We know that God is a God who is faithful. We’ve seen him over and over keep his promises throughout the Old Testament, culminating with the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ in the New Testament. We know that he will always be faithful to continue to keep them.

Israel’s Cry for Deliverance

After almost 400 years of slavery in Egypt, Israel is recorded to have groaned and cried out for help.

During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. (Exodus 2:23)

Although there is no specific mention here as to whether the people are crying out to God, elsewhere Israel claims that the Lord heard their cry to Him.

Then we cried to the Lord, the God of our fathers, and the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. (Deuteronomy 26:7; cf. Numbers 20:16)

God’s Response to Israel’s Cry for Deliverance

Israel’s cry for rescue “came up to God.” How did God respond?

And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew. (Ex 2:24-25)

Moses records 4 verbs that explain God’s response to Israel’s groaning, their cry for help.

God Heard Their Groaning

Israel’s prayers did not go ignored. And this narrative is not the first in which God is recorded to hear distress. After Isaac was born and weaned, Hagar and Ishmael were sent away by Abraham into the wilderness with bread and water. After their water was gone, Hagar put Ishmael under bushes far away from her so she wouldn’t watch him die. She wept, and it seems that Ishmael did too, for this is what God said:

And God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What troubles you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. (Genesis 21:17)

Even before Ishmael was born, God had earlier told Hagar to call him Ishmael, which means, “God hears.” He told her to name him this “because the Lord has listened to your affliction” (Genesis 16:11).

God is a God who hears when people are distressed.

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