Findind Jesus in the Exodus

 When Cleopus and the other disciple were on the road to Emmaus, the resurected Jesus joined them and talked to them.  They were trying to understand Jesus' death and resurrection, and "Beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself." (Luke 24:27).  I had often wondered what he talked to them about, since I had a hard time seeing the wrathful Jehovah as the compassionate Jesus. This time, though, as I have been going through the Old Testament and taking a deeper dive into my studies, I keep seeing Jesus all over the place.  There is hardly anything in the story of the Exodus that isn't a symbol of Jesus and the plan of salvation.  Here are a few

The killing of the Lamb at the passover=Jesus death saving us from death.

Crossing the Red Sea=Through baptism, our sins are washed away, like the evil Egptians, and we start a new life leading to the presence of the Lord.  

Mana=Jesus is the bread of life that came from heaven

The water from the rock=Jesus is the living water, flowing unto eternal life

The Quail=Jesus told his deciples that they must eat of his flesh and drink of his blood.

I could go on and on.  It is really an amazing story.  Once you see it, then as you read the New Testament, you can see that the New Testament authors puposefully refer back to the Exodus story in the detail they include in their narrative.

But there was a reference to Jesus that literally took my breath away this week. 

Each week I choose one chapter from the Come Follow Me reading to read through in Hebrew.  This week I chose Exodus 15, which contains the "Song of the Sea".  It is a song that was sung by Moses and Miriam after the Egyptians were swallowed up in the Red Sea.  A couple of the podcasts I listened to mentioned that this song is probably one of the oldest texts in the Old Testament.  Or in otherwords, as the scribes were recording the story of the Exodus, they took an old, pre-existing, liturgical poem and inserted into the narrative. As I started working through it, I could tell it was written in a different style than the rest of the text.  For one thing, it calls God, El instead of Elohim, and the Lord, Ya, instead of Yaweh. Then I got to verse 2 and read 

ﬠזּי וזמרת יה ויזי לי לישׁוּﬠה

The King James translation is"The Lord is my strengh and my song, and he has become my salvation"

But in Hebrew the word "Lord" is really Ya, or what later became Yaweh, and the word for "salvation" is Jeshua.  Jeshua is the Hebrew name for Jesus.  So it really says, "Yaweh is my strength and my song, and he has become my Jesus".  When I read that, my mind kind of exploded.  Here is the most ancient text of the Pentateuch, and it says, Yaweh has become Jesus. What would it have been like for Mary when the angel told her that she would have a child and his name would be Jeshua?  She would have known this "song."  They would have read it or maybe even sung it every year during passover.  It would have been as well known to her as "Silent Night" is to us.  Did she instantly make the connection?  Did she know that her son would fulfill this thousands of years old prophecy?  I think, by the spirit, she did. 

No wonder Jesus said, "Search the scriptures for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me."  (John 5:39). They really do.