The book of Genesis closes with the record of Joseph and his family in Egypt due
to the famine in Canaan (Ex 1:5). The book of
Exodus opens, not with a family but a nation. God had already fulfilled the first part of His Promise
to Abraham. God promised Abraham that He would make him a
great nation and make his name exceedingly great (Gen 12:2). When faced with
doubt and despair concerning who would be his heir, Abraham was commanded by
God to look at the stars and try to number them. “So shall your seed be”, God
promised (Gen 15:5). Ex 1:7 records the extent of their greatness. The family
of 70 had grown into a nation numbering millions because God fulfilled His
Promise to Abraham.
However, trouble was on the horizon. Joseph, his father
and brothers and all that generation passed away and there came a time when a
new king rose to power in Egypt, one who had no remembrance of Joseph. The
Bible does not record the length of time that passed before this new Pharoah
came to power or the reasons surrounding the Egyptian royal dynasty’s
forgetfulness of Joseph’s benevolent rule. Perhaps, it was because the nation of Israel
at its zenith had themselves forgotten how they came to be in Egypt. Maybe they
got too comfortable in Egypt, forgetting that their inheritance was not to be
in that land, but rather in Canaan. They were a powerful, blessed and great
nation but God’s entire Promise was not yet fulfilled. God desired that they
should have their own land and that He would be their King, not a Pharoah.
Sometimes, God’s Plan for us is different from our own. He has a better plan and will intervene in
mysterious ways to accomplish His Will. Joseph understood that the destiny of
his people was not to be in Egypt, favourable though the conditions may have
been. In a prophetic utterance before his death, he asked that his bones be
carried to Canaan when God visited His people to fulfil the next portion of His
Promise to Abraham i.e. their own land! (Gen 50:25-26).
The new Pharoah sought to subjugate the nation of
Israel. He saw them not as a great ally, but a potential enemy. He made them
slaves in Egypt, building the store cities of Raamses and Pithom. It was Joseph
who through God’s wisdom had invented store cities! Pharoah also requested the
Israelite midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, to kill all infant Hebrew boys and only
let the girls live. He sought to weaken Israel, hoping all the older men would
die under the harsh conditions of slavery and they would be a nation of women!
The midwives however, chose to obey God instead of Pharoah and God honoured
them by rewarding them with families and households of their own. Pharoah was
on a collision course with God’s Promise and God’s Will for His people and he
was fighting a losing battle. Despite the affliction of slavery and the command
to kill the infant sons of Israel, Israel blossomed and multiplied under the
hand of a gracious God. How ironical that the Bible makes mention of the lowly,
God-fearing Hebrew midwives by name but fails to mention the reigning monarch
by his name! The lowliest of God’s servants are honoured by Him more than kings
(Ex 1:8, 15-21)
Scripture refs: Exodus 1
