I am the Lord (Exodus 5)

Afterward Moses and Aaron went in and told Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘Let My people go, that they may hold a feast to Me in the wilderness.’ ”
And Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, nor will I let Israel go.”

So they said, “The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please, let us go three days’ journey into the desert and sacrifice to the Lord our God, lest He fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword.”

So the same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people and their officers, saying, “You shall no longer give the people straw to make brick as before. Let them go and gather straw for themselves. And you shall lay on them the quota of bricks which they made before. You shall not reduce it. For they are idle; therefore they cry out, saying, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to our God.’ Let more work be laid on the men, that they may labour in it, and let them not regard false words.”

Then, as they came out from Pharaoh, they met Moses and Aaron who stood there to meet them. And they said to them, “Let the Lord look on you and judge, because you have made us abhorrent in the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his servants, to put a sword in their hand to kill us.”

For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Your name, he has done evil to this people; neither have You delivered Your people at all.”
​ Then the Lord said to Moses, “Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh. For with a strong hand he will let them go, and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land.”
And God spoke to Moses and said to him: “I am the Lord”.

And I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel whom the Egyptians keep in bondage, and I have remembered My covenant. Therefore say to the children of Israel: I am the Lord; I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, I will rescue you from their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments.

I will take you as My people, and I will be your God. Then you shall know that I am the Lord your God who brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. And I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and I will give it to you as a heritage: I am the Lord.’ ”

Hope turned to suffering. It must have been very difficult for the Israelites to trust and believe the promise of redemption as they were being persecuted more.

We also need to learn to trust the Word and promises from the Father. Not all the time will things work as we would like or how we think they should.

Our faith is not in making the Father do what we want how we want when we want.

Is it easy, of course not but we must always know we are not forsaken for our Lord is with us.  Our Father redeemed us through our Lord, through the blood of our Lord we are also in covenant with Him.

This must have increased Pharaoh’s arrogance for he believed himself to be a god. He says he does not know this Lord and he sees nothing happening as he continues to exercise his power. He does not realise how little power he has as we will see soon.