Silent in the Background

Freedom... for what? "Let my people go" is the well-known refrain of the opening chapters of Exodus, which BiOY has reached early in February. In Exodus 3:16-18 God tells Moses to assemble the elders of Israel, tell them about the promise of deliverance to a "land flowing with milk and honey", and to go to Pharaoh to ask permission to go on a three journey to offer sacrifices to the Lord.  These words seem to carry the implication that the Israelites will then return, and so are a bit misleading, but that's what God said to do. In  Exodus 5:1 Moses and Aaron make their first request to Pharaoh: "Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the wilderness." This is a two faceted request.  "Let my people go" - a call for a release from the oppression they are experiencing, from the demands of the slave drivers, and from the restriction to live only where the Egyptians permit. But also: "...that they may hold a festival to me

By happy coincidence my Bible in One Year plan has been taking me through Job at the same time as I have been reading Tim Davy's The Book of Job and The Mission of God ,  a Missional Reading of Job. I have read Job previously, and have usually found it hard-going.  The long poetic speeches have tended to drag (why don't they just get on and say what they want to say?) and I've not really understood how Job, the man, is seen as blameless and upright when he spends so much time questioning God. This time, however, the text came to life.  At a surface level I particularly enjoyed some of the insults that Job uses in response to his supposed-comforters' speeches. In chapter 13 Job bursts out, "if only you would be altogether silent! For you, that would be wisdom."   Aren't there a few people we think need to hear that?! Chapter 21 sees Job demand that his friends "Bear with me while I speak, and after I have spoken, mock on" and ask "So how can