What Does Exodus 2:25 Mean?

God saw the people of Israel, and God knew. The final verse of chapter 2 ends with a verb without an explicit object: "God knew." The Hebrew vayeda elohim, "and God knew," stands without specification of what God knew. The effect is complete: God knows everything relevant, God knows the full scope of what is happening to Israel, God knows what must be done, God knows Moses in Midian, God knows the moment has come. The open-ended knowing is not ambiguous; it is the fullest possible statement of divine awareness that refuses to narrow the knowing to a single object.

The four divine verbs across verses 24-25 (heard, remembered, saw, knew) echo the fourfold promise structure of Exodus 6:6-7 (I will bring out, I will deliver, I will redeem, I will take). The hearing and remembering and seeing and knowing of chapter 2 will express themselves in the bringing out, delivering, redeeming, and taking of chapter 6. The inner movement of God (attention, covenant-memory, sight, knowledge) produces the outer movement of God (exodus, deliverance, redemption, covenant relationship). Chapter 2 ends with God knowing; the rest of Exodus is the expression of what God knew.

John 11:33-35 records that when Jesus came to the tomb of Lazarus and saw Mary weeping and the mourners with her, "he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled." He saw; he was troubled; he wept.

Jesus in John 11 mirrors the God of Exodus 2: seeing the suffering of those he loves produces deep internal movement that then issues in action. The God who saw Israel's condition in Egypt (verse 25) and the Son who saw Mary's grief in Bethany are the same God whose seeing produces response. "God knew" in Exodus 2:25 is the Old Testament version of "he was deeply moved" in John 11:33: divine seeing that does not remain at the level of observation.