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The story of the Exodus
is our story.
There was once a family
an old father and his twelve sons,
along with their children.
and although they did not yet have a home of their own,
God blessed these Hebrews in the land of Egypt.
They were fruitful and multiplied
and grew exceedingly strong
so that the land was filled with them.
But God did not intend to leave them there.
Cairo, an ancient and modern melting pot.
Chaotic, yet iconic.
Everywhere you turn
ancient relics fight for window space with cheap souvenirs.
Walking through this sea of people,
vendors yelling, animals bleating,
you're faced with the reality that every day
a large part of the world still lives with
the old and new coexisting side by side.
We're in our first day here in Egypt,
and I think the crew is pretty excited
I'm about to meet someone who lives here in Egypt.
Her name is Miriam,
and she's going to be telling me about the markets
and about Egyptian culture
and what it's like to live here and grow up here.
A local’s perspective on living in Egypt,
a place with such rich history.
Miriam?
Hi, Jeremy.
Hi, how are you?
Hi, Nice to meet you.
So for you, Cairo is home.
Yes.
How long have you lived here?
25 years.
25 years?
Yes.
So as I was flying in yesterday,
I was sitting next to somebody that’s local
And he commented on New Cairo versus old Cairo.
Completely different things Jeremy.
The first thing that you will look at,
something like that
architectural buildings from every past era.
Okay.
With that, you feel that
you're really in a very historical place
in New Cairo that you feel and other countries
like Europe,
but here that you feel you’re really in Egypt.
Back home, if something was 100 years old, it's old.
Here you're going back thousands of years.
Yes.
And finding things and even some of the buildings...
and that's old.
So totally different for us.
Yeah.
So we've got this great restaurant here.
Smell that?
Yeah. Yeah, I do.
This is Egyptian pie.
You want to try?
I would love to try some.
The food is coming.
All right, so what all did you get in it?
Sausage and some vegetables.
It is great.
Yeah.
How long have they been making this food?
Okay, this place is more than a hundred.
Established, I think 1907.
This restaurant is over 100 years old.
Yes. It's completely different about the modern cafe.
In this place, you will get some things for
more than one century,
For a long time.
It's really, really an amazing and historical place.
What is the name of this market?
Khan Al-Khalili.
Okay, and do you have a favorite place in the market?
Do you want to see it?
Yeah, I would love to.
Let's go.
Okay.
I love going through markets.
This is the Muizz street.
What do you think?
It is amazing.
Really?
It's beautiful. All the detail in the building here.
So what makes this street so special?
This is the oldest street in
specifically in Islamic old Cairo.
Okay.
It returns to 969.
They laid out the street at the very beginning of Cairo formation.
And this is the very special place that makes
handmade crafts and souvenirs that the tourists
they’ll take it to their countries as a gift
for family and your friends, too.
Yes.
Okay, athis place, they made some oil for hair.
So the different types of oil.?
Yeah.
This is almond oil, olive oil,
black seed oil.
Oh, coconut.
Yes.
It's so heavy.
All right.
Thank you very much.
Filming here.
Excuse me.
Proved more challenging than anticipated.
All of our preparation,
all the YouTube videos
couldn't have prepared us for production in Egypt.
Stu, can we get any more signal?
In my pack?
Okay.
Let's talk about where we end this journey.
Yes.
In this specific cafe.
Yes.
It's called “Umm Kulthum”.
“Umm Kulthum?”. Yeah. Okay.
Yeah.
You didn't know her?
No.
She's a very famous singer here in Egypt
and around the Middle East.
Some people in the Middle East
call her an Easter Planet.
Yeah,
Umm Kulthum like, more like this place.
She's like a bridge to this place.
Like a bridge between an old Egypt and a new Egypt.
So you're saying that that's something that's always going on
where you have this rich heritage and culture and history
and you have evidence for it everywhere.
Yeah.
But then you still have the new,
you still have living people here
that's been here for a long, long, long time.
Yes.
But it's gone through many changes.
What is it been like to live in a place
with such history but still goes through change?
The change... we have to change because we
every day we have new things around the world.
Sure.
So we have to change and we have to be more modern.
Yeah, but the old the. will be the old.
So there's a place for the old?
Yes.
Yeah.
They feel that they appreciate that you belong to this place.
Well, it has been a fantastic day.
Thank you.
It was so much fun.
I look forward to doing it again someday.
I'm really happy to see you.
I'm very happy to be out with you today.
Thank you.
What it must have been like
for Joseph and his family to come to this country
with a culture so different from their own.
While God had blessed Egypt through his people,
there arose a new king
who did not know what God had done.
So Egypt ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves
and made their lives better with hard service.
Now, the more the children of Israel were oppressed,
the more they multiplied
until Egypt was in dread of them.
About 180 miles northeast of Cairo
is the small Muslim village of Ezbet Rushdi,
known as Tell El-Dab’a.
The fields outside of Ezbet Rushdi
were first excavated in 1885 by Swiss archeaologist
and biblical scholar Henry Edward Neville,
and the site has been the source of multiple digs
and just as many opinions
as to whether this is the ancient city of avarice.
Once the capital city of Hyksos
and home to an ancient Semitic people,
possibly the descendants of Jacob and his family.
This is thought to be what the Bible calls
the land of Goshen.
Justin, my brother-in-law, traveled with us as our story producer
and helped me visualize what it may have been like
for the Hebrews to live in a place like this.
Well, this is a huge contrast from being in Cairo yesterday
and visiting with Miriam
more rural,
but we're still surrounded by apartments and a school and mosques.
Yeah, you can hear the mosque.
And actually when we flew into Egypt, yeah, I wasn't expecting it to be quite that...brown
Yeah,.
I wasn't expecting it to be quite that...brown.
This is very, very different.
Right where we are is Tell El Dab’a.
Right.
Tell El Dab’a has significance because this location
is believed to be one of the two store cities
that Pharaoh had the Israelites build:
Ramses, is also known as Avaris.
So you can see some of the dig sites
that they brought out here.
There was an Austrian team back in the late 90’s.
It went on through the first, what, decade of the 21st century?
So part of the story here is just
how much the Israelites
would have actually loved living in this land of Goshen.
Right?
So Genesis and following that family gets us down into Egypt
because Exodus one talks about 70 people came down.
When they came down with Israel's family
as they came down to be delivered by Joseph.
And so there are some people that speculate
maybe one of the palaces that was found here at Tell El Daba
may have been Joseph's Palace.
It's pretty cool, actually, looking at the evidence,
because some of it doesn't fit Egypt.
Right.
But it has like an Egypt flavor to it.
So it's one of those things that
you start to read Exodus and it almost feels like a fairy tale,
Yeah.
Until you start seeing, they're actual places, locations
that we're looking around us and we can see
dig sites where, you know, the Semitic people had a presence here,
this event really did happen,
Now let's get on to the important thing,
which is the story that they went through.
Right.
Actually, there's still a lot of pot shards around.
And it’s, I don’t know, it's exciting to me.
It's my first time in a situation like this.
Right.
It's like 3,000 years old worth of history,
but people just walking by and using it any which way.c
Yeah.
But, there's nothing to see here, right?
So there is a guy that's associated with the site.
He works here.
He's given this permission to go
and take a look at some of the things that they found here.
They were afraid that if they left them out
that people would have taken them.
So they put them some of them are on display,
some of them are in storage.
Our fixer has negotiated with them
and the team is going to be able to go
and take a look at some of this.
So I have no idea what town we're in.
We got about two thirds of the way
and met up with some local police.
I think sometimes I don't appreciate the threat that's probably there.
So this kind of brings things back to reality.
You said they just took the camera down.
We're waiting outside the gate.
There's the police, the national security and the army.
We need to get permits for all of them.
So we're waiting right now.
And hopefully they let us through.
We got permission to go look at these publicly displayed
archeological discoveries from Tell El Dab’a.
I'm not sure what they're going to be,
but I'm going to go with my camera
and we'll just see what God has provided for us here.
They gave us permission
to come down and look at some of the pieces
they sent up to this museum.
And that is pretty amazing.
You know, we were talking about Abraham
and the promise that he received
and then talking about Joseph being sold into Egypt
and how God used that providentially to preserve his family.
So his father and his brothers and their families all come down
70 people come down to Egypt.
And then you get to Exodus where there's the pharaoh
who comes to power that doesn't know Joseph and his family.
We're told that there were some items here were found there
during the Austrian’s archeological dig
over approximately 30 years.
You see these Canopic jars,
which would have been used during burial.
And what's interesting at Tell El Dabba
is that the burial practices
were not like the burial practices of Egyptians.
They were more Semitic in nature.
And then they changed over time
and included some Egyptian practices,
but they never fully became an Egyptian, from what I understand.
You also have this coffin, you see the lid,
and then even on this side, you see
even smaller coffins
that would have been used for children,
which when you think about the Exodus story, especially
Exodus chapter one, and another thing that we've been trying
to learn more about are these little small statues
that indicated the wealth of the people that lived there.
All of those came from Tell El Dab’a.
And so there was a long period of time
in that town’s history, that city’s history,
where they were really wealthy and they're doing really well,
which is consistent with why
Joseph's family came down in the first place.
It was to promote life.
And they did really well until that Pharaoh rose that didn't know him.
There is a tension that exists in our minds
knowing that Egypt was not merely a place of slavery and oppression,
but also a place of refuge and safety.
It's fascinating to think about how in the Exodus story,
you’ve got, Egypt is a place in slavery that you want to get out of.
In the Jesus story, Egypt was a haven for a time.
And both phrases “Out of Egypt I called my son”.
You get Israel out and you get Jesus.
And as it's just fascinating to get
a fuller narrative. God has plans for Egypt
and has not all punitive,
some of that is helping further the savior.
He's bringing salvation about through Egypt.
Our team had now been in country for two days
and the jetlag was really setting in.
We found exactly what we needed
along the shores of the Nile River.
One? One?
Yeah, yeah,
Yeah.
How long have you been doing this job?
52 years.
52? Yeah, 52 years. Wow.
Do you work here every day or are you at different places?
Yeah, this is the spot.
This is the spot.
Yeah,
Yeah, from 1955.
The Nile is beautiful.
Yeah.
I asked him why the Nile River is important to him.
Yes. Oh, it's your source.
Soul. Soul.
Ah! Your soul! It's your soul!
Very good.
The soul of the Egyptian.
Yes.
It’s the life.
The life! Yeah.
Ah, very good.
The Nile means life for the Egyptian.
Yes.
He can fast, but he wants to drink from the Nile.
Ah, so even when he doesn't eat food,
he still wants water from the Nile?
Yeah.
If we didn't have the Nile, you would not have the coffee.
Ah, I see.
If you do not have the Nile, you would not have anything.
Yeah.
It is good.
Yeah. Well, you be blessed.
Thank you.
So the king determined to put an end to their strength
and ordered that any son born to the Hebrews
should be cast into the Nile and drowned.
Now a Hebrew from the house of Levi went and took a wife.
And they had a son, a boy, beautiful in God's sight.
When the mother could hide him no longer,
she took for him a basket, made of bull rushes,
and she placed the child in it among the reeds by the riverbank.
And his sister Miriam watched from a distance.
The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river
and she saw the basket among the reeds.
When she opened it, she saw the child crying.
She took pity on him and said,
“This is one of the Hebrew’s children.”
And he became her son.
She named him Moses
“Because”, she said, “I drew him out of the water.”
The longest river in the world,
the Nile reaches from deep in the deserts of the Sahara,
all the way to the lush green delta
that empties into the Mediterranean Sea.
Cutting through the heart of Cairo.
This fluid highway isn't just a source of water,
it's seen as the lifeblood for the Egyptian people.
Not much has changed over four millennia.
Plenty of people make their livelihood here,
including this man who has agreed to take us out on the river.
Can I come aboard?
You're welcome.
Thank you. I am Jeremy.
You're welcome, Mister Jeremy. You’re welcome.
And what is your name?
Basit.
Basit?
From Aswan.
Nice to meet you.
Aswan Egypt, you’re welcome Jeremy.
How long have you been working on the Nile?
28 years.
So most of your life you've been working on the water?
Yes, yes.
What do you know about the beginning of Moses's life?
Yeah, he believes that the story happened to me.
Me too. Me too.
How important is the Nile River to Egypt?
It is the source of life for the Egyptian.
Without the Nile there is no Egypt.
Can you tell me what the Nile meant to the ancient Egyptians?
Yeah, he said all the Egyptians from the area
live beside the Nile River, from Aswan to Cairo to the sea.
Also, the material and the rocks that built the pyramids
was taken from Aswan on boats on the Nile River.
Has your family been doing work on the Nile for many generations?
Yes. My grandfather all work on the Nile.
The Nile is the life of Egypt.
Yes.
But it's very personal for you.
It is life for you and your family.
Yes. Also,
I mean, this is just the center of so much Egyptian history.
Families from Egypt would have called this home.
It would have been their life source.
The Nile River is the Nile River still.
It may have changed a little bit, but we're on living history almost.
And it's just so peaceful and serene.
And you get to experience it this way in a way
that you don't with walking amongst ruins or broken things.
It's living.
Right.
That's amazing.
And the feeling that I get being on the water here
is really similar to the feeling that I get
when I go to like the sea of Galilee
and you get on the boat there.
And it's still the Sea of Galilee.
And being out on the water, it pushes you away
from a lot of the hustle and bustle of the city.
And there's a lot of that.
I kind of imagine what it would be like for Egyptians, pharaohs
to bring their parties out on the Nile River to celebrate...
Which they did.
...their prosperity, their place in Egypt,
but then to bring doom on a Hebrew people.
So it's interesting, the Nile was used by Pharaoh as his last resort
to try to reduce the population size of the Israelites in bondage.
So they were they were bringing them
to the river and drowning them.
And Moses, his family tries to keep him alive
and hide him for a period of months until he gets too big to do that.
And they bring him to the river and they do the best that they can do,
which is put him in a basket and entrust him to God,
not knowing what was going to happen.
The faith of those midwives as they tried to find a way
to preserve the life of infants. c
And the faith of his parents.
His parents are mentioned in Hebrews 11.
Right.
Because of the faith that they had and what they saw in Moses,
they saw something in him.
And instead of doing what they were supposed to do,
which would have cost them their lives, they risked their lives to save his.
And all of that took place right around here.
And for Moses in here.
And this became a turning moment.
You know, the drama of the nation becomes the drama of this one person
this one child, and God's going to use him.
And the story moves forward.
We are getting ready to head to Luxor.
We're going to ride an overnight train, which I've never done before.
Super excited about this.
We'll see how much sleep we get.
But we're wrapping up in Cairo.
I'll see you guys on the other side.
Welcome to my welcome to my suite.
Oh yeah, thank you.
This is...
I still don’t know.
Okay.
We are going to Luxor.
There are planes to Luxor.
They are quite convenient and quite frequent,
but a ten hour train ride felt like a different experience.
I know that I'm personally feeling it.
I mean, the exhaustion and stress and the equipment and the crew and everything.
We haven't traveled this way before, right?
Right. Yeah.
Now I feel like I've said that so many times that the culture shock is real.
And we've been to Israel, we've been to Turkey, and it's just a different world.
So, I tell you, yesterday at the Nile, between the guy with the coffee
and the boat captain, there is a lot of talk of the Nile as bringing life.
I didn't expect that.
You go back in antiquity,
they didn't have running water and we just kind of take that for granted.
A lot of their civilization was based right along the river banks.
They've maintained that appreciation and in a big sense reverence
for water to a degree that we just don't have.
You look out and you see the green, but then you get the spots
where we get away from the Nile and it immediately turns to desert; dry.
This might be our stop.
Yeah, we got to go.
Okay, alright.
So curious to see what it's going to be like in the next place.
I feel a little out of sorts.
I know, I just...
a little bit of apprehension.
The team has been adjusting really well.
So grateful for everybody.
That's been the first stage of the journey.
Hey.
Hey, did you sleep?
Haha, yeah no problem!
I told Jet, before the train will go, that it would be awful one.
Yeah.
He didn't believe me.
So you can go here. Go here.
Okay.
Go, go here.
As we made our way further and further from the city
we noticed a local family preparing a week's worth of bread,
and they offered us some breakfast
Did he make this oven?
Yeah?
Yes, he made it.
She wants you to eat.
Yes. I would love to try some.
Just break?
It's got a nice crust, but it's soft right there.
Yeah. Most of Egyptian people, use that.
This one?
This one, yeah.
This is in the village or countryside.
Yeah.
So we've had something like this
Yeah, at the hotel.
For dipping.
Yeah.
This is very good.
Yeah.
Let him try...
That's really good.
Isn’t it good?
It's almost like a sour dough
Yeah, put a little strawberry jam on that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, he’s bringing some cheese!
Yeah, this is cool.
That's a meal.
It’s better than McDonald’s.
Yes.
All right.
Thank you.
Thank you1
Thank you for letting me come to your brick factory.
How long have you been making bricks here?
20 years.
How many bricks can you make in a day?
If I had five employees
we could make 5,000 bricks per day.
In a day?
Yeah.
Yes.
So what goes into the bricks?
Sand, straw, the straw makes the bricks strong.
If we don’t use the straw, the bricks will melt.
Oh, it will not hold together?
Yeah, it will not hold together.
They start to mix it, mix it
and take out stones, little stones like this.
Oh, he's looking for the stones. So he's feeling as he goes?
Yeah.
This looks hard.
They’re used to do it.
They have a great experience.
For a normal guy, it's very hard.
Yeah.
So I wouldn't want to arm wrestle them?
No, he said no!
Good grip. Haha!
This is actually one of the coolest things we've done so far.
It gives us a taste of the Hebrew experience as slaves.
It would be one thing, if we were like these people
making bricks for your own home or for your neighbor's homes,
but they were forced to do this heavy labor.
And as Jeremy will attest, it's not easy.
Can I try his job Looking for the stones?
This would be hard for you.
That's okay.
Okay.
It's going to be great.
Yeah, but I would not do it.
Be my guest.
Okay.
Gird your loins man.
Ah, so grab here?
Oh, that’s heavy.
Get it!
Ha! Get it!
Like this?
It’s moving! It comes at you.
It is mucky.
And it creates a suction, you can hear it.
You're faster, you’re faster.
Thank you.
And he rolls that on the ground.
And put some water.
You make it look easy.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, he knows.
Haha! He knows!
We'll start from scratch.
Is that enough?
Yes?
That's good?
He said you if you work here, you will be a good one.
I would have a job.
Yeah, I would have a job.
I think we need a friendly competition going here.
Craig!
Why don't you come see how you can do with bricks, man?
Uh, yeah. Yeah yeah yeah.
Yeah, let's just see who makes the prettiest brick.
All right, so I'm taking this.
Put it up alongside
Yeah, more mud. More mud!
Water. Yeah water.
Okay lift it up.
Good. Good!
Okay.
Who made it? Who made it better?
I think Craig's is better than that.
Yeah, right.
Ask the brick maker.
This one or this one?
Craig won!
Craig won! Haha!
Ha!
Thank you, Joseph.
You don’t have to use them! Haha!
Maybe we think about the hard labor, but to be able to capture that
and to see it firsthand was pretty amazing experience.
Seeing the process of making the bricks was eye opening for me.
It would have been and still is, backbreaking work.
You're in the Egyptian sun all day
moving that heavy, dirty, smelly mud.
And to think that was made even harder
once Moses initially asked Pharaoh to let the Hebrews go,
That is hard to imagine.
The people of Israel groaned because of their slavery
and cried out for help.
Their for rescue from slavery came up to God
and God heard their groaning
and God remembered His covenant
with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.
God saw the people of Israel
and God knew.
Yeah.
I was thinking about it...
just like all the different gods and stuff in here.
It’s going to be interesting to see...
the comparison between the one and the many? Yes.
The “I AM” piece of it.
Well, the emphasis all the way through, ‘then people will know
that I AM the LORD.’
And setting himself above
everything else, but what’s the everything else?
I don't think we have a perfect grasp of the everything else.
Deep in Upper Egypt
lies a city surrounded by the unforgiving sand.
Welcome to Luxor.
Known in Moses's time as Thebes.
This was the seat of power for the 18th,
19th, and 20th dynasties.
Also known as the New Kingdom.
New is a relative term, as Luxor was
at the height of its glory between 1600 to 1000 BC.
At the heart of the city: the Karnak Temple.
The temple and fortified complex built to worship the Egyptian god.
Amun-Ra, the god of the sun.
No place better speaks to the influence
of the Egyptians polytheistic religion than Karnak.
If you were the king, this city was holy ground,
and you wanted your story told on the temple pillars.
If you were a Hebrew slave, Karnak was the essence
of opulence and power, and you were afraid of the gods that lived within its walls.
Our team is meeting Ahmed.
He's an Egyptologist and one of the leading experts
on the Karnak temple complex.
With so many different parts to Karnak,
it is huge, how does it fit into the chronology of Egypt?
So Karnak actually, according to the chronology and according
what we found here, we talk about 1900 BC, the 12th dynasty rulers
who built a shrine to Amun-Ra at the far eastern side of Karnak.
So Karnak would have been in existence during the lifetime of Moses?
It could be. Yeah.
Because if we think about the 12th dynasty, we talk about Abraham,
and then we talk about Joseph, and then Moses is after.
So what is the significance of all of these pillars?
Ah, symbolism was very important in ancient Egypt
actually, here, 134 columns.
Of course, that number has its religious meaning in Egypt.
But in general it represents the bulrushes or the reeds.
In ancient Egypt, bulrushes
represent the sacred dark place where the birth of the sun,
but also in Judaism, the bulrushes where Moses was rescued.
Let's go and see the most important
shrine of Amun, the central shrine.
So, the shrine of Amun?
Yes, that's the shrine of Amun-Ra.
So I always pronounce that Amun-Ra.
Amun-Aa. Yeah. Or IMun-Ra. Yeah.
This was really a correct depending on the pronunciation in hieroglyphics actually.
So here were three standing statues gonna be here
welcoming the priests who are visiting the temple and city.
The second is paying homage to the sacred Ark of the Covenant of Amun.
You know the idea of the Ark of the covenant? Yes.
That's from ancient Egypt.
Let's see the Ark of the Covenant of Amun.
The ram headed barge of Amun, actually, was a golden color
being carried every year in a festivity leaving from here to Luxor Temple.
So Seti II is offering more food, a different kinds of food.
Like flowers, like pomegranate, like grapes and figs.
This is like a cucumber or eggplant.
And more flowers and more bread.
Non fermented bread was very important to be introduced
to the Ark of the covenant.
So unleavened?
Unleaven. Yeah.
Unleavened bread.
Yeah, so that's really an ancient Egyptian tradition may be passed to
the Hebrews communities who were in Egypt, the food being given by Seti II
who was given the title
“Mi-Ra” “Mi-Ra” means you're going to be born forever as light.
As we saw the stone architecture
now we have the earliest Egyptian
architecture: mud brick structure.
How far back does this go?
Well, actually, mud structures date back to more than 4000 years before Christ.
We talk about pre-dynastic, but actually this is very recent.
You can say 400 BCE, but we are still debating why it is here.
Is it a ramp, a causeway to construct the facade,
or a structure was built by a Jewish or a Coptic community?
So the shape of the mud bricks actually does not give us an idea about a causeway.
But mud brick goes back a long, long time before this?
True.
That's as you know, there are a lot of villages there still doing it.
And we have scenes of mud industry in the walls
of the tombs and amazing show different people.
They were Nubians, they were Egyptians, they were Canaanites and Syrians.
Mud brick industry was the work of poor families
at that time, not only Jewish, but still Egyptians who did it.
So, Jeremy, we're moving now to see one of the most fascinating and important
objects at Karnak: this wonderful marble altar.
Actually, we have two different altars, a horned altar, and then a flat altar.
And we're still debating, actually, what is the function of this altar?
Did they use this altar to put the burnt offerings?
If it is a big religious community, lived here and practiced or performed
the ritual that they have the burnt offerings on this marble altar,
or still, as the scholars believe, it, is the sacred altar
where they put the barge of Amun or the sacred Boat.
We saw it on the walls of the room.
Even today, there is a recent theory talking about it as a sundial.
So what is the significance of the layout of this place with the sun?
Well, Karnak is, precisely aligned to the rising winter sun.
And then it's like the journey of the sun from the east, where the birth of the sun
in winter, to the west where the death of the sun after sunset
or after the summer solstice on the 21st of June.
And amazing in hieroglyphics, this long avenue from the east to the west
was given the name in hieroglyphics as “Wat Amun-Ra Oobin”,
the sacred route where Ra rises
and “Wat Amun-Ra Hatshepsut”, the sacred route where Ra sets.
Do we know how far back the Egyptians worshiped the sun?
Well, I have to say the word worship is still debated.
I have to say that they venerated the sun.
Venerate.
The word venerate because the sun in their eye is a unique disk.
It comes with no power, no seen power behind it.
Who pushes the sun to rise?
Who pushes the sun to set?
So in their imagination it is the manifestation of a one god
or a hidden or invisible power.
As the ancient Egyptians used the sun to guide their life, their harvest,
their priesthood, or their rituals in temples and tombs.
Exactly.
The Valley of the Kings tombs, aligned to the sun.
But there are some temples at Karnak were aligned to the moon.
Yeah.
So in the last couple of days, I've visited with a couple of people.
There was somebody over, on the Nile.
It was a captain, and talked about how he venerated the river.
He venerated the Nile.
That's true, because the Nile is the lord of navigation.
They can navigate by the help of the moon, the stars and the Nile.
Even you know how to navigate
not only modern technology that they enjoy, but still the rising stars.
Here we are in the most important part in the temple:
we call it the Holy of Holies, or the sanctuary.
And actually, it was in hieroglyphics “prenetti”,
which means the “sacred house” of Amun,
where there was a statue of Amun.
The birth of the sun starts from here, and the light is spread from this moment
or from this room to the central colonnade and then to the outer court,
and then farewell to the sun when it sits behind the mountains
where the kings and the queens buried in what we call today,
the Valley of the Kings and the Queens.
So Ra comes to life in December and dies in June.
And this is how life, imagined by the ancient Egyptians.
The beginning of the universe from darkness, to shadow life, to light,
and then back again to the world of night or darkness behind the mountain.
Very cyclical.
That's what we call the cyclical time in ancient Egypt.
From darkness, shadow, light and then darkness again.
Why is the stone so dark?
I'm assuming they would make sacrifices?
Of course, you know, still,
you know, sacrifices and offerings is a big topic in ancient Egypt.
They have their meaning.
Sacrifices were really very important.
Rams were prohibited or were not really sacrificed
in ancient Egypt because they were representing
one of the manifestations of Amun as a ram headed divinity.
That was the clash between the Israelite community
and the Egyptian community because of that
kind of animal sacrifices.
If we talk about the Pharaoh of the Exodus
this is really a big topic.
Who persecuted them?
The word Pharaoh actually means a tyrant
because he made himself the sun.
Which is really still, you know, I think this is the glory of the Bible
and the Koran and the religious text.
That we still search for the Pharaoh...
Yeah.
From today to the end of the world. Yeah.
So the events happened?
Yeah. It happened. Yeah.
It happened. Absolutely. It happened. Yeah.
But who was he?
This is still the question.
Still a question.
There is a lot to see at the Karnak temple complex.
It's actually a bit overwhelming.
What you have are layers upon layers of history.
This site stretches more than 600 years
across three Egyptian dynasties.
There's a lot that I'm processing from my visit.
For one thing,
the connection between icons we see in the Bible to ancient Egypt.
The Ark of the covenant wasn't
a new concept to the Hebrews,
and the Egyptians had a room in their temple
considered to be the Holy of Holies, similar to what we see
with the Tabernacle and the Temple in Jerusalem.
This made me think of a couple of things.
First, as God described how he wanted to be worshiped,
he used some concepts that would have been familiar to the Israelites,
but then gave details that were unique to his relationship with them.
For example,
he instructed them to build the Tabernacle
and the Ark of the covenant to communicate that he was present among them.
But in contrast to Egypt's many gods, he was one god
and insisted that there be no physical depictions of him,
no idols, no carvings,
which is a demonstration of his compassion for the Hebrews.
Next, I think these similarities
helped to reinforce the truthfulness of Scripture.
These hieroglyphs, these rooms, are extra biblical sources
that point to similarities with what we read in the Bible.
I love that.
I think it really helps us better understand
the world of the ancient Hebrews.
You read about how wealthy the pharaohs were,
the lifestyles of the rich and famous
like this is how they live and people perceive them as deity.
And that's what Moses was connected to.
He was adopted into a family like that, and he turned his back on that
and walked away from that,
especially when he went into Midian and starts serving as a shepherd.
Moses was keeping the flock of his father in law, Jethro, the priest of Midian
and he led his flock into the west side of the wilderness
and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.
And the angel of the Lord appeared to him
in a flame of fire, out of the midst of a bush.
He looked, and behold,
the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed.
And Moses said, I will turn aside to see this great sight.
Why the bush has not there?
When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see,
God called to him out of the bush,
Moses, Moses!
And he said, here I am.
Do not come near.
Take the sandals of your feet,
for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.
Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh.
For with a strong hand you will send him out
and with a strong hand he will drive them out of the land
and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord.
The Lord sent devastating plagues upon Egypt
through the hands of Moses and Aaron.
The Lord struck the waters
of the Nile and turned it to blood.
He made frogs come up from the water
and into the houses of Pharaoh and his people.
He turned the dust of the earth into gnats
which covered man and beast.
He sent great swarms of flies into the houses of Pharaoh,
and the land of Egypt was ruined.
Many times Pharaoh relented
and begged Moses to remove the plagues,
and the Lord showed mercy.
But just as quickly, Pharaoh hardened his heart
and refused to let the people go.
So the Lord killed all of the livestock
throughout the land of Egypt,
but preserved the animals of Israel.
Moses threw into the air soot from the kiln,
and the people and animals of Egypt
were covered in painful boils.
The Lord sent thunder and
hail and fire down to the earth.
The Lord sent locusts
and covered the face of the land.
They ravaged the fields and the trees.
Not the green thing remained.
Then the Lord sent darkness for three days.
No one throughout the land of Egypt rose from their place.
But all the people of Israel had light where they lived.
Finally, at midnight,
the Lord struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt,
from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on his throne, to the firstborn
of the captive who was in the dungeon,
and all the firstborn of the livestock.
And Pharaoh rose up in the night,
he and all his servants and all the Egyptians.
And there was a great cry in Egypt.
For there was not a house
where someone was not dead.
When you think of the Exodus story...
the ten plagues come to the mind of everyone who's ever heard this story.
And they culminate in the death of the firstborn.
How does being here impact
the way you think about that pivotal moment in their history?
One of the details of the death of the firstborn that haunts me,
and it's hard to imagine what that must have been like and felt like
for every family in the country on the same night.
To have the firstborn male in their family die.
And it talks about how the nation cried that night
and what the wailing must have been like,
especially in more populated places.
Now God did that.
Yeah.
That wasn’t something that just happened to a people,
this strange kind of pandemic that spread through Egypt.
God chose to inflict them with this.
God is demonstrating his justice.
Pharaoh has been oppressing the people of God.
He's been murdering sons of Israel.
Right.
By having them put to death, thrown into the Nile.
It's a form of genocide.
God was giving him so many opportunities to stop
and let his people go and to respond.
But Pharaoh keeps revealing how hard his heart is
and continues to harden it.
God has been asking him to let his people go.
And even with the 10th, there was a warning.
From the very beginning, right?
He had told Moses, ‘Israel's my firstborn son.
If you don't let them go, I'm taking your firstborn.’
So there's always this calculated justice, compassion.
He's going to deliver his people,
but he's going to punish the ones who persecuted them.
You’re a father.
We've all experienced death in different ways.
You can't make it through life without being touched by it.
But you have sons.
I have sons, in fact, you've lost.
I've lost sons. Yep.
But losing the firstborn, you know.
Can you talk a little bit about emotionally what that would be like?
But also, what would it do to the family dynamic
in that time period to lose your firstborn?
Well, everything... everything changes.
I mean, there's so much responsibility
and blessings that are given to the firstborn
because it's assumed he's going to take over in that patriarchal way.
And so that that shifts, especially in ancient cultures.
God has broken Egypt,
and it hasn't just been a judgment specifically against Pharaoh.
God also is revealing this is a judgment against the gods of Egypt.
He's demonstrating
that he is exalted above what the Egyptians are worshiping,
that he is not like them, that he alone is God.
And so there are multiple levels.
God is still compassionate and merciful and patient,
but that patience has an end.
And as and as traumatic
as that was, it was not arbitrary.
And so to be in a place at night, looking around and seeing cities
and lights and families that are winding down their day.
imagining lights going on and off.
All of a sudden, the pandemonium
and the chaos that would have been going on that night
as Pharaoh finally relented
and in his heartbreak, let the people leave,
not fully grasping that it was his decisions that brought them there.
Right.
Every man shall take a lamb
according to their father's houses,
a lamb for a household.
The congregation of Israel shall
kill their lambs at twilight.
They shall eat the flesh that night,
roasted on the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.
They shall eat it.
Then they shall
take some of the blood, and put it on the doorposts
and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it.
The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are.
And when I see the blood,
I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you
when I strike the land of Egypt.
And on that very day,
the Lord brought the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt by their hosts.
But Pharaoh again hardened his heart
to pursue them with his army and his chariots.
And Moses said to the people, “Fear not.
Stand firm and see the salvation of the Lord.”
And the Lord drove the sea back,
and made the sea dry land
and the waters were divided.
And the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground,
the waters being a wall to them
on their right and on their left.
The Lord looked down on the Egyptians horses and threw them into a panic,
clogging their chariots wheels so that they drove heavily.
And the Egyptians said, “Let us flee from before Israel.
for the Lord fights for them against the Egyptians.”
When you look at the size of the Red sea,
and to think about what God had to do miraculously
to provide a wide enough, dry enough path
for that large of a group of people to move through in a single night.
It's miraculous.
It's supernatural.
It's not something that just happened.
Even though God used some natural means
to get it done, we know there was a wind that blew things up.
But in the song of deliverance, it talks about how the water congealed
and made a wall.
And so to imagine something that size
a pathway through the sea is.
It's impossible.
Except God made it possible.
So the sea represents this dividing line between slavery and freedom.
This body of water represents that deliverance.
He had promised it to their ancestors
that he would send them into this land and then lead them out.
And this marks it. He has led them out.
And not only that, but when the sea comes back and overwhelmed Pharaoh's forces.
So they're not a lingering threat behind them anymore.
And so he sets them free, not just from the physical oppression,
but from the fear of returning or being drug back.
He eliminates that so they can focus on simply learning
to trust him and move forward.
And I think that generation struggled with that.
I think they struggled with a slavery mentality going forward.
But this sea marks that threshold.
That doorway of slavery was on one side
Freedom was on the other side.
While the Egyptian forces no longer pursued the Hebrews.
This area was and is
considered part of the nation of Egypt.
Their border and their control reaches into
what is now known as the Sinai Peninsula.
What do you have?
This is the best quality.
Thank you
And now I'm local.
We set?
We are...
We are running behind schedule.
Let's just put it that way.
Why? What can we take up?
What could we take?
What's the, What's the word on the paperwork?
The guard has told us we can't go in until we've paid more money.
Muhammad and Ryan
and Ali are trying to figure out how to handle it.
But they say you paid only for the sunset.
What about the sunrise?
Okay, we will get.
We want to be cash.
You have to pay at Cairo.
No.
Okay. Let's us ride right now,
with our permits for the sunset to save time.
No, no, you have to pay that and then you go.
We are learning a lot
during this production trip.
That you can have a binder full of permits.
That, and it's just not enough.
It's just not enough.
We're afraid we're not going to get up there.
Yeah,
if there's a reason, we're
the only ones down here right now.
Luckily, we are working with a crew, you know, that's doing
the best they can to help.
Just spackling all the gaps.
Yeah.
Because you're sure that the permits go through.
You just want us to get a headstart?
Yeah. Yeah. Of course.
So if this comes through. Yes.
We're just gonna have to
we're have to move it quickly. Getting up the mountain.
Because I think it's
because if we're gonna catch that sunset,
we're going to be pushing it. So.
Okay, so the permits are in?
Muhammad says we’re good to go.
Mount Sinai
it's one of only a handful of places on Earth
where all three of the world's
major monotheistic religions, Judaism,
Islam and Christianity, hold great value.
However, there's one problem
we don't know with 100% certainty
where the biblical Mount Sinai is,
and the location is hotly contested by scholars
and YouTube commentators alike.
Our team chose to visit
the traditional site near Saint Catherine's Monastery
in the Sinai Peninsula, named Jabal Musa.
Jabal is “mountain” in Arabic.
Musa, referring to Moses.
Numerous sites across Egypt,
Saudi Arabia and Jordan are thought
to be a possible location for Mount Sinai.
Two primary sites are fiercely contested. Here at Jabal Musa
and Jabal al Lawz in Saudi Arabia.
We are not planting a flag saying this is the site,
but instead we're using this as a backdrop to consider
one of the most important moments in all of Scripture.
The giving of the law from God to his people.
So we're hiking up.
We finally got on the trail
maybe three hours late, and this is my guide
who has been doing this for how many years?
17 years.
And he's a part of the tribe
that goes back many generations here.
What is the name of your tribe?
Jabaliya.
It's meaning people who live in the mountains.
And down the valley
you can see the monastery of Saint Catherine,
where they found Sinaticus.
We're on the way.
What is this building up here?
This is church.
This mountain is called Transfiguration Mountain.
And God say to him, “Look to this mountain.”
Look to this mountain, and God passes this way.
Yes.
Transfigured here.
Remember boss?
The mountain would be in front of the Moses Mountain.
So Moses would have hid in a rock in a cleft up there?
Yes, yes.
And then God would have passed by here.
Transfigured. Transfigured.
Yes, yes.
The story. This is the place.
What’s that?
He said we have to move fast.
Yeah, yeah. Okay.
To reach the top before sunset.
Just as it wasn't easy for the Hebrews,
who were now thrust into the wilderness out of Egypt,
we too discovered that getting to the top of this mountain
would prove challenging.
An 80 year old did this.
It didn't say if he was chasing the sunet.
This is amazing
and exhausting.
So we're in the shade, catching a breather,
and then we'll keep going.
Yes.
What is it
like to live next to Mount Musa?
Oh, it's very calm and peaceful for peace and love.
Do you get to meet many people who come?
Yes, every day. I meet so much people here.
We like it when we climb the mountain here.
Yes.
What do you feel for you?
Exhaustion!
We got hustle.
We've gotten to this spot about to hit the steps.
And if we do this right, we should catch the sunset.
We've got pretty aggressive pace,
but I think we're going to do it.
700 steps to the top.
I haven't been keeping count.
I think
I think we're gonna make it.
That is incredible.
For Moses he was supernaturally preserved.
B y the end of his life it was talking about
how God had preserved his strength and his vigor.
And his eye wasn't dim.
After three months of journeying
and getting here to make that hike several times.
That's impressive.
That is just really impressive.
Look at those colors come out.
What are you thinking about right now?
The presence of God.
This was the place
where Moses met God
in the burning bush when he was taking care of his flocks
in Midian. And God commissioned him.
And up until that point, God had not been
revealing himself
to his people and interacting
with his people for centuries.
And so Moses brings God's people out of Egypt
to this place to meet the Lord
and to enter into a covenant relationship with him.
And Moses goes up and down this mountain.
And when he comes down from interacting with God,
his face is shining
because he's been interacting with the presence of God.
The struggle to get here
was worth it.
Oh man, it was worth it.
And even for the Israelites,
they did not know what it would be like to me.
It got out here. They just didn't know
they hadn't done it before.
Exodus wasn't written that it had not happened yet.
For them, it was all new.
So they were heading into the unknown.
They were coming out here by faith
in God was trying to establish a cultural memory
for them, that he was the God who had delivered them.
Oh, yeah.
Look at that.
Yeah, that’s the way I should be walking.
You made it with a cane?
I made it with a cane.
Good job, man. Where are you from?
West Virginia, West Virginia.
He’s used to the mountains.
Congratulations.
And you made it in time for that.
What does it mean for you to be out here?
I didn’t care what it was going to take
I wanted to make this journey.
Yeah, because,
I believe in God.
I do too.
And beside him, there is no other.
Yeah, that's that's what it's all about. Yeah.
I prayed all the way up
and and
and and here I'm on the top, and that’s...
And that's what life is all about, isn’t it?
You just keep on trusting in God.
Believing in him.
Believe what his word says.
I guarantee you you'll make it to the top.
Yeah.
That's why I'm excited for you. I'm excited.
Thank you for taking the time to talk to me. Sure.
You too.
Now, Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke
because the Lord had descended on it in fire.
The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln.
And the whole mountain trembled greatly
as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder.
Moses spoke, and God answered him in thunder.
The Lord came down on Mount
Sinai to the top of the mountain,
and the Lord called Moses to the top of the mountain.
And Moses went up.
And God spoke all these words, saying,
I am the Lord your God, who brought you
out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
You shall have no other gods before me.
You shall not bow down to them or serve them,
for I, the Lord your God,
am a jealous God.
So off to the side of where we were standing
underneath the mosque
are these steps going down.
Into what is called the Cave of Moses.
There's not much to it.
Really small.
On Mount Sinai
is where Moses asked to see God's presence.
For God to dwell with his people.
Some people think this is the traditional location
where God let just a small piece of his presence
be witnessed by Moses to comfort him
and reassure that he was going to go with them,
despite what had happened with the golden calf
while Moses was up on the mountain,
Not much room.
There may not have been much room.
But to have a spot like this
that's been
maintained and thought about
is pretty special.
After years of traveling like this
and going to religiously significant
places, it's rare to be there by yourself.
And that's actually one of the joys of it.
You get to meet and interact with people,
some who hold different beliefs than you,
some who share very common beliefs with you.
Because this is the story.
There are other mountains that are easier to get to,
less military to deal with and government regulations.
Well, this is one of the few locations,
you know, the Temple Mount in Jerusalem is one of them.
But this is another
where you have
this intersection of the three
monotheistic religions of the world.
I mean, you've got Judaism and Islam and Christianity,
and they all stake a claim to these events.
And so this is a story that everyone connects to,
not just a story of one people
coming out and being mean to people here.
That's a human story through the Exodus itself,
through the judgments, through the Red sea parting.
God was going to make his name known in one sense.
He was going to make himself known to the Israelites.
And then with Pharaoh,
he was going to help Pharaoh know that he was the Lord,
and then he's going to help the world
to know that he is the Lord.
And that's still going on.
You know, God is making himself known
through what happened in the Exodus.
And the culmination of that happens here
when we teach the Bible classes with the kids.
We focus on the birth of Moses, slavery, the difficulty.
It's the exciting part, the plagues,
you know, the deliverance through the Red sea.
You get here and it's all law.
And it's like, okay, right.
But we don't think through
God establishing his presence
among his people in the closing chapters.
Right.
We get to the Golden Calf
and teach the golden calf,
but we don't always jump forward into Moses
trying to intercede
and God revealing himself to be merciful
and full of everlasting love.
He's incredibly patient because the people
would just get us out of here and then the promised land.
But God wanted them to stop here, and they stayed here
for almost a year.
So that God could make them into this covenant people.
Some of the things that happened
in a location like this, we passed by a place earlier.
I can imagine 70 elders
and Moses and Aaron and his sons
right there eating before God.
And I don't know that it happened there.
But you can imagine it.
I can imagine it. Yeah.
And being in a place like this, it just
God did those things and the people responded
in those ways.
Out of all the nations of the earth,
he was making them his people.
And so later in the Pentateuch, when you get to Deuteronomy
and Moses is reminding the Israelites
of their journey
and of their deliverance and all of these things,
he talks to them about, what nation is there
that heard the voice of God from the mountain and lived?
No other nation had that experience.
Every nation can see their gods.
Yes, here's a guy who's not seen, but he was heard right?
Because to hear his voice is to
have an opportunity to respond to relationship.
And I'm hearing your voice right now
and you're communicating thoughts and ideas.
And that's what God wants in
his people, is he wants this two way relationship.
We're responding to each other earlier.
We're all sitting around after
we had been up there for the sunset,
and we're talking about our aches and pains,
and this was really hard, but it was worth it.
There is a bonding process that takes place
through turmoil and strife and suffering.
You have this large family that got developed
in Egypt over 400 years, right.
So they had this shared experience
of being delivered,
this shared experience of coming to Sinai,
this shared experience of hearing
God give them law as they keep going.
They're going to continue to have these shared experiences
and a refining of their law and their culture,
and God's preparing them for that.
So by the time they reach Canaan,
when they get there and they're ready to go
in, they're not just a family anymore.
They're nation. They're a nation.
And God's point is,
what other nation
in the history of the world started that way?
So the law, the Ten Commandments,
the significance of that,
why those ten words?
The first four words are highlighting the importance
of their relationship with God.
This is how you're going to interact with me.
The last six talk about how to interact with each other
on a very high level.
It's not everything. It's not everything they need to know.
And so it gets refined.
And then you get to Leviticus
and then you get more details.
But key to all of that, God starts
the ten words with,
I am the God who delivered you out of Egypt.
He's not just giving them law to give them law.
He attaches his law with what he has done for them,
and how he has revealed himself
to them in a very personal way.
So it's not just some ambiguous moral code.
It's connected to Jehovah
and what they've come to learn about Jehovah personally.
So the Ten Commandments are not like,
here's how to be good so that you get credit with God and he likes you.
No. No.
And then you're good with him.
But it's here's how you respond to a God who saved you.
Yeah.
And to love God and to love each other
and to be this covenant people that God saved you to be.
So you can see why it's not just saving them
so important, it's bringing them and making them,
making him all that.
He purposed them to be.
Lovers of God, lovers of each other, this family.
The story of Exodus doesn't start with Exodus one.
It starts with Abraham's family
and how they come into Egypt.
But going back to the promise
God made to Abraham in Genesis 15.
But Abraham is heartbroken over
the fact that he doesn't have children, yet
that promise has not been fulfilled where he has him
look up,
God challenges him to count the stars,
and he says, that's how many kids you're going to have.
Someday I'm going to keep this promise to you.
But now it's not just Abraham's family
that's his name, right?
Well, and he even predicts there's going to come a time
where your children will go into a land, right?
And I am going to deliver them out.
And so at Mount Sinai, that has been fulfilled.
Abraham's children are numerous,
and God has delivered them from the land
that he knew they would be enslaved in.
This was a new day for God's people.
The giving of the law was a pivotal moment
in the forming of their nation.
This moment would go with them
all the way to the cross of Jesus.
But while God was making a covenant with his people,
the Hebrews were already breaking the law
and something dark and sinister was taking place
far below in the valley.
When Moses delayed to come down from the mountain,
the people gathered themselves together to Aaron
and said to him, make us gods who shall go before us?
As for this Moses,
the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt,
we do not know what has become of him.
So Aaron received the rings of gold
that were in their ears, and made a calf.
And the people said, behold,
the God who brought us up out of the land of Egypt.
And they rose up early the next day to worship.
They sat down to eat and drink,
and rose up to play.
it was fascinating to me
while we were in Luxor that, and the Egyptologist
showed us a hieroglyph
that had a couple of
images on it that gave us insight into the golden calf.
So the two images and the hieroglyph was
an image that represented gold
or the gold skin of the gods, and then a bowl
representing the strength of the gods
and associated with the king.
And when you take that imagery
and then think about what Aaron fashion for the Israelites,
as Moses was up on the mountain for 40 days,
they became concerned.
They said, we don't know what's happened to this guy.
We need someone to go before us, so make a God for us.
And Aaron fashions
a golden calf out of the gold that they've collected.
So they're using this imagery from their slavery days
in Egypt to represent Jehovah uses the word Lord.
This is the God.
This is the Lord who has led you out of Egypt.
It shouldn't surprise
us that you have this cultural influence
that drives what they end up doing,
but they associate it with the Lord.
And in the exact same moment,
the Lord is up on the mountain with Moses,
trying to communicate how unique and exclusive he is.
And the irony of that.
And so, I don't think there's any way that I can fully appreciate
Moses's frustration and anger
when he comes down and sees the people in this idol
orgy around this Egyptian
influenced idol and associating it with Jehovah.
And so even though the people have
physically been delivered from Egypt,
they have these remnants, these ways of thinking,
even religiously and spiritually,
that are still ingrained in them.
They've physically left Egypt,
but emotionally and spiritually and in so many ways
they're still tied there, and especially that generation.
You see it in the generation
that immediately experienced it.
And God is trying to set them free from that.
It was at Mount Sinai that
God fulfilled his promise to bring his people out of Egypt.
But more than that, God was trying to get Egypt
out of his people.
It's been, a little bit over a week now since we arrived in Egypt,
and we're done pretty much phase two of production
leaving Egypt.
It's a second chapter, so who knows what sort of work
we're going to have to do when we get there.
But I'm looking forward
to just switching gears a little bit.
Okay. So it is, it's either 7:00 or 8:00 at night.
We're not really sure what time zone we're in.
we are sitting in a holding area
waiting to clear customs and
get our passports back so we can go,
beginning to believe that the only time of day
that you can go through
customs is late at night when you're tired.
Next stop is, Jordan.
The Israelites had just come out of the land of Goshen.
And compared to where they were in the desert,
life was easier back there.
A food was readily accessible.
They had put down roots. There was a community.
And you leave all of that ease,
even though they were in bondage and enslaved.
You leave all of that ease and come to this
and you don't know where you're going,
and you're just doing it day by day and the sand,
the desert wants to kill you.
And it makes sense why the Israelites would have
struggled in their faith and challenged Moses, like,
why do you bring us out here?
Why did you bring us out here to die?
Slavery in bondage was easier than this.
It was better than this.
And they just didn't have a different perspective.
So being out here in this,
I understand why they were struggling.
God has led them out and God has delivered them.
But they have
...they have nothing.
They have to learn to rely on him for their daily food.
They have to learn to rely on him for direction,
for provision.
And being out here,
there's nothing they can do on their own.
They're not going to put down roots here.
They're living a nomadic life and they left roots.
And so they're just living in this in-between space,
which is so hard to do, wrestling with whether God's
going to fulfill the last part of his promise
to take them to a land of rest, because this is not it.
Everybody wanders through deserts in their life.
They just do where they get into this in-between space.
And it seems like there's no joy and there's no happiness.
They can't see one foot in front of them.
They can't see what's coming the next day.
And they have to learn to rely on God every single day,
every step along the way.
And those seasons come and go.
And we don't know how long those seasons are going to be.
For some people, it's
a couple of days or a couple of hours.
For some people,
they go into these deserts
that may stretch their whole lives.
But what the Exodus teaches us
is that God's a God of deliverance, and there is life.
There's life on the other side.
There's hope on the other side.
And while you're in the desert, there's still provision.
God's with you through that desert,
even though you might not see it or understand
what he's doing.
He's operating and still saving you.
He's still giving you life and sustaining you.
Then the Lord said to Moses,
behold, I'm about to rain bread from heaven for you,
and your people shall go out and gather a day's portion
every day, that I may test them
whether they will walk in my law or not.
The people of Israel ate manner
till they came to the border of the land of Canaan.
The camels!
They're beautiful.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
What is on the nose of this one?
Because he bites his brother.
Haha! Okay.
I wondered if that's what that was.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Yeah.
What is life like living in the desert out here?
Here is very peaceful.
Away from the traffic.
Away from the noise.
Yeah.
Very solitary.
Yes.
Yeah.
Very.
But very hard too.
Because you have such heat and cold.
Yeah.
How do you think the desert changes people?
If you come here
how does it change you?
The desert gets you out of city life.
It gets your space empty.
It gets your mind empty.
Can I ride?
God chose this empty and solitary
place to help his people clear their minds
and break the cords that still tied them to Egypt.
When they arrived at Kadesh Barnea,
God sent twelve spies into the Promised land.
But ten of them lacked faith
and convinced the people to rebel.
So the Lord sent the Israelites back into the wilderness.
For 40 years.
40 years.
That's a long time to be lost.
Wandering,
looking for direction.
40 years.
It was necessary to remove doubt and worry
and replace it with faith.
We're all wandering in the wilderness at times in our life,
stumbling, tripping over ourselves
as we look for a way out of our sin and idolatry.
But if we allow God to use
that time in the wilderness to build our character,
to humble us, to teach us to fully depend on
if we follow his direction,
he'll lead us out
and make clear the path we need to follow.
So much more happened
leading up to Israel going in and conquering Canaan.
The Israelites spent 40 years in the wilderness with Moses
because of their rebellion
and not going in when they should have.
Their lack of faith in God and in his strength,
and in his ability
to take these giants in the land that they saw.
And so there are three more books
in the Pentateuch
that chronicle the development of Israel as a nation.
You have Leviticus, where God gives his law to his people,
helping them understand that he's holy
and he wants them to be holy,
and gives them details about how to do that
and explaining the sacrificial system of atonement.
I want to try something a little bit different today.
Okay.
And I'm going to need your help.
And probably two, three other guys.
We need some crew?
We do!
Hey Nolan!
Ryan?
You ready to help?
We could probably grab a sound guy.
Dan, do you want to step in on this?
You might need to lose the camera.
Okay, so we need everybody
to grab the largest rock they can grab.
I get the biggest one.
You got it. Because you’re the biggest.
I’m strongest, all you weaklings!
Okay.
So we'll come out here
and we're going to set six points.
So, Stu, if you want to set yours right by that,
right by that rock.
This this rock right here.
Set it next to that.
We need to measure just. And you want to help me?
Yes, sir.
So 15 feet, right? Right here.
All right.
Okay.
And once we get these four down.
So I need someone else to put a rock here.
Dan is really close.
He's been eyeballing it. Close!
So from this point, we need to go forward about 45 feet.
This little experiment...
Is to kind of give us a visual
of the size of the tabernacle.
If I understand our experiment correctly,
what we've just done is we've laid out the tabernacle structure.
We have ten cubits wide, 30 cubits long.
So four feet.
Usually that's 15 by 45. Okay.
And this this central area is a perfectly cubic
measurement room.
This is the most holy place.
It's like the center,
not just of the tabernacle,
but this is central to the camp of Israel.
God wanted it in the center. Yeah.
So even on the outside of the tabernacle complex,
you have three tribes camping on each face,
and then actually, you'd have it insulated by the Levites and the priests.
Correct.
Because God wanted a pure place to dwell amongst his people.
The people needed a holy place that they could interact
a safe place again, right with God.
Well, as he had demonstrated with the Golden calf incident.
Right.
You know, he's a holy God.
But these unholy people are doing things
that if he were to live amongst them in his holiness,
he would consume them.
So if we were to step in, right,
what would we see?
Well, if we were to step in
we would see that curtain covering the Holy of Holies.
All right. Which is the focal point of the whole thing.
Okay.
And inside of that cubed room would be the Ark of the covenant,
which on top of that was called the mercy seat,
which was essentially God's throne.
That's where God's presence dwelt.
And the high priest was the only one who could go in there
and only one day out of the year on the Day of Atonement.
So they don't hang out in here.
This is a very special place where God lives
within, dwells with them
just before the veil,
and kind of belonging to the Most Holy Place.
You have the altar of incense, right?
And the smoke would fill in.
So when he enters in, can't even see.
The idea goes back to the presence of God.
With Mount Sinai
God came down and there was fire and lightning and smoke.
And as you light incense and that incense permeates the room,
it helps communicate
the idea of God's presence being in the space.
So what's happening is Sinai is being recreated in the tabernacle.
Yes.
I didn’t even think about that. Okay!
Even going back before Sinai
The orientation of the tabernacle on the compass.
Right.
Because it faces east when the priest come, it was facing west.
And that goes back to the Garden of Eden.
In fact, a lot of this imagery is Garden of Eden,
but they're walking west
because when Adam and Eve left the garden, they went east.
When Cain killed his brother Abel, he goes east.
So God is taking his people as covenant people and kind of
bringing them back into this Paradise dwelling with him.
So over here,
when you first come in to the left, would be like the tree, right?
It's a lampstand.
and then to the right would be the table of several of showbread
and even the ornamentation on the curtains
and the ornamentation that was made out of metal.
All of it had garden imagery.
And so you start the Pentateuch
with Genesis,
and God created everything in his
in the garden with Adam and Eve. And we've lost them.
And we've lost that.
We've lost the garden because of sin.
We've lost that closeness of being in God's presence.
And by the time you end the Pentateuch, God's
provided a way to reconnect with his people.
He's recreating a little bit of the garden.
So this isn't really just about organizing religion
or organizing camp structure.
This is really about symbolizing, recreating a presence with God.
Yeah.
So having this layout. It's a cool experiment.
I like being able to visualize all this.
So it's super helpful to see how compact it is.
But it communicated something really big.
We want a God who will tabernacle with his people.
Yes, yes.
Cool.
Then you've got the Book of Numbers
that summarizes the generation that came out of Egypt,
and the cycle of rebellion and disobedience and judgment
that led to them lying in the desert
as their children finally went in 40 years later.
And then Deuteronomy is Moses,
because he failed as well in the wilderness,
he got frustrated to the point and didn't honor and glorify God.
And so God told Moses he would not get to enter in.
And so out of that entire generation,
only two Israelites got to go into the land of rest.
And so Deuteronomy is Moses
speaking five different times to the people
reminding them of everything that God has done in their history
to bring them to this point
before he finally goes up mount Nebo, to look into the land
in anticipation of what God would do
when his time with them was over.
Getting here to Mount Nebo, even for our crew
this has been an exhausting journey,
and it was nothing compared
to the 40 years of the Israelites getting here.
But there's such a sense of excitement
and anticipation
standing at the top and looking across
the valley into the land of rest.
This is the land that God had promised to Abraham
and his descendants.
And Moses gets to look in and see what the Israelites
are about to inherit.
And what we're feeling right now is so small
in comparison to what Moses must have felt for them.
Israel spent 40 years getting to this moment,
and Moses climbed to the top of the mountain.
And after God's people
being sojourners for all of those generations,
on the eve of them arriving in a home,
he gets to look in and see how good the land is.
I feel tension between the disappointment
that this moment marked
for Moses, and at the same time,
the joy that he must have felt of a job well done.
He shepherded God's people for 40 years,
knowing that it was going to be hard.
And it was.
He didn't respond to every test of faith well.
He was human and he made mistakes.
And this mountain marks
the tension at the close of his life where he gets to look in
and he does not get to experience
the arrival in the promised land.
But he gets to see it.
And in faith he gets to see what Israel is about to inherit.
He did his job well and shepherded God's people well.
And I'm so grateful that God didn't measure Moses's faithfulness
based on his worst day,
and that at the end of the day,
he was still called the friend of God.
Chronicling Moses's life and being here,
I appreciate that.
There may be some who wonder
what does the story of the Israelites have to do with me?
I come from a different family and background and tradition,
but the Bible tells us that
for those who choose to follow God,
those who accept and follow His Son Jesus,
we have been rescued out of the slavery of our sin
and are being led to a rich, promised land of grace.
We belong to God's family.
We are part of God's chosen people.
We are the next chapter
of this beautiful history and heritage.
The story of the Exodus is our story.