God Speaks
1 These are the names of the sons of Israel (that is, Jacob) who moved to Egypt with their father, each with his family: 2 Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, 3 Issachar, Zebulun, Benjamin, 4 Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher. 5 In all, Jacob had seventy descendants in Egypt, including Joseph, who was already there.
6 In time, Joseph and all of his brothers died, ending that entire generation. 7 But their descendants, the Israelites, had many children and grandchildren. In fact, they multiplied so greatly that they became extremely powerful and filled the land.
8 Eventually, a new king came to power in Egypt who knew nothing about Joseph or what he had done. 9 He said to his people, “Look, the people of Israel now outnumber us and are stronger than we are. 10 We must make a plan to keep them from growing even more. If we don’t, and if war breaks out, they will join our enemies and fight against us. Then they will escape from the country.”
11 So the Egyptians made the Israelites their slaves. They appointed brutal slave drivers over them, hoping to wear them down with crushing labor. They forced them to build the cities of Pithom and Rameses as supply centers for the king. 12 But the more the Egyptians oppressed them, the more the Israelites multiplied and spread, and the more alarmed the Egyptians became. 13 So the Egyptians worked the people of Israel without mercy. 14 They made their lives bitter, forcing them to mix mortar and make bricks and do all the work in the fields. They were ruthless in all their demands.
15 Then Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, gave this order to the Hebrew midwives, Shiphrah and Puah: 16 “When you help the Hebrew women as they give birth, watch as they deliver. If the baby is a boy, kill him; if it is a girl, let her live.” 17 But because the midwives feared God, they refused to obey the king’s orders. They allowed the boys to live, too.
18 So the king of Egypt called for the midwives. “Why have you done this?” he demanded. “Why have you allowed the boys to live?”
19 “The Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women,” the midwives replied. “They are more vigorous and have their babies so quickly that we cannot get there in time.”
20 So God was good to the midwives, and the Israelites continued to multiply, growing more and more powerful. 21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.
22 Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: “Throw every newborn Hebrew boy into the Nile River. But you may let the girls live.”
2 About this time, a man and woman from the tribe of Levi got married. 2 The woman became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She saw that he was a special baby and kept him hidden for three months. 3 But when she could no longer hide him, she got a basket made of papyrus reeds and waterproofed it with tar and pitch. She put the baby in the basket and laid it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile River. 4 The baby’s sister then stood at a distance, watching to see what would happen to him.
5 Soon Pharaoh’s daughter came down to bathe in the river, and her attendants walked along the riverbank. When the princess saw the basket among the reeds, she sent her maid to get it for her. 6 When the princess opened it, she saw the baby. The little boy was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This must be one of the Hebrew children,” she said.
7 Then the baby’s sister approached the princess. “Should I go and find one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?” she asked.
8 “Yes, do!” the princess replied. So the girl went and called the baby’s mother.
9 “Take this baby and nurse him for me,” the princess told the baby’s mother. “I will pay you for your help.” So the woman took her baby home and nursed him.
10 Later, when the boy was older, his mother brought him back to Pharaoh’s daughter, who adopted him as her own son. The princess named him Moses, for she explained, “I lifted him out of the water.”
11 Many years later, when Moses had grown up, he went out to visit his own people, the Hebrews, and he saw how hard they were forced to work. During his visit, he saw an Egyptian beating one of his fellow Hebrews. 12 After looking in all directions to make sure no one was watching, Moses killed the Egyptian and hid the body in the sand.
13 The next day, when Moses went out to visit his people again, he saw two Hebrew men fighting. “Why are you beating up your friend?” Moses said to the one who had started the fight.
14 The man replied, “Who appointed you to be our prince and judge? Are you going to kill me as you killed that Egyptian yesterday?”
Then Moses was afraid, thinking, “Everyone knows what I did.” 15 And sure enough, Pharaoh heard what had happened, and he tried to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in the land of Midian.
When Moses arrived in Midian, he sat down beside a well. 16 Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters who came as usual to draw water and fill the water troughs for their father’s flocks. 17 But some other shepherds came and chased them away. So Moses jumped up and rescued the girls from the shepherds. Then he drew water for their flocks.
18 When the girls returned to Reuel, their father, he asked, “Why are you back so soon today?”
19 “An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds,” they answered. “And then he drew water for us and watered our flocks.”
20 “Then where is he?” their father asked. “Why did you leave him there? Invite him to come and eat with us.”
21 Moses accepted the invitation, and he settled there with him. In time, Reuel gave Moses his daughter Zipporah to be his wife. 22 Later she gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom, for he explained, “I have been a foreigner in a foreign land.”
23 Years passed, and the king of Egypt died. But the Israelites continued to groan under their burden of slavery. They cried out for help, and their cry rose up to God. 24 God heard their groaning, and he remembered his covenant promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 25 He looked down on the people of Israel and knew it was time to act.
Source: New Living Translation: BibleGateway.com
We Respond
Reflection: As this blog begins an interaction with the book of Exodus, two resources are recommended: 1) The Bible Project offers an audio and visual overview of the book, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jH_aojNJM3E, and 2) The Rational Bible: Exodus, (audio or print version) by Dennis Prager gives a faithful Jew’s commentary on this part of the Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. Exodus begins with a list of Abraham’s descendants (the heads of their families are listed) who moved to Egypt. The reader is referred to the last thirteen chapters of Genesis as to how and why. Chapter 1 verse 8 picks up the story as much as 300 years later when a new Pharaoh came to power who didn’t really know the history of his own nation and misinterpreted the reason that the people of Israel were in his country. He considered them a national security risk. His autocratic solution was to enslave them and to kill all the male newborns. Interestingly, it was women who stepped up as the heroes. First, it was the two midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, who stood up to Pharaoh and refused to follow his orders because they feared God. Then, it was Jochebed and Miriam, Moses’ mother and sister respectively, who planned and participated in a daring but counterintuitive plan to save his life when he was about three months old. Finally, there was the princess, Pharaoh’s daughter, who actually saved his life by pulling him from the water and adopting him as her own son. One has to wonder if her father ever found out who Moses really was, and. if so, how he reacted. When Moses grew up, he tried unsuccessfully to stand up for his people as they were being cruelly treated. His ill-conceived plan backfired and led him to flee for his life to Midian, where he rescued his wife-to-be and began a family while working as a shepherd for his father-in-law. After many years had passed and that Pharaoh had died, God saw the suffering and heard the groaning of His chosen people under slavery and decided to act.
Prayer: Dear LORD God, thank You for watching over and guiding the people You have chosen (even before You created the universe). You took about seventy people in one extended family and built them into a mighty nation of over two million people. Please build up what is called “the kingdom of God.” Thank You that You know those who belong to You by faith even if they don’t know it yet. May the proper fear of You empower me with the courage to disobey and/or stand up to powerful superiors who are doing wrong. Please give me creative (even daring) plans to protect those you have put in my care. Please help young children to watch out for their vulnerable siblings. May You guide more people, in positions to do so, to adopt children for whom their birth parents are not able to care. May your chosen leaders rely on Your direction and timing rather than their own perceptions or impulsive ideas. Please mature Your chosen leaders through the discipline of family responsibilities and hard work. Please observe the sufferings and listen to the groanings of Your people in this day and age and take action as You see fit. For Your glory LORD. AMEN
Action: (Ask God, the Holy Spirit, if He wants you to work on one of the suggestions below or something else more personal that He points out.)
- I will take courage and stand up for what is right out of the fear of the LORD.
- I will show compassion on someone who is being rejected by others, even if they are in authority and/or close to me.
- I will not act on my own but ask God to show me how He wants me to handle various situations in my life.
- I will trust God to see my difficulties, feel my pain, and hear my groaning. I know He will take action when and how He knows is best for His glory and my ultimate good.
Share: I plan to share what I’ve learned with __________.