Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 253 · September 10
Anguish of Spirit
“And Moses spake so unto the children of Israel: but they hearkened not unto Moses for anguish of spirit, and for cruel bondage.”
God's people were given seven promises, and they would not listen. That is how this verse is usually preached, but the sentence itself gives a different reason.
Read the reasons, because there are two of them, and neither one is unbelief: "they hearkened not unto Moses for anguish of spirit, and for cruel bondage." In Hebrew, "anguish of spirit" is shortness of breath. It describes someone with no breath left. The second reason is the work. Chapter five explains how they got there. When Moses first spoke to Pharaoh, Pharaoh took away their straw and still demanded the same number of bricks, and the Israelite foremen turned on Moses: "The LORD look upon you, and judge; because ye have made our savour to be abhorred in the eyes of Pharaoh." The first thing their rescuer seemed to bring them was a harder life.
Now look at what was in the message they could not take in: "I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with a stretched out arm, and with great judgments: And I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God." Every word of it came true, yet none of it could reach them while they were gasping under the load.
"Go down, Moses, way down in Egypt's land, tell old Pharaoh, let my people go." That song was sung in America by people who were themselves enslaved, and it was printed during the Civil War. They read this chapter from the inside, and they sang the promise back while nothing around them had changed yet. A song can hold a promise for you while you cannot hold it yourself.
Nothing in this chapter asks you to produce a faith you do not have. God does not scold His people for being short of breath. He sends Moses back to Pharaoh, and He keeps working. If these are your short-of-breath weeks, you are welcome to be one of the people who cannot hear it yet, while others sing it for you. God's promises stood the whole time the bricks were being made, and they stand for you now.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 253 is New Creatures in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17).