Exodus 1:1-22

Reading for Thursday, Week 5

Exodus 1:1-22 (English Standard Version)

Exodus 1

Israel Increases Greatly in Egypt

¹ These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob, each with his household: ²Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, ³Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin,⁴Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher. ⁵All the descendants of Jacob were seventy persons; Joseph was already in Egypt. ⁶Then Joseph died, and all his brothers and all that generation. ⁷ But the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them.

Pharaoh Oppresses Israel

⁸Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. ⁹And he said to his people, "Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us. ¹⁰ Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land." ¹¹Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens. They built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Raamses. ¹²But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel. ¹³So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves ¹⁴and made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work in the field. In all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves.

¹⁵Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, ¹⁶"When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live." ¹⁷But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live. ¹⁸So the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them, "Why have you done this, and let the male children live?" ¹⁹The midwives said to Pharaoh, "Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them." ²⁰ So God dealt well with the midwives. And the people multiplied and grew very strong. ²¹And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. ²²Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, "Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live."

Pastor’s Commentary:

Pharaoh tried everything he could think of to destroy God’s people. First he tried to break their spirit with hard labor. Then he made them slaves. After that, he even employed covert genocide. He told the midwives to kill the baby boys, but to let the baby girls live. But the midwives feared God. They let the baby boys live. Finally Pharaoh had to make a law that required every Hebrew baby boy to be thrown into the Nile. If you want to get rid of a certain people, all you have to do is make it impossible for them to continue. Get rid of all the Israelite baby boys and you eventually get rid of Israel.

While we do not have a Pharaoh over us today, many people still think of children as an inconvenience. It seems so terrible to consider baby boys being thrown into the Nile to drown there. Yet our society condones much worse. Our society allows the killing of babies on hard to imagine scales. Since the Roe vs. Wade decision, 45 million pregnancies have been terminated. To put this in perspective, Nazi Germany was responsible for some 9.5 million deaths in the Holocaust. I do not make this statement to downplay the serious nature of what actually happened in Germany. Genocide is terrible no matter where it rears its ugly head. But how can it be that we who stopped Hitler have allowed our own people to do nearly 5 times worse in the name of “freedom” and “rights” and “choice”?

You can be sure that God has heard the cries of those who suffer. You can also be completely sure that God sent His Son to die for the sins of the entire world, and that includes the sin of abortion. Jesus died for all the people in a society that pressures young women to get an abortion for the sake of convenience. Jesus’ embrace also includes a sinful people that are over-sexualized and bent in on themselves. Our call as a church and as Christians is not to hurt or harm our neighbor, but to publicly and winsomely expose abortion for what it is, and to proclaim forgiveness for everyone who is sorry for their sins. On the one hand we must say that abortion is sin. On the other hand we must be compassionate and caring to the victims of abortion, and that includes many of the mothers and fathers of aborted babies.

The whole plan of salvation was threatened by Pharaoh’s edict. It would be a grown up baby boy from the people of Israel that would bring salvation to the whole world. Therefore, God had to act. He heard the suffering of His people.

Know for certain that God is not deaf to your pleas for mercy. Know for certain that God will indeed hear your cries in the midst of suffering. He will not desert you. He has ransomed you through the suffering, death, and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior.