Exodus Chapter 3 Verses 16-22

:16  “Go, and gather the elders of Israel together, and say unto them, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, appeared unto me, saying, I have surely visited you, and seen that which is done to you in Egypt: 17 And I have said, I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt unto the land of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, unto a land flowing with milk and honey. 18 And they shall hearken to thy voice: and thou shalt come, thou and the elders of Israel, unto the king of Egypt, and ye shall say unto him, The LORD God of the Hebrews hath met with us: and now let us go, we beseech thee, three days' journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God. 19 And I am sure that the king of Egypt will not let you go, no, not by a mighty hand. 20 And I will stretch out my hand, and smite Egypt with all my wonders which I will do in the midst thereof: and after that he will let you go. 21 And 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: 22 But every woman shall borrow of her neighbour, 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.” 

In this passage, the Lord gave very specific instruction unto Moses.  Moses was to follow that instruction exactly as the Lord instructed him.  He was not to deviate from it.  Moses, as we shall see, either didn’t take heed to or did not believe some of the instruction.  This is similar to the apostles not taking heed to what the Lord told them prior to his death on the cross.  He had told them several times that he was to be delivered into the hands of men and they would put him to death and that he would rise the third day.  The apostles never got beyond his statement that he would die.  Peter was especially denying of this as he see in Mark 8:31 “And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 And he spake that saying openly. And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him.”  There is also a spiritual lesson in this for us as we are to understand that the instructions to us in the bible are to be followed exactly as the Lord recorded for us. 

“Go, and gather the elders of Israel together, and say unto them, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, appeared unto me, saying, I have surely visited you, and seen that which is done to you in Egypt: And I have said, I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt unto the land of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, unto a land flowing with milk and honey.”  The first instruction to Moses was to go and gather the elders of Israel together.  Moses was told specifically who he was to go to and what he was to say unto them.   

The message to the elders was to remind them of the covenant promises that God had made to their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  Then to tell them that the time had come that God would fulfill that covenant promise whereby their seed would be delivered from Egypt and be delivered into the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.  Moreover, the Lord told them that the land to which they were going was far better than the land they were leaving.  The land to which they were going was a land flowing with milk and honey.  The term, “milk and honey,” is used to denote that the land was rich in necessary staples, and was rich in sweetness.   

“And they shall hearken to thy voice: and thou shalt come, thou and the elders of Israel, unto the king of Egypt, and ye shall say unto him, The LORD God of the Hebrews hath met with us: and now let us go, we beseech thee, three days' journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God.”  Here the Lord assures Moses that the elders of Israel would hearken to his voice.  This was one of Moses fears that they would not listen unto him.  Moses had experienced their failure to understand nearly forty years before.  However, Moses went by his own will the first time and now Moses is going at the direction of the Lord.  When we go on our own without the Lord’s direction, we will meet with failure.  When we go at the Lord’s direction then we can expect our labors will not be in vain.  The final objective of going to the king of Egypt is to be delivered from Egypt and to sacrifice unto the Lord. 

“And I am sure that the king of Egypt will not let you go, no, not by a mighty hand.  And I will stretch out my hand, and smite Egypt with all my wonders which I will do in the midst thereof: and after that he will let you go.”  Here Moses was not taking heed as the first couple of times that Moses went before Pharaoh he was met with a refusal to let the people go and Moses became despondent.  Had Moses been paying heed, he would have known that Pharaoh was not yet ready to let the children of Israel go and would not be ready until God had smitten Egypt with all his wonders.  After God had sent his ten sore judgments upon Egypt, then Pharaoh was ready to let the children of Israel go.  

“And 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: 22 But every woman shall borrow of her neighbour, 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.”  The Egyptians had greatly robbed the children of Israel for about four hundred years by casting them into slavery and had sore mistreated them and abused them and profited from their labors.  Now God has promised to the children of Israel that they would come out of Egypt with great spoils and treasures.  He has put forth a way by which some of the earthly wealth that the Egyptians had robbed the children of Israel of would come back to them prior to their leaving Egypt.