Exodus 2:24 - Printer Friendly

ESV: And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.

NIV: God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob.

NASB: So God heard their groaning; and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

CSB: And God heard their groaning; and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob;

NLT: God heard their groaning, and he remembered his covenant promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

KJV: And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.

NKJV: So God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.

The phrase indicating that God heard Israel's cries of pain uses parallel phrasing to the description of "groaning" in the prior verse (Exodus 2:23). They prayed, and He heard (Exodus 2:25), reminding us God always hears our prayers. Further, God "remembered" His covenant. This doesn't mean God had stopped being aware of it. Rather, this means God is deliberately choosing to act on His agreement. The covenant referred to here is the Abrahamic covenant (Genesis 12:1–3). God promised to bless Abraham and his descendants. They would become a great people and a nation. God would bless those who blessed them and judge those who judged them.

This covenant extended from Abraham to his son Isaac and Isaac's son Jacob. From Jacob came the twelve sons who became leaders of the twelve tribes of Egypt (Exodus 1:1–7), extending God's covenant to all the Jewish people. God's promise to Abraham was that his descendants would live in the land where Abraham walked, the land of Israel. This promise would be realized through Moses leading the people of Israel out of Egyptian slavery toward this Promised Land.

Exodus 2:23–25 briefly looks away from Moses and back to the people of Israel. Prior to Moses' birth, the king of Egypt began brutally enslaving the Jewish people. Most of chapter 2 was used to describe Moses' adoption by the Egyptian princess, his murder of an Egyptian bully, and his escape to Midian, where he settles and builds a family. In the meantime, Israel's oppression becomes continually worse. The Hebrews cry out to God for rescue; He has not forgotten His promises to them. The following words of Scripture reveal God's appointment of Moses to return and free Israel, through the miraculous appearance of a burning bush.

Amid an order from Pharaoh to murder newborn Hebrew boys, Moses' mother places him in a basket along the side of the river, staging her daughter there to observe. The Egyptian king's daughter sees the baby and has pity. Thanks to the presence of Moses' sister, the princess pays Moses' own mother to wean him. After this, he is raised in the home of Egypt's royal family. As an adult, Moses unsuccessfully attempts to hide his murder of an abusive Egyptian and flees to Midian as an exile. As Moses builds a family abroad, Israel cries out to God for rescue from the brutality of Egyptian slavery.

Exodus chapter 2 introduces the character of Moses, after describing the plight of Israel under Egyptian slavery. This passage provides a few interesting ironies. Primarily, the Egyptian king attempts to oppress Israel through infanticide; this very command leads to his own daughter adopting a Hebrew boy—Moses. Because of the intervention of the boy's sister, his own mother is paid to nurse and wean him. Then the Egyptian woman provides the Hebrew boy with support and education, essentially raising the future liberator of the very people her father seeks to control. After chapter 2 establishes Moses' exile from Egypt, chapter 3 will begin narrating his call to lead the nation of Israel out of captivity under the Pharaoh.

The book of Exodus establishes God's covenant relationship with the full-fledged nation of Israel. The descendants of Abraham prosper after settling in Egypt, only to be enslaved by a fearful, hateful Egyptian Pharaoh. God appoints Moses to lead the people out of this bondage. Moses serves as God's spokesman, as the Lord brings plagues and judgments on Egypt, leading to the release of Israel.