The word "Exodus" simply means departure and this grand book describes the departure of Israel from the place of their captivity to the Land of freedom and inheritance that God had promised them. Last week, we looked into Genesis and Exo 1:1-7 to study “the people of God’ and “the problem of place”. Genesis is so important in helping us read Exodus because Exodus begins in the middle of a story. The story of Genesis is about two families, beginning with Adam and Eve -- the family of the "seed of the woman" and faith, and the family of the serpent and his offspring (c.f. Gen 3:15) who are locked in enmity. Throughout Genesis, you can see the 2 families in every generation -- one for faith in God, and one opposing faith. Some examples include Abel and Cain, Abraham and the men of Babel, Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, and Joseph and his brothers.
Exo 1:8-22 picks up the same theme and we will see again 2 different families, and two different ways of looking at the world. For us, we can think about the two different views of looking at the world. If we claim to be Christians of the family of faith, then which perspective truly informs our understanding of the world?
(A) Who are the people of God – special ones or slaves?
In Exo 1:8, a new king over Egypt arose and we are told specifically that this king “did not know Joseph”. The writer expects us to know Genesis and Joseph’s contribution to Egypt. The simple assumption that the Bible writer has for Bible reading is that the later books depend on the earlier books to tell their story -- we need Genesis in order to understand Exodus. So what was Joseph’s connection to Egypt? Gen 47:13-28 is helpful in explaining this for us. By the start of Exodus, the Egyptian people had forgotten this significant Prime Minister who had saved the land of Egypt. Joseph contributed greatly to the history of Egypt, but the era of Joseph was gone.
In Exo 1:9-12, we see the contest between 2 characters -- Pharaoh and God -- for the life of Israel. The actions of both characters can be traced out in the verses: :
We see that this opening scene is a contest of power. God has said that He will bless this people, this small family. He has promised to make them great and give them a land. But Pharaoh sees their prosperity and spreading as a threat to his power and security. This is the first problem of Exodus, an external problem poised against the people and purposes of God. (Exodus also has an internal problem, but we'll save that for later). To fulfill his plan, Pharaoh acts, and he does so shrewdly. The passage shows how Pharaoh's reasoning is clear and logical, and in order to protect his interests, defend himself, and prosper, he acts "shrewdly" by enslaving. But as Pharaoh acts, so does God. The God who makes promises to Israel may be the God who has allowed them to become slaves to Egypt, but He also responds in a measure for measure manner to Pharaoh's actions (Exo 1:12). He responds in blessing and prosperity -- the more Pharoah enslaves, the more the God of blessing pours our His favor. God is at work in the world, sometimes in ways we cannot understand. His people are special to Him, even though He lets them become slaves.
Does it surprise you that this is the description of the people of God? On the face of it, circumstantial evidence may point to them as people who are oppressed and living hard lives under foreign rule. You may have thought they were cursed. But who are the people of God, really? Yes, they are slaves, but they are also people that He has made a promise to!
In the same way, who are Christians? The Bible says that we are the new covenant people of God, the true Israel. Do you believe that God has plucked us out and has set His affections on us based on what God has said, or how we stand in the eyes of the world? Are Christians viewed as God's precious ones, or are they threats to the world and outsiders? Is the way that you see God’s people the same as the way that God does (c.f. Ps 16:3), or is it the way of the world? This truth applies directly to the church, even when it appears downtrodden and victimised. We must not see God's people the way the world does, but as God sees them. When we forget this, we ride anxiety like an emotional roller coaster as we base our identities on the approval and praise of man. God has set His affections on His people, and He has made an eternal promise to them that cannot be broken. Even in slavery, they are special to Him and He's not done yet.
(B) What’s going on – slaughter or salvation?
The king of Egypt hatched a plot to control the Israelite population (Exo 1:15-16). He planned to kill male babies, and enlisted the help of Hebrew midwives to do it and kill their own. But we are told that the midwives feared God and did not do as Pharaoh wanted (Exo 1:17). The text is written in such a way that shows us how their fear of God led to their refusal to comply. In this verse, the word “God” also appears for the first time. In Exo 1:21, the fear of the Lord led to their blessing.
Once again we see how there are 2 competing agendas and 2 voices. For the midwives, the fear of the Lord led to a different way of viewing the world, and shaped their decisions to obey God instead of Pharaoh too. Prov 16:9 tells us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom because it helps us discern the right choice and respond to the voice of the Lord. The driving motivation of our hearts is to obey and follow whom we fear the most. What drives your decisions?
In a fairy tale, we'd expect that the courageous rebellion of the midwives would change the situation and the Israelites would be saved from this calamity. Yet, ironically, their actions do not change anything and things get even worse In Exo 1:22, Pharaoh tells his people, the Egytprians to finish the job instead and commands them to throw the Israelite baby boys in the Nile. The Nile was a symbol of Egypt's fertility, lifeline and power, and offering the babies to the Nile was a way of offering up sacrifices and worship to Egyptian deities. By doing so Pharaoh was demonstrating his power and control over the Israelites. It would seem that the midwives' courageous protests had no effect, none at all.
But the midwives actually show us that even if our obedience and decisions don't count for anything in the grand scheme of things, God still knows and cares. After they obey Him, He blesses them with families. Godfearing actions here may not have saved the Israelites, but it had won them the favor and approval of God. How about us? While we try and fear God, we may hope that our actions will save the day. But what if we find that our actions result in absoluetly nothing? What if the purpose for our lives and all we do is really for nothing? The fear of the Lord God is a blessing in and of itself. This is a lesson the midwives teach us. We must fear God, because it is the right thing to do.
(C) What explains your life – God’s story or man’s?
From Pharaoh and the midwives, we have seen two different worldviews in Exodus. What are these two contrasting ways of seeing the world? The table below summarises how each worldview leads to a different answers to each question.
Exodus reminds us that spiritual warfare rages on in the every day. There is a contest in our lives too, to see things God's way and the world's way. Which one is your view more aligned to? Do you trust God even in the midst of hardships and resolve to obey Him because of the fear of the Lord? Or is your life a matter of shrewd-decision making, a survival of the fittest, and you need to look out for your own interests, worrying about your days and fearing tomorrow? A God-centered view knows that there nothing outside of God's control, not even current affairs, politics, population changes etc, and He is the one we must fear. Many of us may be living our lives like Pharaoh. We live without God, and try to deal shrewdly with things, pressing on with our agendas and plans. Ps 14 is a warning that the fool who lives his own life lives in perpetual fear because everything depends on him. Are you, like Pharaoh, the fool of Ps 14?
Israel, the family of faith looks to the "offspring of the woman" as it grows, and eventually, from that family comes forth one man, whose entire life was devoted, not to shrewdness, but to fearing God, like the midwives. In His deepest struggle, He would still say, “not my will but yours”. Heb 11:6 tells us that this God-fearing man endured the cross for the joy set before Him, which was the approval of God for His obedience. This man is Jesus, who brought about the true Exodus, not merely from physical slavery, but from a slavery to sin and death. Exo 1 lays out 2 roads for us. One road leads to life and true salvation, but the other leads to death and being hurled into the sea. Which will you choose? Which worldview informs your life today?