From tedium to Te Deum

Incredible:
From tedium to Te Deum

the tedium of slavery, to Pharoah or to ourselves/sin

Found this in a footnote on Tremper's book "How to read Exodus".  (CANNOT BELIEVE it was relegated to footnote, this should be a title or subtitle to a book on exodus!!)

What is the Te Deum?  Good overview here at wikipedia

Basically it is a hymn of praise, ascribing all glory and affection to our Triune God.  Which, by the way, is WHY God saved Israel from Egypt and you and me from our sin!!  Our lives a Te Deum of praise to God as we love Him and our neighbor.

Here is the text, from the book of common prayer
(Note: In the Book of Common Prayer, verse is written in half-lines, at which reading pauses, indicated by colons in the text.)


We praise thee, O God :
    we acknowledge thee to be the Lord.
All the earth doth worship thee :
    the Father everlasting.
To thee all Angels cry aloud :
    the Heavens, and all the Powers therein.
To thee Cherubin and Seraphin :
    continually do cry,
Holy, Holy, Holy :
    Lord God of Sabaoth;
Heaven and earth are full of the Majesty :
    of thy glory.
The glorious company of the Apostles : praise thee.
The goodly fellowship of the Prophets : praise thee.
The noble army of Martyrs : praise thee.
The holy Church throughout all the world :
    doth acknowledge thee;
The Father : of an infinite Majesty;
Thine honourable, true : and only Son;
Also the Holy Ghost : the Comforter.
Thou art the King of Glory : O Christ.
Thou art the everlasting Son : of the Father.
When thou tookest upon thee to deliver man :
    thou didst not abhor the Virgin's womb.
When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death :
    thou didst open the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers.
Thou sittest at the right hand of God : in the glory of the Father.
We believe that thou shalt come : to be our Judge.
We therefore pray thee, help thy servants :
    whom thou hast redeemed with thy precious blood.
Make them to be numbered with thy Saints : in glory everlasting.
O Lord, save thy people :
    and bless thine heritage.
Govern them : and lift them up for ever.
Day by day : we magnify thee;
And we worship thy Name : ever world without end.
Vouchsafe, O Lord : to keep us this day without sin.
O Lord, have mercy upon us : have mercy upon us.
O Lord, let thy mercy lighten upon us :
    as our trust is in thee.
O Lord, in thee have I trusted :
    let me never be confounded.




and then, i think you could go on and on that tedium from tedium to Te Deum involves the removal of "i"
you don't have to get all watchman nee-ish (and unbiblical) that I cease to exist and I'm not important et al
but you can say that sin, in many ways is pride (Lewis called this the "greatest sin", see Mere Xnity) is a focus on ourselves, a being bent in on ourselves; SELFishness; and to be free is to "lose your life"
So, from tedium to Te Deum---by a blow to the "i"

(Andrew, Olivia, Joppa---- I hope one day this kind of post is helpful to you.  By the way, see Jerram Barrs and McCauley book BEING HUMAN to show the beauty of bible's teaching against Nee and idea that you cease to exist when you follow Christ)

the 3 day festival request

An ancient manuscript at the
Louvre, dating to the time of Rameses II, indicates that Egyptian slaves
were sometimes given time off to worship their gods.* There is also a limestone
tablet from the same period listing the names of slaves, together with
reasons for their absence from work, including the phrase, “has sacrificed
to the god.”*^ 

What this proves is that the Pharaohs sometimes honored the
kind of request that Moses and Aaron were making. Asking for three days
of religious freedom was a reasonable demand that God used to expose the
unbelief in Pharaoh’s heart.

* James K. Hoffmeier, Israel in Egypt (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1999),
p. 115.
*^J. Cerny and A. H. Gardiner, Hieratic Ostraca I (Oxford, England: Printed for the Griffith
Institute at the University Press by Charles Batey, 1957), pp. 22, 23, plates 83, 84.