“You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.

Verses 4-6 look back to the past and forward to the future. This fourth verse is very much about what God has done, and in a few words it summarises Exodus chapters 6-19.

Unlike Jethro, about whom we have just been reading in chapter 18, the Israelites had not heard about the Lord’s deeds second-hand, but they were personal witnesses: “You yourselves have seen…”

‘The people had experienced the watchful and supportive guardianship of one so infinitely stronger and more able than themselves, and now they found that that they had been welcomed into his presence and accepted into intimacy with him, not by their own efforts or merits, but because I…brought you to myself…his divinity is expressed in sovereign control and direction of earthly events. Egypt, a superpower of the day, was utterly without power against the will and visitations of the God of Israel.” Alec Motyer: ‘The message of Exodus’, pp.197/198.

A ‘superpower’ proved super-powerless in the face of God’s saving action. This is not the only place in the Bible where we see such a reality. Let’s be encouraged that He can do it again.