Exodus 1:1-22 God and Evil

What Happened Before

To know what is happening in Exodus, it is good to know what happened in Genesis 37-50, which is the story of Joseph.

To summarize the story quickly:

Joseph is one of Israel’s 12 sons, loved most by Israel, but hated by all his brother because of this

His brothers trick him and leave him in a pit to die

Meanwhile, he is taken by Midianite traders and sold as a slave into Egypt

He is wrongfully accused by his slave master’s wife of rape and put into prison

Nonetheless, Joseph constantly shows faithfulness to the Lord and so the Lord gives him favor in the eyes of those in prison

Joseph has a gift of interpreting dreams and eventually this leads to him helping the Pharoah with his dream and saving all of Egypt

Joseph is put at the right hand of Pharoah and brings all his Jewish family to live in Egypt too

This is a beautiful story of God’s sovereignty. This leads us directly to today’s passage Exodus 1

Exodus 1 CSB

These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob; each came with his family: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah; Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin; Dan and Naphtali; Gad and Asher. The total number of Jacob’s descendants was seventy; Joseph was already in Egypt. Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation eventually died. But the Israelites were fruitful, increased rapidly, multiplied, and became extremely numerous so that the land was filled with them. A new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt. He said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and powerful than we are. Come, let’s deal shrewdly with them; otherwise they will multiply further, and when war breaks out, they will join our enemies, fight against us, and leave the country.” So the Egyptians assigned taskmasters over the Israelites to oppress them with forced labor. They built Pithom and Rameses as supply cities for Pharaoh. But the more they oppressed them, the more they multiplied and spread so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites. They worked the Israelites ruthlessly and made their lives bitter with difficult labor in brick and mortar and in all kinds of fieldwork. They ruthlessly imposed all this work on them. The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives—the first, whose name was Shiphrah, and the second, whose name was Puah—“When you help the Hebrew women give birth, observe them as they deliver. If the child is a son, kill him, but if it’s a daughter, she may live.” The midwives, however, feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt had told them; they let the boys live. So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this and let the boys live?” The midwives said to Pharaoh, “The Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife can get to them.” So God was good to the midwives, and the people multiplied and became very numerous. Since the midwives feared God, he gave them families. Pharaoh then commanded all his people, “You must throw every son born to the Hebrews into the Nile, but let every daughter live.”

Verses 1-7 Setup/Intro

In this first section, we see a few different things

Three Notes from the Setup

Names of the sons of Israel who moved to Egypt

With each of these men we get a glimpse into their personalities throughout the end of Genesis. I would encourage you to look back into their stories and see what became of them.

In summary, they were men who loved the world more than the God of their father. They did not see God as very personal, else they would have sought to live more righteously. And so, these 11 men move to Egypt with their families to escape the great famine that was washing throughout the land. Verse five tells us that they were 70 total.

2. The first generation in Egypt all died

As time passes, death is sure to come. These original sons of Israel all passed away. The time in which they passed was a fruitful time for Israel, living in harmony with Egyptians. However, it does not seem there was anything done to preserve this alliance between Egypt and Israel.

3. Israel multiplied

Obeying the command God gave Adam in the garden, Israel multiplied. Look at the wording that Moses uses to describe this:

increased rapidly — swarmed

multiply

extremely numerous — abundantly mighty

He is clearly trying to explain to us that Israel was growing big and fast. By the time we get to Moses’s day when he leads Israel out of Egypt, there were millions, when in the beginning there were only 70.

This is the set up to this great story: Israel is growing rapidly, like a swarm. Next we find the problem.

Verses 8-14 Wicked New Pharoah

Verse 8 explains it well: A new king, who did not know Joseph, came to power in Egypt. He did not know Joseph. He didn’t know how Joseph was the one whom God used to save Egypt. He did not know that Joseph and the previous king were friends and allied. He didn’t know because no one told him.

He Did Not Remember

Here, already, we see one of the themes we discussed last week coming up: remember. We cannot forget about who the Lord is and what He has done. When we forget, we make foolish, wicked decisions. We make ourselves god to those around us and enforce our will. Thus is exactly what this new Pharoah did.

This new king was intimidated by the Israelites. He feared their numbers may lead them to take over Egypt and make it a new Israel. He feared they would overpower Egypt and destroy it. So what does he do?

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 1

9 He said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and powerful than we are. 10 Come, let’s deal shrewdly with them; otherwise they will multiply further, and when war breaks out, they will join our enemies, fight against us, and leave the country.”

He needed Israel under his thumb, or thought he did. Rather than seek to align with Israel and form a healthy relationship with their people, this Pharoah goes straight to oppression.

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 1

So the Egyptians assigned taskmasters over the Israelites to oppress them with forced labor. They built Pithom and Rameses as supply cities for Pharaoh.

Young Bullies Will Be Old Bullies

There are some people in life who truly do think this way. When considering how to solve a problem, their minds go straight to oppression, bullying, coercion, attack. Do not be this person. We aren’t supposed to live this way, actually. We should be the peacemakers who seek to deal with every situation as Christ would: gently and with love.

It is important to note that those who do this at a minor level will do it at a major one when given the opportunity. Another way to say this is that if you are a bully to classmates, acquaintances (whether on your team or at your church, wherever), then you will grow up to be a childish bully in your workplace, to your spouse, to your kids. The truth is that people do not change so much unless God changes them. Without them submitting to their Creator, they are sure to just be a bigger version of themselves as a teen. I pray you all are submitting to God now so that you can grow older and use your workplace, your marriages, your family to honor the Lord and not bolster your ego.

But regarding the Israelites. They had jobs, homes, families, daily lives that they were living. And suddenly, they were ripped from their lives and forced to be slaves of the Pharoah. This people who actually saved Egypt from being decimated from a famine, this people is being crushed now by the ones they saved.

Cruel Treatment is Our Reality

This is unjust and wrong, yet this is the reality for the people of God. All throughout the Bible we see God’s people treated like garbage due to their faith. It was the prophets who were treated the worst all throughout the Old Testament as they delivered messages from God and were killed and persecuted for it. This narrative leads into the New Testament as Jesus and His disciples are also treated terribly until Jesus is left alone treated poorly by His own disciples. Finally looking at the church, we see God’s people heavily persecuted and wrongfully accused many times leading to them being tortured and even killed.

As Christians, it is foolish to assume that the world is going to treat us great. In America, we struggle with this idea because we have freedom of religion here. However, this will not last forever. I say that because our culture already leans that way. They already want to snuff out the christians and shut them up. They want us to stop being hateful by telling others about Jesus. This is the direction we are going as a nation, we must be prepared to be mistreated even more so.

Some of this is already seen in people like Jack Philips. He is a cake baker who is a believer, and he turned down the business of a homosexual couple because he did not want to support their marriage. This is his conviction as a Christian. Since he has been sued several times and wrongfully accused on how he handled it.

Do not expect the world to love you. Paul warns us of this.

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 3

12 In fact, all who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

As did Jesus.

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 15

18 “If the world hates you, understand that it hated me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. However, because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of it, the world hates you.

To a certain extend, the world should hate you. So don’t expect it to love you unless you hate the Lord.

Verses 15-19 Midwives’ Faithfulness

Midwives

Before we really delve into these verses, let me explain the role of a midwife.

The closest we have to a role like this is nurses who aid in the delivery of babies. In this time and culture, they would have a woman be present whenever another woman was giving birth to essentially help and aid her through the process.

So what happens? Pharoah goes after the babies.

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 1

15 The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives—the first, whose name was Shiphrah, and the second, whose name was Puah—16 “When you help the Hebrew women give birth, observe them as they deliver. If the child is a son, kill him, but if it’s a daughter, she may live.”

Why does he only want the males dead but not the females? There are a few possible reasons, but one of the most obvious is considering war. War is what scared the Pharoah. So how can he cut down Israel as a nation? Remove all their future men/soldiers. And so that is what he sought to do. What Pharaoh does is wicked. It is a vile, evil thing to do. He had no right to take away the lives of these Hebrew boys.

See, evil always goes after children. To take their lives, to indoctrinate them into lies. Evil wants to poison them and kill them. Evil hates new life. Evil hates children. Evil hates babies.

Now, I know this gets a little confusing, morally, because if you look later in Exodus 12, God will take the lives of the firstborn Egyptian males. I will leave you with one thing on this topic:

Pharaoh murdered those Hebrew boys by taking their lives when he had no right to for his own gain.

God took the lives of those whom He created and gave breath in the first place. He is the only One who has the right to take the lives of anyone.

These two things are not the same; in fact, they are much different.

So, Pharaoh commands the Hebrew midwives to kill all the baby boys who are born. Let’s see how this plays out.

Faithfulness Under Pressure

The Bible tells us that these midwives, whose names were Puah and Shiphrah, feared God and did not obey Pharaoh.

These two women did a great thing for God. They risked their own lives in disobeying their “king” in order to be faithful to their true King. God recognizes them for this in simply giving us their names. Notice whose name we do not have — Pharaoh. He is referred to as “pharaoh” and “the king of Egypt,” but never by name. This is a sign of respect and commendation towards these women.

Despite the pressure from their king, they resolve to glorify God in disobeying Pharaoh. Here, we even see that they may have lied in order to protect the babies and themselves.

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 1

17 The midwives, however, feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt had told them; they let the boys live. 18 So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this and let the boys live?”

19 The midwives said to Pharaoh, “The Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife can get to them.”

Was it true that they could not keep up with the Hebrew women? Honestly, we do not know. I would assume not because we see God recognize them in the next verses. This means they did something for Him. In this case, what they “did” was lie to protect the lives of Hebrew boys and themselves.

Is it okay, then, to lie in order to protect others? We see this in the book of Joshua as well when Rahab lies to protect the two Jewish spies in Jericho. She is also commended. This leads us to believe that lying in order to protect another’s life is a reputable act. This is the only case in which lying is okay. Note that I said to protect “life” not anything else.

It is not reputable to lie so that your friend does not get in trouble. That is still sinful and wrong. But if someone comes to your house asking where someone is so that they could cause that person harm, it is not wrong of you to lie to that person to protect someone.

Nonetheless, I would encourage you to look to these Hebrew women as great examples of faith. Before a man who saw himself as god, they disobeyed. They knew this may kill them, but they did it nonetheless.

Are you willing to remain so faithful under so great a pressure?

Verses 20-22 Presence of God

Blessing of Family

We see in verse 20 that God, in response to the Midwives’ faithfulness to God. He is good to the midwives. They are the reason that the second part of this sentence happens: and the people multiplied and became very numerous.

How is God good to them?

Since the midwives feared God, He gave them families.

This is such a sweet verse. God blesses Puah and Shiphrah with families for protecting the families of the Hebrew boys.

This shows us that family and children are blessings. We cannot discount our families, rather we should be grateful for them, sin and all. Our families are a blessing from God that we are supposed to show His love in. So be grateful. Thank God for your family, often.

God is There

Something else we see here is that God is still present in this time. He is observing and acting in this messy, horrible situation. He is not distant. He is not careless. He is there.

It is really easy to ascribe to God the characteristic of being distant and removed. How can he know the suffering I have gone through? He does not know my pain!

God knows your pain more than you know. We can be mad at God for allowing Pharaoh to murder these Hebrew boys and then later take the lives of Egyptian boys, but God sent His only Son to die for everyone in the worst possible way. God knows our suffering even more so because He Himself suffered for our sake.

You are not alone as you suffer. Look at this passage about Jesus Christ — He too suffered.

Isaiah 53 CSB

Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before him like a young plant and like a root out of dry ground. He didn’t have an impressive form or majesty that we should look at him, no appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering who knew what sickness was. He was like someone people turned away from; he was despised, and we didn’t value him. Yet he himself bore our sicknesses, and he carried our pains; but we in turn regarded him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced because of our rebellion, crushed because of our iniquities; punishment for our peace was on him, and we are healed by his wounds. We all went astray like sheep; we all have turned to our own way; and the Lord has punished him for the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth. Like a lamb led to the slaughter and like a sheep silent before her shearers, he did not open his mouth. He was taken away because of oppression and judgment, and who considered his fate? For he was cut off from the land of the living; he was struck because of my people’s rebellion. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, but he was with a rich man at his death, because he had done no violence and had not spoken deceitfully. Yet the Lord was pleased to crush him severely. When you make him a guilt offering, he will see his seed, he will prolong his days, and by his hand, the Lord’s pleasure will be accomplished. After his anguish, he will see light and be satisfied. By his knowledge, my righteous servant will justify many, and he will carry their iniquities. Therefore I will give him the many as a portion, and he will receive the mighty as spoil, because he willingly submitted to death, and was counted among the rebels; yet he bore the sin of many and interceded for the rebels.

Evil Is Still There Too

Despite the good news of God’s presence, this chapter ends on an evil note:

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 1

22 Pharaoh then commanded all his people, “You must throw every son born to the Hebrews into the Nile, but let every daughter live.”

This moved from a command to midwives to a command to all of Egypt. Now we do not know how many Egyptians were complicit in this sin. It does not seem like, however, the Egyptian people are trying to stop Pharaoh from this genocide. Else we would hear of a great rebellion. Are they complicit in this? Did they partake in killing Hebrew boys? We aren’t sure but there is some we can learn from this:

As Christians, it is our job to not stand idly by as evil takes place but to stand up against it. We cannot be a quiet people who are not willing to say no to evil.

Application

Remember the Lord and help others remember

Remain faithful under pressure

Stand up against evil at all costs