Reflections on Exodus 1

Exodus 01 (Contemporary English Version)


1. When Jacob went to Egypt, his son Joseph was already there. So Jacob took his eleven other sons and their families. They were: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Benjamin, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher. Altogether, Jacob had seventy children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren who went with him.
2. (SEE 1:1)
3. (SEE 1:1)
4. (SEE 1:1)
5. (SEE 1:1)
6. After Joseph, his brothers, and everyone else in that generation had died,
7. the people of Israel became so numerous that the whole region of Goshen was full of them.
8. Many years later a new king came to power. He did not know what Joseph had done for Egypt,
9. and he told the Egyptians: There are too many of those Israelites in our country, and they are becoming more powerful than we are.
10. If we don't outsmart them, their families will keep growing larger. And if our country goes to war, they could easily fight on the side of our enemies and escape from Egypt.
11. The Egyptians put slave bosses in charge of the people of Israel and tried to wear them down with hard work. Those bosses forced them to build the cities of Pithom and Rameses, where the king could store his supplies.
12. But even though the Israelites were mistreated, their families grew larger, and they took over more land. Because of this, the Egyptians hated them worse than before
13. and made them work so hard
14. that their lives were miserable. The Egyptians were cruel to the people of Israel and forced them to make bricks and to mix mortar and to work in the fields.
15. Finally, the king called in Shiphrah and Puah, the two women who helped the Hebrew mothers when they gave birth.
16. He told them, "If a Hebrew woman gives birth to a girl, let the child live. If the baby is a boy, kill him!"
17. But the two women were faithful to God and did not kill the boys, even though the king had told them to.
18. The king called them in again and asked, "Why are you letting those baby boys live?"
19. They answered, "Hebrew women have their babies much quicker than Egyptian women. By the time we arrive, their babies are already born."
20. God was good to the two women because they truly respected him, and he blessed them with children of their own. The Hebrews kept increasing
21. (SEE 1:20)
22. until finally, the king gave a command to everyone in the nation, "As soon as a Hebrew boy is born, throw him into the Nile River! But you can let the girls live."
    
    

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    Jacob entered Egypt with 70 descendants at the time Joseph was a ruler in the country and Pharoah invited them to live in Goshen. It is understood that the number 70 includes only the male descendants which would make the total Hebrew population to be somewhere over 200 people. By the time period to which this portion of Exodus refers, some 100 years later, the Hebrew population likely numbered around 2 million.
    
    The time was approaching for Jacob's descendants to leave Egypt for a land of their own that God had promised to them. God was setting the stage, through their circumstances, for the exodus to occur. As the number of Hebrews increased the Egyptians grew increasingly fearful of them. The policy the Egyptians adopted guaranteed the breeding of discontent among the Hebrews, though that was not the intent. They thought they could control the Hebrews through oppression. From an historical perspective it is not difficult to recognize the fallacy of such a policy. Had the oppressive measures not been invoked the Hebrews might never have considered leaving Egypt. Their lives had been good up to this point. Though the new rulers feared the Hebrews might turn against them in time of war, they actually had as much reason to defend Egypt as did the Egytians. It was their home.
    
    We have to recognize, though, that God had a hand in these developing circumstances. As flawed as the new Pharoah's policy may appear to us, God had a plan for these Hebrew people that did not include living in Egypt forever. And Pharoah's policy of oppression served to stir up the Hebrews to want to escape these conditions. It was the Hebrew midwives who first showed courage in the face of this oppression, refusing to kill the baby boys who were born to the Hebrew women. And God rewarded their courage. First, He rewarded them by protecting them from Pharoah's wrath. Pharoah believed their story explaining their inability to kill the baby boys. God also rewarded the midwives by giving them families.
    
    Verse 21 says, "Since the midwives feared God, He gave them families." Their fear was rightly placed. By fearing God they need not fear Pharoah. When our fear is misplaced, so, too, is our trust misplaced.