Didn't we say to you in Egypt, leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert! The complaint reconstructs a history that was never quite as it is described. The people did not ask Moses to leave them alone; they accused him of making things worse after Pharaoh increased the workload in Exodus 5:21. But suffering compresses and distorts memory — the slavery they lived under is already being misremembered as preferable to the freedom they cannot yet trust. 2 Timothy 4:3 describes people who gather teachers to suit their own desires — the Israel that wants to return to Egypt is the Israel that desires the familiar comfort of bondage over the terrifying freedom of trust. The complaint reveals that liberation from external bondage does not automatically produce freedom from the internal bondage of fear.

COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS

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