Exodus 1 - And the Story Continues

Sometimes God gracefully sends suffering. Wait... what??

Where was God while His people suffered bitterly baking bricks?

SINCE WE LAST LEFT OFF:  All of Jacob's family has joined Joseph in Egypt.

Exodus 1 (NIV)

1 These are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt with Jacob, each with his family: ² Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah; ³ Issachar, Zebulun and Benjamin; ⁴ Dan and Naphtali; Gad and Asher. ⁵ The descendants of Jacob numbered seventy in all; Joseph was already in Egypt.

⁶ Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died, ⁷ but the Israelites were exceedingly fruitful; they multiplied greatly, increased in numbers and became so numerous that the land was filled with them.

⁸ Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt. ⁹ “Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become far too numerous for us. ¹⁰ Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.”

¹¹ So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. ¹² But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites ¹³ and worked them ruthlessly. ¹⁴ They made their lives bitter with harsh labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their harsh labor the Egyptians worked them ruthlessly.

¹⁵ The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, ¹⁶ “When you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.” ¹⁷ The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live. ¹⁸ Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?”

¹⁹ The midwives answered Pharaoh, “Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.”

²⁰ So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. ²¹ And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.

²² Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: “Every Hebrew boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.”

Heidelberg Catechism

Q&A 52

Q. How does Christ’s return

“to judge the living and the dead”

comfort you?

A. In all my distress and persecution

I turn my eyes to the heavens

and confidently await as judge the very One

who has already stood trial in my place before God

and so has removed the whole curse from me.

All his enemies and mine

he will condemn to everlasting punishment:

but me and all his chosen ones

he will take along with him

into the joy and the glory of heaven.

Summary

The book of Exodus starts way more dramatically in the original Hebrew than it does in the English translations. We read the opening sentence as These are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt. The text goes on to list Jacob's sons, whose names should be somewhat familiar since the tribes of Israel will be named after them.

But the Hebrew text begins with a tiny one letter conjunction. The closest translation would be the simple word and. In English, it's awkward to start a sentence - much less an entire book - with the word and, so the translators skip it. But that humble little letter helps point out that the story of redemption that began when Adam & Eve were evicted from the garden continues.

Life has become a literal grind for Jacob's descendants, who live under the thumb of a society completely ignorant of its own history. The new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, viewed these Hebrews as an existential threat. His plan is to work them to death by enslaving them to build a couple of warehouse cities. But the new king can't out-dictate God's blessings, and the people continue to prosper.

So the new king resorts to one of the key indicators of a truly debauched society: abortion. He orders that the baby boys must be killed before they're fully 'born'. But since the midwives get there 'late,' they miss the opportunity to kill them before they actually 'become' human beings.

  Dig Deeper  

The perennial question arises in these ugly situations: where is God? Where was He as His people's lives were made bitter with harsh labor as they were worked ruthlessly? Where was He as the pharaoh issued a death warrant for baby boys? It's a question we often ask today. Where is God in the midst of a cancer diagnosis or horrible accident?

Of course the Bible never fully answers that difficult question as to why God allows such evil things to occur, but today's passage gives us just a little smidgen of understanding. Sometimes - NOT every time, but sometimes - these hardships are actually mysterious outpourings of God's grace!

Think of it this way. What if this opening chapter played out completely the opposite... what if instead of bitter, ruthless conditions, the descendants of Jacob had nothing but sunshine and roses? Then slowly but surely, each subsequent generation would become less Hebrew and more Egyptian until the God of Jacob meant nothing to the people. Such a prosperous people would have no incentive to leave Egypt and the conditions for our Savior's birth would never have been met. God's covenant promises would have withered.

We've already seen this phenomenon as we've read the Bible this past month: God allows elements of misery to afflict His people to keep us pointed and focused on the glory that will be revealed in us, which far surpass our present sufferings (Rom. 8:18). He put His mightiest angel between Adam and the Tree of Life. He confused the language at Babel. He made Noah build a boat in the desert. He made life miserable in Egypt to prod His people back to the Promised Land. He did all of these things to keep His people pointed towards the coming Savior.

This doesn't mean every tragedy that you've suffered is somehow God's grace in disguise, but keep in mind when suffering comes that our sovereign God and Father uses ALL things to keep you longing for His coming Kingdom.

AAA Prayer (About)

• ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father, who providentially controls all things for the good of those who have been called according to His purpose;

• ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Pray that the suffering you experience will keep you pointed towards our Savior;

• ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED:

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