Drawn Out 2

Opening

The book of Exodus treats God in an interesting way. God is an interesting character in this book. He enters right into the story. So there is something explicitly said about God in this book, but there is also some underlying truths the weave into the text.

Go back to chapter 1.

Exodus 1:15–22 NIV

The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, “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.” The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live. Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?” The midwives answered Pharaoh, “Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.” So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own. 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.”

Underlying truths in this text is something odd, and telling. 1st when this was written by Moses there was no moral structure that painted slavery as wrong. There was no nation that was morally above slavery, not moral code was established that would indicate something that we in 2025 read into the text. Of course slavery is wrong, it strips people of their purpose, identity, solidarity. We know that, and so does this story in Exodus.

It is oppression, it is evil. This tells us about God. God sees this as evil, God see