We Believe Chapter 8
The students will learn:
Egypt became the home of the Israelites.
God chose Moses to lead his people.
God helped his people.
God guided his people to freedom.
Faith Words
Exodus - the biblical word describing the Israelite's journey from slavery to freedom.
Passover - the event in which God passed over the whole of Egypt, taking the lives of every firstborn Egyptian, but sparing the Israelites.
Facts
God led the family of Jacob, or as God named him, Israel, into Egypt.
Egypt entered a period of tremendous wealth and power. This period is usually called the New Kingdom.
In the book of Exodus, the second book of the Bible, we find out that eventually the Egyptians made the Israelites their slaves.
The Israelites were also called Hebrews, since their language was known as Hebrew.
The pharaoh noticed that despite all the difficulties in their lives, the number of Hebrews was still growing.
He told some of the Hebrew women that all the newly born sons of the Israelites must be killed. (#16)
A Hebrew woman saved her son from Pharaoh by placing him in a reed basket and setting in the shallow waters of the river.
The pharaoh's daughter found the child and took him home with her.
She named the child Moses and raised him as an Egyptian.
When Moses was an adult, he visited his fellow Hebrews.
One day he saw a Hebrew slave being beaten by an Egyptian and Moses killed the Egyptian. (#17)
Moses had to run away to the desert region of Midian.
There Moses lived the life of a shepherd.
One day, while Moses was tending to his flock, God appeared to him in a burning bush.
Moses asked God what he should say when the Israelites asked him who sent him to them.
God replied, "I am who am." Then he added, "This is what you shall tell the Israelites: I AM sent me to you." (#19)
The name that God gave was the source of the word "Yahweh." "I AM" was a name that described God as ever present to his people. (#18)
God said, "I have decided to lead you up out of the misery of Egypt into the land of the Canaanites."
Moses returned to Egypt. Moses' brother, Aaron, helped him to explain God's message to the Israelites.
A great struggle over the Israelites then began between God and the pharaoh.
The ten plagues symbolize this struggle.
Th Exodus is the biblical word describing the Israelite's journey from slavery to freedom.
God guided his people to freedom.
Passover is the event in which God passed over the whole of Egypt, taking the lives of the firstborn Egyptian and sparing the Israelites.
Every year Jews remember this special night by eating the same meal that their ancestors ate on the first Passover.
Horrified by what had happened, the pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron during the night.
After the tenth plague, he told them to take the Israelites and their possessions out of Egypt immediately.
God parted the Red Sea and the Israelites escaped through the dry path God had made through it.
But when the Egyptians tried to follow, the waters closed over them and they drowned.
It was the great turning point in the history of God's relationship with his people.
God used water to save the people. (#20)
As Christians the waters of the Red Sea symbolize the saving waters of Baptism.