What Does Exodus 3:21 Mean?

"And I will give this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians; and when you go, you shall not go empty." The provision of favor with the Egyptians is a recurring theme in the Exodus narrative: God influences the Egyptian population's disposition toward the departing Israelites so that Israel leaves not as penniless refugees but with goods given to them by their former captors.

The favor (Hebrew: chen, grace/goodwill) that the Egyptians show to Israel is divinely given: God softens the hearts of ordinary Egyptians toward their slaves at the critical moment of departure. The mechanism of the gift is human, but the motivation is divinely prepared.

The promise "you shall not go empty" directly anticipates the spoiling of the Egyptians that will be described in Exodus 12:35-36: "The people of Israel...had asked of the Egyptians for silver and gold jewelry and for clothing. And the LORD had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they let them have what they asked.

Thus they plundered the Egyptians." Every piece of silver and gold the Israelites carry out of Egypt was given voluntarily by Egyptians whose hearts God had prepared. The plundering is an ironic reversal: centuries of enslaved labor economically compensated by a divine arrangement at the moment of departure.

The pattern of departing not empty has a theological precedent in the covenant with Abraham: "afterward they shall come out with great possessions" (Genesis 15:14). What God promised Abraham centuries earlier is fulfilled at the Exodus: the enslaved people leave rather than free but enriched, carrying the material that will eventually be donated for the construction of the tabernacle (Exodus 35:20-29). The gold and silver Egypt gives to Israel at the Exodus becomes the gold and silver of God's dwelling place. What was plundered from the oppressor becomes the offering that furnishes the sacred space.