Commentary - Exodus 6:1-9

Bird's-eye view

This passage is God's thunderous response to the despair of Moses and the Israelites. At the end of chapter five, Moses, having obeyed God and confronted Pharaoh, saw the situation get drastically worse. The people were crushed, and Moses himself accused God of doing them harm. In response, God does not offer a gentle word of comfort, but rather a majestic reaffirmation of His identity, His covenant, and His absolute power to save. He reveals the meaning of His name, Yahweh, as the God who doesn't just make promises, but fulfills them in history with overwhelming force. This section is a cascade of divine "I will" statements, grounding the coming Exodus not in the faith of the people or the skill of Moses, but in the unshakeable character of the covenant-keeping God. It is the divine constitution for the nation of Israel, the formal declaration of independence written by God Himself before a single Israelite had taken a step toward freedom.

The central point is the unfolding revelation of God's name. The patriarchs knew God as El Shaddai, God Almighty, the one who could make promises to individuals and protect them. But this generation was about to know Him as Yahweh, the God who redeems an entire nation, who executes judgment on empires, and who establishes His people in a covenant relationship with Himself. The passage ends on a note of stark realism: the people, broken by their slavery, are in no condition to receive this glorious news. This only serves to magnify the grace of God, who will save them anyway, not because they are strong in faith, but because He is faithful to His name.

Outline

Context In Exodus

This passage is the pivot point between failure and fulfillment. Chapter 5 records Moses' initial, disastrous confrontation with Pharaoh. Not only did Pharaoh refuse to let the people go, he intensified their labor by forcing them to gather their own straw for brickmaking. The Israelite foremen were beaten, and they in turn blamed Moses and Aaron. The chapter ends with Moses' raw complaint to God: "Why have You brought harm to this people? Why did You ever send me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Your name, he has done harm to this people, and You have not delivered Your people at all" (Exod 5:22-23). Exodus 6:1-9 is God's direct, formal answer to that charge. It is the theological foundation upon which all the subsequent plagues and the deliverance at the Red Sea will be built. Everything that follows, from the turning of the Nile to blood to the death of the firstborn, is the historical outworking of the promises made in this section.

Key Issues

The Name and the Arm

When we are at the end of our rope, as Moses was, God does not meet us with sentimental platitudes. He meets us with Himself. The entire force of this passage is a divine self-disclosure. God's answer to Moses' "why" is "I AM." The promises that flow from this are not wishful thinking; they are as certain as the character of the God who makes them. He brackets this entire declaration of salvation with His name: "I am Yahweh" (v. 2) and "I am Yahweh" (v. 8). Everything in between is simply an unpacking of what that name means. It means deliverance, redemption, judgment, adoption, and inheritance. It means God is about to define His own name by His actions in history. The patriarchs knew the name, but they didn't know the name in this way. They knew the God who promised; this generation was about to know the God who performs.

Verse by Verse Commentary

1 Then Yahweh said to Moses, “Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh; for by a strong hand he will let them go, and by a strong hand he will drive them out of his land.”

God's first word to a despairing Moses is "Now." The time for waiting is over; the time for divine action has come. Moses had seen what Pharaoh would do, and he had seen what the suffering people would do. Now, God says, you are going to see what I will do. The deliverance will be accomplished by a "strong hand," but the beautiful irony here is that it refers to Pharaoh's hand. God's power is such that He will not just overpower Pharaoh; He will work through Pharaoh. The same tyrant who refused to let them go will be so thoroughly broken that he will personally drive them out. God's sovereignty turns the strength of His enemies into the instrument of His people's salvation.

2-3 God spoke further to Moses and said to him, “I am Yahweh; and I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as God Almighty, but by My name, Yahweh, I was not known to them.

This is a crucial verse for understanding the whole of redemptive history. God identifies Himself by His covenant name, Yahweh, and then draws a distinction. This is not to say that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had never heard the word "Yahweh." The name appears throughout Genesis. The point is about the depth of experiential knowledge. They knew God as El Shaddai, God Almighty, the all-sufficient one who could make great promises to individuals and protect their families in a hostile world. But they had not yet experienced the fullness of what His name Yahweh signified: the God who keeps His covenant promises on a grand, national scale, redeeming an entire people from bondage through earth-shattering judgments. The patriarchs had the promise; Moses' generation would have the performance.

4-5 And I also established My covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they sojourned. Furthermore I have heard the groaning of the sons of Israel because the Egyptians are holding them in slavery, and I have remembered My covenant.

God's actions are never arbitrary; they are always rooted in His covenant faithfulness. He refers back to the foundational promise of the land. Then He gives two reasons for His imminent action: He has "heard" their groaning, and He has "remembered" His covenant. When the Bible says God "remembers," it does not mean He had a lapse in memory. In covenantal language, to remember is to begin to act on the basis of a prior commitment. The cries of the people were the lawsuit brought before the heavenly court, and God, the righteous judge, was now rising to render His verdict based on the binding terms of the covenant He Himself had established.

6 Say, therefore, to the sons of Israel, ‘I am Yahweh, and I will bring you out from under the hard labors of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from their slavery. I will also redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments.

This verse begins the great crescendo of "I will" statements. The foundation is again, "I am Yahweh." Because of who He is, certain things will necessarily follow. First, He will bring them out from their burdens. Second, He will deliver them from their bondage. Third, and most powerfully, He will redeem them. The word for redeem here is the word for a kinsman-redeemer, one who pays a price to buy back a relative from slavery or debt. The price here will be the life of Egypt, paid through "great judgments." The means of this redemption is God's "outstretched arm," a potent image of divine power being actively exerted in the world.

7 Then I will take you for My people, and I will be your God; and you shall know that I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out from under the hard labors of the Egyptians.

Here we find the very heart of the covenant. The ultimate goal of the Exodus is not just political freedom or geographical location. The goal is relationship. "I will take you... and I will be your God." This is the language of adoption, of marriage. God is creating a people for Himself. And the result of this mighty act of salvation will be knowledge, but not merely intellectual knowledge. They will know God in a saving, personal, and experiential way. Their theology will be forged in the fires of His deliverance.

8 And I will bring you to the land which I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, and I will give it to you for a possession; I am Yahweh.’ ”

The promises conclude with the fulfillment of the land grant. This was not a new idea; it was grounded in the oath God swore to the patriarchs. The Hebrew for "I swore" is literally "I lifted up My hand," the ancient gesture for making a solemn oath. He will give them the land as a possession, an inheritance. And as a final, unbreakable seal on this whole declaration, He signs His name one more time: "I am Yahweh." The promise is as sure as the one who promised it.

9 So Moses spoke thus to the sons of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses on account of their weakness of spirit and hard slavery.

After this glorious cascade of divine promises, the response is anticlimactic and painfully realistic. The people did not listen. Their spirits were crushed. The Hebrew describes a "shortness of breath" or "anguish of spirit." They were so beaten down by their oppression that they could not even lift their heads to hope. This is not presented as a culpable failure on their part, but rather as a pathetic condition. Their inability to believe does not nullify God's promise. In fact, it highlights the sheer grace of it. God is not going to save them because they mustered up enough faith. He is going to save them because He is Yahweh, and their salvation will be all the more glorious because it is so clearly His work from start to finish.

Application

This passage is a profound comfort to Christians in any age who find themselves in circumstances of despair. Like Moses, we can look at our situation, look at the overwhelming power of the opposition, and cry out to God, "You have not delivered your people at all." And God's answer to us is the same as His answer to Moses: a revelation of Himself. Our hope is not in our circumstances, our feelings, or even the strength of our own faith. Our hope is in the character of the God who says, "I am Yahweh."

The pattern of redemption laid out here is the pattern of our own salvation. We were under the hard labor of sin. We were in slavery to the devil. And God, by His own initiative, brought us out. He delivered us. He redeemed us with an outstretched arm, the arm of His Son stretched out on the cross, and with a great judgment that fell upon Christ in our place. And He did it all for this purpose: that He might take us to be His people and be our God. He has given us an inheritance, not of a parcel of land, but of a new heaven and a new earth.

And when our spirits are crushed, when we are too weak from the fight to even listen to the promises, this passage reminds us that our salvation rests on His "I will," not our "I can." He is the one who remembers the covenant, the covenant sealed in the blood of Jesus. Our weakness is simply the dark backdrop against which the strength of His redeeming arm shines most brightly.