Continuing a chronological Bible study set forth by Skip Andrews, we return to a passage in Genesis 47, before continuing with Exodus, chapter 1:
(Genesis 47:27) And Israel dwelt in the land of Egypt, in the country of Goshen; and they had possessions there and grew and multiplied exceedingly.
Genesis 47:27 gives a brief synopsis of Israel (Jacob) and his descendants who remained in Goshen in the land of Egypt and grew and prospered there.
(Exodus 1:1) Now these are the names of the children of Israel who came to Egypt; each man and his household came with Jacob. (2) Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, (3) Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin,
Exodus begins with a recap of the names of the children of Israel (Jacob) who came to Egypt with Jacob. The men's names were listed and it was said their households came with them. The sons of Leah are listed first, followed by Benjamin, son of Rachel, who is mentioned before the rest even though he was the youngest, because they were sons of hand maidens. Joseph, the other son of Rachel, is not mentioned because he was already in Egypt, and did not go there with Jacob.
(4) Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher. (5) And all the souls who came from the loins of Jacob were seventy souls, for Joseph was in Egypt already.
The four sons of the hand maidens are mentioned last. All the people who came to Egypt from Jacob's family numbered 70 people. Genesis 46:26-27 explained how this number was reached. There were 32 souls from Leah's children, including their children; 16 from Leah's maid's children; 7 from Rachel's maid; 11 from Rachel through Benjamin; and three more with Joseph and his two sons who were already in Egypt, and Jacob himself made a total of 70 souls.
(6) And Joseph died, and all his brothers, and all that generation. (7) And the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly, and multiplied and grew exceedingly mighty; and the land was filled with them.
As part of the set-up for the book of Exodus, we are told briefly about Jacob's family in Egypt. That entire generation died, but the children of Israel continued in Egypt, growing abundantly in number and in might.
(8) Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. (9) And he said to his people, “Look, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we; (10) Come on, let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that when there fall out any war, they also join our enemies and fight against us, and so get them out of the land.”
There was a new pharaoh, one who did not know Joseph, or at least did not realize that Egypt had been blessed because of Joseph's faith in God. All he could see were that those children of Israel were now more and mightier than the Egyptians. He seemed to fear that they would eventually fight against the Egyptians and leave Egypt. By that statement, it is obvious that Egypt prospered because of the children of Israel, but Pharaoh didn't connect the dots to understand why. Egypt was blessed because of the former pharaoh's favor upon Joseph, who was blessed by God. Maybe this new pharaoh had heard the children of Israel speak of their eventual return to their promised land in Canaan, and he wanted to devise a plan that would keep them in Egypt.
(11) Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses.
The Egyptians set taskmasters over the children of Israel, captains over burdens, as the word suggests. The burdens were probably heavy forced labors, but the word also means tax burdens. Their burdens may have been a bit of both. The children of Israel were forced into hard labor for little pay because of their high taxes. Their labors profited Pharaoh, and were probably designed to diminish their wealth and their spirits. The children of Israel built "treasure cities" for Pharaoh, Pithom and Raamses, which may have been store or supply cities for treasure. I have read that Pithom might be the same as Pathumus, or Patmos. It is easier to see that Raamses is probably Rameses, and in the words of Biblical scholar Adam Clarke in his Commentary on the Bible, it "is supposed to have been the capital of the land of Goshen, mentioned in the book of Genesis by anticipation; for it was probably not erected till after the days of Joseph, when the Israelites were brought under that severe oppression described in the book of Exodus."
It was from reading Adam Clarke's commentary on this scripture that I learned that some writers of his time or rather up to his time (1762-1832), believed that the Israelites built the pyramids. Why had I never considered this? Perhaps because I bought into the taught secular notion that the pyramids were much older than they probably are. Could the pyramids have been places where Pharaoh laid up his treasures? Indeed, the historian Josephus (37-100 AD) said that the Israelite slaves built the pyramids! “The Egyptians contrived a variety of ways to afflict the Israelites; for they enjoined them to cut a great number of channels for the river, and to build walls for their cities and ramparts, that they might restrain the river, and hinder its waters from stagnating upon its overrunning its own banks; they set them also to build pyramids, and wore them out, and forced them to learn all sorts of mechanic arts, and to accustom themselves to hard labor.” Of course, this makes perfect sense! Secular historians and archaeologists have long pondered how such ancient structures could have been so precisely built in a time predating such engineering and technological knowledge. Some have even wondered if aliens supplied the know-how! They would rather believe in aliens than believe they could have miscalculated the age of the pyramids. There is a great article on this here by answersingenesis.org. It seems so simple an explanation to Bible believers, especially when you consider other scriptures that spoke of the hard labor of the Israelite slaves, and that they were making bricks (Exodus 5). But why would an alien explanation be a surprise from the same secular world that would rather believe that something evolved from nothing rather than believing in a creator God?
(12) But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were grieved because of the children of Israel. (13) And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigor. (14) And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar, in brick, and in all manner of service in the field; all their service in which they made them serve was with rigor.
Evidently the Egyptians thought making the Israelites work much harder under heavy burdens would weaken them, but the more they afflicted them, the more they grew. That grieved the Egyptians and therefore they made their lives bitter with all types of hard labor and made them serve with rigor. The word translated as "rigor" was "perek" and it meant "rigor" or "cruelty", but also came from a root word that meant "fracture" or "break apart", so they were literally trying to break the Israelites with all types of hard labor.
The chronological study I am doing inserted a couple of verses from elsewhere in the Bible to set up what comes next in Exodus 1:
(Numbers 26:59) And the name of Amram's wife was Jochebed, the daughter of Levi, whom her mother bore to Levi in Egypt; and she bore to Amram Aaron and Moses and their sister Miriam.
(Exodus 6:20) And Amram took for himself Jochebed, his father’s sister, as wife; and she bore him Aaron and Moses; and the years of the life of Amram were one hundred and thirty-seven.
This is an example of why I love studying a chronological version of the Bible. With the combination of the two verses above, we get a more complete picture than when reading just one verse. Not only did Amram marry the daughter of Levi, but she was also his father's sister. In the verses leading up to verse 20 in Exodus 6, we learned that Amram was the son of Kohath, who was a son of Levi. Therefore, a son of Kohath married Kohath's sister. That meant that Moses who wrote the first five books of the Old Testament freely admitted that his father took his aunt as wife, something that would become strictly forbidden later as recorded in Leviticus 18:12. This had the potential of being seen as a blot on Moses's family, but I believe this shows that Moses sought to tell the truth, whether or not it made him look good. I have heard current apologist Frank Turek speak of such things as indicators that the Bible is true and not a fabrication. If you were making up a tale, wouldn't you be tempted to leave out the parts that might be embarrassing? Amram, a grandson of Levi, married Jochebed, a daughter of Levi, and she bore him three children, Aaron, Moses, and Miriam. Amram lived to the age of 137. Now back to Exodus 1:
(Exodus 1:15) And the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of whom the name of one was Shiphrah and the name of the other Puah; (16) And he said, “When you do the duties of a midwife for the Hebrew women, and see them on the birth stools, if it is a son, then you shall kill him, but if it is a daughter, then she shall live.”
The hard labor wasn't doing anything to diminish the Israelites, so the king decided to start having babies killed to keep the Israelites from growing "more and mightier" than the Egyptians. He instructed the Hebrew midwives to kill all boy babies as they were being born. Girls could live, but all boys were to be killed by order of the king. In my reading of the old commentaries and of the historical writings of Josephus, I believe the two midwives mentioned in the passage above were probably chiefs among many midwives, and not the only two Hebrew midwives. Also "Hebrew midwives" did not mean they themselves were Hebrew, as they have decidedly Egyptian names according to these early writers, but they were the midwives for the Hebrew women.
(17) But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the male children alive. (18) And the king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this thing, and have saved the male children alive?” (19) And the midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are lively and give birth before the midwives come to them.”
This is one of my favorite passages! As Peter said in the New Testament, the midwives decided they "ought to obey God rather than men". They obeyed God rather than even the king! When the king asked them why they spared the boy babies, they even lied to him saying the Hebrew women were so strong they were giving birth before the midwives got to them.
Is this not a picture of late-term abortions? Is this not a perfect example of the right Godly response to such abhorrent procedures? Obey God rather than man's law when the law is in direct conflict with God's holy laws. There is no doubt that is a baby in the womb, and "thou shalt not kill"! Even if it means lying... But wait, isn't lying against one of the ten commandments of God? I couldn't help but think of the liberals' point of view that performing a wrong is okay if it is for the "greater good". Well, I suppose as long as the things of God are the greater good, and not the things of man that are contrary to God's law... But then I really looked at the commandment against lying. It didn't say "thou shalt not lie". It said not to "bear false witness against thy neighbor". You are not to spread an untruth against another human being! You are not to slander him and gossip about him, thus hurting him or his reputation. You are to love your neighbor! The midwives did not lie against another person, but rather chose to obey God and to love the Hebrew women and their babies in perfect harmony with God's law.
(20) Therefore God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and grew very mighty. (21) And it came to pass, because the midwives feared God, that he made them houses.
God blessed the midwives because of their actions to save the boy babies. Back to the question about whether or not the midwives were sinning and whether or not God blessed sinful behavior--God knows and judges the heart of a person; it says again that the midwives feared God, so their hearts were toward God and doing His will. I am confident that they were not wrong or sinful when they lied to Pharaoh. God blessed the midwives and made them households, which I believe is the intent of the original word used here. Additionally, the Israelite people multiplied and grew mighty, in part because of the actions of the midwives saving the boy babies.
(22) And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, “Every son who is born you shall cast into the river, and every daughter you shall save alive.”
Of course, Pharaoh meant only the Hebrew sons and not "every" son, as killing Egyptian babies would have done nothing to keep the Israelites from growing more and mightier than the Egyptians. When Pharaoh saw that his plan failed with the midwives, he then charged all the people to cast any boy babies into the river that they should come across, but to allow the girls to live.
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