Exodus 13:17-22 ~ God will surely come to your aid

God's God Sized Ministry to Save the World He finds "good" Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

This week we have looked at Abraham's Oaks of Mamre as significant for the setting of many Christians dreaming of a field and huge tree for their life time dream memory of Heaven. Sometimes Jesus is present in these important dreams. Jesus uses the Parable of The Kingdom of Heaven being like the birds of the air being welcomed to the branches of the Great Tree.

And the next day we looked at the Three known Tombs for Lazarus, with the last tomb in Spain saying "Lazarus, friend of Jesus."

Jesus has told us we will never be orphans, He will never leave or forsake us. He stays with us in all circumstances.

My Bible Study has been studying the Exodus and the 40 years in the desert. It was theorized God's 'Cloud by Day' was actually the shape of God on legs. This is an interesting thought and we all love to picture aspects of the Bible. I imagine we will all say "I never thought of that" a lot the first few weeks and years in Heaven. However, the Cloud of Heaven could have looked like anything God felt like that day.

I don't see this as being "The Cloud by Day". I could be wrong. When we saw this cloud on Lake Texhoma - I was asked recently how large this never varying cloud for more than two hours was. I really couldn't say that is a very Huge Lake. And then I went by a skyscraper that has 50 stories and I realized while we are on various portions of the lake, when we were close - this Archangel cloud was 50 stories high and several city blocks wide. Many people have sent Google extraordinary clouds of Heaven. Yet I hold this Archangel cloud dearly in my heart.

And the cloud by day appeared when? Grace appears when the time appeals to God. And the day of the release from slavery - Exodus records God telling Moses in advance what to do - for revenge of the Pharaoh was coming for the death of the first born.

Exodus 13:17-22

17 When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter. For God said, “If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.” 18 So God led the people around by the desert road toward the Red Sea. The Israelites went up out of Egypt ready for battle.

19 Moses took the bones of Joseph with him because Joseph had made the Israelites swear an oath. He had said, “God will surely come to your aid, and then you must carry my bones up with you from this place.”

20 After leaving Sukkoth they camped at Etham on the edge of the desert. 21 By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night. 22 Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people.




How did this touch the Children of Israel?

Moses was still telling of the reaction to this cloud for most of His Books - Torat Moshe, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, The Pentateuch.


Far along the road in time:

Isaiah 4:5
Then the Lord will create over all of Mount Zion and over those who assemble there a cloud of smoke by day and a glow of flaming fire by night; over everything the glory will be a canopy.

Isaiah 5:30
In that day they will roar over it like the roaring of the sea. And if one looks at the land, there is only darkness and distress; even the sun will be darkened by clouds.


Later, during the Second Exile of Babylonia

Nehemiah 9:12
By day you led them with a pillar of cloud, and by night with a pillar of fire to give them light on the way they were to take.




Isaiah, marvelous Isaiah has visited the House of Father God the Almighty. He knows, he knows, he knows the Wonderful Love God has Given us as His Beloved for Millenniums. In Heaven, this is our Exodus and we will see this Exodus as it unfolds. God will bend time and space and we will witness The Exodus.





Just as the Mayo Clinic read all of the sufferings of Jesus Christ and determined Jesus died on the Cross rather early - not of suffocation taking days, not of broken bones - but His broken heart from the suffering - the terrible suffering. God released the Spirit of Jesus as Jesus forgave us all and dismissed the Holy Spirit to spectacular darkness, earthquake - causing the torturer/murderers to stop and proclaim "This Truly was the Son of God."


This is the point of the Cloud by Day in the Desert.

Any way God wants the Cloud by Day to appear:

Because we have established why the Cloud by Day was placed over God's Children.


Nehemiah 9:19
Because of your great compassion,
you did not abandon them in the wilderness.
By day the pillar of cloud did not fail to guide them on their path,
or the pillar of fire by night to shine on the way they were to take.


Father God was not surprised by grumbling, the Golden Calf, by illness to death plague, by squabbles and complaints of hunger and thirst. God was not surprised when they did not want to fight another battle for the Promised Land and chose to spend 40 years in the desert. Instead, as a Father, God is providing for them to endure, to have hope, to have faith, to re-group and build.

This is the Grace of God. Making the desert - able to be comfort.

The heart beating, heart felt Love God has for You. This is our story. The Bible.

The Fire by Night? The Desert is cold at night. Enemies might attack - but not when God is Present.


The Ipuwer Papyrus of the 19th Dynasty of Egypt is an Egyptian eyewitness to the 10 Plagues and the end of Pharaoh and his first born - all the first born - the terror of the Egyptian slave owner giving the slaves gold - "to please - just leave". The eyewitness says the end of Pharaoh and the Red Sea looked like a Hurricane they had never before witnessed in conjunction with all the upheaval.

A funnel cloud would indeed look like the Legs of God in Psalm 78.

The draw back to this illusion is - - -  who would fight a war with the Children of Israel given this? You'd have to be a crazed Pharaoh with all to loose. I'd have to say the "Cloud by Day" and the "Pillar of Fire" could look any way God wanted these to appear. Comforting, awe-inspiring or incredibly extreme.




I have speculated for years the former slaves passed away as Moses stayed on Mount Nebo to watch the Exodus conclude, but this passage indicates Life was given.




Deuteronomy 8:2-29


2 And you shall remember
 the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. 3 And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

4 Your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these forty years.

5 Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the Lord your God disciplines you. 6 So you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him.

7 For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills, 8 a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, 9 a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper.

10 And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.

11 “Take care lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today, 12 lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, 13 and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, 14 then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, 15 who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, 16 who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end. 1

7 Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’ 

18 You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day. 

19 And if you forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. 20 Like the nations that the Lord makes to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God.



The Lord God of Jacob Israel surely knew Jeremiah would rail for the Children of Israel having revisionist history saying none of them had ever been slaves in Egypt. Their freedom would change.

Father God, Father of Jesus Christ - certainly knew Freedom was never Free.

Our Abba,

For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.

Ask rain from the Lord in the season of the spring rain, from the Lord who makes the storm clouds, and he will give them showers of rain, to everyone the vegetation in the field.

Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.

Then hear in heaven and forgive the sin of your servants, your people Israel, when you teach them the good way in which they should walk, and grant rain upon your land, which you have given to your people as an inheritance.

And he said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”

ut seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

We thank You Father for Your goodness. And in this Love we rest and bring those we Love and the People You have given us. Trusting You with the desires of our heart. In Jesus. Amen.

♔ Lord Jesus Saves!  †