well, you know what you need. You need someone to nurse the baby.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:43:57             Yeah. Miriam’s got some guts, and we see that throughout all of Miriam’s story. She’s called a prophetess later. She does what needs to be done, and she’s not perfect. She makes mistakes. She’s like, I’ll just approach this Egyptian princess, approach her, and be like, oh, hey, you found a baby and you need somebody to nurse it. I know somebody who can be a wet nurse for the child. And this was pretty common. Women, if they were wealthy or royal, you hired somebody to nurse your child. You didn’t nurse your own child. This is really common, and she says, and I’ll pay you. Of course, this is Jochebed. This is like a real contract. You’re gonna take this child, you’re gonna nurse it, and then once it’s weaned, and back then they nursed for much longer than typically today, maybe even as long as five years that he was with Jochebed before she brought him back.

                                           00:44:52             And I can’t imagine how that felt to bring him back after five years. She could’ve said, oh, the child got lost or died or something. I think Jochebed knew that if he would have a life in the palace that she could never give to him. This goes all the way back to the Pharaoh’s decree. This is what led and, and the choices of all these women led Moses to getting into the palace, changed everything. So we have all of our women, Shiphrah and, and Puah, Jochebed, Miriam, daughter of Pharaoh that all led, played in enormous roles in saving the children of Israel.

Hank Smith:                      00:45:36             Hmm. That’s fantastic. One thing that I’ve counseled teachers on, Krystal, and maybe you can speak to this, sometimes we teach scripture and both men and women can learn from the men. Then we get to the women and we somehow think, all right, the women can learn from these women. When no, women and men can learn from these women as well.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:46:02             Yeah. Clearly all of these women are meant to teach us about Jesus Christ, symbols of Jesus Christ, symbols of how God loves his people, wants to save his people. And if all of us, no matter if we’re men or women, are trying to learn how to be like him, then we should learn from everybody. And I love how even like the Savior himself likens himself to a mother hen. He even says, I have these attributes of a mother.

Hank Smith:                      00:46:30             I can say to my family, “My sons, how can we be more like these women?” All right, I’m off my soapbox. What do you wanna do next, Krystal?

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:46:40             She brings Moses back. There’s a few words here that are interesting in verse 10. It says, “He became her son.” This means that Pharaoh’s daughter adopted him. He is her Egyptian son. He is raised in the palace. It does say she called his name Moses, and this name Moses is interesting because it has meaning in both Egyptian and Hebrew. This is where we sort of get introduced to Moses’ multiple identities through his life that he is struggling with. In Egyptian, Moses, the word, it comes from mes or messes, which means to give birth. And we see it, for example, in the name Ramses, it’s ra messes, rames, which means born of the God ra or tutmos is jehutimos, which means born of the God thoth or jihudi. I like how Moses is just born. Yeah, maybe it’s a little bit about where he came from.

                                           00:47:35             He just kind of appears out of the water, right, in a sort of miraculous way. And then she says, “Because I drew him out of the water.” And so this is sort of the Hebrew meaning of what mes means to draw out of the water. It’s used to describe Moses later after the crossing of the sea, he draws them out of the water, he draws them through the water. So he’s raised in the palace. That means he receives an Egyptian education, language, literature, arts, math, science, even religion, ethics. He is raised Egyptian. Stephen tells us in Acts seven, he says, “Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.” All of a sudden, when we get to verse 11, he’s 40 years old. So there’s some information left out there. Stephen tells us when he’s 40, this is when, you know, everything starts with getting the Exodus going and getting people out of Egypt.

                                           00:48:38             It says Moses was grown. He went out into his brethren, and this is an interesting word, because if he grew up Egyptian, at some point he finds out he’s not Egyptian. He’s one of the children of Israel. You can think that he’s probably grappling with this. Who am I? Am I Egyptian? Am I part of the children of Israel? At this point, it looks like he’s decided that he’s not Egyptian. He’s gonna go out to his brothers. These are his brothers. This is his family. Actually, in Hebrews, it says that at one point he decides he’s no longer the son of the daughter of Pharaoh. And he completely turns his back on the palace and on the daughter of Pharaoh and all of those things. And he says, I’m Hebrew. I’m gonna go with my people and I’m gonna save them. What does he see?

                                           00:49:22             He sees an Egyptian smiting a Hebrew, one of his brothers. He kills the Egyptian. He slays him. Part of this, you’re like … So he just goes and kills an Egyptian. In verse 11, this word smiting, it’s the same word as slew. So it should actually read he spied an Egyptian killing a Hebrew. And so he killed the Egyptian, because those are the same words in Hebrew. And I’m guessing Moses is thinking like, I saved one of them. I saved one of my brothers, my people. And then it says the next day he went out in verse 13, he sees two of them fighting and he asked them, it’s very specific. He says, why are you fighting each other? We should be fighting the Egyptians. Why are you fighting each other? And he doesn’t get the response I think that he wanted. They say, “Who made thee a prince?” They call him an Egyptian.

                                           00:50:16             They say, we know you’re an Egyptian prince. We know your background. We know who you are. Are you gonna kill us too? Are you in charge of us? I always think about Moses’ point of view. He’s like, no, I’m, I’m your brother and I’m here to save you and help you. The Egyptians, he’s turned his back on that part of his upbringing, and now his own people don’t accept him either. He’s sort of in this liminal inbetween space of, “Who am I? Am I Egyptian? Am I Hebrew? Who accepts me? Who can I help?”

Hank Smith:                      00:50:50             That’s interesting. Look, I’m doing it. I’m saving my people, and they’re like, get away. We have no interest in you. This is where he runs away, right?

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:51:01             Yeah. I think that’s why he runs away. Wow, I don’t belong to the Egyptians. I don’t belong to the children of Israel. Nobody accepts me. I’ve been trying to save people. I end up killing someone and the other ones, they are angry with me, so he runs away. He flees.

Hank Smith:                      00:51:17             I think this is where Sandra Bullock tells him who he is.

John Bytheway:               00:51:21             You are Moses. You are … Yeah.

Hank Smith:                      00:51:24             We raised our kids on Sunday with Prince of Egypt until one day my son, we were at dinner and my wife spilled something and he looks at her and he said, “Careful slave.” We’re like, “Okay, no more Prince of Egypt.”

John Bytheway:               00:51:38             All right. I’ve always loved the idea that Ramses was born of ra and that Moses was born of no one. We don’t know.

Hank Smith:                      00:51:50             Yeah. Born of nobody. Yeah.

John Bytheway:               00:51:53             When you read Moses chapter one and have this triple repetition of God talking to Moses and saying, “Thou art my son.”

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:52:02             God says, “You’re not Egyptian. You’re not a child of Israel. You’re not Midianite. You’re Moses. You’re a prophet and you’re a child of God.” That’s when I think it really starts to break through for Moses.

John Bytheway:               00:52:17             That’s Moses chapter one. That’s exactly what he did. “Thou art my son. I have a work for thee Moses, my son, and he keeps calling him my son. ” And then, of course, Satan comes along and says, “Moses son of man.” I call it ancient identity theft. He tries to mess it up. And he does it to Abraham too, my son, my son. He did it to Enoch, my son, and you see, I’m gonna let you know who you are.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:52:44             Yeah, that’s the most important part of your identity. And those other things are important too, but if you can realize that you’re a divine child of God, that can set the stage for you to be able to do anything, to accomplish anything, which Moses does eventually.

Hank Smith:                      00:53:02             Also, doesn’t this parallel the story of Jesus? We go from child basically to adults in-

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:53:09             Yeah.

Hank Smith:                      00:53:09              … One verse.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:53:11             We get that lost in the temple, and then all of a sudden that’s it.

Hank Smith:                      00:53:16             He escapes, like I said, after Sandra Bullock talks to him. Where does he go next?

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:53:21             He goes in verse 15 to the land of Midian. Midian was one of the sons of Abraham. So we get this idea that these are descendants of Abraham. In verse 16, it even says, “Priest of Midian.” This is a priest of the God of Abraham, still underneath the umbrella of the Abrahamic covenant.

Hank Smith:                      00:53:42             Krystal, for those of us who don’t know, when did Abraham have other children? We talked about Hagar and Ishmael. We talked about Sarah and Isaac, but were there others?

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:53:52             Midian is through the wife, Keturah, one of the later wives of Abraham. This is absolutely a part of that posterity promise under the Abrahamic covenant that he had lots of posterity because he also had multiple wives that this posterity came from.

Hank Smith:                      00:54:13             This is a priest of Jehovah.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:54:16             Yeah. And when we hear his name, it’s even included in his name, well, one of his names. But he does end up by a well, and it says the priest of Midian had seven daughters there. They came to draw water. There are some other shepherds there who are trying to not wait their turn for the well and drive their flocks away. I love that it says, Moses stood up. I love that there’s this part here. It doesn’t just say he helped them. He stood up. In a minute, they call him an Egyptian. He’s probably wearing something that he looks like an Egyptian and,

Hank Smith:                      00:54:50             Say it, John. Go ahead, John. Say it. He walked like an

John Bytheway:               00:54:54             Egyptian.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:54:55             Yeah. He stood up like an Egyptian. Stands up. I know it’s coming. And he not only helps them, right? He also draws water for their flock, which is probably shocking to these women that this Egyptian shows up, he’s there. He not only helps them, and then all of a sudden he’s drawing water for them. He’s basically serving them. Moses probably feels good at this point. He’s helped somebody. They’ve kind of accepted the help. It’s funny because he’s even in this liminal space in Midian. He’s between Egypt and Canaan. He’s not in Egypt. He’s not in the promised land. He’s in this middle space. He’s able to successfully help people. That probably had an impact on him, like, maybe this is where I’m meant to be. Maybe these are my people.

                                           00:55:45             And in verse 18, we get the name of the priest of Midian, Reuel, or at least one of his names. This name means friend of God. So you can see El in the name where we get Elohim from. We know that this is Abraham’s God. He’s a friend of Abraham’s God. He is a priest of Abraham’s line. This is important because we find out later that he’s the one who gives the priesthood to Moses.

Hank Smith:                      00:56:11             Krystal, doesn’t he probably teach him who Jehovah is?

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:56:15             Yeah. Gives him his full education about where he came from, who he is.

Hank Smith:                      00:56:21             God raised up a mentor for him here.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           00:56:25             Yeah. Well, I think we see that in Reuel. And we know he’s a good guy because first he says, why are you guys back so early? Usually it takes you forever because everyone harasses you at the well and you don’t … It takes you a long time. They’re like, oh, this Egyptian came and helped us. Reuel could be like, oh, that’s scary. That’s frightening. Why is there an Egyptian in our land? And instead, he’s like, well, where is he? We need to feed him. We need to thank him. We need to give our gratitude. You can tell that he’s just, he’s a good guy. He’s a good mentor for Moses. They invite Moses in. We jump to the future. In verse 21, it says, “Moses was content to dwell with the man.” Moses saw that this was a good place for him. These were good people.

                                           00:57:12             He ends up marrying one of the daughters. Her name is Zipporah. So here’s our sixth woman that we get here in these chapters. She bears him a son. Now, it’s interesting because it says Moses is content, and I think he’s feeling like adopted by the Midianites, and I belong here, they love me, they accept me, I’m able to help them. Then he has a son, his first son, and his name is Gershom. The name means, I’m a stranger in a strange land. Moses is still struggling, right? He’s like, I’m happy here. I’m content. But I’m a stranger in a strange land, he knows his people are back in Egypt. He knows that’s where he should be helping his people. So he gives his poor son this name stranger in a strange land. To kind of reflect, I think, what he’s feeling, even though he’s content and happy, he knows he’s not necessarily in the place where he needs to be.

                                           00:58:07             His real calling, his official, what he’s meant to do. We find out in verse 23, the king of Egypt died. We get a hint here. It says, “After the king died, the children of Israel sighed.” It’s sort of this, maybe they thought this next king would give them more freedoms. We do find out that part of this bondage, it wasn’t just bondage in, you can never leave Egypt and you have to stay here and you’re enslaved and things like that, but they were not allowed to worship Jehovah. They were not allowed to build the altars, sacrifice the animals, and give burnt offerings, which is the big commandment, even starting with Adam and Eve right at the beginning. This is how you’re gonna worship is through these sacrifices. That’s the bondage, this lack of freedom of worship. How can you keep your covenants when you can’t even worship?

                                           00:58:58             It’s interesting, in verses 24 and 25, it sets up something we’re gonna see over and over and over again. Three main words of what God does. He hears, and it says he heard, he looked and he had respect. We’re gonna see this over and over again. He ties it all to the covenant. He hears their groaning. He looks upon them and he has respect. And this word respect, this is sort of a not very good translation. Other places it’s translated as he knows or acknowledges or answers. He hears them, he sees them, and he knows them. This shows up over and over again, and it’s all tied to the covenant. It’s part of the covenantal promises to Abraham. If they keep their commandments as well as they can, even if they’re not allowed to worship, they’re doing what they’re supposed to, and we’ve already seen that with Puah and Shiphrah and all of these others. He’s going to bless them. One of the questions we had at the beginning was, “Does God know about us? Does he care about us? Does he listen to me?” We’re supposed to see Jehovah absolutely does all of those things here.

Hank Smith:                      01:00:03             Krystal, I realize it’s hard to know, but here this family was chosen to bless all the families of the earth. They’re like, “Okay, guys, go.” And they sell their brother. So the Lord’s, okay. That wasn’t exactly what I was after. We’re gonna teach you maybe through this hardship, and then I’m gonna bring you back and we’ll try again. Does that fit the story?

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           01:00:25             Yeah. I think a huge part of this is God is patient. He is patient with us. He knows we’re gonna mess up and sometimes it’s a big mess up. Sometimes it’s little mess ups, but he’s gonna keep trying. That’s what we see with Moses. Every time Moses pushes back, God says, “Okay, let’s keep trying. Let’s keep going. Let’s do this.” His timing is way different from our timing. We want things now, we want things immediately, answers, blessings. He’s got a better concept of time, I think, in how it works.

Hank Smith:                      01:00:59             He’s gonna bring Moses in. Look, we’ll get you back in the Promised Land so you can be the chosen family. For now, you’re, it’s kind of like a mini scattering.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           01:01:09             Yeah. I think that’s a good way of looking at it. They’re, they’ve really hit rock bottom at this point. The children of Israel, like, it cannot get worse for them. Sometimes when we hit rock bottom is when we finally turn to God and are like, “Okay, I need help. I can’t do this on my own. I can’t get through this on my own.” If we could turn to him before that, it might be a little bit better. This is kind of what we do. And I mean, and that’s how chapter two ends. It’s things are bad. Things are okay for Moses, but for the children of Israel,

Hank Smith:                      01:01:42             They’ve hit brick bottom.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           01:01:45             Melted mud brick bottom is where they’re at, which is the worst kind of mud brick. This is when things start to change. And I love these constant reminders. God remembers you. He remembers his covenants. He knows who you are. He knows what you’re going through. He’s working on it through other people. He works through other people and sometimes those people need some time to get to the point where they’re ready. We see that with Moses, for sure. He needed that time in Midian. Absolutely.

Hank Smith:                      01:02:20             There’s a principle here that God starts answering your prayers even before you say them, because Moses was already being prepared as a baby. This is years before this cry to the Lord comes.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           01:02:33             Yeah, exactly. We can see the plan throughout. Yeah. Yeah. All right. We get to chapter three. All of a sudden, Reuel’s name is Jethro. Chapter three. It’s interesting because we don’t really know why there are two different names here. Some people think Jethro is a title. It means something like excellent, excellency. Maybe this is more of his title as a priest or community leader. Either way, it’s the same person. We find out Moses’ job is to be the shepherd. He helps keep the flock. As he’s out taking the flock to pasture, he comes near a divine mountain. It says, “Even to Horeb,” so he comes near Horeb. Now, in other places, this is called Sinai. They’re used interchangeably. We have this understanding that Horeb is probably more of the mountain range or the region, the area. And Sinai is probably a specific peak, a specific mountain itself. That’s why we see both of them.

John Bytheway:               01:03:37             Do we have sights that we think we know where that was? The royal we, we archeologists here today. We don’t know exactly what mountain it is. I know that people say they’ve climbed it and so forth. I was just wondering. Someone’s anxious to put up a gift shop out there.

Hank Smith:                      01:03:54             That’s exactly my thoughts on it too.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           01:03:57              All exits lead through the gift shop, so.

Hank Smith:                      01:04:01             That’s right. Moses is continuing to be mentored here.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           01:04:06             Yeah. Around this time or about the time he’s gonna leave, he’s 80. He’s with them for 40 years. We see 40 years in Egypt, 40 years in Midian.

Hank Smith:                      01:04:16             I’ve heard 40 can mean many. It can also be like a period of sanctification.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           01:04:23             While he’s there, he sees a bush on fire. We know what kind of bush it is. It’s an Acacia bush. These are really thorny, dry, crusty bush trees that barely are surviving in the desert. This was strange enough that Moses is like, I gotta go see what that is. This is a miracle, this is divine. And it says he turns aside. He leaves the animals and he’s like, I gotta go see. ‘Cause this acacia bush should just go up so quickly and just be gone. He realizes there’s something going on here. And I love that he turns aside. He makes the decision to stop what he’s doing and to go see what this is.

Hank Smith:                      01:05:10             If I saw a bush on fire that was not actually burning, I think I would be drawn in. And I gotta go check that out.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           01:05:19             An angel of the Lord appeared to him in this flame of fire in the bush. This is where we also now need to give a shout out to Joseph Smith, because from here on out, he is going to help us with his own translation. He is going to help us better understand this. He tells us, no, this is the Lord. This is not an angel. This is Jehovah. This is premortal Jesus Christ. He turns aside, and it’s great because in the next one, verse four, it says, “When the Lord saw that he turned aside”, that’s when he calls out to him. What if Moses had just kept walking and was like, okay, that’s kind of weird or whatever, but I’m gonna keep going. It wasn’t until he saw Moses turned, dropped everything, and then he calls out to him. This idea of turning to God, this is the original meaning behind repentance. Repentance in Hebrew repentance in Greek, it’s turning. There’s a hint here. We gotta turn to God so that he can call out to us. He can speak to us. He knows we’re listening, we’re paying attention, we care about what he has to say to us.

Hank Smith:                      01:06:32             Waiting for us to use our agency to turn to him.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           01:06:36             I love he calls him by name. So God-like to use names. Yeah. And he doubles it. He says, “Moses, Moses.” Moses answers. “Here am I.” And then he tells him, you’re in a sacred space, so you need to take off your sandals. This is a holy place. And Moses would know this because in Egypt, when priests went in the temple, anybody went in the temple, they took their shoes off. And in fact, when you left the temple, you walked backwards and you used a broom and you swept behind you to remove your footprints and the dirt and everything. Being raised in the palace, Moses would know this, he would say, ah, this is a divine, sacred space. And of course, mountains can represent temples. When we go to the temple, we do things with changing shoes, taking off shoes, things like that too, because it’s sacred.

John Bytheway:               01:07:27             I think it might be helpful too to mention, when you see Lord in small caps, that’s Jehovah. That should help us too, because we understand Jehovah to be the premortal Jesus.

Hank Smith:                      01:07:38             When he asked him to take his shoes off, is it like you walk normally in profane space? Don’t bring that in here. Don’t bring the unclean of where you walk. Don’t bring the world in here. Leave that behind and come in.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           01:07:54             That’s exactly how it is.

Hank Smith:                      01:07:56             It’s definitely a symbol.

John Bytheway:               01:07:57             I listened to this podcast called followHIM, and four years ago, I wrote, “Some things don’t belong in my world.” Take the earth off of you. I like Hank that you use profane. I heard this from our friend, Dave Hadlock, who’s a guest coming up. You look up profanis on your phone, the root of that, and it means outside the temple, which is so interesting.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           01:08:21             Hmm.

John Bytheway:               01:08:22             If something is profane, it doesn’t belong in the temple.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           01:08:25             That’s incredible. It’s not only leaving physical things, but also when we go into the temple, we try to clear our minds, try to clear our hearts, try to feel purified inside and outside. That’s part of it too. He’s really telling Moses, this is a holy place, not just now, but this is where you’re gonna bring all of them back in the future and where they’re gonna worship me and build a sanctuary. Introducing this idea to Moses, this is forever sacred space. We said part of the theme was, Who is Jehovah? Here in verse six, he says, “I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob.” You know, he’s telling him exactly who he is.

John Bytheway:               01:09:08             I wrote in my margin. Moses goes from an Egyptian to a Hebrew here. I am the God of thy Father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. Whoa.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           01:09:18             I get so excited about this because it focuses on identities, ancient identities and especially people who move from one place to another and trying to figure out who they are. That’s why I love seeing this. God is constantly trying to tell Moses, You’re my child. It doesn’t matter who the world thinks you are. I know who you are. Moses has to figure it out for himself.

Hank Smith:                      01:09:42             This would be very similar, Krystal. If I wanted to, I could read Moses chapter one right here. It’s ought to be close to this time period.

John Bytheway:               01:09:51             Same conversation even, maybe.

Hank Smith:                      01:09:53             Yeah.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           01:09:54             The Lord continues speaking to him in verse seven. He uses his three words here. “I have seen the affliction. I have heard the cries and I know the sorrows.” Again, we have, “I see you. I hear you and I know you. I acknowledge you.” This word, know, it’s the same word as respect before, just a different translation. This is a message to us too. He sees us, he hears us, he knows us. This word know sometimes is answer. I will answer your prayers. I am answering your prayers. You may just not realize it.

John Bytheway:               01:10:28             If he talked to us, he would call us by name. Same as he did with Joseph in the sacred grove and with Moses right here. I know my sheep.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           01:10:39             He knows all of us individually. He knows what we need. Sometimes we don’t realize what we need till later. He gives them the instructions. He says, “Well, I am going to come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptian,” so we get that deliverance theme again. He says, “I’m gonna bring them up out of that land.” This word up out. This actually is the word olah, which is the same word as the burnt offerings that go up to God. It’s the word ascend. It’s sometimes used for progression or exaltation, things like that. There’s some hint here. He’s like, it’s time. They have progressed as far as they can in Egypt. It’s time to move them on to the next stage. It’s time to ascend. It’s time to go up. Canaan is a large land. It’s supposed to be in reference to Egypt because the Hebrew word for Egypt Mitsrayim means narrow land, restricted land.

                                           01:11:46             It’s geographical. It’s a reference to the Nile Valley where most habitation is. It’s a narrow, restricted land, literally, but also symbolically for them, it’s a narrow restricted land. It’s an oppressive land. He says, we’re gonna get you out of that oppressive, restricted Mitsrayim, and we’re gonna get you into this big land, this good land. It has milk and honey. Everything you’re gonna need, everything that you want for prosperity.

Hank Smith:                      01:12:14             It has deshret. Yeah. Right?

John Bytheway:               01:12:17             Deshret. Oldest word in the Book of Mormon, right? Yeah.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           01:12:21             Yeah.

John Bytheway:               01:12:22             The Hebrews called it mits- mitsrayim.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           01:12:26             Mitsrayim, yeah, it means, like, narrow, restricted land.

Hank Smith:                      01:12:31             Krystal, I really like what you said there. It’s time. Yes. And you’re my guy.

John Bytheway:               01:12:36             Come down to deliver you and bring them up out of that land.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           01:12:41             When you think of milk and honey, and you’re kind of like, “Oh, that’s the best stuff it has is- … Milk and honey.” For pastoralists, for semi-nomadic people, that’s the good stuff. That’s the stuff you need, because if you have milk, that means you have herds. And if you have herds, that means you have pastures, and you have meat, and you have hides, and you have wool, and you have all of the things that you need. And honey here, actually, we don’t think this is bees honey that they’re talking about here. This is actually a reference to what we call date honey. So they would take dates, and they would make this sweet syrup. So natural dates just growing on palm trees, and they would harvest them, and they would make this sweet syrup. And if you had this sweet syrup, like, you were successful. You were prosperous, because everybody wants sweeteners. You know, everybody wants honey. That’s an extra thing. You don’t have to have it. And they would use the sweetener, not only for food, but for medicine. They would use it for different rituals and things. It signified so much.

Hank Smith:                      01:13:48             And then it’s like, kid, it’s time. You’re my guy. I’m gonna send you to Pharaoh.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           01:13:55             This is where he gets his charge, verse 10. You’re the one who’s gonna go and do it. Moses, at this point, he’s like, wait, what?

Hank Smith:                      01:14:07             Coming up in part two.

Dr. Krystal Pierce:           01:14:08             We were up late one night. It was like one or two in the morning, as parents are when they have a newborn in the house pretty late, and we heard a knock on the door. George goes down, he looks, I’m like, “Who is it? What is it?” And he says, “There’s a girl out there crying.” And he’s like, “What do we do?” And I was like, “Let her in, open the door, like, get her inside.”