The Expectation of Justice

Moses returned to the Lord and said, “Why, Lord, why have you brought trouble on this people? Is this why you sent me?  Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble on this people, and you have not rescued your people at all.”  Exodus 5:22-23  NIV

You brought trouble – How we might wish that the translation captured Moses’ question!  “You brought trouble” is not nearly as condemning as the Hebrew hărē’ō’toh.  Why?  Because the Hebrew verb doesn’t mean just “trouble.”  It means “evil.”  Moses doesn’t say that God brought difficulties, aggravation, or problems.  He says that God brought evil to the people—real harm, real travesty, real suffering.  Why?  Jonathan Sacks offers an answer:

This is the question of questions for biblical faith.  Paganism then, like secularism now, had no such doubt.  Why should anyone expect justice in the world?  The gods fought.  They were indifferent to mankind.  The universe was not moral. . . If there is no God or . . . many gods, there is no reason to expect justice.  The question does not arise.

But for biblical faith, it does.  God, the supreme power of powers, is just.  Was this not why He chose Abraham in the first place, so that he would teach his children and his household to “keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just” (Genesis 18:19). . . Pain, harm, suffering are evils.  Yet there are circumstances in which we make our peace with them—when we know that they are necessary for some good. . . A political leader may have to make a decision that will have disastrous impact on some people—thrown out of work as a result of stringent economic policies, even killed on the battlefield as the consequence of a decision to go to war.  One who shrinks from these choices because of a strong sense of compassion may be a good human being but a wholly inadequate leader, because the long-term result of a failure to make tough choices may be far worse.  There are times when we must silence our human instincts if we are to bring about good in the long run.[1]

God’s answer to Moses: the long run.  Look as far ahead as you can and see that if I don’t do this now you will have much worse choices later.  Of course, Moses can’t look as far ahead as God can, so it seems to him (as it often does to us) that things aren’t fair, that justice isn’t done, that we suffer for no reason.  But that’s a derivative of the pagan worldview.  The biblical worldview is harsher.  God knows; we don’t.  Human blindness causes us to doubt.

What do we learn?  We learn that we just don’t know.  It’s obvious that we don’t know how things will work out, so obvious that we tend to forget that we don’t know.  But any moment’s consideration will make it quite clear.  The only real solution to human blindness is trust in God.  Nothing more.  Nothing less.  Although it seems that so often we rely on everything but trust, and end up with panic and doubts.

Topical Index: hărē’ō’toh, evil, harm, justice, trust, Exodus 5:22-23