This post is the seventh of Faithlogue’s 2023 Summer Series: “The Women of the Exodus.” Click here to receive each week’s post in your inbox!
This week we arrive at the end of Exodus 3. In this chapter, God assures Moses of His plans to compel Pharaoh to release the Israelites (3:19-20). God also names Himself as “I AM” and “The LORD the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (3:14-15). God further assures Moses that the elders of the Israelites will listen and respond to him (3:18).
In Exodus 3, God instructs Moses to gather the elders to confront Pharaoh. Then, God specifically commands the participation of the Hebrew women as follows:
“And I will make the Egyptians favorably disposed toward this people, so that when you leave you will not go empty-handed. Every woman is to ask her neighbor and any woman living in her house for articles of silver and gold and for clothing, which you will put on your sons and daughters. And so you will plunder the Egyptians.”
Exodus 3:21-22
Just as God promised Abraham his descendants would thrive in captivity (see Day 2), God also promised him they would escape with great possessions (see Genesis 15:14). God’s command for the Hebrew women in Exodus 3:21-22 reveals how He plans to fulfill that promise.
With this command, God also reveals that He will continue to work through His daughters to prepare the Israelites for rescue. However, now God issues a direct command for their participation.
It is difficult to fathom how the Egyptians would cooperate with this scheme. Most enemies would not willingly hand over their possessions. However, the NIV translation above states that God will “make the Egyptians favorably disposed.” The Hebrew term in this verse translated as “favorably disposed” is hen, meaning graciousness, favor, or charm.[1] So, in this command God promises to offer favor to the Hebrew women through the Egyptians. The ESV translation states this a bit more clearly, “I will give this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians” (3:21). In other words, the Hebrew women will ask God for His favor through the Egyptians.
God also waits to enact this command until right before the tenth plague. He then extends it to include the Hebrew men (Exodus 11:2-3). By that time, I imagine the Egyptians were happy to cooperate with God and extend the favor of their possessions in an effort to encourage the Israelites to leave and end their suffering.
In the final part of this command, God tells Moses that the Israelite sons and daughters will wear the borrowed items. According to my research, the wearing of plunder was typical for nomadic people as a sign of victory.[2] However, in this case, God had more than a victory parade in mind.
Soon after their escape, the people will offer the plundered silver and gold back to God to help build the Tabernacle and its articles (Exodus 35:4-6). The Tabernacle was a tent-like structure that the Israelites carried on the journey to provide a dwelling and worship place for the Lord among the people. God had a plan for the silver and gold.
God also had a plan for the clothing. He reveals that plan decades later at the conclusion of the Israelites’ journey home: “During the forty years that I led you through the wilderness, your clothes did not wear out, nor did the sandals on your feet” (Deuteronomy 29:5).
With this command, God worked through the Hebrew women to not only prepare His people for the event of the Exodus but also to sustain their future needs. Through God’s provision of hen, two generations of unnamed Hebrew women actively participated in God’s promises and plans.
In this way, the Hebrew women represent the entire community of the Israelites. We (understandably) focus our studies on Moses and ignore the fact that a community of individuals had to cooperate with God for the Exodus to succeed.
Because today’s passage includes all the Hebrew women, we’ve now covered every woman directly mentioned in Exodus 1-4 who God used mightily to prepare His people for the Exodus. Each week, we’ve discussed the biblical narratives that tell us who these women were and how God worked through each of them.
We could leave this series now and walk away with a nice overview of the women in Exodus 1-4. However, my purpose for Faithlogue is not just to tell women’s stories, Faithlogue aims to connect those stories of faith to God’s loving grace. So, next week we will do just that by exploring what these stories tell us about God and what they mean for our own journeys of faith. I look forward to wrapping up this series with you all next week!
© 2023 Lori Myers Berry
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Each post in this series includes one or more biblical word translations. I like to study the original Hebrew language in the verses because it deepens my understanding of the meaning of the passage. Word study also helps overcome some of the limitations of our modern English language compared to the nuances of the ancient Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic languages of Scripture.
The tools I use for this work are an Interlinear and a Concordance. In book form, these resources would occupy quite a lot of budget and shelf space. But with technology we can access both in one spot from the palm of our hands using a Bible app on our phone or device.
There are several great Bible apps available, but I would like to recommend the Blue Letter Bible app today. In this app, you can click on any selected verse and find the Interlinear/Concordance under Study. That link will take you directly to the original text, where you can scroll down to see each English word matched to its original and select the Strong’s concordance numbers to find definitions and cross-references.
One day soon, I will provide a tutorial to help you dig down even further. In the meantime, play with the app and see if you find anything interesting when you explore the original words of your favorite Bible verse. Enjoy!
[1] James Strong, The New Strong’s Dictionary of Hebrew and Greek Words (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1996), s.v. “H2580.”
[2] Carol Meyers, ed., Women in Scripture: A Dictionary of the Named and Unnamed Women in the Hebrew Bible, the Apochryphal/Deuterocanonical Books, and the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2001), S.v. “Daughters (and Sons) of Israelites in Egypt.”