Embracing the Risk of Divine Encounter

When God appeared to Moses on Mount Sinai after the Israelites’ escape from Egypt, it was obviously not what the Israelites were expecting.  In retrospect, it is easy to understand why.  The Israelites had been under Egyptian rule for about four centuries (Genesis 15:13 and Acts 7:6 say it was 400 years; Exodus 12:40-41 and Galatians 3:17 say 430 years), and for some of that time (scripture never makes it clear how long) they had been enslaved to a Pharaoh who "knew not Joseph" (Exodus 1:8). It is probably hard to overstate the impact that living in Egypt and being enslaved by Pharaoh had on the Israelites. Theologian Walter Bruggeman, borrowing a phrase from social science, describes Egypt as totalizing, meaning that Israelites simply could not conceive of a life outside of the Egyptian culture in which they were enmeshed.  In essence, not only were they a people with no way out, but the Israelites could not even imagine the idea of "a way out."