EXODUS, EGYPT AND EMPIRE

By Jill Roberts and Michael Canalé

 

Michael and I want to thank you, our fearless readers, for hanging in with us through over six months in Genesis! We believe this study was an eye opener as to our God. Michael’s idea for this series of blogs has always been to,

 

“Show that the God of the Old Testament is a God of Love.”

 

How clearly this has been revealed!

 

It has been a journey that will forever dispel any thoughts of God as impatient and judgmental. Maybe it has been a surprise to all of us just how truly long suffering He is. His mercy was so great that it even had us “wondering,” as Michael so astutely pointed out and affirmed.

 

Now, we turn to the next Old Testament Book, Exodus. Certainly, Moses is the central person in this amazing chronicle of the Israelites exodus from Egypt, as well as all that followed it, both physically and spiritually. Next week, we will begin with Moses, the icon who is central in the theology of many Faiths.

 

But, first, Michael and I believe that it is critical to firmly establish the setting into which Moses was born. What was Egypt like at this point in history?

 

When we left our Biblical story, last week, Egypt and its Pharaoh were the solution to Jacob/Israel’s life-threatening problem – famine. Because of Joseph and his deliverance of Egypt, itself, from starvation, this Pharaoh’s largesse toward Joseph and his family, was endless. They were welcomed with every accommodation for their health and happiness. And so, they and Joseph decided to stay on in Egypt, even after the famine was only a bad memory. While understandable, this decision was, at the end of the day, very ill-advised.

 

We pick up In Exodus, Chapter One:

 

“Now Joseph and all that generation died, but the Israelites were exceedingly fruitful; they multiplied greatly, increased in numbers and became so numerous that the land was filled with them.”

(Exodus 1:6-7) NIV

 

You recall what God told Abram long before:

 

“Look up at the sky and count the stars — if indeed you can count them.’ Then he said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be.”

(Genesis 15:5) NIV

 

So, God’s covenant promises were coming true, as they always do. The problem was, they were coming true in Egypt. We continue in Exodus:

 

“Then a new king, TO WHOM JOSEPH MEANT NOTHING, came to power in Egypt. “Look,’ he said to his people, ‘the Israelites have become far too numerous for us. Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.”

(emphasis added)

(Exodus 1: 8-10) NIV

 

With this thought, the tide turned for the Israelite generations after Joseph and his family. Though they were once honored, now they became objects of hatred and suspicion. So, as the above-cited verses state, Egypt decided that they must be dealt with.

 

As a result of the change of regime and leader, life became very difficult for the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The Egyptians made a move that altered everybody’s lives:

 

“So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor..,But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread.”

(Exodus 1:11-12) NIV

 

This deepened the animosity of Egypt:

 

“…so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites and worked them ruthlessly. They made their lives bitter with harsh labor in brick and mortar and all kinds of work in the fields; in all their harsh labor, the Egyptians worked them ruthlessly.”

(Exodus 1:12-14) NIV

 

The mistreatment of God’s Chosen People was ordered in despicable manners and from the very top:

 

“The King of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives…When you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.”

(Exodus 1:15-16)NIV

 

However, these were HEBREW midwives. They worshiped God:

 

“The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the King of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live.

Then the King of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, ‘Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?’

The midwives answered Pharaoh, ‘Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.”

(Exodus 1;17-19) NIV

 

The midwives rebelled against the Pharaoh and God was pleased. One might ask, How did God lead them to respond as they did to this powerful leader? Michael answers this question well:

 

“God would lead by letting you think.”

 

God greatly rewards us when we do this:

 

“So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.”

(Exodus 1:20-21) NIV

 

When all of this continued, Pharaoh reacted viciously:

 

“Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: ‘Every Hebrew boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.”

(Exodus 1:22 (NIV

 

Noted modern theologian, N.T. Wright, in his study of Exodus, states,

 

“Power without character constitutes EMPIRE.”

(emphasis added)

 

Empire is defined in Collins-English Dictionary as,

 

“Supreme control, absolute sway over a state and its territories and over the minds of the people under that supreme control.”

 

N.T Wright sets forth,

 

“We are not meant to accommodate ourselves to empire. Likewise, the people of God will not make sense to the forces of empire.”

 

In other words, God wants us to look to Him for the last word on life and conduct, not to any government, any empire, regardless of how wise and benevolent, Certainly, with regard to the evil empire of this Pharaoh, the Pharaoh who didn’t know Joseph, the Israelites were not to acquiesce. Like the midwives, they were to stay apart from the values of the leader under whose empire they were living. They did this, maintaining their integrity, pleasing God and, thereby being multiplied by Him.

 

Secondly, the people of God will never make sense to the empire leader or those under his sway. This is proven over and over In Exodus and, truly, throughout Scripture. It is nonsense to them.

 

Michael defines the word nonsense:

 

“Nonsense doesn’t mean negative. It means you have to make sense of it.”

 

We do this everyday. We do this in interpreting Scripture. We study it and the Holy Spirit comes alongside us and helps us to understand and make sense of it.

 

Consistently, the difference with the Pharaoh was that the God of the Israelites just made no sense to him. HE desired to rule. He detested the idea of bending his knee to anyone. He was a man of empire – EGYPT, HIS EMPIRE. When it came to God’s people, he just didn’t get it.

 

Michael says,

 

“There are so many ways to grab the heart.”

 

God reaches out to us in a million ways. He wants so much to “grab the heart” of each person on Earth. With the Pharaoh, this was no exception. God wanted his heart as much as any person. He put the God-fearing Hebrew people right under his nose. Yet, he could only see himself and his empire station in life.

 

We will see this revealed repeatedly in the forthcoming chapters. We will surely find this Book to be a landmark Biblical exposition of good versus evil.

 

Michael and I are struck by the story that will unfold in next week’s blog. You recall that the Pharaoh ordered that every Hebrew newborn boy was to be murdered by being thrown into the Nile River. The Nile was to be these babies’ burial ground. Yet, in our next chapter of Exodus, a Hebrew baby boy will be lovingly placed in a basket by his mother and put where? In the Nile River – in the reeds alongside the bank. He would be found by the Pharaoh’s daughter and rescued. He would be raised so close to Pharaoh- right under his nose in his palace. His name? Moses! Out of the Nile, the river of death, would come the deliverer of Israel. What irony! What glory!