Exit with Great Substance

Before the conflict with Pharaoh began, God had said to Moses: “I will give this people favour in the sight of the Egyptians and it shall come to pass that when ye go ye shall not go empty, but every woman shall borrow of her neighbor and of her that sojourneth in her house jewels of silver and jewels of gold and raiment and ye shall put them upon your sons and upon your daughters: and ye shall spoil the Egyptians” (Exodus 3:21-22).
Many have misunderstood this scripture and Exodus 12:35-36, because a mistake was made in the translation. The Hebrew word translated “borrow” means “ask.” The word translated “lend” in Exodus 12:35-36 is a form of the same word and means to “let ask,” that is, to entertain a request and graciously to give. It was not a case of theft, borrowing with no thought of return. The Israelites asked these things. The question was whether or not the request should be answered or met with angry refusal.

The Covenant God intervened. He gave His people favour in the eyes of the Egyptians. They were looked upon by their enemies in a new light; and the Egyptians gave unto them. These were the spoils of a more glorious victory than any other conquering nation had ever known. In history the conquered have been spoiled, but never willingly. But here, the Egyptians find a joy in giving to those who had mastered them. The Covenant people who had simply stood and waited for salvation from their God of the Covenant, pass out adorned with the gorgeous raiment and the jewels of those who had so long spoiled them.

More than 200 years before, their Covenant God had predicted this triumph. In Genesis 15:13-14, He had said to Abraham that his seed should be a stranger and afflicted in a land that was not theirs, and that He would judge the nation whom they had served. With it He had given this promise: “Afterward they shall come out with great substance.”
Here God had looked forward to the very spoiling of the Egyptians as the end of the sore travail of His people and a compensation for their bondage and slavery.

The Route Changed

On the second day’s journey the Israelites followed the usual route to Palestine. This must have led them to the “edge of the wilderness.” Across those sands and up along the Mediterranean Coast lay the nearest way to Palestine. A few marches onward and they would have passed into the territory of the warlike Philistines. But here the route was suddenly changed. We are told that God led them not through the way of the Philistines, although that was near, for God said lest peradventure the people repent when they see war, and they return to Egypt. But God led the people about, through the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea. Why then, we may ask, were they suffered to make a beginning, which looked as if they were to take the more expeditious road to the land promised to their fathers?

Why was the change made in the route so that they had on the third to retrace their steps and march southward on the Egyptian side of the sea? We may at first be perplexed by the question. It does look as though God’s plan had been suddenly altered; but a little reflection will speedily unveil the Divine Wisdom. The whole is explained in those words, “They encamped .. . in the edge of the wilderness” (Exodus 13:20). God had a twofold purpose. Israel had to bend to the Divine Will. Naturally, they at the outset desired the shortest route. God suffered them to take it and went with them so far as He often does with us in our willfulness.

They are brought “to the edge of the wilderness” (Exodus 13:20); and then comes reflection. There is nothing inviting in the aspect of that dreary expanse. They begin to think of dreary days of plodding, thirsting, and hunger, through the treeless, waterless, habitationless desert. Then they think of the embattled wall of fierce, determined foemen through which a way must be forced after the desert has been traversed. There was no murmuring on the morrow when God said: “Speak unto the children of Israel, that they turn” (Exodus 14:2). This brought relief to them.

The Covenant God also had another purpose. The king was carefully watching their movements. God was not going to allow His Covenant people to pass with dishonor from the land of Egypt; they were not going to be allowed to run away. When the Covenant God delivers, it is not through human methods. His deliverance is glorious in its fullness and in its beauty of holiness. Egypt will herself thrust Israel out and compel them to abandon the country, so the route is changed.