Exodus1

Exodus 1

Introduction

Exodus 1:1-22…

Exodus continues on with the account of God’s plan of redemption for His nation.

It may be important to remember that a considerable proportion of the people arriving at Mount Sinai to meet the living God were not originally Israelites at all.  They saw the plagues and came to believe that the Israelites were people worthy to join up with. 

Exodus 1:1-7  – 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.

V.1 relates back to ‘the promise’ or God’s plan for the descendants of Abraham or heirs to the promise.  Four components:  1) A vast population increase.  2) A family lineage to make their name great.  3) Worldwide blessing through his offspring.  4) Eventual granting of unearned citizenship in a special land of God’s choosing.  

V. 5 – “All the descendants of Jacob were seventy persons.”  It also shows that Joseph was already there as he was placed there by God to be the instrument to save Jacob’s family.   V. 6 – Joseph dies at 110 suggesting that he might be the last of all the brother to die. 

Exodus 1:8 – 14 – 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.

V.8 – Shows that the special influence of Joseph on the family being a privileged guest in Egypt was lined to Joseph’s person and position and would not continue after his death.

“a new king” – meaning that the time of the “Hyksos” pharaohs (A foreign ruler of the 15^th and 16^th dynasties in Egypt.  They enter Egypt from Syria and Palestine.  They were overthrown in the 16^th century to establish the ‘empire period’ of the 16^th – 12^th centuries B.C.

Joseph Promoted in  Egypt:   1714s  –  family comes in 1705bc

Jacob dies:  1688bc

Joseph dies;  1630bc  –  110 lived – 1740bc born….

Hyksos are expelled from Egypt  1567bc

Moses Kills Egyptian – 1486bc  –  Born some 40 years earlier  –   1506bc

10^th plague – 1450bc

Joshua leads the Israelites 1405bc

V. 9 – Pharaoh noticed the exceeding rate of increase of the Israelites.  As history shows that every nation fears an alien contingency within their mists that could turn on them.    Fear they would not remain faithful to Egypt, but side with another on themselves rise to take over.  Basically in our fallen world there is a hostility to foreigners becoming a common human sin.

Pharaoh was speaking more pejorative (an expressing criticism or disapproval) in nature as he was focusing more on their category rather than their humanity.   Focus on a major, ethnic-political group.  There was a full foreign nation within their midst.

The modern world puts control with ‘immigration’ laws to have numerical restrictions on the influx of foreigners and even foreign investments.  As U.S. restricts that a president be born in  America. 

V.10 – Lets deal with this matter more aggressively.  Indicating they would violate the Israelites ‘rights’  to reduce the number in case of war.  They consider them a real threat, a danger of having an agent that could overthrow their established order. 

Propaganda….  Plant an idea in the Egyptians.  It was a distortion of truth rather than entirely false.  The Israelites were foreigners, as the hated Hyksos “mountain people” were.  Foreigners had recently ruled Egypt and this would stir up emotional hatred toward another possible over-throw.  This was a desirable ‘famine-proof land. 

Their fear: “… if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us… and escape from the land.  ”

If one does not review this Hebrew Idiom then it wouldn’t make sense that Pharaoh would fear “leaving the country” because they would be gone and out of their land. 

The Hebrew word for leave (“ih min” – Sense:  “to go up”) – is a Hebrew idiom referring that of either with water rising or people rising up over land, that is overcoming, overwhelming, or dominating it. (3 places used:  Gen. 2:6  (cover over the earth)– Exod. 1:10 (take possession of the land) – Hos. 1:11, the same as Exod. 1:10 (“ih min” – take possession of the land))  That they would take possession of the land (Egypt’s land). 

The idiom used by Pharaoh would give a picture of the Israelites expanding like a river overflowing and taking them over.  (Remember they were just freed from foreign rule and would be sensitive to such happening again.   

The Point:  What sort of thereat would it be to the Egyptians if the Israelites were to ‘leave the country’ or ‘escape from the land’ during a war waged by foreigners against Egypt?  But if it was about being overtaken/overwhelmed/dispossessed from within by the foreign element already resident in Egypt, his speech would have a sort of impact on the collective consciousness that would help justify a full-scale campaign of oppression against a people previously accepted and treated decently.

V.11 – The wording of this would indicate that pharaoh’s proposal was accepted and its implementation begun fairly rapidly.  It was an incremental policy of population control designed to suppress gradually the Israelites “will and ability to resist”.

1^st step to remove their position as free people to that of a ‘slave caste’ and under the control of slave masters that would have them perform forced labor of building grain cities.  The original identity of as shepherds and tillers of the land.  These were really to build ‘royal garrison cities’ or ‘fortified border settlements’  to provide quarters, provision, and weaponry for the troops and civilian Egyptian population during peacetime.  Yet ready to protect aggressive outside action by their enemies. 

This took Hebrew individuals away from their families (wives and children) – a separation to cut down time to conceive children and nurture them.   Their hard work and removal from fields to produce food would gradually cause starvation among the Hebrews.  They would simply die of one of the many complications of malnourishment and maltreatment and overwork. 

V.12-13 – it backfires because of God’s intervention for the Israelite population paralleled the intensity of the persecution.  So instead of a decline in population during this period, there was an increase.  Population grown caused a spatial spread.  They kept spreading out in to areas where they had not previously lived. 

V. 13 – Egyptian solution was to work them even harder.  “worked them ruthlessly”….

V.14 – Note the desperate condition for the Israelites and a need for deliverance.   (If God did not allow this hardship, would be people be ready to leave when told to do so?   Prior to this, their life was ‘good’.)

The work load itself was to be sufficiently hard as to be fatal to enough people to bring the population under control.  Brickwork apparently was the main assignment of most Israelites.  They were treated cruelly while working. 

Exodus 1:15-22  –  Pharaoh Oppresses Israel – continues

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.”

V.15 – this midwife account is one of heroic resistance.  They faced death by the Pharaoh’s word, yet chose to honor the principle and God’s value of ‘life’ that they saw was above man’s law.  This law is implanted in all human kind.  We, they, just had to recognize and say they feared what God would do to them as recognized the importance of an after-life.

These two were names to give honor to them for their bravery in choosing to obey God rather than Pharaoh that they deserved to be remembered for their example.  The midwives’ faith in protecting the Israelites earned them a special place in the exodus account.  They are named because of the power of their example in what they did for Israel in faithfulness to God, not what their names symbolize.

There was not just two Midwives but the senior midwives that functioned as the leaders or administrators over many others.  It was worded in such a way that a special act of God for them to have children as they were now childless into old age.    V. 21 ²¹ And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families.

Ex. 1:16 – 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.

Pharaoh tells them to kill the male child when he is born while you are there.  It would be a subtle thing where the mother would not see the cause of their male child death.  Pharaoh would have wanted it in stealth and he couldn’t conceive that anyone would not do as he said.  Maybe the male leadership could not appreciate the sort of dedication to preservation of infant life usually found among midwives.  This process would result in less boys to grow up as military men against Egypt.  Less men would mean less procreation and a means of controlling the population.

In the text “birthstool” is used to identify a boy child that was to be killed.  It was an Idiom of that day meaning ‘testicle – 2 stones’ 

Strongs #70.  אֹבֶןʾôben, o´-ben; from the same as 68; a pair of stones (only dual); a potter’s wheel or a midwife’s stool (consisting alike of two horizontal disks with a support between):—wheel, stool.

The Hebrew word used here means “a pair of stones”  (obnayim) however, the sense of the statement was to point to when you see the testicles of the child, then kill the boy.  Meaning that one us the genitals of a new born to identify its sex.  This is done today at childbirth to recognize if a girl or boy was born to the parents.  The “birthing stool would be two stones and their shape might be like the male testicle. 

BIRTHSTOOLObject upon which a woman sat during labor (Exod. 1:16 NASB, NKJV). The birthstool may have been of Egyptian origin. The same Hebrew word (ʾobnayim) is also translated as “potter’s wheel” (Jer. 18:3). See Birth. (Holman Bible Dictionary).

People in agrarian societies have used the idea of killing the male animals and keeping alive the females, whereas killing females is simply not a normal practice.   Pharaoh’s policy was set in motion as a long-term fix.   (I’m from Iowa and as a young boy the local nursery get rid of the rosters (male chickens) by selling them for $.50 a dozen.  If they were not purchased, then they were disposed of.  The hen was where the value in producing eggs and worthy of being fed to acquire them. )   (Oh, they were tasty after three months of feeding them.)

Here, in this account, the great heroism of the midwives is lauded.  They sided with God against the pharaoh and flatly refused to carry out their foul assignment.  They did not kill any boys.    “Fear God” means that they choose to be upright.  They did not have the scriptural knowledge as it was written yet, but they did understand that right and wrong are not human inventions but part of a divinely created order.  This shows that the fear of God is the most important orienting truth available in the world.  These women feared what God could do to them after death more than the death administrated by Pharaoh. 

V.18 – years pass between the king’s decrees when he gets a report that the population is increasing.  He summons the disobedient midwives.    Why did he wait so long to notice they male population not decreasing?  It was a question of how to identify them since small boys and girls, in that society, would dress about the same and with similar hair lengths.  His command was a ‘secretive killing of infants at birth’ and therefore he wouldn’t order his soldiers to openly go into Israelite tents and houses to forcibly examine the gender of young children.  It might be years later that the youth would grow up and a distinction available and quantities checked. 

The mid wives answer was the Hebrews were “more active” – “more involved” – suggesting a difference in social behaviors then the Egyptians.  The Pharaoh would have a different vision of childbirth where the mother’s role was more passive at childbirth and the midwives could easily hide their killing of the males.    

They say:  “they…give birth before the midwives arrive”   – and could be partially true as the midwives themselves would not arrive so early keeping their involvement in the process down.  They could have instructed them to “whatever you do, don’t call for us before the baby actually comes” – we’ll take it from there.

REALITY:  it shows God’s invention that the male children would still be born and grow.  There was a divinely ordered growth of the Israelites.

God rewards the midwives.  “God was kind to the midwives; moreover, the people increased.”  He rewarded the midwives by protecting them from Pharaoh and allowing them to conceive and bear children.  (“Gave them families of their own”.)    The midwives would be women out of the home as their families were grown and would have the time needed to do the job.  Basically meaning these were women past child bearing and now would find themselves with child by God’s blessing their womb.

The midwives ‘fear of God’ was what helped them avoid acting out of self-interest but to bravely defile Pharaoh’s command.  

V.22 – the program plan reached its final stage where now all Egyptians were expected to join in killing all Israelite newborn boys.   They were to cast them into the Nile.  The Nile was viewed as a god and therefore they were following a god’s plan.  It would be the Nile’s judgment, not the individual who tossed the child in.   They considered the Nile to be a give and a taker of life.  They were then doing the will of the gods and giving the Nile its proper due among the gods.

We can see why the Nile River was involved so much in the plagues inflicting the Egyptian some 80 years from this time period.