Exodus 12:32
Take your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and be gone, and bless me!
If I could put the story of the Exodus of Israel out of Egypt, I would do it Time-style into a single illustration, with the whole of Egypt wilting under the power of God and Pharaoh crawling up to Moses in a beat-up state and saying those words in the verse above.
What was interesting about the verse is that Pharaoh actually had the time to say “..and bless me!”. Get this – Egypt was in a terribly exposed state, with their crops, cattle and possibly a significant part of their military might crippled by the 10 plagues. Pharaoh just lost his firstborn and possibly his lineage of eldest grandchildren.
He was certainly enraged, somewhat confused, and I would think, stupefied by everything that just took place. And despite being at the receiving end of a divine barrage of judgments, he was able to bark orders at an 80 year old man and gather enough courage to ask for a blessing!
Comical as this story sounds, there is actually a nugget of spiritual insight here: that when God comes through for us, the enslaving worldly system will be humbled by the ways of God and realise His power in bringing about both blessings and curses. All we need to do is to remain under His covering and await His deliverance. Our God is El Shaddai, the Almighty One!
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