Avinu Heard, Saw and Knew

Weekly Torah Lesson

Parasha: Shemot – Names
Torah: Shemot 1:1 – 6:1

Shemot 2:23 During those many days the king of Mitzryim died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to Avinu. 24 And Avinu heard their groaning, and Avinu remembered his covenant with Avraham, withYitzak, and with Yaakov. 25 Avinu saw the people of Israel — and Avinu knew.”

** When Avinu heard, this is what He remembered:

*** “13 And he said to Abram, Know of a surety that your seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years; 14 And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance. 15 And you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. 16 But in the fourth generation they shall come here again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.” (Ge 15:13-16 AKJV)

** When Avinu “heard”, He remembered but when He “saw” He knew.

This is what Avinu “knew”:

*** “7 Then Avinu said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Mitzryim and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, 8 and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Mitzryimians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 9 And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Mitzryimians oppress them. 10 Come, I will send you to Paro that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Mitzryim.””

** Avinu knew two things:

• The “lawlessness of the Amorites was reaching the point where Avinu was going to replace them in the land of Canaan.
• The oppression of Israel by the Mitzryims was breaking the spirit of Israel.

** The time for Divine intervention in both situations was drawing near. The Canaanites were judged and replaced. The Mitzryims were judged and eliminated and Israel was saved.

** It seems that this process has been going on since the beginning. Here is a statement by Avinu several hundred years before the deliverance of Israel:

*** “20 And Avinu said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous; 21 I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come to me; and if not, I will know.” (Ge 18:20-21 AKJV)

** Think about prayer. Does the “cry” of wicked behavior also come before Avinu?

Is this “Divine Intervention” in process today? Is it working in your life? What is speaking louder, your prayers or your “behavior”?