“God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.”
Exodus 2:25 ESV
Through the Bible: Exodus 1-3
My wife and I often hold hands for no reason at all. When we are walking. When we are watching a movie together. When we bless the food. Or just because its what couples do.
But there are other times when she will reach out and hold my hand because she knows I am anxious about something. Or I need comfort. Or encouragement before I preach. Or when she senses I am having a hard conversation on the phone. Those are times when reaching out for my hand tells me she sees me. She knows me. She gets me.
Exodus 2:25 is like that. It’s a loaded line—quiet, restrained, and theologically dense.
It comes after a long stretch of apparent silence. Israel is suffering. Moses has fled. Nothing has visibly changed yet. And then the narrator gives us this four-beat cadence:
God heard their groaning…
God remembered His covenant…
God saw His people…
and God knew.
That last phrase—“God knew”—is the most mysterious, and I think deliberately so.
A few thoughts.
Yada, Yada, Yada
“Knew” is more than awareness.
The Hebrew verb yadaʿ is not clinical knowledge. It’s covenantal, relational, intimate. It’s the same word used for Adam “knowing” Eve, and for God “knowing” Abraham (Genesis 18:19).
This isn’t “God became informed.” It’s “God entered into their condition.” He knew their suffering from the inside, not at a distance.
A Turning Point
The end of Exodus 2 marks the end of God’s apparent inaction.
Up to this point, the story is all groaning and waiting. The people cry out. Moses is in Midian. God has not spoken a word since Exodus 1. And then this line functions almost like a hinge in the narrative. Chapter 3 begins with God speaking—calling Moses by name from the bush.
So “God knew” is not a conclusion; it’s a turning point.
Sacred Ambiguity
The text refuses to explain what God knew.
There’s no object. It doesn’t say what He knew. Just: He knew.
That ambiguity is pastoral. It leaves room for every unspeakable thing Israel could not articulate. Their pain didn’t need to be translated into precise prayer. God knew without being told.
Deliverance is Coming, But Not Yet.
Fourth, this is not reassurance that suffering will end immediately.
Nothing changes right away. Pharaoh will resist. Plagues will come. Deliverance will be costly.
So the comfort here is not “God fixed it” but “God is not absent.” The knowledge precedes the action—and sometimes by a long stretch of obedience and struggle.
When Scripture Slows Down
Finally, I think Exodus 2:25 is meant to be read slowly. Take a moment to meditate on its profound simplicity:
God saw the people of Israel, and God knew.
Exodus 2:25
Almost like a whispered promise to people who are exhausted by waiting:
You are not forgotten.
You are not misunderstood.
You are not unseen.
And even when heaven is silent—God knows.
It’s one of those lines that doesn’t shout, but it stays with you. Like a hand reaching out to hold yours in the dark.
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