You Shall Have No Other Gods:
The Book of Exodus

Lesson 5 Pharaoh Does Not Know the LORD
the book of Exodus 5:1–23

Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE)*
New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE)*
Catechism of the Catholic Church
ex libris (in our library)
glossary for the book of Exodus
cross references in the book of Exodus
next lesson: God Remembers His Covenant

This material coordinates with Lesson 5 on pages 25–28 in the study book You Shall Have No Other Gods: The Book of Exodus.

And God spoke all these words, saying, ‘I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing mercy to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.”—the book of Exodus 20:1–6

welcome to our in-depth study of the book of Exodus
We invite interested groups and individuals to check out the sample first lesson from this 28-lesson Turning to God’s Word Catholic Bible study. These online study pages link to our free lesson video overviews, as well as to a glossary and cross references in the biblical text. Other study aids include maps, additional commentary, and prayers based on the primary Scripture in each lesson. You Shall Have No Other Gods: The Book of Exodus has been granted an imprimatur and can be purchased from our website shop. If you have a Bible-related question or comment, click on one of the “ask us your question” or “what do you think” buttons on any online study page.

open with prayer
It’s always wise to begin any Bible study with prayer, whether reading the Scriptures alone or meeting with others in a discussion group. You can pray using your own words or use one of the opening prayers on our website. We especially like the following:

Lord Jesus, you promised to send your Holy Spirit to teach us all things.
As we read and study your word today,
allow it to touch our hearts and change our lives. Amen.

let’s review—the book of Exodus 4:1–31
In Lesson 4 God Sends Aaron to Help Moses, Moses continues to look for an excuse to avoid asking Pharaoh to let the Israelites leave Egypt, and God provides three signs that Moses can use to demonstrate to the elders of the Israelites and to Pharaoh that Moses indeed is acting on behalf of the LORD. When Moses insists that he has difficulty speaking (the biblical text doesn’t specify whether Moses has a stutter or simply feels inadequate when talking before an audience), the LORD becomes angry and shuts down the discussion by appointing Moses’ brother Aaron to speak. Meanwhile, Moses is designated to serve as God to Aaron. After receiving permission from his Midianite father-in-law, Moses sets off for Egypt with his wife Zipporah and their two sons. On the way, God attempts to kill Moses, but Zipporah heads off this danger by circumcising one of their sons. Because of the preceding biblical text about first-born sons, this probably is Moses’ elder son Gershom. It appears that if Moses is going to represent God, it’s important that he demonstrate his faithfulness to the covenant the LORD made with Abraham, the sign of which is circumcision. Moses then meets with Aaron, and the two go to the elders of the sons of Israel. Aaron performs the signs the LORD gave to Moses, and the Israelites begin to accept that Moses and Aaron have been sent by the God of the patriarchs.

a textbook view of oppression (30:42)
The fifth chapter in the book of Exodus introduces Moses’ interaction with Pharaoh. Previous chapters have recorded the beginning of Moses’ relationship with the LORD, and now Moses continues to work through his insecurities. When Moses and Aaron suggest that the Israelites are starting to balk at serving the Egyptians, Pharaoh behaves as would be expected of any oppressor. Turning to God’s Word author Matthew Phelps points out that as the negotiating between Moses and Pharaoh continues, Moses will begin to take a far more active role in dealing with Egypt. Beginning negotiations don’t go well for the Israelites—and this is completely in line with what the LORD told Moses would happen. Pharaoh’s attitude as an oppressive leader is to arbitrarily imposes more work on the Israelites in order to force them to comply with his will. Ultimately, the Israelites blame Moses and Aaron for their worsening situation, giving Pharaoh exactly the solution that the Egyptian ruler wanted.


The Scripture ranges for the videos that accompany this Catholic Bible study from Turning to God’s Word match the Scripture ranges for the sets of questions in You Shall Have No Other Gods: The Book of Exodus. You can follow along as Turning to God’s Word author Matthew Phelps discusses Lesson 5, “Pharaoh Does Not Know the LORD,” on pages 25–28 in the study book.

Moses’ relationship with the LORD is developing
In the early chapters of the book of Exodus, Moses doesn’t appear to be totally on board with trusting the LORD to come through for the Israelites. The biblical text offers a number of instances in which Moses complains and hesitates to side with God. In this regard, Moses probably is a fair representative of the Israelites, who’ve been living in Egypt for several hundred years and certainly have drifted away from the covenant God made with their forefathers—the patriarchs Abraham, Issac, and Jacob. You can learn more in the commentary, “Have the Hebrews in Egypt Been Sacrificing to the LORD?” on page 27 in You Shall Have No Other Gods: The Book of Exodus. It’s telling that Moses probably was circumcised as an infant. (In the book of Exodus 2:6, circumcision seems the likely reason that Pharaoh’s daughter is able to recognize Moses as a Hebrew baby.) As an adult in Midian, Moses clearly failed to circumcise his own son. That this is his first-born son (Gershom) is strongly suggested in the book of Exodus 4:22, which mentions out of the blue that the LORD considers Israel to be his own first-born son.

servant—you could look it up in our archives
In the New Testament, the distinction between “slave” and servant is somewhat nebulous. To learn how Jesus describes servitude and enslavement, and what choice present-day men and women have in the matter of whom we serve, read Lost in Translation, an online column in which Turning to God’s Word author Matthew Phelps helps readers connect with ideas expressed in the original languages of the Scriptures. New Lost in Translation entries are posted on Mondays, and past entries are archived on our website. Contact us if you’d like to receive Lost in Translation by email every week.

read the Catechism—evil puts our faith to the test
In the book of Exodus 5:19, the Israelite foremen in Egypt recognize that they’re in an evil plight when Pharaoh refuses to provide straw for them to use in making bricks while simultaneously refusing to lessen the number of bricks that the Israelites are required to make. Paragraph 272 in the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that evil and suffering can threaten faith in God. You can learn more in the vocabulary box “Evil” on page 27 in You Shall Have No Other Gods: The Book of Exodus.

272    Faith in God the Father Almighty can be put to the test by the experience of evil and suffering. God can sometimes seem to be absent and incapable of stopping evil. But in the most mysterious way God the Father has revealed his almighty power in the voluntary humiliation and Resurrection of his Son, by which he conquered evil. Christ crucified is thus “the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” It is in Christ’s Resurrection and exaltation that the Father has shown forth “the immeasurable greatness of his power in us who believe.”

the Egyptian pharaohs haven’t been acquainted with the LORD
It’s of interest that not only does the Pharaoh who’s being asked to free the Israelites not know God, the previous Pharaohs didn’t know the LORD directly either. Some of those pharaohs treated the Israelites far better, but their behavior was based on knowledge of and respect for Joseph and not on a personal relationship with Joseph’s God. You can learn more in the commentary, “First Encounter with Pharaoh,” on page 28 in You Shall Have No Other Gods: The Book of Exodus.

the best Catholic commentary about Scripture
To find out more about how Church teaching is supported by Scripture passages in You Shall Have No Other Gods: The Book of Exodus, check out the Index of Citations in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Links (to the primary Scripture passages in the lesson (Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition [RSVCE*]) and relevant paragraphs in the Catechism are provided here. Not every passage in the biblical text for this Catholic Bible study is referenced in a Catechism paragraph, however, including the passage in this lesson from the book of Exodus 5:1–23.

ways our glossary might prove helpful
In addition to providing extra information about geographical locations, our glossary also points out when a person or place is mentioned in the biblical text under more than one name or more than one spelling. If you can remember a name but aren’t sure in which lesson it shows up, you can find it in the glossary, which lists every proper noun that appears in the biblical text for every lesson in You Shall Have No Other Gods: The Book of Exodus.

to learn more, read more Scripture
If you’re having difficulty with a particular passage of Scripture, it can be helpful to read the relevant cross references—but looking these up can take time. To make that easier, we’ve compiled the cross references from the Revised Standard Version Second Catholic Edition (RSV2CE)—the translation that we reprint in our study books. That list can be found at the top of every online study page accompanying this study, and it includes links to each of the cross references in the primary biblical text for You Shall Have No Other Gods: The Book of Exodus.

don’t forget about our indexes & extra online material
If you’re trying to locate information about a specific Scripture passage, you can look it up in the index at the back of the study book or sample lesson. If you want to find a particular commentary, you can look up its title in the topics index. To learn more about another book of the Bible for which there’s a Turning to God’s Word study, visit the online study directories to read the commentaries and watch any accompanying videos. Finally, if you have a question or would like to make a comment about any of our studies, you can use one of the “ask us your question” or “what do you think” buttons to email our authors.

ex libris—Church documents & books about religious topics
Link to magisterial documents referred to in our Bible studies at ex libris—magisterial documents. This listing includes significant recent encyclicals as well as a number of historical Church documents. Recommended books related to Scripture study can be found at ex libris—main bookshelf.

wondering how to pronounce some of these words?
The following link is to a reading from the New International Version (NIV) Bible. To listen, open the link and click on the audio icon above the printed text. Although not taken from the translations used in our study materials, the NIV reading provides an audio guide to pronunciation of words in this lesson’s primary biblical text. A close online version of the translation of the Bible used in Catholic liturgy in the United States as well as an audio guide for daily Mass readings for the current month can be found on the website of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).

the book of Exodus 5:1–23 (NIV)

round black doveclose with Bible-based prayer related to this lesson
Many of our Catholic study groups like to conclude their discussions with a prayer based on the scriptural focus of their lesson, and some participants include Scripture-specific prayer in their individual study. If you’re uncomfortable composing your own Bible-based prayers, you can follow our four easy steps. If you prefer, you can use the following short prayer based on this lesson’s text from the book of Exodus.

O God, you rule over all things.
Grant us the grace to trust in your goodness
even when it’s difficult for us to see
evidence of your love in some of the situations
in which we find ourselves.
We ask this in the name of your Son Jesus Christ,
who willingly sacrificed his life to bring us salvation. Amen.

Lesson 6 God Remembers His Covenant, the book of Exodus 6:1–30
Lesson 4 God Sends Aaron to Help Moses, the book of Exodus 4:1–31

you also may like our study of the book of Genesis
The first seven lessons of In the Beginning: The Book of Genesis, a 28-lesson Catholic Bible study with an imprimatur, provide an in-depth look at the very earliest biblical history—including the two accounts of Creation, events surrounding the Fall of Adam and Eve, the relationship between Cain and Abel, and the baptismal foreshadowing present in the account of Noah and the Flood. Remaining lessons look at lives of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. Click on the book’s cover to view a sample lesson.

start a Turning to God’s Word Bible study
Thank you for your interest in You Shall Have No Other Gods: The Book of Exodus. Information about beginning a Turning to God’s Word Bible study can be found at start a Bible study. Tami, Matthew, and I are available to answer your questions and to offer support. You may use this email to contact us directly if you’re interested in starting a Turning to God study or in having your study schedule listed with other TtGW study groups on our website. —Jennifer

*There are seven deuterocanonical books in the Old Testament—the Books of Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, and First and Second Maccabees, as well as some passages in the Books of Esther and Daniel. Protestants usually refer to these works as “apocryphal,” a word that means “outside the (Protestant) canon” because they’re excluded from most Protestant Bibles. The word “deuterocanonical” means “second canon”; Catholics use that word to refer to any section of the Catholic Old Testament for which there are no extant, or existing, Hebrew manuscripts. All of the deuterocanonical books appear in the Septuagint, the earliest remaining versions of which date to the 1st century B.C. This Greek translation of the Old Testament was in common use by Jews at the time of Jesus. Learn more by reading How Do Catholic & Protestant Bibles Differ?

Turning to God’s Word printed Bible studies use the 2006 Revised Standard Version Second Catholic Edition (RSV2CE) translation for all Scripture references except those to the Psalms, which are taken from The Abbey Psalms and Canticles, prepared by the Benedictine monks of Conception Abbey and published in 2020 by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). All Scripture links for the online study pages for You Shall Have No Other Gods: The Book of Exodus are to the 1966 Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE) translation. The New International Version (NIV) audio recordings follow the same chapter and verse numbering as the RSV Catholic translations, but the NIV translation doesn’t include the deuterocanonical books and passages.

The 1966 RSVCE uses archaic pronouns and verb forms such as “thee,” “thou,” “didst” in the Psalms and in direct quotations attributed to God. The 2006 RSV2CE replaces those with more accessible English. The few significant translation changes in the RSV2CE include rendering almah as “virgin” in the Book of Isaiah 7:14 and restoring the term “begotten” in the Gospel According to John 3:16.

Numbering varies for some passages in this Bible study. Turning to God’s Word studies (print and digital) follow the numbering in the Revised Standard Version Catholic translations (RSV2CE and RSVCE). Discrepancies in the New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE) are noted in the Index of Scripture Citations in the study book and the online sample.

You can learn more about the Psalms by viewing a sample lesson from the Turning to God’s Word Catholic Bible study Sing a New Psalm: Communicating with God Through the Prayers of the Church—Volume I: Lauds & Vespers. The second part of that study, Sing a New Psalm: Communicating with God Through the Prayers of the Church—Volume II: Vigils, Day Prayer & Compline, is scheduled for publication in 2025. Some verse numbers may vary in different translations of the Psalms.