Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Exodus 3:18
And they shall hearken to thy voice: and thou shalt come, thou and the elders of Israel, unto the king of Egypt, and ye shall say unto him, The LORD God of the Hebrews hath met with us: and now let us go, we beseech thee, three days’ journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God.
18. shall hearken ] rather, will hearken. In EVV. ‘shall’ (in the 3rd person), and ‘shalt’ are often used where a command is out of place, and where we should now say will, wilt.
the God of the Hebrews ] as opposed to the gods of the Egyptians. So Exo 5:3; Exo 7:16; Exo 9:1; Exo 9:13; Exo 10:3 (all in the same narrative, J; cf. p. 56).
met with us ] or, lighted upon us, viz. in a sudden, unexpected way. Son 5:3; cf. Num 23:3-4; Num 23:15-16. Rendered happened or chanced in 2Sa 1:6; 2Sa 18:9; 2Sa 20:1.
three days’ journey ] Probably a current expression for a considerable distance (Gen 30:36): they ask to be allowed to worship their national God, with such rites as He may enjoin (Exo 8:27), at some distant spot in the wilderness where they could give no offence to the Egyptians (Exo 8:26). The ‘wilderness’ would be the broad and arid limestone plateau, now called et-Tih, extending from the E. border of Egypt to the S. of Palestine, and bounded on the S. by the mountains of the Sinaitic Peninsula. In an age in which every people had its own god, or gods, whom they worshipped in their own special way, a request to be allowed to make such a pilgrimage would seem quite natural. In the form, Let my people go, that they may serve me, it is repeated in the sequel of J seven times (see on Exo 4:23); comp. also Exo 5:3; Exo 10:7-11; Exo 10:24-26.
In what sense is the request meant? If, as has been supposed, it was intended merely as an excuse for getting a good start for their subsequent flight, then it was clearly a case of deception: the Israelites would in this case have sought to obtain from the Pharaoh by a ruse what, if he had known their entire purpose, he would not have granted. It is not however said that, if the request had been acceded to, they would not have returned, when the three days’ festival was over: so it may have been intended merely (Di.) to test the feeling of the Pharaoh towards the Israelites; to serve their God in their own way was in itself ‘the smallest request that subjects could make of their ruler’; and if this request had been viewed by the Pharaoh favourably, the door might have been opened for further negotiations, and the people might eventually have been allowed to depart altogether: the request was not granted, and so it resolved itself in the end into a demand for the unconditional release of the people and their actual departure.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Three days journey – i. e. a journey which would occupy three days in going and returning. This was a demand quite in accordance with Egyptian customs. The refusal of Pharaoh and the subsequent proceedings were revealed to Moses at once; but it is important to observe that the first request which Pharaoh rejected could have been granted without any damage to Egypt, or any risk of the Israelites passing the strongly-fortified frontier.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Exo 3:18
Let us go, we beseech thee, three days journey.
A moderate request
This request seems at first to be put in a politic form, as if to secure a favourable answer. This, however, was quite unnecessary, since the Almighty was about to bring His people out of Egypt by a strong hand. It is merely expressed in a style of reserve and moderation. It was not requisite to reveal to Pharaoh, who was in a hostile mood, all the intentions of God concerning His people. Hence Pharaoh is merely informed that the God of the Hebrews has met with them; and their request is limited to the first step to be taken in obedience to His will. A three days journey is mentioned, simply because this would take them clear out of Egypt, one day being employed in setting out, one in marching, and the third in coming to a resting-place. And a sacrifice is added, because this is the first act of obedience. The former involves their departure out of Egypt, the latter commences the perfect service of God. This is exactly the mode in which God trains His people. The immediate duty and the immediate blessing are set before them, and these are pregnant with all farther and higher duties and blessings. So He deals with Pharaoh. But there is not only reserve, but moderation in the request. It makes the smallest demand consistent with actually leaving, and assigns the highest reason for taking this step, namely, the command of God. By sedulously avoiding every thing harsh and extravagant in its terms, it affords the least possible occasion for Pharaoh to harden his heart, and dismiss the petitioners with an obstinate refusal. At the same time it is a bold and open assertion of liberty. If the people had formed a secret plot to escape from the land of their bondage, we should have been slow to condemn, if not prompt to applaud. But this is not the Lords way. If Pharaoh had condescended to ask at once, Who shall go? Will your wives and children go? Will your cattle and your other moveables be taken with you? he would have received, as he eventually did, a ready and candid reply. But such questions were in reality superfluous. Pharaoh was well aware that bondsmen who had marched three days out of the land of the oppressor, with their families and goods, would not return without compulsion. (J. G. Murphy, LL. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 18. They shall hearken to thy voice] This assurance was necessary to encourage him in an enterprise so dangerous and important.
Three days’ journey into the wilderness] Evidently intending Mount Sinai, which is reputed to be about three days’ journey, the shortest way, from the land of Goshen. In ancient times, distances were computed by the time required to pass over them. Thus, instead of miles, furlongs, c., it was said, the distance from one place to another was so many days’, so many hours’ journey and it continues the same in all countries where there are no regular roads or highways.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Hath met with us; hath appeared to us, expressing his displeasure for our neglect of him, and declaring his will that we should do what follows.
Three days journey; to Sinai, which, going the nearest way, was no further from Egypt; for here God had declared he would be served, Exo 3:12.
Quest. Was not this deceitfully and unjustly spoken, when they intended to go quite away from him?
Answ. No; for,
1. Pharaoh had no just right and title to them, to keep them in bondage, seeing they came thither only to sojourn for a time, and by Joseph had abundantly paid for their habitation there, and therefore, they might have demanded a total dismission.
2. Moses doth not say any thing which is false, but only conceals a part of the truth; and he was not obliged to discover the whole truth to so cruel a tyrant, and so implacable an enemy.
3. Moses cannot be blamed, both because he was none of Pharaohs subject, and because herein he follows the direction and command of his Master that sent him. And God surely was not obliged to acquaint Pharaoh with all his mind, but only so far as he pleased. And it pleased him for wise and just reasons to propose only this to Pharaoh, that his denial of so modest a request (which God foresaw) might make his tyranny more manifest, and Gods vengeance upon him more just and remarkable.
Sacrifice to the Lord our God, which they could not do freely and safely in Egypt, Exo 8:26.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
And they shall hearken to thy voice,…. The elders of Israel, who would give credit to his commission, attend to what he said, and obey his orders, and follow the directions that he should give them, and not slight and reject him, as some had done before:
and thou shall come, thou, and the elders of Israel, unto the king of Egypt: the elders of Israel in a body, and Moses at the head of them; though we do not read of their approaching to Pharaoh, and addressing him in such a manner, only of Moses and Aaron applying to him:
and you shall say unto him, the Lord God of the Hebrews hath met with us; with one of them, who had reported to the rest what he had said; the children of Israel are here called Hebrews, because that seems to be a name the Egyptians most commonly called them, and by which they were best known to them, see Ge 39:14
and now let us go, we beseech thee, three days’ journey into the wilderness; the wilderness of Sinai and Arabia, and to Mount Horeb in it; which from the borders of Egypt was three days’ journey going the direct road, but the Israelites going somewhat about, and stopping by the way, did not get to it until the third month of their going out of Egypt, Ex 19:1:
that we may sacrifice to the Lord God; in the place where he had appeared to a principal man among them, and where they would be in no danger of being insulted and molested by the Egyptians. Some think the reason of this request they were directed to make, to sacrifice out of the land of Egypt, was, because what they sacrificed the Egyptians worshipped as gods, and therefore would be enraged at such sacrifices; but for this there is no sufficient foundation; [See comments on Ge 46:34], rather the design was under this pretence to get quite away from them, they being no subjects of the king of Egypt, nor had he a right to detain them; nor were they obliged to acquaint him with the whole of their intentions, and especially as they were directed of God himself to say this, and no more, and which being so reasonable, made Pharaoh’s refusal the more inexcusable.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
18. And they shall hearken to thy voice. (44) The literal translation is, “They shall hearken to thy voice,” which many take to be a promise from God that they should be obedient; but the sense given in the Latin, “after they shall have heard thy voice,” seems more consonant, that first of all He should command them by the mouth of Moses, and that then they should accompany him in bearing the message to Pharaoh. For, before so difficult an undertaking was enjoined to them, it was desirable that the authority of God should be propounded to them, so that they might go about it with unwavering hearts. The sum of the message is, that they should seek permission from Pharaoh to go and sacrifice; but lest they might be thought to do so from mere unfounded impulse, they are desired to premise that God had met with them and had given them the command. For the word which expresses his meeting with them, means that he presented himself voluntarily. They had indeed cried out before, and often appealed to the faithfulness and mercy of God; yet still this was a voluntary meeting with them, when, contrary to the hope of them all, he avowed that he would be their deliverer, for, as we have already said, they cried out more from the urgency of their affliction than from confidence in prayer. A pretext is suggested to them, by which suspicion and anger may be turned away from themselves; for a free permission to depart altogether, by which grievous loss would have arisen to the tyrant, never would have been accorded. Besides, by refusing so equitable a demand, he despoiled himself of his royal right and power, since he thus withheld His due honour from the King of kings; for although the Israelites were under his dominion, yet did not his rule extend so far as to defraud God of his rightful worship. It was expedient, too, that the people should depart without the king’s permission only for very good reasons, lest hereafter license of rebellion should be given to other subjects. Pharaoh indeed suspected differently, that the sacrifice was a mere false pretense; but since this mistrust proceeded from his tyranny, his ingratitude was sufficiently proclaimed by it, because through his own evil conscience he forbade that God should be served. Whatever, again, might be his feelings, still the miracles by which the command was followed must needs have taught him that their mission proceeded from God. If the Israelites had merely spoken, and no confirmation of their words had been given, he might perhaps have naturally guarded himself against deception; but when God openly shewed that he was the originator of this departure, and that he commanded the sacrifice beyond the bounds of Egypt, all grounds of excuse are taken away; and thus the departure of the people is placed out of the reach of calumny. If any object that it is alien from the nature of God to countenance any craft or pretense, the reply is easy, — that he was bound by no necessity to lay open his whole counsel to the tyrant. They mistake who suppose that there is a kind of falsehood implied in these words; for God had no desire that his people should use any deceit, he only concealed from the tyrant (as He had a perfect right to do) what He was about ultimately to effect; and in this way He detected and brought to light his obstinacy. In a word, God entered the lists for the Israelites, not in an earthly controversy, but for religion, to which all the rights of kings must give way. But Jehovah calls himself the God of the Hebrews, that Pharaoh may know him to be the peculiar God of that nation, and that their form of worship was different from the customs of Egypt, and, in fact, that he is the only true God, and all others are fictitious.
(44) Lat. , “Et postquam audierint vocem;” after they shall have hearkened to thy voice.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(18) They shall hearken.The pronoun they refers to the elders of Exo. 3:16. For the fulfilment of the promise, see Exo. 4:29-31. The elders appear to have been persuaded easily, and at once.
Thou and the elders.We are not told in Exodus 5 that the elders did present themselves before Pharaoh; but it is possible that they may have done so. Or Moses and Aaron, who spoke in their name, and by their authority, may have been regarded as sufficiently representing them.
The Lord God of the Hebrews hath met with us.Heb., Jehovah, the God of the Hebrews. Pharaoh would readily comprehend this statement. He would quite understand that the Hebrews, being of a different race from the Egyptians, had a God of their own, and that this God would from time to time give intimations to them of His will. Such intimations were supposed to be given to the Egyptian kings occasionally by their gods.
Three days journey.The necessity for withdrawing to so great a distance arose from that remarkable peculiarity in the Egyptian religion, the worship of animals. Cows, or at any rate, white cows, were sacred throughout the whole of Egypt, and to kill them was regarded as a crime of the deepest dye. Sheep were sacred to the inhabitants of one nome or canton, goats to those of another (Herod. ii. 42). Unless the Hebrews retired to a place where there were no Egyptians, they would be unable to perform their sacred rites without danger of disturbance, and even bloodshed. (See below, Exo. 8:26.)
The wilderness.The wilderness to those who dwelt in Goshen was the broad sandy and rocky tract which intervened between Egypt and Palestinethe modern El-Tiha desert reckoned at three days journey across (Herod. iii. 5). It is a vast limestone plateau of irregular surface, projecting wedge-fashion into the peninsula of Sinai, just as Sinai itself projects into the Red Sea. It terminates in a long cliff or encampment, steep and abrupt on the south-western side, gradually falling away towards the south-east.(Our Work in Palestine, p. 275.)
That we may sacrifice.It is idle to speculate whether, if Pharaoh had granted the request, the Israelites would have returned to Egypt after sacrificing. God knew that he would not grant it.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
18. Three days’ journey that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God It was not national but religious independence which was the burden of their request acknowledgment of the God of Israel. The first step in the Hebrew national history was in harmony with all that followed; the first throb of Hebrew national life was a blow at idolatry. Had Egypt met this first demand, and owned the sway of the One Only God, the plagues had never fallen, and perhaps Israel’s national mission had never been needed, and Memphis or Zoan had been in history what Jerusalem became. But Pharaoh would not acknowledge Jehovah, and so was forced to acknowledge Hebrew independence. He did not see at first how the two were linked together, nor did Moses.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Exo 3:18. The Lord God of the Hebrews hath met with us Hath called us, according to the reading which Dr. Kennicott proposes. They were to ask only for three days’ journey, by way of proving Pharaoh, as the context and the sequel shew. Mount Sinai was three days’ journey from Egypt.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Exo 4:31 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Exo 3:18 And they shall hearken to thy voice: and thou shalt come, thou and the elders of Israel, unto the king of Egypt, and ye shall say unto him, The LORD God of the Hebrews hath met with us: and now let us go, we beseech thee, three days’ journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God.
Ver. 18. Hath met with us. ] Of his own accord, and without our seeking. Nolentem praevenit Deus ut velit, volentem subsequitur ne frustra velit. a “I am found of those that sought me not.” Isa 65:1
a Aug., Enchir., cap. 32.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
sacrifice. Hebrew. zabach. See App-43.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
and they: Exo 3:16, Exo 4:31, Jos 1:17, 2Ch 30:12, Psa 110:3, Jer 26:5
and thou: Exo 5:1-3
The Lord: Exo 7:16, Exo 9:1, Exo 9:13, Exo 10:3
met: Exo 4:24, Exo 5:3, Exo 25:22, Exo 29:42, Exo 29:43, Exo 30:6, Exo 30:36, Gen 12:1, Gen 15:1, Gen 17:1, Gen 48:3, Num 17:4, Num 23:3, Num 23:4, Num 23:15, Num 23:16, Isa 64:5
three days’: Exo 8:27, Exo 13:17, Exo 13:18
that we may: Exo 3:12, Exo 7:16, Exo 8:25-28, Exo 9:1, Exo 10:24-26, Exo 19:1, Jer 2:2, Jer 2:6
Reciprocal: Exo 4:1 – General Exo 4:5 – That they Exo 8:1 – Let my Exo 8:26 – It is not Exo 10:9 – a feast Exo 15:22 – three days Jer 34:9 – Hebrew 2Co 11:22 – Hebrews
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Exo 3:18-19. Hath met with us Hath appeared to us, declaring his will, that we should do what follows. I am sure he will not let you go God sends his messengers to those whose obstinacy he foresees, that it may appear he would have them turn and live.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
3:18 And they shall hearken to thy voice: and thou shalt come, thou and the elders of Israel, unto the king of Egypt, and ye shall say unto him, The LORD God of the Hebrews hath met with us: and now let us go, we beseech thee, three days’ journey into the wilderness, that we may {o} sacrifice to the LORD our God.
(o) Because Egypt was full of idolatry, God would appoint them a place where they could serve him purely.