EXODUS 40. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407

Authorship: See Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties. p. 112 concerning Mosaic authorship.

D. Moses travels back to Egypt and meets his people, the Jews, and his brother, Aaron. Ex. 4:20-31

The Great Metaphor of Israel being taken out of Egypt: As I was in the middle of my study of Psalm 47, I suddenly connected it to the history of Israel. Then, a lot of why’s suddenly began to be answered. God has Jacob and his family in the Land of Promise; why does He remove them from the Land of Promise, put them into Egypt, and then take them out? There are several reasons: (1) this is an unprecedented event in history, known to the entire world. It was clear to the world that the God of Israel was more powerful than the gods of Egypt, the most powerful nation of the world at that time. (2) God then gave the Land of Promise to Israel, which involved the destruction of a variety of nations, show His superiority over their gods. Anyone outside the Land of Promise could hear about these events and recognize their God as the God of Creation, and believe in Him. (3) A great reason for God choosing these sets of events is also metaphorical. As men, we are born in subjection to sin with no way to remove ourselves from slavery to sin. God makes Himself known to us and He takes those of us who believe in Him out of our slavery to sin.

After this point, some men die in the desert, not appropriating to themselves by faith what God has promised. Some seize this promise and take all that God has for them (the Land of Promise) along with the many blessings which God has for them in this life. This is the generation of believers who believe God after salvation and advance spiritually. In the book of Exodus through the book of Numbers, we will see the first generation of Jews, which I will call Gen X, who fail time and time again and who die the sin unto death in the desert, never reaching the Land of Promise which God has promised them (well, they reach it and they back down). The next generation, the generation of promise, those who came out of Egypt being 20 and younger, believe God and believe His promises, and they will take the Land of Promise and all there which God has for them (houses they did not build, wells they did not dig, a land flowing with milk and honey). As believers in Jesus Christ, we are taken out of slavery to sin, but then we have a life to lead after that. Some believers fail time and time again; some believers do not believe God, and some are taken out of this life by the sin unto death. Others believe God and seize what He has promised, and end up with great prosperity and blessing.

Theory Regarding Egypt: One of the problems in the exodus is the lack of corroboration of evidence from Egypt. We have no Egyptian records indicating that there was this great exodus of Jews from their land; nor one of the great devastation which occurred. In fact, we do not even know which pharaoh was the pharaoh of the exodus. I’ve got a theory, and I do not know how accurate this is, but: the Egyptians suffered an embarrassingly decisive defeat at the hands of their slaves, the Israelites. What occurred was unprecedented in human history. Slave revolts do not result in the complete decimation of the country of their masters. There is no indication that the pharaoh died—only his firstborn—my thinking is that this was such an embarrassment that the Egyptian government did everything possible to cover it up. It is even possible that the pharaoh of the exodus was expunged from Egyptian history and the pharaoh’s on both sides were given longer reigns to take up the slack. We have seen history rewritten in the United States and we have definitely seen it rewritten in the Soviet Union—so it is not a stretch to think that perhaps the rewriting of history has been done before and that is what occurred here. Also, Satan does not want records of this. He does not want us to clearly look back and see the power of God; and Satan certainly played a big part in the history and culture of Egypt, being closely tied into its religion. So, a combination of Satanic influence and human and national pride would result in events of the exodus being expunged from the history of Egypt.

Exodus 1

Exodus 1:1–22

Introduction: Exodus picks up 100–300 years after the death of Joseph and follows seamlessly the history of Israel in Egypt for another century. This chapter begins somewhere between 1650–1550 bc. The Exodus took place between 1550–1440 bc. At some point in time, Joseph is not only just a part of Egyptian history, but he is lost to the Egyptians entirely. Whatever happened, whether the Hyksos dynasty followed Joseph by 50–100 years, destroying most of the records of all recent rulers, or whether this was just lost to that time period, we do not know, but there comes a point where the Egyptians recognized that they had a non-Egyptian population residing in the midst of Egypt, growing incredibly fast. One of Pharaoh's solutions is to enslave the entire Jewish population. When this does not stem the tide of Jewish birth, this Pharaoh or another unofficially orders the midwives to kill the children of the Israelites. When this does not have the achieved result expected, Pharaoh then issues an official decree, demanding the death of all male Jewish babies.

Genesis leaves Joseph, the Prime Minister of Egypt, placed there by God, in a coffin. He had brought with him to Egypt, under God's direction, his brothers. The book of Exodus begins with a conjunction. It is a continuation of the previous Genesis. This conjunction means that it does not stand by itself. Exodus lists the sons of Jacob, also called Israel:

And these are the names of the sons of Israel, who came into Egypt—with Jacob did each man and his household had come—Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah; Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin; Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher. [Exodus 1:1-4]

Jacob was their father. Jesus Christ renamed him Israel in Gen. 32:28. These are named in the same order as they are found in Gen. 35:22b-26. However, they are grouped differently. Whereas Joseph or Jacob may have grouped them strictly as to their mother, the author of Exodus, Moses, groups them slightly differently. Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah are grouped together, all of whom are sons of Leah, who eventually (after the time of Moses) settled in the southern portion of the land of Canaan (with the exception of the tribe of Levi, who was scattered amongst the other tribes, as the Jews are scattered today throughout the world). We will more about these four tribes than the others in the remainder of the Law. Issachar and Zebulun were born to Leah later in life after Jacob sired children through Leah and Rachel's personal servants, Bilhah and Zilpah. Leah seduced her husband Jacob and bore him three more children. Benjamin was the last child born to Jacob through Rachel when Rachel died in childbirth (Joseph was the first). Dan and Naphtali were Bilhah's children, and Gad and Asher were Zilpah's.

And it came to pass that all the persons who were descended from [lit., going out of the loins of] Jacob were seventy-five souls—but Joseph was already in Egypt. So then Joseph died, and all his brothers, and all that generation. [Ex. 1:5-6]

The word generation, dôwr (ר) [pronounced dore] is used in a number of different ways in Scripture. It can mean a period of time, a generation, an age and even a dwelling, a circle, a ball; it can refer to a time in the past or in the future and to a particular group of people. In this case, it was a reference to the generations which Joseph saw. We are told that he saw the third generation of Ephraim's sons, so this refers to Joseph's children, grandchildren and great grandchildren and their contemporaries. This would place us roughly 100–150 years past the end of Gen. 50.

The Jews grew in population from seventy to two million. This indicates a lot of right man right woman relationships where there is a great deal of affection and love between the couples. Population growth conforms to the equations A_t = A₀e^kt where A₀ is the original population, A_t is the population after t years, and k is a constant (e ≈ 2.71). If we assume that a family grows from two to seven over a period of forty years (that is, they have an average of five children in each family) then the population constant k ≈ .0313. Or, if we take Jacob's family as typical, we have, over a period of fifty years, twelve children resulting from five adults; and by that time, three of the children have between them another two children, our population constant would be approximately 0.0277. These two population constants give us a time period of 300-400 years. Jacob would have been more successful and therefore more prolific (since he had his wives' maids) than the average family. This all mathematically squares with the Bible's time table of 430 years in Egypt (Ex. 12:40), which may include Abram's sojourning in Egypt (see Gen. 12:10 15:13), but I doubt that.

Since Joseph had been put on the throne by God, he was able to watch over his people and to protect them. However, there came a time when God's geographical will for the Jews had to change, so God caused the circumstances to change. After a few generations, what has occurred in the past is, at best, history, and at worst, forgotten. Government leadership was not perpetuated in the Jewish sojourners.

But the sons of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly [lit., swarmed] and multiplied and became extremely strong (or, numerous)—that the land was filled with them. [Ex. 1:7]

We have a polysyndeton here—a repetition of and's to indicate the incredible population growth of the Jews. Combined with this, we have a synonymia [pronounced syn-o-NYM-i-a], which is a repetition of synonyms. The writer here has told us in five ways about the population explosion of the Jews. This indicates growth which even the author Moses finds surprising.

Shârats (ץ ַר ָש ), translated "increased abundantly" means "to swarm, or abound." It is also translated "breed, creep or move." It is in the Qal imperfect. The same word is used in Gen. 1:20, 21 7:21 8:17. Simply put, the Jews had a population explosion. "Multiplied" is also in the Qal imperfect and it means 'to multiply, to become many." The imperfect means uncompleted action, meaning that during the time this passage refers to, they were still multiplying. They were in God's geographical will and we receive blessings as a natural result of being in His will. At first, Joseph, one of their own, was on the throne as the Prime Minister. However, all things are subject to change. It was time for them to return to the land of Canaan and they will require a lot of prodding. People often complain that they do not understand God's will or cannot determine what God's will is for their life. The Jews knew only a small portion of their heritage and they were very stiff-necked. God had to subject them to extremely unpleasant conditions in order to get them to leave Egypt. Most people take a very dim view of slavery, particularly in the United States; however, the Bible at best intimates that slavery is not the best route for a prosperous person to employ (see the book of Philemon). On the other hand, God often used slavery to achieve his purposes. Here, a very evil, unjust brand of slavery was imposed upon the Israelites for the specific purpose of causing them to remain in God's geographical will. Had their misery from being enslaved not been intensified, then they would not have left Egypt under Moses. Because of the slavery which took place in the United States, there were millions of black people who were saved and will spend eternity in God's presence. We can learn in two ways: the easy way or the hard way. God has provided His word and therein we find our direction in life. It is in His Word where we discover God's plan for our life; His will for our life. If we refuse to know Him and His will through His Word, then we learn it the hard way—as did the Jews in the Exodus.

Anti-Semitism developed in Egypt. Under the Pharaoh who put Joseph into power, there was very little anit-Semitism. The Pharaoh put Joseph into power due to his abilities and his race and background were not issues to Pharaoh. However, in almost any country where there are Jews, we eventually find anti-Semitism. It is Satan's plan to try to wipe out the Jewish race so that the promises made by God to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob could not be fulfilled. Even in areas where the Jews resemble everyone else, and there will still be pockets of anti-Semitism. On the surface level, it is one of the most unreasonable prejudices found. The Jews are generally hard-working, agreeable, prosperous and peaceful. Any nation which treats them fairly is blessed and any nation which discriminates, or persecutes them is reduced in power and often eliminated from history. See the doctrine of anti-Semitism.

We have a difficult time placing a date on this time period. I have heard opinions which vary from 1800's bc to as recently as 1100's bc. We do not have absolutely confirmed reports of the exodus in Egyptian history. We do have mention from time to time of ׳Apiru (or Hapiru) peoples in the Delta region. Whereas this could be the Hebrew people, it may be a word for any outside tribal group residing within the borders of Egypt. The Hebrew word for Hebrew is ‛Ib^erîy (י ̣ר ְב ̣ע) [pronounced ib-REE] and we first saw it used in conjunction with Abraham; after that, it was never used until Joseph's stay in Egypt. In the Egyptian historical documents which we possess, there are several documents which refer to Hapiru peoples populating Egypt; however, these are likely different peoples living in Egypt between the years 2000 and 1200 bc. It is not unlikely that this word was first applied to the Hebrews in the early documents and then came into general usage for any and all displaced peoples in the land of Egypt.

All of the kings of Egypt are referred to in the Bible by the title Pharaoh. This Pharaoh is not the Pharaoh of Ex. 5. The Pharaoh in this verse arose two to eight generations after Joseph. A country requires very little time to degenerate. A country can go from its highest to its lowest point in one generation (take the WW II and the post WW II generation in America; followed almost immediately by the hippie generation, who brought serious degeneracy into our midst). When Joseph died, his position of authority was not perpetuated by another Jew, therefore the Jews lost their position of partial power in Egypt. This was not necessarily a matter of anti-Semitism as we saw the Joseph was head and shoulders above his brothers, his father and his grandfather in the realm of spiritual growth and orientation to God's plan and to His grace. So it is possible for the Pharaoh of Joseph and his sons to recognize the inate ability of Joseph; but to also see that this is lacking in his brothers.

This text reads arose over against Egypt. Rather than saying there arose a king over Egypt who did not know Pharaoh, this king is qualified by the adjective châdâsh (ש ָד ָח ) [pronounced khaw-DAWSH] means new, fresh. This word which is so common in our vocabulary, is found 50 times in the Old Testament. The preposition is ‛al (ל ַע) [pronounced al] and unfortunately all but ignored by Owen. It means upon, on account of, concerning, together with, beyond, over, to, towards, against. What is possibly implied here is an imposition; and definitely elevation. The verb is qûwm (םק) [pronounced koom] and it means to arise, to stand, to stand up; however, this is in the Qal imperfect, indicating a process, not a completed event, which could mean a dynasty. None of this is absolutely conclusive, but there is a strong indication that this is a new, foreign dynasty rising over Egypt. A reasonable guess would be that this is the Hyksos dynasty or the end of the Hyksos dynasty. The latter seems very probable since an Egyptian control would automatically be suspicious of foreigners.

So he said unto his people, "Behold, the people of the sons of Israel are too many and mighty [lit., strong due to numbers] for us! Come, let us show ourselves wise with regard to them—so that they do not multiply so much that it would come to pass when war befalls us that they also shall join themselves unto them who hate us, and shall make war upon us, and then go up out of the land." [Ex. 1:9–10]

This Pharaoh, who did not know Joseph, looked upon the Jews as an infiltration and not as a blessing. Obviously, he was not a student of recent Egyptian history. As was mentioned in our study of Genesis, we do not have any historical documents from Egypt for several hundred years, around the time of Joseph's rule. It is possible that this is the first Hyksos dynasty king—a foreign king who has taken over Egypt. The phrasing of this verse would easily allow for this to be from a foreign dynasty

. In any case, if these records were destroyed and say 100 years had passed or this is a foreign king with no sense of Egyptian history, then this Pharaoh would have no way of knowing who Joseph was or how the Jews came to be there. This Pharaoh's concern was to control this foreign population, which seemed to grow much faster than the Egyptian population (which is the result of the lack of right man right woman relationships).

According to this verse, the Jews were not large enough of a population at this point to be a threat to Egypt in terms of a revolution, but they were large enough and indigenous enough that if another nation came to make war with Egypt, their potential alliance with the Jews could be the determining factor in the outcome of such an attack. This Pharaoh will set the stage, but will be long gone by the time of the exodus out of Egypt. His plan of action was to enslave the Jew:

So they set over them chiefs of tribute [or, forced labor], to the end they might humiliate them with their burden—and they built store-cities for Pharaoh even Pithom and Raamses. [Ex. 1:11]

Most translations use the word taskmasters rather than princes of tribute (the literal meaning). It is two Hebrew words: sar (ר ַש ) [pronounced sar] which means Lord or prince and the other is the word miç (ס ̣מ) which properly means burden, and has come to mean tribute, tax or tribute in the form of forced labor. That is, the Jews were expected to serve the Egyptians with slave labor as a form of tribute or tax (this in exchange for living in Egypt). Burden is the word ç^ebâlâh (ה ָל ָב ְס) [pronounced seb-aw-LAW] and it refers particularly to the heavy burdens placed upon the Israelites by Egypt. This word is found only in a few passages in Exodus (Ex. 2:11 5:4, 5 6:6, 7) and could be a blend of Egyptian and Hebrew. Nevertheless, it was likely a word first used when placed under slave labor and never used again after the exodus.

The term "store-cities" is rendered elsewhere as "treasure cities" or "storage cities." It is actually two words: the feminine plural noun miç^ek^enâh (ה ָנ ְ ְס ̣מ) [pronounced mis-ken-AW] and it means treasure, storage, supply and the feminine plural noun construct of ‛îyr (רי ̣ע ) [pronounced eer] which simply means city, town. The contstruct means that it modifies or is closely related to the previous noun, so together they means cities of treasures, storage cities. The Greek word used is "fortified cities." The two would go hand in hand; if a city was used to store a lot of Egypt's wealth, then it would very likely be well-fortified. The Egyptians were degenerate but not stupid.

Pithom is mentioned only here in the Bible, but it is definitely a proper name from Egypt from at least 1300 bc on. It's location is disputed. Raamses [pronounced RĂ-ăm-sez] was the city where the 19th and 20th dynasties resided (this is circa the first half of the second millennium bc—not too far off from this time period). It is located in the northeast delta area, but its exact location is disputed also.

But the more they were humiliating them, the more were they multiplying, and the more were they breaking forth—so they were filled with alarm, because of the sons of Israel. [Ex. 1:12]

The Piel imperfect of ‛ănâh (ה ָנְַע) [pronounced aw-NAW] means to look down, to browbeat, to afflict, to humiliate. In the intensive Piel stem, we are being told that the Egypt resorted to prejudice and viciousness. Slavery is not a horrible institution; however, when it is abused, as it is here, only being in God's will with one's right-man or right-woman can counteract the affects of its cruelty. The Egyptians tried to confine the Israelites to specific areas, to forced labor, to a humiliated state of being; yet the Jews continued to pârats ( ַר ָ) [pronounced paw-RATS], which means to break out, to break forth, to spread out. Because of the tremendous population explosion that the Jews enjoyed because of their good marital situations, the Egyptian scould not confine them in any way. In fact, they, the slave owners and taskmasters feared Israel in general because their population growth far exceeded that of the free Egyptians.

And the Egyptians rigorously made the sons of Israel serve with [unusually brutal] rigor; and embittered their lives with harsh service, in clay and in bricks, and in all manner of service in the field—all their service, wherein they served them under [unusually brutal] cruelty. [Ex. 1:13–14]

Vv. 13 and 14 contain the same two words. At the end of v. 13, we have the Hiphil imperfect, 3^rd masculine plural of ׳âbar (ר ַב ָע) [pronounced aw-BAR] and it means to work, to serve. The Hiphil is the causative stem, meaning the Egyptians caused the Israelites to serve them. In v. 14, this verb is in the Qal perfect, 3^rd person plural, so the subject of the verb is the Israelites and this verse looks upon this as a completed action. The way in which they caused the Israelites to serve them was with rigor. We have the preposition b^e (ְ

) [pronounced beh with a very short eh] and this means in, into, at, by, on, with, within. Here, with is the most likely translation. Perek^e (׃ך ∵ר ∵) [pronounced PEH-rek] and it means harshness, severity; its root word meaning is to break, to fracture. Therefore the translations which merely state that the Jews served with rigor leaves the cruelty and severity out of the meaning, which certainly belongs here. I have translated those last two words somewhat differently in both verses, one corresponding to the causative stem and the other to the active stem of ׳âbar.

The Jews occupied the land of Goshen, which was only a short distance away from all the building projects that the Egyptian Pharaoh's had going. King Rameses II (the Great) was a man who was deceitful and had a passion for building. His name is found on an incredible number of temples, public buildings—a number which are beyond human imagination (and these are the ones which we have uncovered). After a great deal of detective work, it became clear that many of these buildings had been built centuries before Rameses II; he just saw to it that his monogram was carved on all of them. However, it is very likely that the archeological findings of Professor Pierre Montet of Strasbourg between 1929 and 1932, with Rameses II's stamp were likely created during his reign. In this area, which is near the present fishing village named San there were found a very large number of statues, sphinxes, columns and fragments of buildings, all with his name on them. The Pharaoh's in general had a great lust for building and the Israelites were located quite nearby in the land of Goshen, on a few miles south of the new capital.

The Jews themselves were bright and learned, yet the Egyptians forced upon them hard-labor, designed for slaves. Still, because these Jews had a relationship with the one God of the universe, because they had found their right woman, and because some of them have doctrine, they did not only bear up under these pressures but they thrived. Imagine how difficult it would be to be involved in various forms of mental labor and then be suddenly thrown into hard, physically-demanding labor. This is hot, hard, and physical labor, the kind that would cause many men to buckle under. The Jews, among other things, actually built two fortified storage cities, which would certainly demand a lot of stone and brick. With today's modern equipment, that is difficult work. Then it was strenuous beyond what most men today could imagine. This took patience and trust. They waited upon God's perfect timing. In fact, they waited possibly two centuries and served Egypt as slaves for that long, waiting upon God. There is no mention of revolution or of rebellion. The Jews endured this servitude. God had not directed them to do otherwise. However, what occurred in the Jews was a certain type of mental attitude caused by being under generations of slavery. Because of this, God had to destroy that generation like a cancer before they infected their sons and daughters with their slave mentality.

Pharaoh's Second Solution: Command the Midwives to Kill the Israelite Male Children

Then spoke the king of Egypt to the Hebrew midwives—of whom the name of the one was Shiprah and the name of the other was Puah; [Ex. 1:15]

For this population, there were not only two midwives. There has been a hierarchy set up of midwives, with two women in charge, Shiprah and Puah. It would not make sense for there to be this few midwives for a population of two million Jews, nor would it make sense for all the midwives to be directly under the Pharaoh. The midwives reported to Shiprah and Puah and they reported directly to Pharaoh. In any large city, there is one district attorney—however, he is not prosecuting every criminal case. Under him you have assistant district attorneys. Don't think that those in the ancient world were so backward as to not understand levels of authority. Gleason gives these two famous women the title of administrative superintendents over the obstetrical guild of the Hebrew community

He said, "When you act as midwives unto the Hebrew women, then you shall observe its gender [lit., look upon the birthstool]—If it is a son, then shall you kill it. But if it is a daughter, then shall it live. [Ex. 1:16]

There are several things to note in this passage. First of all, there has been a passage of time from v. 11 to v. 15. The Jews endure slavery, they build two fortified storage cities and they continue to multiply as a race. This would cover at least a generation at least. My point here is that this is a new Pharaoh. This could be two or three or more generations later. Each Pharaoh warns the next Pharaoh about the Jews; or they know why the Jews are under slavery and each new Pharaoh watches them with interest. This is a new tact. Insofar as God is concerned, one anti-Semitic Pharaoh is no more important than the next, so God the Holy Spirit does not even bother to record either Pharaoh's name. In fact, there might be four or five Pharaoh's in this book and God does not distinguish one from the other. However, God the Holy Spirit records the names of the midwives and their names have come down to us almost 4,000 years later. Notice the difference in their stations in life, the midwives as versus the Pharaohs, yet we can only guess as to who each Pharaoh is and God the Holy Spirit has recorded for all eternity the names of the midwives. God has a much different value system than we have. Fame and power in the human realm mean absolutely nothing to God. Personal integrity and day to day choices is much more important. How we treat the Jew is important to God. Their names mean "Beauty" and "Splendor." Since God occassionally renames those that are His (which, incidentally, is not something that we do ourselves), this could be His viewpoint of these two women and these would be their names throughout eternity. It is also very likely that thexe two women did have a place of authority over the midwives throughout all of Egypt, as it was unlikely that there were just two midwives. Or they were the midwives for that particular area. In either case, they were believers in Jesus Christ and they had enough doctrine to realize when they were to obey the civil authorities over them and when they should disobey those authorities. Next notice that there is not an official decree here, as slavery was. The Pharaoh went directly to the midwives and this was to be done surreptitiously.

But the midwives feared God, and did not as the king of Egypt said unto them—but let the male children live. Then called the king of Egypt for the midwives and said to them, "Wherefore have you done this thing—that you should let the male children live?" And the midwives said unto Pharaoh, "Because not like the Egyptian women are the Hebrew women—for [possibly, but] they are full of life; and before the midwife can come in unto them they have given birth." [Ex. 1:17–19]

The Piel imperfect, 3^rd person feminine plural of châyay (י ַי ָח ) [pronounced khaw-YAH-ee] means to live, to revive. Although the midwives are the subject of the verb, therefore causing the action, this is causing by way of permission; therefore the use of the word let.

Even Pharaoh realized that this was such an outrageous proposition that (1) he could not make it official policy and (2) he could not have the babies murdered right in front of their mothers. So Pharaoh went to the midwives directly and give them an unofficial directive. The midwives, while assisting the Hebrew women, were to kill the male babies but not to be so tactless is to do it right in front of them. They were to deliver the babies and tell them that the baby had been born dead if it was a male. What the midwives have done here is they have lied to the Pharaoh as opposed to lying to the mother. Even the Pharaoh realized that you cannot kill a woman's baby in front of her. So their story to the Pharaoh was that the babies were born before they could get there and born clearly alive. Therefore there was nothing that the midwives could do. It is also possible that they did not lie to Pharaoh—they could have intentionally arrived too late to the births.

In general, the Bible does not encourage civil disobedience. Paul makes it very clear in Rom. 13 that we are to obey the civil authorities over us. Jesus Christ has told us to pay our taxes ("Render unto Cæsar what is Cæsar's."). However, this is a situation which demands that the midwives, as believers in Jesus Christ, oppose the Pharaoh, and, in this situation, possibly even lie to the Pharaoh. They were not disobeying a lawful decree or an official policy. This order was directly from the Pharaoh; it was his idea (although it may have been suggested by one of his underlings) but he did not enact this into law. Disobeying the law is generally not condoned by God; however, in this situation, these women are not disobeying the law. This is akin to a government official (even the president) commanding a woman to have sex with him, or commanding someone to assassinate another official; or demanding that we perjure ourselves in court on his behalf. Pharaoh has put them i the situation where they must either disobey his intentions or disobey the will of God. They chose to disregard Pharaoh's mandates. Therefore, their behavior is not only condoned, but these women have their names recorded forever in God's Word whereas we do not even know the exact names of the Pharaoh's involved. At best, we can make some educated guesses using archeology.

It makes me grimace when I cover a topic like this because, for some people, this is all the light that they need. They take a concept like this and somehow manage to distort it into bombing abortion clinics and terrorizing those who work for abortion clinics; becoming pacifists under any and all circumstances and refusing to serve their country; refusing to pay all or a portion of their taxes; maintaining an arsenal of unregistered weapons; etc. Before you ever disobey the law in any way, you need to be certain that you are on firm Biblical ground, having been taught carefully verse-by-verse on the topic at hand. Taking three or four verses out of context to support your view is not good enough. Notice exactly the action that these two midwives took: they were unofficially ordered by Pharaoh to surreptitiously kill babies that they had just delivered and they did not kill any babies.

A minor problem must be dealt with here. We have two midwives serving a population of 2,000,000 Jews in the midst of a population explosion. This does not seem possible. Well, in fact, it is not possible. According to Gleason Archer in his Difficulties of the Bible, it was common for the Egyptian to set up bureaucratic chain of command with any governmental agency or activity. We saw this with Joseph. Pharaoh okayed his plan to maintain grain repositories and then put Joseph in charge of it. Joseph would have hired a staff under him to handle this as he would have been the chief administrator of this project. The two midwives named here were the ones who were heads over all the Jewish midwives in the land of Goshen. They were the link between this medical service and the Pharaoh.

So then God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and became extremely numerous. And it came to pass because the midwives feared God, that he gave them households [and families]. [Ex. 1:20-21]

In v. 20, the population explosion continues. We find the word waxed in the KJV and it is old English for became. The Hebrew word ׳âtsam ( ַצ ָע) [pronounced aw-TSAM] means "to become mighty or numerous." Probably, in this case, the best way to understand it it that the Jews became mighty because there were so many of them.

Bayith (ת ̣י ַ) [pronounced BAH-yith], in v. 21, pertains to family, house or household. This literally says that God gave them houses. This is a metonymy where house stands for the accessories of a home—a husband and children. The midwives were often unmarried and therefore without children (as this implies) and in their work, they tended to meet mostly married couples where the wife was about to give birth. God brought to them their right men and provided for them both a household and family. This tells you that it does not matter what your vocation is or where you spend your time; God will bless us with that right person as long as we are patient and remain in His will.

In the Hebrew, one of the equivalent words for salvation was to fear or yârê̓(א ֵר ָי) [pronounced yaw-RAY] and it means both "to fear" and "to revere." When we find this phrase in the OT, we are speaking of people who have believed in Jesus Christ. In the OT times, deities were often very country-specific. We have a similar situation today. In certain areas, such as India, we have people who mostly believe in Hinduism and in the East we have Buddhism. These are no different (and no better) than pagan religions of the old world. However, there is but one true God and there are not many roads to find Him but just one (as Jesus said, "Narrow is the gate and few that are that find it." and "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life; no man comes to the Father but by me."). Here, these midwives believe in Jesus Christ, the God of Israel. Furthermore, God recognizes their correct judgement and blesses them for it. Before you engage in any sort of civil disobedience, do not use this passage as an excuse, and make certain that Rom. 13 has been thoroughly exegeted for you. Christian activism is a trap and a detrimental to the cause of Christ.

Then Pharaoh commanded to all his people, saying, "Every son that is born to the Hebrews, into the river shall you cast him; but every daughter shall you allow to live." [Ex. 1:22]

Although to the Hebrews is not found in Textus Receptus, this phrase is in the western Samaritan, the Vulgate, and in several targums. Context implies this phrase even if it was not originally written here, but most modern translations insert it.

It is at this point that Pharaoh issues the official decree. He has ordered the murder of thousands of baby Hebrew boys. Here, civil disobedience is appropriate. Notice the hand of Satan behind all of this. The seed of the woman, who will crush Satan's head, shall come through the Jewish race; therefore, it is one of Satan's plans to kill the male children. Also, it has always been Satan's attempt to amalgamate the Jewish race into the population as a whole. If there is no Jewish race, then God's promises to them cannot be fulfilled. The Pharaoh has similar motives (although he has certainly been influenced by Satan). With the large male Jewish population—particularly as slaves—they could revolt at any time, which would be a messy and distressful situation. It is not that the Egyptians could not handle the Jews in war (at that point in time) but that this would disrupt the Pharaoh's rule and engage his army in what would amount to be a civil war. Furthermore, as a male, he doesn't mind having the Jewish women around and it would not be a problem if they were integrated into the Egyptian race. Satan has influenced Pharaoh to both destroy the Jewish race by killing the male population and this could in turn cause them to amalgamate into the general population.

EXODUS 2

Introduction: Chapter 2 covers the birth of Moses and his young life in the palace. We are told very little about this area of his life—although Moses was undoubtedly the greatest genius in royalty. He had to chose between ruling over Egypt or ruling over a group of ungracious, stiff-necked Jews, as a part of God's plan for his life. It was not a choice made all at once; it involved many small decisions, many of which are made in this chapter. There are few one-shot decisions which impact your entire life for good; in fact only salvation comes to mind. There are a number of one-shot decisions which cause you great grief throughout your life: the choice to engage in pre-marital sex the first time; the decision to try drugs; the decision to marry the wrong person. Almost all the correct things which affect your life for the best requires you to make many correct decisions: the decision to marry the right person is a result of hundreds of decisions; the decision not to take drugs is sometimes almost a daily choice for some people (as is the decision not to drink); spiritual growth is based upon several decisons every single day of your life, the most important of which is to take in God's Word as presented by a pastor-teacher. Moses makes many of those decisions in this chapter. We will follow him from birth to almost age 80 in one chapter. The rest of the Torah cover the last 40 years of his life.

And there went a man of the house of Levi, and married [lit., took] a daughter of Levi. [Ex. 2:1]

The literal word here is house, but it stands for the lineage of Levi. Further, as we have seen in the past, the use of the word daughter means descendant; but not necessarily daughter as we use the word.

We have already examined Levi. We have seen that in conjunction with Simeon, he had a tendency toward horrible cruelty. Together they were self-righteous and the over-reacted. However, even though there are a great many characteristics which are transmitted genetically, everyone has free will and people can chose not to be ruled by their emotions. To examine Gen. 34, we would never suspect that the Levites were to be priests to God. Because of certain denominations and one particular church (which will go unnamed), we have a lot of confused ideas about what the priesthood. We see them as religious figures; those who are closer to God in some ethereal way, those who have a particularly high ranking in the church. In the church age, the time in which we live, every believer is a priest. A priest is someone who represents man to God (whereas, conversely, the prophet represented God to man). There had to be a go-between man and God;. This was made very clear in the Levitical priesthood laws, which we will study. They had to go through all kinds of purification rituals and there were many things which were forbidden them, because it would make them unclean. When a priest is unclean, he cannot be in God's presence. Man, at that time, could not go to God either; not directly. Man is unclean. We are all stained with our personal sins; we all have a sin nature; and we all have Adam's original sin imputed to us. Moses came from this stock; from the family which were to become priests to God on behalf of the Israelites. Moses many times represented the Jews to God and argued on their behalf. Being a man who understood God's Word, Moses was able to do this. To head off any bizarre thinking; Moses argued with God and God was glorified because Moses understood God's Word. Moses did not come up with some kind of an argument that God hadn't thought of, changed God's mind, and then God did things differently. It is sometimes presented that way as language of accommodation. However, God does not change His mind (or "repent," as per the old English term).

And the woman conceived and bare a son; and she observed him, that he was a healthy child [with a good temperament], so she hid him three months. [Ex. 2:2]

Moses, in v. 2, is described via translation variously as good, beautiful, goodly, or fine. The Hebrew word is ţôwb (בת) [pronounced tobe] and it is used of men and women, describing them as good; but it seems to have a very wide range of meanings, translated variously as precious, joyful, kindly, cheerful, etc. It is important, in interpretation here, to remind ourselves that we are speaking of a three-month-old baby. At three months of age, few babies are into gross immorality and almost all of them appear precious to their mothers. In my very limited field of expertise here, I have noticed that what does separate some babies from others is their temperment and their health. Therefore, we will translate this, "healthy with a good temperment."

We have the Qal imperfect, 3^rd person singular of rââh (ה ָא ָר) [pronounced raw-AW] which is the simple word which means to see. However, it has a wide variety of applications; here, in the imperfect (cointuous sense) and considering the object, I have translated this observe. We are not made aware of the nuts and bolts of this law—whether there was a bounty on these male Hebrew babies or whether Pharaoh had commissioned his own soldiers to enforce this law, but even in the land of Goshen, wwhich was primarily Jewish, they still had to hide their infants.