Exodus Chapter 1

As we dive into the book of Exodus, we will see that this book is the proof of a declaration of God’s redemption that will reach through the rest of the Bible and to the end of time.  God keeps His promises, and He will redeem His own, those who have repented of their sins and placed their faith in the one true God.  The Exodus is the very fulfillment of God’s covenant promises that He made to the patriarchs and to all of mankind beginning in Genesis 3:15. God was going to make a way for mankind to escape the curse of sin and death.

Let's Reflect

1.      Exodus begins with a repetition of the names of Joseph and his brothers in Egypt.  Joseph had passed away and what does verse 6 say about his brothers?

2.      Verse 7 starts out with a prophecy and a promise of God being fulfilled.  What happened?

3.      The new king of Egypt did not like the fact that the Israelites were becoming such a large population in his country.  He thought that he would weaken them by putting task- masters over them and burdening them with hard labor.  To put it bluntly the thought was, if the work was made so difficult for the Israelites they wouldn’t have any energy left to make more babies.  Was that the case?

4.      The Egyptians literally made the Israelites to be their slaves.  We truly have no idea what life was like for them.  We have only seen in movies glimpses of the cruelty that they suffered, but we have to understand that this cruelty of slavery went on for hundreds of years.  The Pharoah devised a new plan to limit the population of the Israelites.  What was it?

5.      The two Hebrew midwives Shiphrah and Puah did not do as the Pharoah had ordered.  They were most likely not the only two midwives for all the Hebrew women but may have overseen a group of midwives.  They would have been afraid of the power of the Pharoah so why didn’t they do as he commanded?

6.      We are not told whether these two midwives were lying or not.  It could be that they were telling the truth.  It is highly possible that God caused the male babies to be born before the midwives arrived.  God rewarded the faith of these two women.  How so?

7.      The Pharoah was not done with his murdering schemes of the Hebrews.  What was his next plan?