19. And I am sure that the king of Egypt will not let you go, no, not by a mighty hand.
20. And I will stretch out my hand, and smite Egypt with all my wonders which I will do in the midst thereof: and after that he will let you go.
21. And I will give this people favour in the sight of the Egyptians: and it shall come to pass, that, when ye go, ye shall not go empty:
22. But every woman shall borrow of her neighbour, and of her that sojourneth in her house, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment: and ye shall put them upon your sons, and upon your daughters; and ye shall spoil the Egyptians.
(Exodus 3:19-22)
This is a favored passage with people eager to “prove” that God has a bad character and gave immoral orders to Israel, namely, to “borrow” from the Egyptians and then leave the country.
The problem with this view is that it is not true. Our word borrow comes from the Middle English borwen, which in turn is derived from the Anglo-Saxon borgian, a pledge or guarantee.
Borrow translates the Hebrew word shaw-ale, which can mean request, demand, require, and more, including borrow. Ellison has called the translation borrow as “indefensible.” It was a demand for compensation for their labors.35 Clements pointed out, “the Egyptians will be glad to pay the Hebrews for the work they have compelled them to do...as an encouragement to go.”36 This demand would come after the plagues on Egypt, and the payments would be received as a pledge not to return to Egypt.
The disastrous plagues which struck Egypt prior to Israel’s departure were particularly painful to Egyptians. They shattered the economy of Egypt and brought grief to every family. Even more, they were a religious catastrophe. Egypt’s religion was naturalistic in the ancient sense of harmony with nature and its gods. Frankfort pointed out that the Egyptian way of life was not
struggle but harmony, harmony with nature and society, with rulers and superiors.37 God’s impact on Egyptian life and thought through Moses was thus particularly devastating. God struck, first, against the natural world Egypt trusted and depended on for its life; the plagues were all outwardly naturalistic. Second, God made a mockery of Pharaoh’s divinity and wisdom;
with each passing day, Pharaoh’s “wisdom” became more and more obviously folly and evil. As a result of Pharaoh’s “wisdom,” the wealth of Egypt passes into the hands of Israel. To survive, Egypt sends out the Hebrews with its wealth as a bribe to stay away. In this we see an instance of God’s purpose in history. In the telling words of F. W. Grant,
As the result of all this, moreover, the wealth of the world passes into the hands of the people of God. “All things are yours,” says the apostle; “whether the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come, ... are yours,” (1 Cor. 3:22).
Men out of Christ, as they have right to nothing, so indeed they possess nothing.
In the end, it will be found so. “Godliness” it is that “hath promise of the life which now is, and of that which is to come” (1 Tim. 4:8). They who go as pilgrims out of the world yet carry with them all the goods of the world, and the world that would enjoy it must yield it up to them. To him who belongs to the world the world cannot belong.38
The use of the word borrow seems to have been popularized by Martin Luther. It does not appear in the Catholic Douay version, nor in the Geneva Bible.
Cassuto saw clearly the meaning of this request by Israel at God’s command. It was not an isolated instance but an application of God’s law which somewhat later was set down by Moses in Deuteronomy 15:12-15:
12. And if thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee.
13. And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty:
14. Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor,
and out of thy winepress: of that wherewith the LORD thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him.
15. And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt, and the LORD thy God redeemed thee: therefore I command thee this thing to day.
This is God’s law and His requirement of all men in history. As a result, Cassuto said:
This was required by law … that is, absolute justice demanded it … and although no earthly court could compel the king of Egypt and his servants to fulfill their obligation, the Heavenly Court saw to it that the requirements of law and justice were carried out, and directed the course of events to this end.39
Deuteronomy 15:12-15 refers specifically to bond-servants, in service for debt or to make restitution for crime. A bond-servant’s labor could be sold to another man. In any case, at the end of six years, at the time of his release, he was to be compensated liberally for the loss of his freedom. This was not equivalent to payment for services but a way of enabling the person to resume a normal life with some capital in hand.
All this was to spoil the Egyptians. The Hebrew word is natsal, which can mean either spoil or save, and it is usually save in the Bible. This would render the phrase, “and ye shall save the Egyptians.” The word natsal occurs 212 times in the Old Testament, and in 210 instances its meaning is to snatch or save, to rescue, or to recover.40 We should remember that the Hebrews had been in Egypt for some generations; they had accumulated properties which could not be taken with them. In asking for compensation and getting it, no injustice was done.
In what way, then, did they save the Egyptians? The implication is that God’s greater judgment would have fallen on Egypt had they not given to the Hebrews. Moreover, God did not want a continuing hatred of Egypt and Egyptians to remain in Israel. In fact, the law of Deuteronomy 23:7-8 declares:
7. Thou shalt not abhor an Edomite; for he is thy brother: thou shalt not abhor an Egyptian; because thou wast a stranger in his land.
8. The children that are begotten of them shall enter into the congregation of the LORD in their third generation.
Foreigners were eligible for citizenship in Israel’s covenant; some, because of their low moral statutes, were eligible only after three generations, others after ten. Israel was to remember the handicaps of being an alien in Egypt and be godly in its dealings with aliens in its midst.
An interesting aspect of this episode is that God declares, “the king of Egypt will not let you go, no, not by a mighty hand,” or, as Gispen renders it, “unless a mighty hand compels him” (v. 19).
That mighty hand was the hand of the Lord God. In Genesis 15:14, God promised Abraham that Israel would come out of Egypt “with great substance.” Now, Pharaoh’s power having been broken by God through the plagues, God enriches Israel by requesting indemnification by Egypt.
But the request, at God’s orders, was not to be made by either Moses, nor by the men of Israel, but by the women (v. 29). The weakest of Israel would ask for and by God’s grace receive the gifts.41
There was another reason for this request being made by women to women. In our day, we forget that in more than one culture of antiquity, and in some to this century, women had a protected role. A man converted his monetary wealth into gems, gold, and silver, and these were in the form of ornaments to be worn by his wife. Thus, even the wives of tradesmen and peasants would often be richly ornamented. We have some evidence of this protected status of women, a curious bit, in Genesis 12:10-20; Abraham, in going to Egypt to escape a famine, asked Sarah to pass herself off as his sister. As his wife, while no man would touch her as long as she was a wife, they might readily kill Abraham to make Sarah a widow and thus eligible for marriage.
Murder in their eyes was a lesser offense than in any way laying hands on a married woman.
Thus, when the Hebrew women asked the Egyptian women for an indemnity, they were going to the actual possessors of Egyptian wealth. This gives us an indication of the security and status of women in peaceful times which feminists are unwilling to note.
Finally, we are told that God says, “And I will give this people favour in the sight of the Egyptians: and it shall come to pass, that, when ye go, ye shall not go empty” (v. 21). It will be obvious to Egypt that God is working to deliver the Hebrews, and, in religious fear, the Egyptians will be more ready to favor Israel than Pharaoh.
In Isaiah 61:6, we are told:
But ye shall be named the Priests of the LORD: men shall call you the Ministers of our God: ye shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, and in their glory shall ye boast yourselves.
Israel’s experience is a type of that which we are experiencing, a captivity to the enemies of God, God’s delivering judgments, and our inheritance of the wealth of the centuries.