Deliverance

In his letter to the church in Rome, the apostle Paul wrote these words:

“My dear family, this is my appeal to you by the mercies of God: offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. That’s what properly thought-out worship looks like. What’s more, don’t let yourselves be squeezed into the shape dictated by the present age. Instead, be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you can work out what God’s will is, what is good, acceptable, and complete.”

Paul is telling the Jesus people in Rome that in order to live faithful lives of true worship, they need to learn to think differently. That is our quest today still; not so much learning what to think, but relearning how. Let’s settle in!

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In our last teaching, we looked at the covenant that Yahweh cut with Abraham. In the middle of that amazing narrative, Yahweh speaks to Abraham, telling him more about the future of his family, the family blessed to bless the world. Let’s look at what Yahweh says again:

Genesis 15:13–16 LSB

13 Then God said to Abram, “Know for certain that your seed will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. 14 “But I will also judge the nation to whom they are enslaved, and afterward they will come out with many possessions. 15 “As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried at a good old age. 16 “Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.”

As we continue reading Genesis, we see this forecast begin to be fulfilled.

Abraham fathers Isaac, Isaac fathers Jacob, and Jacob has twelve sons, who’s descendants will comprise the twelve tribes of Israel.

One of Jacob’s sons, Joseph, is sold by his brothers to slave traders enroute to Egypt.

Joseph’s story has twists and turns and ups and downs that should make 6 Flags jealous. But eventually he not only rises to be the effective ruler of Egypt, but also reconnects with his family and gives them safe harbor in Egypt as they ride out a massive famine.

It is obvious to the reader that Yahweh has been at work in Joseph’s life to save the family blessed to be a blessing. But there is a hanging plot line that is lurking in our minds: what about the prophecy of Yahweh, that the family would sojourn in a foreign land and suffer oppression?

Genesis ends with the family sojourning in a foreign land, but they appear to be a people specially favored by the rulers of Egypt. What happens?

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Exodus 1:6–8 LSB

6 Then Joseph died, and all his brothers and all that generation. 7 But the sons of Israel were fruitful and increased and multiplied and became exceedingly mighty, so that the land was filled with them. 8 And a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.

Some scholars interpret verse 8 as indicating a more significant regime change than simply a typical succession. Something significant has shifted that eliminates whatever gratitude and positivity the Egyptians felt towards this family, feelings displaced by fear and suspicion.

Exodus 1:8–14 LSB

8 And a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. 9 And he said to his people, “Behold, the people of the sons of Israel are more and mightier than we. 10 “Come, let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply and it be in the event of war, that they also join themselves to those who hate us and fight against us and go up from the land.” 11 So they appointed taskmasters over them to afflict them with hard labors. And they built for Pharaoh storage cities, Pithom and Raamses. 12 But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and the more they spread out, so that they were in dread of the sons of Israel. 13 So the Egyptians brutally compelled the sons of Israel to slave labor; 14 and they made their lives bitter with hard slave labor in mortar and bricks and in all kinds of slave labor in the field, all their slave labor which they brutally compelled them to do.

The Egyptians are fearful and suspicious of the Hebrews and their rapidly increasing numbers. Rather than a simple genocidal war, they decide to extract some profit from the people as they work them to death.

When slavery is brought up in the United States, most of us inadvertently think of the slavery in the American South that continued until the mid-late 1800s. For good reason, these events have significantly influenced our presuppositions about slavery. However, the slavery depicted here in Exodus is quite a bit different.

For one thing, it was not born out of a centuries long false understanding of race. The Hebrews were not enslaved because the Egyptians considered them “sub-human.”

Additionally, our more modern example of slavery viewed slaves primarily as property to be exploited, whereas the Egyptians viewed their Hebrew slaves primarily as a rival people group to be oppressed, diminished, and eliminated.

Finally, the economy of the American South was seemingly dependent on slavery continuing. If slavery were to be abolished, the status quo economy would have to be rebuilt. Egypt was seemingly under no such threat. If nothing else, the Egyptian people knew how to get things done, particularly massive architectural projects. I mean, the pyramids were already built before Joseph ever arrived in Egypt. No doubt, they probably utilized slaves all the time, but the point is that the Hebrews were far from their only source of labor. This was not the point of this enslavement and oppression.

No the Egyptians flat out wanted to kill off as many Hebrews as possible to ensure “national security, and just about the best way for them to do that was to work the Hebrews to death. But there was a problem: somehow, the worse conditions got, the more this family grew and grew. If it wasn’t so counterintuitive, it would almost seem like the more intense the oppression and labor got, the more virile and fertile the Hebrews became.

What’s an evil ruler to do?

Exodus 1:15–16 LSB

15 Then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other was named Puah; 16 and he said, “When you are helping the Hebrew women to give birth and see them upon the birthstool, if it is a son, then you shall put him to death; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live.”