Word of Encouragement (01/04/2023)
“He found him in a desert land, and in the howling waste of the wilderness; he encircled him, he cared for him, he kept him as the apple of his eye. 11 Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that flutters over its young, spreading out its wings, catching them, bearing them on its pinions, 12 the LORD alone guided him, no foreign god was with him. 13 He made him ride on the high places of the land, and he ate the produce of the field, and he suckled him with honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock. 14 Curds from the herd, and milk from the flock, with fat of lambs, rams of Bashan and goats, with the very finest of the wheat-- and you drank foaming wine made from the blood of the grape.” (Deut. 32:10-14)
Moses uses another imagery to describe God’s care for Israel: an eagle caring for its young. How does it protect its young? It stirs up its next; it hovers over its young, and it spreads out its wings, catching them, bearing them on its pinions. Eugene H. Merrill explains these actions in this way:
“When the time comes for the eaglet to fly, its mother will stir up the nest, that is, she will agitate her offspring and thus prepare it for the next phase of its development. But she will do so protectingly and not prematurely. At the same time she is encouraging it to fly, she is hovering over it with comfort and assurance. Even when the eaglet ventures forth for its first flight, its parent is there to fly beneath and, if necessary, to catch the neophyte on its own outspread wings” (The New American Commentary, Deuteronomy, vol. 4; p. 414)”
What a beautiful picture of the care God provided for the people of Israel! We can readily apply these descriptions to God’s redemption of Israel from Egypt. Regarding the first (an eagle stirring up its nest), John Gill says,
“...Egypt was their nest, where they were who were then in their infant state, lay like young birds in a nest; ...it was a filthy one and where they were confined, yet they seemed sometimes as if they did not care to come out of it; until the Lord made use of means to get them out, by the ministry of Moses and Aaron, by suffering their taskmasters to make their bondage heavier, and by judgments inflicted on the Egyptians, which made them urgent... to depart....”
We know that Egypt was Israel’s temporary residency. The LORD promised to give Abraham and his descendants a land flowing with milk and honey, the land of Canaan where they were living as sojourners. Jacob and his family had to come down to Egypt to flee from the drought in Canaan. Even though Egypt was not their promised land, they must have enjoyed their stay there. Because of Joseph’s service in preserving Egypt through its seven-year famine, Pharaoh provided them with food in abundance as well as good land for their livestock. It seems that Israel generally enjoyed the favor of all the Pharaohs that followed until a new dynasty came into power.
We see that this political change in Egypt was not by accident. Israel was too comfortable in a place, which was not her promised land. Even though Egypt was the richest and most powerful nation, it was a “filthy” nest as far as its religious environment was concerned: Egypt’s religion was pagan and polytheistic. Her time there was done; God’s chosen people could not consider this pagan nation their land. Now, Israel had to move on to the next stage and learn to fly, as it were. So, the LORD was stirring up her nest, making her life unbearable there under the tyrannical rule of a new Pharaoh, who did not know or care about what Joseph had done. God compelled her to see the spiritual truth behind all the wealth and abundance of Egypt and long to be where she was destined to be.
“The greatest enemy of the best is the second best.” When things are going well in this world, it is easy to care little about the world to come and our eternal destiny. But God loves us too much to be enamored with this perishing world. Because we are too easily contented with the riches of this world, God must “stir up our nest” to draw our eyes and affections from this world to the greater treasures of heaven. Is God stirring up your nest in any way? Are you complaining to God because He is? Are you asking God to make your “filthy” nest all better again? If so, are you doing the right thing? What should you do instead?