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: 2 Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, 3 Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin, 4 Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher. 5 All the descendants of Jacob were seventy persons; Joseph was already in Egypt. 6 Then 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 8 Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. 9 And 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.” 11 Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens. They built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Raamses. 12 But 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. 13 So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves 14 and 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. 15 Then 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.” 17 But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live. 18 So the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this, and let the male children live?” 19 The 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. 21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. 22 Then 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.” As we spoke about last time, there's a lot we could talk about next after Genesis, but probably one of the most defining moments in all of the history of God's people until the cross of Christ is the Exodus out of Egypt. God will continue to use the phrase, "I AM the LORD your God who brought you up out of Egypt" to identify Himself to His people and will command them to remember this time with special religious holy days (holidays) and to continue to tell the story to their children and grandchildren so that the works that the LORD did here would not be forgotten.
Before we get there though, we need to set the stage a little bit because when we left Genesis, the children of Israel were living in prosperity in Egypt under the protection of Joseph and the Pharaoh of that time who treated Joseph's family like his own people and while there was an arrangement that kept the two groups living separate from one another so that the Hebrews could maintain their cultural identity, they were extremely blessed by both God and men during this time--in fact, that's where we start off. We had a census taken of the children of Israel back in Genesis when they came down to Egypt. In Genesis 46, we were told that there were only 66 adult males making the trip to Egypt with Jacob and only a total of 70 adult males when counting Joseph and his family--so think of this as a number of households more than a number of people. We take the census much the same way here and now because one person files taxes for themselves and all their dependents and that person fills out census data ever 10 years for themselves and everyone that lives in the house with them. It has now been approximately 400 years since the death of Joseph and God has continue to bless His people and caused them to be fruitful and multiply so they are no longer contained to the land of Goshen, but they "grew exceedingly strong; and the land was filled with them." What would you think about this if you were the Egyptians--especially if you were the king of the Egyptians, Pharaoh? Well, we don't have to guess, because the Bible tells us. We are told that the new Pharaoh didn't know of Joseph and he is afraid of the large group of foreigners living among them because they are becoming large enough that they could start a revolt and overthrow the Egyptians or join their enemies and fight against the Egyptians if war ever broke out, so he tells his officials that they need to deal shrewdly with them and put them to work--lots of work--so that they are too busy to have time to be reproductive (at least that's the idea), and so that Egypt gets some benefit out of having these people live among them. Maybe the idea wasn't to have them as slaves initially, but it quickly became that when the Egyptian taskmasters were instructed to treat the Israelites harshly and to beat them, and they were forced to build the cities and the storehouses for the people of Egypt--possibly the very idea that Joseph implemented 400 years ago, but it has lost its meaning and and the Egyptians have simply become about acquiring stuff for themselves--not about storing things up so that they could be a blessing to God's people and the rest of the known world. There probably was a bit of a "never again" mentality after the famine, and it seems from what we heard in the book of Genesis the the people of Egypt continued to be taxed at a rate of 20% of everything that was produce (one-fifth belonged to the Pharaoh) and that the government maintained control over all of its people, so it's not really surprising that Pharaoh would imagine that these non-citizens living among him should also need to be part of his labor force and I would assume the Israelites had not been paying taxes so far because the Pharaoh loved Joseph and treated him like his own son and the king and his family do not pay taxes. Now you have lots of people not paying taxes who are not citizens of your country with unknown allegiances and are possibly don't feel subject to your laws. Yeah, I think as a king, that would be something that I too would want to deal with, so while I don't agree with the way the Egyptians treated the Israelites, their fears are completely understandable. But then Pharaoh goes too far and orders "population control" measures to be taken with the Hebrews to ensure this is the last generation of Israelites that Egypt will have to deal with--probably because his "keep them too busy to have children" policy wasn't working, because the Hebrews understood that it was part of their covenant duty to be fruitful and multiply. How would their nation ever become as great as the dust of the earth, the grains of sand, or the stars in the heavens unless they did their part? So, Pharaoh orders infanticide--pure and simple. All the male babies were to be killed during childbirth and the mothers were to be told that they died from complications during labor. The Pharaoh let the girls live because they would eventually have no choice but to marry Egyptians and they would have Egyptian children and cultural assimilation would take place. But the Hebrew midwives feared God and knew this was murder and that it was wrong--even before there was a law saying "Thou shalt not murder," because for years--ever since Cain and Abel--God had taught men what He thought about the taking of innocent life, and He made sure that he repeated this command after the flood and said that anyone or anything that took a man's life, the life of that man or animal would have to be given as payment for that crime (see Genesis 9:5). The midwives lied to Pharaoh and although God doesn't like lying, though, again, the Law had not yet been given to the Hebrews, God did bless the midwives for protecting human life, since that is the command that they knew at the time. They told Pharaoh that the Hebrew women weren't like Egyptian women and were strong in childbirth and that the children were born before the midwife arrived and they could not obey his command to kill the male children during childbirth. Pharaoh sees he's not going to get anywhere by asking the Hebrew midwives to turn against the Hebrews, so he orders all the people of Egypt that if anyone knows of a male baby born to the Hebrews that they are to take the baby and cast it into the Nile river. This is the culture and the time to which the "savior" that God is going to provided for His people will be born. Have you seen any parallels yet between this time and the time leading up to the birth of Jesus? There had been 400 years of silence, much like between the end of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New Testament. There had been a time beforehand when God gave his message to the people through prophets (like Joseph), but then the people of God became slaves to another nation. The people of God continued to flourish under His covenant relationship and the idea of a coupe that would topple this government drove both Pharaoh and Herod to commit infanticide, though for slightly different reasons. God is going to raise up his deliverance despite this oppression and work in a way where only He can accomplish His plan and purposes and will get the glory--whether that's leading His people out of slavery and into the Promised Land, or death on a cross to deliver all people from the bondage of sin and to lead us into the true promised land of a new heaven and a new earth that are being prepared for us. In both cases, God is making a people unto Himself out of those who didn't deserve it. That's not a statement of an anti-Semitic philosophy, that's just a statement of fact that God could have chosen and people group on the earth to work through but He chose to work through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and their descendants and there really wasn't anything special about them other than they were chosen by God, and that was kind of the whole point--the other nations were to look at the nation of Israel and say that it didn't make any sense that a bunch of "nobodies" that didn't even have their land could become a great nation and experience so much blessing, and God would set them apart even more with His Law to make everything about them unique (holy) and different from every other culture to make sure everyone knew that they were His people and He was their God. We see that pattern continue even in the New Testament where Christians are told to be "in the world, but not of the world" and that it should act as ambassadors that clearly belong to a different kingdom, and that everyone should recognize us for who we are by our love, our obedience to the commandments of God and our love for them, our changed hearts and lives, and they way we worship God and give Him glory in everything we say, do, think, and even feel. "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself."--We'll see this wasn't a new idea given to the Church in the gospels, but an "old" idea given to God's chosen people, Israel in the Old Testament as we continue our studies here.
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Daniel WestfallI will mostly use this space for recording my "journal" from my daily devotions as I hope to encourage others to read the Bible along with me and to leave a legacy for others. Archives
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