వ్యాఖ్యానం ప్రస్తుతం ఆంగ్లంలో మాత్రమే అందుబాటులో ఉంది. తెలుగు అనువాదం పురోగతిలో ఉంది.
Exodus 1 — A New King Which Knew Not Joseph
The seventy who came down with Jacob have multiplied into a great people. A new Pharaoh arises who does not know Joseph. He fears Israel's strength, oppresses them with hard labor, and finally orders the killing of every Hebrew newborn boy. The midwives Shiphrah and Puah fear God more than the king and save the children alive.
“But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew.”
— Exodus 1:12
- v.1-7 The seventy multiply into a great people
- v.8-14 A new king; bitter bondage with mortar and brick
- v.15-21 The midwives defy Pharaoh's order
- v.22 Pharaoh's decree — cast every son into the river
A generation can forget what the previous one knew. The savior of Egypt from famine became a forgotten name. Stephen quotes this verse in Acts 7:18 as the turning point of Israel's history.
The believer should expect this in the world. Today's welcome turns into tomorrow's persecution. The institutional memory of the world is short for the people of God.
A principle that runs through all of church history: persecution does not extinguish God's people; it spreads them. Tertullian's famous line from the third century — the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church — is Exodus 1:12 carried through.
When the enemy of your soul afflicts you in some particular area, watch closely. That is often the area God is about to multiply growth in. The pressure is the prelude to the harvest.
Two women — Shiphrah and Puah — defy the most powerful king in the world. They feared God more than they feared Pharaoh. The first recorded act of civil disobedience in the Bible is by women protecting children.
When the law of the land commands what God forbids, the believer must obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29). The midwives are commended by God Himself (verse 21) for their defiance.
He made them houses — God blessed the midwives with families of their own. The women who saved the children of others were given children of their own to raise.
God notices the costly courage of obscure people. Two women whose names the world would never have remembered are preserved in Scripture for honoring God in an unwatched moment.
When the pressure on you increases in some area of your life, do not assume it means God is absent. Look for the multiplying that is happening underneath. The midwives saved one generation of babies and God remembered their names forever. Your hidden faithfulness is being watched by the only One who matters.
The infants Pharaoh tried to destroy contained, somewhere in their multiplied lineage, Moses — the deliverer. Centuries later Herod would try the same — destroying infants to kill one Deliverer. Christ was preserved through the same kind of slaughter Moses was. The enemy has tried at every age to kill the Deliverer in His cradle, and at every age failed.
Five verbs in one verse to describe Israel's growth — fruitful, increased, multiplied, waxed mighty, filled. The covenant promise to Abraham (Genesis 17:6) is being kept under the surface of Egyptian bondage.
God's promises do not stop being kept when His people are unable to see them being kept. The slaves making bricks were the seed of the nation that would inherit the world.