“Into the Wilderness”
A Sermon Series in the Book of Exodus
“The Purpose of God’s Family”
Exodus 1
Introduction
The book of Genesis ends with the Hebrew word for “in Egypt.” Genesis 50: “So Joseph died, being 110 years old. They embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.” And by the time we get to the book of Exodus 400 years have passed where they have been enslaved. “This slavery fulfills the prophecy God gave in Genesis 15:13, which says, ‘Then the LORD said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. 14 But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions.’”[1] There was already a promise of going out of the land, where they would be “servants there.”
The Hebrew title for the book of Exodus comes from two Hebrew words in the text, which are translated as, “And these are the names of . . .” There is a flow from Genesis leaving off being in Egypt and what happened to the descendants of Jacob (and Joseph).[2] Genesis leaves them “in the best of the land” Goshen (Gen. 47:6). The book of Exodus is God keeping his promise – Egypt’s time of judgment has arrived. The desert sand in the hour glass have dropped for four hundred years, and now the last grain of sand has fallen. God always keeps His word.
There is also throughout this book a comparison of the Hebrew God (the Creator God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) against the world’s gods – specifically Egypt’s gods. The pharaoh’s name is never given, because he represents all of Egypt. In these opening verses, the pharaoh who experienced the salvation that came through Joseph’s dreams and the great famine (the skinny cows that devoured the fat cows) were well over four generations ago. The world needs to be reminded (pharaoh thought he was the incarnate Son of Re – the sun god), and God’s people need to be reminded of who the one true God is, and what he is capable of.
Also, Pharoah and Egypt were fooled by Satan into thinking that they were gods, that they ruled the world, but it was Satan behind the scenes. The Hebrew people were Yahweh’s chosen people, they were promised a land of milk and honey, and they were going to multiply and increase. So, Pharoah says, no, I am god, you will serve me not Him, and you aren’t going anywhere – you will be mine.
Prayer
One Family Can Change the World (vv. 1-7)
(And) These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob, each with his household: 2 Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, 3 Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin, 4 Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher. 5 All the descendants of Jacob were seventy persons; Joseph was already in Egypt. 6 Then Joseph died, and all his brothers and all that generation. 7 But the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them.
The world was built around a family (Adam and Eve). So when Satan attacked God’s creation, he attacked the created order. Satan went to Eve, insinuated that Adam had lied to her (“Did God really say, . . .”). Satan’s goal was to destroy the family because it is the basic building block of humanity. Here in Exodus, we see another attack against God’s plan, here the plan is for the redemption of mankind through a family.
In Genesis 12:2-3 God promises that Abraham and his descendants would become a great nation, and the Savior promised in Genesis 3 would come through his family, “And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
The Israelites were increasing in number because God was blessing them. Where it says, “they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them.” It’s the same word used in Genesis to describe hordes of marine or animal life (Gen. 1:20, 7:21).[3] He was blessing them because they played a major role in the redemption of mankind. They were increasing at an amazing, miraculous number.
The family grew from one man and his wife (Jacob/Israel), to their sons and families (the twelve tribes), and an initial family of seventy persons. From this group now, when we arrive in Exodus, are over a million – it is a nation. God has blessed Abraham and has kept His promise to make him a great nation. But will they bless the entire world with a Savior – that has not happened yet (in the story), and for Satan that has to be stopped.
The story moves from a mentioning a family to now referring to them as a nation. But also, “Joseph died, and all his brothers and all that generation.” – all the previous generation and even the great leader and dreamer Joseph were gone . . . “The writer is somewhat emphatic to show the Israelites that “who you are now” must be understood in connection with “who came before you and who they were.”[4]
Isaac, Jacob, Abraham, Esther, Ruth, Noah, Peter, Paul, John, Matthew – these are not just stories – these were people of faith that have passed down God’s Word and what it means to be a follower of the One true God – the same God is with us now, as was with them centuries ago. And we will pass it on to the next generation.
The purpose of God’s Family is to remain faithful to God (despite circumstances),
and to pass on His truth to the next generation.
The Worse Things Get, the Stronger God’s Family Becomes (1:8-22)
Slavery
8 Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.[5] 9 And he said to his people, “Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us. 10 Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.” 11 Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens. They built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and lRaamses. 12 But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel. 13 So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves 14 and made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work in the field. In all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves.
(v. 8) “Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph” – another way to translate this verse is to say, “who chose not to know about Joseph.”[6] It is in the historical record, carved in hieroglyphs – but he chose not to take history into account. The new generation chose not to take into account the historical knowledge of the previous generations. That pride would lead to the deaths of countless people.
The new pharaoh is trying to control the Hebrew people, because he is concerned that if their number become too great, then they will “fight against us and escape from the land” – the fear is not that they will take over; they have a prophecy of a promised land, and they have made it known that want to leave.
The Egyptians don’t want to lose their slave labor force. So, to keep them from rebelling, conspiring, and multiplying, they afflicted them with heavy burdens as slaves. Again, there is God blessing the Israelites and them becoming a nation, But “under a regime of slavery, subjects become objects. The Hebrews, who have been identified as a people, are in the process of losing their identity.”[7]
The Egyptians in their attempt to deal shrewdly with God’s people, and they came up with a plan to keep them from multiplying by enslaving them. Like the crack of a whip, we see these words through text, afflict them, heavy burdens, oppressed, ruthlessly, slaves, bitter, hard service, work in the field, crack, crack, crack. The goal of slavery was to “bend them down, . . .to crush their spirit, so as to banish their very wish for liberty.”[8] But the harder they oppressed, the more they increased.
Psalm 105:25 “Then Israel came to Egypt; Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham. 24 And the LORD made his people very fruitful and made them stronger than their foes. 25 He turned their hearts to hate his people, to deal craftily with his servants.”
Why would God allow His people to go through such a horrific and difficult time? God would show His power and might in the chapters to come, surely He had the power to stop it. Why slavery? God intentionally turned the Egyptians against the Israelites.
(1) To Keep Them Detached. Look what happens in the later books about God’s people: When left on their own, when warned not to marry foreign women, or take on the cultures of the people around them, when warned by prophet after prophet to keep God’s ways, they again and again go away from God.
(2) To Keep Them Distinct. They could not be God’s distinct people, if they took on the ways of the Egyptians – which they would have, if left on their own.[9] Before we get onto the OT believers, the church has a tendency to do the same thing. When Christians are left alone, when they are not persecuted and oppressed – they don’t read their Bibles, they don’t share their faith, they tend to overlook sin and eventually whole countries which were previously devout Christian nations now are some the most lost places in the world. But when the church is persecuted, it flourishes; it becomes doctrinally sound, and believers take their faith very seriously.
(3) To Keep Them Wanting to Depart. Also, another reason for their suffering was if they had simply blended in with the Egyptian culture, worked alongside of them, raised their families as neighbors, would they have ever desired to leave Egypt? If things are wonderful why do we need God? Suffering drove them to realize their need for a Savior, a Deliverer. The hardest people to reach with the gospel are the rich and worldly successful – because they don’t believe they need anything.
Even with the incredible suffering, it doesn’t take very long of being free before the people, say “we want to go back.” Slavery forced them to stay together and isolated long enough to grow into a great nation, and suffering pushed them to leave. If we never suffer, we will never long to see heaven or be with the Lord.
(4) To Give Others A Chance to Repent. We also get a clue in Genesis 15:16 where God was promising Abraham that he would be a great nation, and they would have a land flowing with milk and honey, but they will have to be in bondage “And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” God has a plan for everyone, and in this instance the Israelites had to wait because there was something else going on with another group.[10] The Amorites had four hundred years to turn to the one true God, but there was a limit – God’s grace was being given.
(5) So that God’s people can identify with those who have been enslaved and experience death, “The recalling of oppression is to lead to an identification with those who suffer.”
There are many reasons why God allowed the Hebrew people to suffer, some we will never know, but what we see is that God uses suffering, it has a purpose. For His people it is always redemptive. Also, the pharaoh said, “Come, let us deal shrewdly with them,” the wisdom of this world, is fooled into thinking that it can stop the plans of the Lord, 1 Corinthians 3:19 “For the wisdom of this world is folly with God.”
Suffering pushes us away from the world and toward God’s plan.
Then things got much worse . . .
Genocide
15 Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, 16 “When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live.” 17 But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live. 18 So the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this, and let the male children live?” 19 The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.” 20 So God dealt well with the midwives. And the people multiplied and grew very strong. 21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. 22 Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.”
When slavery didn’t work to control the population size, pharaoh turned to slaughter. His first attempt is to have the midwives secretly kill the boys as they are being delivered. But the midwives, refuse to do it. When asked about when they were not following the orders, they lied – “they always give birth before the midwife can arrive (so they can’t secretly kill them as they are being delivered.) The irony of their response to pharaoh is that the women are in such good shape, that when it’s time for delivery, they have the baby so fast, they push the child out like an Olympic athlete – how are they in such good shape? They carry bricks all day.
The midwives did what they could to protect innocent life. “So God dealt well with the midwives.” (vv. 17, 21) “But the midwives feared God . . . And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families.” – The midwives were commanded to destroy life, they honored God above all other authorities and so were rewarded with a family. God gave them what they were unwilling to take from someone else. They refused to take the life of an innocent, so they were rewarded with the gift they knew was worthy of fighting for. “Their reverence for life reflected a reverence for God.”[11] That reverence for God resulted in their being a house of Shiphrah and a house of
So when secret killing doesn’t work – Pharaoh then gives the order for open genocide, “Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile.” Why males and not females if the goal is population control? Genesis 3:15 “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” Pharoah doesn’t understand how he is being manipulated, but Satan knows that the redeemer is through this chosen people’s bloodline. His goal is to keep them from being what God has designed them to be.
“Such noncompliance with the law on humanitarian grounds is rooted in a creation theology.”[12] When you don’t have a God of creation theology, then to flinging babies into a river becomes much easier – they are subhuman, slaves, cattle. They are not like us.
“Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile. ” “All Egypt has been recruited to destroy the population explosion of the enemy.”[13] The Egyptian people had to go along with this order, for it to be accepted. The nation went along with a genocide of countless babies – did they believe that there would not come a day of reckoning.
Exodus 12:29-30 “At midnight the LORD struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock. 30 And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians. And there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where someone was not dead.” The Egyptians were made to suffer in the same way that the Israelites had suffered.
There are two enemies of God’s people bondage (sin) and death. Once we are captured, bound in sin, it will always lead to death. What God’s people needed was a savior, to free them from their bondage and live. John 8:34 “Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.” That sin that we are slaves to results in death, Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Satan attacks two big things in the opening chapter of Exodus, the family,
and God’s people fulfilling their purpose.
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[1] John D. Curid, A Biblical-Theological Introduction to the Old Testament (Wheaton, Illinois; Crossway Publishing, 2016) 69.
[2] Hebrews 11:22 “By faith Joseph, at the end of his life, made mention of the exodus of the Israelites and gave directions concerning his bones.” Joseph showed faith by giving directions to take his bones with the people when leave at the Exodus. He knew God would keep his promise, and he wanted to be buried with his people.
[3] F. B. Huey Jr., A Study Guide Commentary, Exodus (Grand Rapids, Michigan; Zondervan Publishing, 1977) 20.
[4] Peter Enns, The NIV Application Commentary, Exodus (Grand Rapids, Michigan; Zondervan Publishing House, 2000) 45.
[5] Similar to our remembering things from 1624.
[6] Brevard S. Childs, The Old Testament Library, The Book of Exodus, A Critical Commentary (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; The Westminter Press, 1974) 5.
[7] Terence E. Fretheim, Interpretation, A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, Exodus (Louisville, Kentucky; John Knox Press, 1991) 29.
[8] C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament in Ten Volumes, Volume 1 (Grand Rapids, Michigan; William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1985) 422.
[9] Philip Graham Ryken, Preaching the Word, Exodus, Saved for God’s Glory (Wheaton, Illinois; Crossway Publishing, 2015) 32.
[10] Arthur W. Pink, Gleanings in Exodus (Chicago, Illinois; Moody Press, 1977) 11. see also1 Thess. 2:16
[11] Frank E. Gaebelein, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Volume 2 (Grand Rapids, Michigan; Zondervan Publishing, 1990) 306.
[12] Fretheim, 32.
[13] Childs, 17.
