The Israelites and Moses in Egypt (Exodus 1-2).

God promised Abraham multiple descendants and a homeland to bless the world (Gen. 12:1-3). The blessing would come through Abraham’s son, Isaac, and through Isaac’s son, Jacob. Jacob had twelve sons but due to a famine they end up in Egypt where they are taken care of by Jacob’s son, Joseph, who rose to power in Egypt. The 'Book of Exodus' begins with Israel multiplying but becoming slaves in Egypt. Pharaoh sought to exterminate the Hebrew baby boys, but God was raising up Moses who would rescue Israel from Egyptian bondage. In this story we find God shaping the life of Israel’s future deliverer and working in severe circumstances through ordinary people to accomplish God’s good purpose for His people. Watch or listen to the story here and read the comments. https://www.dropbox.com/s/hpnmt401rjyke90/16.%20The%20Israelites%20and%20Moses%20in%20Egypt..MP3?dl=0 

Joseph and his brothers died but the Abrahamic blessing continued because Israel became exceedingly numerous though they were in Egypt. A new Pharaoh, who didn’t know or care about Joseph, came to power in Egypt who thought the Israelites were too numerous. He feared they would fight with their enemies against Egypt and leave the country.  They put slave masters over Israel and forced them to build store cities for Pharaoh. The Egyptians worked Israel ruthlessly in ‘brick and mortar (See Gen. 11:3)’ and in their fields. Joseph had built great stores of grain for Egypt so that both Egypt and Jacob’s family flourished despite the famine. But when Joseph was forgotten the Pharaoh forced Israel to build him store cities. With God’s help Israel was multiplying and with Israel’s help Egypt was prospering. 

Yet, Pharaoh oppressed the Israelites, but the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and Egypt came to ‘dread’ them (Exodus 1:12). The Pharaoh sought to eliminate the Israelites as a distinct people by commanding the Hebrew midwives to kill the Hebrew baby boys. But the midwives didn’t obey Pharaoh and God gave the midwives families of their own because they feared God more than Pharaoh. A Levite couple had a son, who was a fine child, and they hid him for three months until they could hide him no longer. The mother waterproofed a basket with tar and pitch (see Gen.6:14), put her child in the basket, and placed it along the banks of the Nile as the child’s sister stood by to see what would happen to him (Exodus 2:1-4).

Pharaoh’s daughter, who came to the river to bath, sees the basket and has her slave girl retrieve it. They find a Hebrew baby crying and she feels sorry for the child. She sends the baby’s sister to get a Hebrew woman to nurse the baby. Ironically, the Pharaoh’s daughter ends up rescuing the child and paying the baby’s own mother to nurse him. When the child grew older he became the son of Pharaoh’s daughter and she named him Moses, saying, “I drew him out of the water.” God’s chosen deliverer of Israel, Moses, would actually become the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. As an adult Moses was watching the Israelites at their forced labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, so Moses looked around, killed the Egyptian and hid the body in the sand. The next day Moses saw two Hebrews fighting and he asked the one in the wrong why he was hitting a fellow Hebrew. The man said, “Who made you ruler and judge… are you going to kill me like you killed the Egyptian?” Moses realized people knew about what he had done (Exodus 2:11-15). 

When Pharaoh found out what Moses had done he tried to kill Moses, who fled to live in Midian. In Midian, Moses was sitting by a well when the seven daughters of the priest of Midian came to draw water for their flock. Some shepherds tried driving them away, but Moses rescued them and watered their flock. The girls returned home and explained to their father how the Egyptian rescued them from the shepherds and watered their flock. Moses ends up staying with them and the man gives Moses his daughter, Zipporah, to be Moses wife. Moses and Zipporah had a son, and Moses named him Gershom, saying, “I’m an alien in a foreign land.” Now during this time the king of Egypt died and the Israelites groaned in their slavery. Their cry for help went up to God, who heard their groaning, and remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob (Exodus 2:16-25).

The Israelites greatly increased in number even outside Canaan in a strange land. The Pharaoh who knew not Joseph oppressed forced hard labor upon the Israelites but the more they were oppressed the more they multiplied. The Pharaoh tasked the Hebrew midwives with exterminating the Hebrew baby boys but they feared God and refused to obey Pharaoh. Then when Pharaoh told his own people to eliminate the Hebrew baby boys, Moses was born. Then when his parents could hide him no longer, it was the Pharaoh’s own daughter actually rescued Moses. Throughout the story the Israelites are challenged to trust that God was working out His plan and God was working out His plan through rather ordinary or even unlikely people. The purpose of God triumphed for when Israel was oppressed they multiplied. When the midwives feared God then not only did Israel become more numerous but God gave the midwives their own families. When Pharaoh commanded his people to throw the Hebrew baby boys in the Nile it was Pharaoh’s own daughter who rescued Moses. Now the Old Testament rescuer, Moses, points us to the Lord Jesus Christ who through his death and resurrection rescues God’s people from sin and death and Satan.