Shemot: Let My People Go

Let My People Go: A Deep Dive into Exodus

In this episode of the Perfect Body Podcast, Shirah Chanté, Relationship Artist, dives into the Torah portion Shemot, marking the start of the Book of Exodus. She highlights the transition of the Israelites from favored inhabitants in Egypt to enslaved people under a new Pharaoh who did not recognize Joseph's contributions. Shirah draws parallels between the biblical narrative of Moses being called by God to deliver the Israelites and personal struggles where faith and patience are tested. The episode is filled with motivational messages about perseverance and divine deliverance, and it includes a unique song inspired by the theme 'Let My People Go.'

00:00 Introduction to Perfect Body Podcast
00:59 Overview of Shemot: The Book of Exodus
03:31 Pharaoh's Fear and Oppression
06:25 Moses: The Chosen Deliverer
11:30 Moses' Encounter with God
14:30 Moses' Mission and Struggles
19:21 Encouragement and Conclusion

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Transcript

 You have a perfect body.

Hi everyone, it's Shirah Chanté, Relationship Artist. Welcome to Perfect Body Podcast, a Torah portion afterthought. One of my favorite things to do. Probably the most favorite, yeah, just to be honest with us Shirah Chante. Yeah, reading the Bible, studying the Bible is my favorite thing to do. I love the Bible and the Bible has helped me all my life.

The word of God is awesome. So I'm so happy you're here with me to study the Torah. We are studying Shemot, which means names this week. That's the Torah portion from last Saturday, last Shabbat. So this is an afterthought. So we are studying a little, a week later than the actual schedule says. That's okay.

That's okay.  Today started the Vaera Torah portion for next week, I believe. Is it, is it by Euro? I believe so. So, but today we're going to look at Shemot. And,  this is the beginning of the Book of Exodus. Last show, we finished Genesis. Congratulations for reading, for studying, for going through the book of Genesis with me.

I thank you so much. That's the first book in the Bible. Now we're on the second book of the Bible, the book of Exodus. And this is the story of the Israelites that are now in Egypt. We noticed or we have seen Uh, from the last few chapters in Genesis that the children of Israel had to move to Egypt to preserve their race, their people, because there was a famine in the land.

And so all of Jacob's family came to Egypt to live,  where Joseph was the ruler. And now Jacob has gone, uh, back to Abraham's bosom and Joseph is gone as well. And they both passed away and now the children of Israel have grown and become a powerful and they become mighty in the land of Egypt. So we're going to look at Genesis chapters 1 through 5 and we're going to take a look and just see what happens, uh, in this, in this portion.

There's so many things. I really didn't know where to focus. And I was asking the Lord, like, Where should my focus be tonight on this Torah portion? And so the title of this show is Let My People Go. Shemot, Let My People Go. And so, I'm so happy you are here and, let's get to it. So we start off in the book of Exodus, and what's happening is Pharaoh has the old Pharaoh passed away.

And there's a new Pharaoh who didn't know Joseph. He didn't know all the good Joseph, the Hebrew did for Egypt. And so he, the new Pharaoh is saying, you know what? These Hebrews, there's too many of them. I don't want them to take over our land. They may side with our enemies if there is ever an attack. So let's subjugate them.

Let's put them into slavery. Let's make sure they don't have the power to rise up against us. As have you ever been in that situation where someone just tried to just. subjugate you, put you under them, made sure you just wouldn't have the power, the stamina, the strength, the money, the resources to rise up against them.

 Out of fear, there is nothing to even suggest that this was in the heart of the Hebrews. He just came up with this, this, this fearful Complaint against the Hebrews, which caused him to put them into slavery. Well, I can see that he's the ruler. He's trying to preserve his rulership, his kingdom, in Egypt as the Pharaoh.

And so what happened, the children of Israel were put under harsh bondage. They were put under harsh bondage and they cried out to the Lord. And guess what? The Lord heard their cry. God hears our cries. Yes, he does. I remember crying out to the Lord. One time I was sitting in my. apartment in New Orleans, Louisiana, and my life was not going well.

It was not the life I was living that was mine. I knew this was not the life I should be living. I was so depressed. I was in drugs and alcohol and sex and just trying to numb myself to the reality of my situation. And I just cried out to the Lord and the Lord heard my cry. So if you are in a tough situation or if you need help, if you, If the, if the life you're living, you know, that, that it should be more, should be different in some way.

You can cry out to the Lord, just like the children of Israel did. The Lord will hear your cry, hallelujah. And so what happened when he heard the cry of the Israelites? He sent a deliverer. He called Moses. It's Moses out of the land of the Midians. So Moses has a special story. He, Pharaoh, another thing he did when he got afraid, when he was afraid of the Hebrews, and he thought that they were going to take over Egypt.

He made a mandate, an edict, to kill all of the Hebrew children, the Hebrew baby boys. And so all the baby boys that were born, he told the midwives to cast the babies into the ocean so that they would drown. And thank God that the midwives were saved. Not listening to Pharaoh that they said, no, they feared the Lord and they didn't, they allowed the Hebrew baby boys to live.

And you know what God did for them? God gave them a home. It says, yes, God gave them, he says,  because, because the midwives here in Genesis chapter one, verse 21, and it came to pass because the midwives Feared God that he made them houses. . You want a house? ? Fear God. . Okay, well, not you. We'll see what, what happens?

I'm not promising anything. I'm just saying, well, he did it for the midwives, you know, , why not you so. However, Pharaoh got beyond the midwives and he called in other leaders and rulers of his land and they did start killing the Hebrew baby boys by throwing them into the ocean. However, one Hebrew baby boy,  his mom saw that he was such a good boy.

He was like, there was something special about him and so she hid him for three months and his. name is Moses. This is the Moses that God sent to deliver his people. She hit him for three months. She couldn't hide him anymore. So she made a little, a basket for him and put them on the, the, the river. And, guess who found him?

Pharaoh's daughter. She was out on the river and, and,  you know, some people say she was. doing worshiping out there. I don't, you know, I don't know what she was doing, but she found the baby boy, Moses, and she took him in. She said, this must be one of the Hebrew children. And it was, and his sister,  Oh gosh, it was Miriam, Moses's sister, Miriam.

She was there when Moses's daughter found him. And so she said, would you like me to get a Hebrew nurse to nurse the baby for you? And Pharaoh's daughter said, yes, so Miriam went and got her mom. And so, what happened is Pharaoh's daughter told Moses, Moses' mom to nurse him for her. And she paid Moses' mom to nurse him.

I love this story. She got paid to nurse her own son. I love that. She got paid to breastfeed her own son. Isn't that amazing? That's wonderful.

Can you imagine a law in the land? If you breastfeed your child, we'll pay you.

I love that. Okay. So, so Moses grows up. He grew up in the house of Pharaoh, but when he gets older, he knows he's a Hebrew. He knows this. His mom probably, you know, they told him, he didn't grow up ignorant. He knew his heritage. And so, as he grew up, there was an incident. With an Egyptian who, who smoked, who hit a Hebrew.

Moses didn't like it and he killed the Egyptian. And so now he was in hot water. Pharaoh wanted to kill Moses. For killing the Egyptian. And so Moses fled, Moses fled. He went away to a place, I believe it was Midian.  And so he married one of the daughters of Midian. Her name was Zipporah and he's having a family there.

He's,  keeping sheep. He's, he's just out of the whole, politics of Egypt. So there was, this is the way God called him. Moses is out in the field, tending the sheep. Here's a bush that is burning and it's burning bright and it's not being consumed. So here it's like a tree, it's on fire, but it's not burning up.

So Moses is like, what, what's this? You know what, this is, this is strange. This is odd. A tree's on fire, but it's not being consumed. The leaves are still green. It just looks normal. It's just, but it's on fire and he turned aside to look at it. Would you turn aside to look at something like that? Or would you just be like, Oh no, that's just AI.

Well, Moses turned aside to look at it. And so God said, Oh, he turned around to look at it. So that's when he. Addressed Moses when he called Moses to deliver the children of Israel out of bondage, out of Egypt. Yes. And it was kind of a struggle because Moses was like, who am I? I want to read that verse to you.

It's in Genesis chapter three, verse 11, Genesis chapter three, verse 11. And Moses said unto God, who am I that I should go unto Pharaoh? And that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt. Have you ever thought that? Who am I to do this? Why would you call me, Lord? What? Why me? I don't have any qualifications for this.

Who am I to do this? That's how we feel sometimes. We feel inadequate. We feel insecure. We don't have the confidence. But God knows what he put inside of us. He knows you, he knows what he put inside of you. So what he calls you to do, you can do it even if you think you can't. And so I felt like that.

Like I remember, when I was in divinity school in Rochester, New York, and God told me I was going to sing for him and I was like, wow. You know, me, you know, I never wanted to be a singer. I never, never, never even occurred to me. So, but God knows what he put inside of us and Moses became the deliverer, the spokesperson, get the children of Israel out of bondage.

And so let my people go, that's the name of this show, Moses goes to Pharaoh, God gives him a strategy, what's going to happen, how he, God tells him the whole story in the beginning, what's going to happen in order to get the children of Israel out of bondage. It's going to be a struggle. There's going to be some steps that have to happen.

There's going to have to be. Some things that God has to do that will make Pharaoh, let the children go. And so this is how it is in life. Things are, there's a process. God may give us a promise. He may call us, he may tell us to do something, but it's a process. There, there's, there's things that we have to go through that we have to wait on, that we have to see that there's some struggle and, and this is the place.

I think that a lot of people give up. Like for instance, this is what happened with the children of Israel. And I want to find a part, where it says, let my people go. I didn't mark that when I went to go,  tell Pharaoh. Okay. I believe I found, I'll find it.  Let's see. Okay. So what happened is when.

Moses went to go talk to Pharaoh,  and to ask him to let the children of Israel go worship the Lord. Pharaoh said, Oh, who's the Lord? Why, why should I let you go? And he blamed the Israelites for being lazy. He said, Oh, they're just idle. They're lazy. They don't have enough work. So they ended up making their work a lot harder and the struggle intensified.

And so this is what happens when you, when God calls you, the enemy doesn't want to see you accomplish the will of God in your life. So the struggle is going to get harder. It's going to intensify, you know, it's getting, it's getting kind of steamy in here, it's getting kind of hard and the children of Israel wanted to give up.

They were, they said, Let's see, in chapter five, verse,  let's read, let me get my glasses here.

Let's read verse 20. And they met Moses and Aaron who stood in the way as they came forth from Pharaoh. And they said unto them, the Lord look upon you and judge because ye have made our savor to be abhorred in the eyes of Pharaoh and in the eyes of his servants. To put a sword in their hand to slay us.

So they're like, you know, I don't, I don't know if this getting free thing is going well. It doesn't seem like it. You know, let's, maybe we should just forget about this thing. Maybe we should just stay in bondage.

Don't give up. I know it's going to get hard. It's got to get rough. It's going to get tough. But you can't give up. You got to go through the struggle. Some of you have already gone through the struggle and you're already on the other side. You're like, okay. It's my time. I went through the struggle. Let's go.

Let's go. God. Let's go We're I'm almost out here, you know bondage time is over So some of you know what I'm talking about because you went through the struggle you didn't give up But the ones who are there don't give up it's gonna happen Trust God So God reassures Moses, okay, that's the next week, get ahead here, but all I want to talk about is chapter five, verse eight,  where they say, let my people go, Oh, wait, wait, no chapter five, verse one.

Let me read it. And afterward, Moses and Aaron went in and told Pharaoh, thus sayeth the Lord God of Israel, let my people go. That they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness. And this is where Pharaoh got all arrogant. It was like, who is the Lord? You know, like, I don't know him. Well, you bout to know him.

Oh, you, you sure are. You are, you are about to know God. Cause he gonna make sure you know who he is. Okay. So let my people go. So when I was thinking about this show tonight, I was like, Lord, what am I going to talk about? There's so much. It's so much. Let my people go was what he gave me. And he gave me a song and it goes like this.

hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya, hiya,hiya 

Let my people go, let my people go, let my people go, let my people go, let my people go.

So Lord God, in the name of your son, Jesus, let your people go, Lord God, help them out of the situations they are in. Give them the grace to not give up

and let them go, Father. All right.