Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Exodus 1:7

And the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them.

7. The continuation in P of v. 5.

[P] were fruitful, and swarmed, [ J ] and multiplied, and waxed mighty, [ P ] exceedingly ] To ‘be fruitful,’ as Gen 1:28; Gen 9:1; Gen 9:7, &c., and in the promises to Abraham and Jacob of an abundant progeny, Gen 17:6; Gen 35:11 (Gen 48:4), cf. Exo 28:3 (all P). ‘Swarmed,’ as Gen 1:20-21; Gen 7:21; Gen 8:17 (all P); used here of men, as Gen 9:7 (P). ‘Multiplied and waxed mighty’ (the last expression not elsewhere in P), as v. 20: cf. the corresponding adjectives in v. 9. ‘Exceedingly,’ here, in the Heb., an expression peculiar to P and Ezek., lit. with muchness, muchness, qualifies all the preceding verbs.

Hebrew tradition loved to tell of the wonderful increase of their ancestors in Egypt: cf., of an earlier stage of their residence there, Gen 47:27 (P) ‘were fruitful, and multiplied greatly.’

the land ] viz. of Rameses, Gen 47:11 (P), or of Goshen, Gen 47:4 (J).

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

In no province does the population increase so rapidly as in that which was occupied by the Israelites. See the note at Gen 47:6. At present it has more flocks and herds than any province in Egypt, and more fishermen, though many villages are deserted. Until the accession of the new king, the relations between the Egyptians and the Israelites were undoubtedly friendly. The expressions used in this verse imply the lapse of a considerable period after the death of Joseph.

The land was filled with them – i. e. the district allotted to them Gen 45:10.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Exo 1:7-22

The children of Israel were fruitful

The increase of the Church

I.

Notwithstanding the removal of its chief officer (Exo 1:6). Joseph dead; his influence gone; his counsel inaccessible. To-day the Church loses her chief officers, but it still grows.

II. Notwithstanding the decade of the generation (Exo 1:6). So to-day men die, but the Church, by making new converts, multiplies her progeny to an almost incredible extent.

III. Notwithstanding the persecution to which it was subjected (Exo 1:11). The Church can never be put down by force. The Infinite Power is on her side. This is more than all that can be against her.

IV. Notwithstanding the artifices by which it was sought to re betrayed (Exo 1:15-22). So the Church has been in danger through the treachery of the outside world, and through the daring cruelty of meddlesome men. Still it grows. May it soon fill the world, as the Israelites did Egypt! All Church increase is from God; not from men, not from means. God has promised to multiply the Church. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

Increase by Gods blessing

1. The death of fathers cannot hinder Gods increase of the Churchs children. They decrease and these increase under God.

2. Gods promises for His Churchs increase cannot fall to the ground. He doth fulfil them.

3. Fruitfulness, abundant increase, multiplication excessive, and strength, are the Churchs blessing from God.

4. God works wonderfully to fulfil His promise of increasing His people.

5. The land of enemies is made by God a nursery for the increase of His Church.

6. Gods blessing makes His Israel to fill Egypt, the Church to fill the world. (G. Hughes, B. D.)

A large population, and what it led to

I. A large population is of great advantage to a nation.

1. It gives an impulse to civilization.

2. It augments the force of the national prowess.

3. It invests the nation with importance in the estimation of surrounding kingdoms.

II. A large population sometimes excites the suspicion and envy of neighbouring kings.

1. Pharaoh was jealous of the numerical growth of Israel.

2. He was suspicious of what might befall his country in future exigencies.

III. This suspicion frequently leads kings to practise the most abject slavery.

1. It was cunning.

2. It was unjust.

3. It was painful.

4. It was apparently productive of gain.

But what was gained in public buildings was lost in sensitiveness of conscience, force of manhood, and worth of character. Slavery involves a loss of all that is noble in human nature, and it leads to murder (Exo 1:22).

IV. Slavery is an incompetent method of conquest.

1. Because it does not gain the sympathy of the people it conquers.

2. Because it arouses the indignation of those who are subject to its cruelties.

3. It does not save a ruler from the calamity he seeks to avert. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

A large population

The larger the population of a nation, the greater are its capabilities of sympathy, mutual dependency, and help, and often-times the greater difficulty in its right government. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

Oppression and growth

I. There are three aspects in which the oppression of Israel in Egypt may be viewed. It was the fulfilment of Gods own word; it was education; it was a type.

1. The covenant with Abraham had included the prediction of four hundred years of oppression in a strange land. The fulfilment is reached through the fears and cruel policy of Pharaoh. The Bible decisively upholds the view that not in Israel alone, but everywhere, the movements of nations, as the incidents of individual lives, are directed by God. To it the most important thing about Egypt and the mighty Rameses was that he and it were the instruments for carrying out Gods designs in reference to Israel. Has not history verified the view? Who cares about anything else in that reign in comparison with its relation to the slaves in Goshen?

2. The oppression was, further, education. We can say nothing certainly as to the teaching which Israel received in science, art, letters, or religion. Some debts, no doubt, accrued in all these departments. Probably the alphabet itself was acquired by them, and some tinge of acquaintance was made by a few with other parts of the early blossoming Egyptian civilization. But the oppression taught them better things than these. Pressure consolidates. Common sorrows are wonderful quickeners of national feeling. The heavier the blows, the closer grained the produce of the forge. Not increase of numbers only, but tough knit consciousness of their unity, was needed for their future. They acquired some beginnings of that extraordinary persistency of national life which has characterized them ever since, in these bitter days. Note further, they learned endurance, without which the education of a nation, as of a man, is defective. The knowledge of Gods covenant with Abraham would in some degree be preserved, and it taught them that their affliction was part of the Divine plan for them. So they would learn–at least the best of them would–to look for the better things following which the covenant held forth, and would be able to see some gleam of the dawn even in the thickest darkness. If winter comes, can spring be far behind? The evil foretold and accomplished is turned into prophecy of the good foretold and yet unseen.

3. The growth of Israel under its oppression. The pressure which was intended to crush only condensed. The more they afflicted them, the more they . . . grew. So the foiled oppressors glared at them with a mixture of awe and loathing, for both feelings are implied in the words rendered were grieved. It is the history of the nation in a nutshell. The same marvellous tenacity of life, the same power of baffling oppression and thriving under it, have been their dower ever since, and continue so yet. The powers that oppress them fill the world with their noise for awhile, and pass away like a dream; they abide. For every tree felled, a hundred saplings spring up. What does it mean? and how comes it? The only answer is that God preserves them for a better deliverance from a worse bondage, and as His witnesses in their humiliation, as they were His in their prosperity. The fable of the one of their race who bade Christ march on to Calvary is true concerning them. They are doomed to live and to wander till they shall recognize Him for their Messiah. That growth is a truth for Gods Church, too. The world has never crushed by persecuting. There is a wholesome obstinacy and chivalry in human nature which rallies adherents to a persecuted cause. Truth is most powerful when her back is at the wall. Times of oppression are times of growth, as a hundred examples from the apostles days down to the story of the gospel in Madagascar prove. The worlds favour does more harm than its enmity. Its kisses are poisonous; its blows do no hurt. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

Fruitfulness of Israelites in Egypt

Some commentators resort to natural causes to account for this amazing increase. A modern writer declares that the females in Egypt, as well among the human race as among animals, surpass all others in fruitfulness. But we prefer to ascribe the matter to Divine intervention. The blessing of Jehovah was now signally conferred upon the people. God increased His people greatly, and made them stronger than their enemies (Psa 105:24). The word that after a long delay came to Israel, the third patriarch, was now fulfilled (Gen 35:11). Though the performance of Gods promises is sometimes slow, yet it is always sure. It was when the Israelites lost the benefit of the protection of Joseph that God made their numbers their defence, and they became better able than they had been to shift for themselves. If God continue our friends and relations to us while we most need them, and remove them when they can be better spared, let us own that He is wise, and not complain that He is hard upon us. (A. Nevin, D. D.)

Ancestry numerically regarded

The number of a mans ancestors doubles in every generation as his descent is traced upward. In the first generation he reckons only two ancestors, his father and mother. In the second generation the two are converted into four, since he had two grandfathers and two grandmothers. But each of these four had two parents, and thus in the third generation there are found to be eight ancestors; that is, eight great-grandparents. In the fourth generation the number of ancestors is sixteen; in the fifth, thirty-two; in the sixth, sixty-four; in the seventh 128. In the tenth it has risen to 1,024; in the twentieth it becomes 1,048,576; in the thirtieth no fewer than 1,073,741,834. To ascend no higher than the twenty-fourth generation we reach the sum of 16,777,216, which is a great deal more than all of the inhabitants of Great Britain when that generation was in existence. For if we reckon a generation at thirty-three years, twenty-four of such will carry us back 792 years, or to a.d. 1098, when William the Conqueror had been sleeping in his grave at Caen only six years, and his son William II., surnamed Rufus, was reigning over the land. At that time the total number of the inhabitants of England could have been little more than two millions, the amount at which it is estimated during the reign of the Conqueror. It was only one-eighth of a nineteenth-century mans ancestors if the normal ratio of progression, as just shown by a simple process of arithmetic, had received no check, and if it had not been bounded by the limits of the population of the country. Since the result of the law of progression, had there been room for its expansion, would have been eight times the actual population, by so much the more is it certain that the lines of every Englishmans ancestry run up to every man and every woman in the reign of William I., from the king and queen downward, who left descendants in the island, and whose progeny has not died there. (Popular Science Monthly.)

Successful colonists

Englishmen are not the only successful colonists; and the credit, if any, of exterminating aborigines they are entitled to share with insects. Let us take the case of the Australian bee. The Australian bee is about the size of a fly, and without any sting; but the English bee has been so successfully introduced as to be now abundant in a wild state in the bush, spreading all over the Australian continent, and yielding large quantities of honey, which it deposits in the hollows of trees; the immense quantities of honey-yielding flowers afford an abundant supply of material. The foreign bee is fast driving away the aboriginal insect as the European is exterminating the black from the settled districts, so that the Australian bee is now very scarce. (Scientific Illustrations and Symbols.)

A new king.

Change of government

1. Gods blessing on His Church is the cause that worldly rulers consult against it.

2. Blessings from God and oppositions from worldly powers usually are connected.

3. Changes of kings and governments may bring changes on the Churchs state.

4. New and strange rulers are set up, when new and strange things are to be in the Church.

5. God suffers such to rise up, and orders them to His praise.

6. All Gods goodness by His instruments to the world are apt to be committed to oblivion and ignorance.

7. Ignorance and oblivion of Gods mercies by His Church causeth wicked rulers to persecute them. (G. Hughes, B. D.)

Egypts new king

I. He was out of sympathy with the purpose and providence of God.

II. He was out of sympathy with the conduct of his predecessors.

III. He was envious in his disposition. Envious men generally bring on themselves the evils of which they suspect the innocent to be guilty.

IV. He was cunning in his arrangements. Policy a bad basis for a throne. It invites suspicion, alienates respect, leads to ruin.

V. He was cruel in his requirements.

VI. He was thwarted in his project. Mere power cannot always command obedience. It is sometimes defeated by weakness. Heaven is on the side of the oppressed. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

The vicissitudes of power

The vicissitudes of power–

1. Are independent of past services.

2. Are independent of moral character.

3. Are frequently dependent upon the arbitrary caprice of a despotic king. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

A bad king will make a wicked people

1. He will influence the weak by his splendour.

2. Terrify the timid by his power.

3. Gain the servile by his flattery.

4. Gain the simple by his cunning.

5. Sometimes gain the good by his deception. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

Like ruler, like people

If the mountains overflow with waters, the valleys are the better; and if the head be full of ill-burnouts, the whole body fares the worse. The actions of rulers are most commonly rules for the peoples actions, and their example passeth as current as their coin. The common people are like tempered wax, easily receiving impressions from the seals of great mens vices; they care not to sin by prescription and damn themselves with authority. And it is the unhappy privilege of greatness to warrant, by example, others as well as its own sins, whilst the unadvised take up crimes on trust and perish by credit. (J. Harding.)

The king that knew not Joseph

It is said Joseph was not known by this dynasty. This is a strong expression, used to denote the perfect obscurity into which this good and great man had fallen; or rather, the contempt in which this benefactor and true patriot was held by those who were unable to appreciate him. It was not that Josephs character had waned in beauty; it was not that his intellect had lost its sagacity; but the new dynasty wished to pursue a course of action and conduct inconsistent with that purity, integrity, and candour which Joseph had counselled; and therefore he was cast off. Less worthy men were taken in his place. But what occurred to Joseph is just what befalls Christians still, in proportion as their Christianity ceases to be latent. We are told by an apostle that the world knoweth us not, because it knew Christ not.

1. The reason why the world does not appreciate the Christian character is that the Christian lives a higher life. He is, in proportion as he is a Christian, influenced by motives and hopes, and guided by laws and a sense of a presence, which an unconverted, worldly man, such as was the new king of Egypt who knew not Joseph, cannot at all understand.

2. Another reason why the world does not appreciate the Christian now is that it judges a Christian by itself, and thinks that he must be at heart, notwithstanding all his pretences, what it is. The world loves sin, delights in it. And when the world meets with a man who professes to have laid his ambition at the foot of the Cross, and whose thirst for power is the noble thirst of doing good, it will say, This sounds very fine, but we do not believe it. The only difference between you and us is that we do not pretend to these things, and that you do; for behind the curtain you practise what we practise, and are exactly what we are. Therefore the world hates the Christian, not simply for his Christianity, but because it cannot conceive such a man to be any other than a thorough hypocrite. (J. Cumming, D. D.)

A kings ignorance

I. Who was this man?

1. Exiled for many years.

2. Belonged to an alien dynasty.

3. May simply mean that he refused to know Joseph.

II. Why did he reign? To carry out the promise of God.

1. God does not always use the same methods. Brought Israel into Egypt by prosperity; took them out by adversity.

2. God had to prepare the way for His work.

III. What has he to do with us?

1. He shows us how human wisdom overreaches itself. His policy only brought about the very object he wished to avoid.

2. He shows us the abuse of privileges. He might have known Joseph. Ignorance is no excuse for those who ought to know. (Homilist.)

Emptiness of fame

The readiness with which the populace forgets its vaunted idols has ever been a favourite topic with third-rate moralists; A surviving friend of William Pitt was convinced of the emptiness of fame by seeing the greatest statesman of the age completely forgotten in ten days. Queen Elizabeths passage into oblivion was even more rapid, for, according to an eminent historical authority, she was as much forgot in four days as if she had never existed. To be sure in such cases the oblivion has been short-lived. Posterity has amply remedied the brief injustice of contemporary opinion, (Christian Journal.)

Oblivion and neglect

It is a memorable example, amongst many others that we have, of William the Conquerors successor, who being unhappily killed, as he was hunting in the New Forest, all his nobles and courtiers forsook him, only some few that remained laid his body in a colliers cart, which being drawn with one silly lean beast through very foul and filthy way, the cart broke, and there lay the spectacle of worldly glory, both pitifully gored and all bemired. Now, if this were the portion of so mighty a prince, whom immediately before so glorious a troop attended, what then must others of meaner rank expect and look for, but only with deaths closing up of their eyes to have all their friends excluded, and no sooner gone but to be as suddenly forgotten. Hence it is that oblivion and neglect are the two handmaids of death. (J. Spencer.)

Let us deal wisely.–

Wrong councils

Kings ought to know better than to convene councils to oppose the intentions of God. Such conduct is–

1. Daring.

2. Reprehensible.

3. Ruinous.

4. Ineffectual. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

The end and design of the council

1. To prevent the numerical increase of Israel.

2. To enfeeble the military power of Israel.

3. To detain the Israelites in permanent bondage. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

Persecution of Gods people for hypothetical offences

Hypothetical offences have generally been the ground of the persecution of the people of God. It has rarely been for a crime proved, but generally for a crime possible. And this dynasty, in the exercise of what it thought a very far-reaching diplomacy, but really a very wild and foolish hallucination, determined to persecute, and gradually crush, the children of Israel. The result proved that the wisdom of man is folly with God. Whatever is undertaken that has no sanction from God, never will have any real or permanent success before men. But attempt anything, however wise it looks, or talented it appears, yet if it be not inspired by principle, it is a rope of sand–it must fall to pieces. Let us, therefore, ever feel that we never can do wisely, unless we do well, and that the highest principle is ever the purest and best policy. The dynasty that succeeded the ancient Pharaoh did not know this. They thought they could extirpate Gods people. They might as well have tried to extirpate the sun from the firmament, or the fruits and trees of the earth; for the everlasting arms are around all them that love and fear God; and they are an immortal people who are the sons and daughters of the Most High. The Egyptians found here that the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied. (J. Cumming, D. D.)

A perversion of language

The wisdom here proposed to be employed was the wisdom of the serpent; but with men of reprobate minds, governed solely by the corrupt spirit of this world, whatever measures tend to promote their own interests and circumvent their opponents, is dignified by the epithet wise, though it be found, when judged by a purer standard, to be in reality nothing less than the very policy of hell. (G. Bush.)

Pharaohs sceptical reasoning

All Pharaohs reasoning was that of a heart that had never learnt to take God into its calculations. He could accurately recount the various contingencies of human affairs, the multiplying of the people, the falling out of war, the joining with the enemy, their escape out of the laud, but it never once occurred to him that God could have anything whatever to do in the matter. Had he only thought of this, it would have upset his entire reasoning. Ever thus is it with the reasonings of mans sceptical mind. God is shut out, and their truth and consistency depend upon His being kept out. The death-blow to all scepticism and infidelity is the introduction of God into the scene. Till He is seen, they may strut up and down upon the stage with an amazing show of wisdom and plausibility, but the moment the eye catches even the faintest glimpse of that blessed One whose

Hand unseen

Doth turn and guide the great machine,

they are stripped of their cloak, and disclosed in all their nakedness and deformity. (A. Nevin, D. D.)

Jealousy of autocrats

Autocrats, whether elected or usurping, are all more or less jealous. The female autocrat is in some respects worse than the male. Two queen bees will not live together in the same hive. And indeed, as soon as a young queen-bee is about to lay her eggs, she is anxious to destroy all the royal pupae which still exist in the hive. When she has become a mother, she attacks one after the other the cells which still contain females. She may be seen to throw herself with fury upon the first cell she comes to. She tears an opening in it large enough for her to introduce her sting. When she has stung the female which it contains, she withdraws to attack another. Man is not much behind these jealous insects. Among certain tribes of Ethiopians the first care of the newly crowned chief is to put in prison all his brothers, so as to prevent wars by pretenders to the throne. And even among more civilized nations the records are numerous of the mean and petty tricks and cruelties adopted by kings and queens for disposing of any possible rivals. (Scientific Illustrations and Symbols.)

The more they multiplied.–

Moral growth proportionate to affliction

1. This is true of individual moral character.

2. This is especially true in the development of the Church. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

Why does persecution and trial operate thus

1. To manifest the love of God towards His Church.

2. To manifest the power of God over His enemies.

3. To fulfil the promise of God made to the good.

4. To manifest His providence towards the Church.

5. To strike terror into the hearts of tyrants.

6. To manifest the divinity of truth, and pure moral character. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

The Egyptians were grieved

1. Because their plots were a failure.

2. Because their cruelty was unavailing.

3. Because they had exasperated an enemy they could not subdue Half the grief of the world is occasioned by the failure of wicked and cruel purposes. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

Persecution fertilising

The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church. Persecuting the Church is but like casting manure upon the ground. It for a while covers the plants, and seems to destroy them; but it makes the earth more fertile, and the plants more numerous and vigorous. (J. Orton.)

Strange increase

How diverse were the barbarities and kinds of death inflicted on the Christian confessors! The more they were slain, the more rapidly spread the faith; in place of one sprang up a hundred. When a great multitude had been put to death one at court said to the king, The number of them increaseth, instead of, as thou thinkest, diminishing. How can that be? exclaimed the king. But yesterday, replied the courtier, thou didst put such-and-such a one to death, and lo! there were converted double that number; and the people say that a man appeared to the confessors from heaven, strengthening them in their last moments. Whereupon the king himself was converted. (The Apology of Al Kindy, a. d. 830.)

Prosperity under persecutions

Whatever has been done by enemies in rage or in recklessness, God has always met it calmly and quietly. He has shown Himself ready for every emergency. And He has not only baffled and utterly defeated all the inventions of wicked men, but He has turned their strange devices to good account, for the development of His own sovereign purposes.

I. In the case of Israel, it did seem to be a deep-laid plot, very politic and crafty indeed, that as the kings of Egypt, themselves of an alien race, had subdued the Egyptians, they should prevent the other alien race, the Israelites, from conquering them. Instead of murdering them wholesale, it did seem a wise though a cruel thing to make them slaves; to divide them up and down the country; to appoint them to the most menial work in the land, that they might be crushed down and their spirits become so base that they would not dare to rebel. Thus we may suppose it was hoped that their physical strength would be so relaxed, and their circumstances so reduced, that the clan would soon be insignificant if not utterly extinct. But God met and overruled this policy in various ways. The more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied. The glory of God shines forth conspicuously in the use to which He turned the persecutions they endured. The severe treatment they had to bear from the enemy became to them a salutary discipline. In order to cut loose the bonds that bound them to Egypt, the sharp knife of affliction must be used; and Pharaoh, though he knew it not, was Gods instrument in weaning them from the Egyptian world, and helping them as His Church to take up their separate place in the wilderness, and receive the portion which God had appointed for them. Once more–and here you may see the wisdom of God the very means which Pharaoh devised for the effectual crushing of the people–the destruction of the male children–became the direct, nay, the Divine provision for educating a deliverer for them.

II. Let us now carry the same thought a stage farther, and take a brief survey of the history of the children of God. The like means will appear in manifold operation. Men meditate mischief, but it miserably miscarries. God grants protection to the persecuted, and provides an escape from the most perilous exposure. Full often the darkest conspiracy is brought to the direst confusion. Persecution has evidently aided the increase of the Church by the scattering abroad of earnest teachers. We are very apt to get; hived–too many of us together–and our very love of one another renders it difficult to part us and scatter us about. Persecution therefore is permitted to scatter the hive of the Church into various swarms, and each of these swarms begins to make honey. We are all like the salt if we be true Christians, and the proper place for the salt is not massed in a box, but scattered by handfuls over the flesh which it is to preserve. Moreover, persecution helps to keep up the separation between the Church and the world. When I heard of a young man that, after he joined the Church, these in his workshop met him at once with loud laughter and reproached him with bitter scorn, I was thankful, because now he could not take up the same position with themselves. He was a marked man: they who knew him discovered that there was such a thing as Christianity, and such a one as an earnest defender of it. Again, persecution in the Christian Church acts like a winnowing fan to the heaps gathered on the threshing-floor. Persecution has a further beneficial use in the Church of God, and it is this. It may be that the members of the Church want it. The Roman who professed that he would like to have a window in his bosom, that everybody might see his heart, would have wished, I should think, before long for a shutter to that window; yet it is no slight stimulus to a mans own circumspection for him to know that he is observed by unfriendly eyes. Our life ought to be such as will bear criticism. And this persecution has a further usefulness. Often does it happen that the enmity of the world drives the Christian nearer to his God.

III. And now I close this address by just very briefly hinting that this great general truth applies to all believers; but I will make a practical use of it. Are you passing through great trials? Very well then, to meet them I pray that Gods grace may give you greater faith; and if your trials increase more and more, so may your strength increase. You will be acting after Gods manner, guided by His wisdom, if you seek to get more faith out of more trial, for that trial does strengthen faith, through Divine grace, experience teaches us, and as we make full proof of the faithfulness of God, our courage, once apt to waver, is confirmed. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

How to defeat the devil

Always take revenge on Satan if he defeats you, by trying to do ten times more good than you did before. It is in some such way that a dear brother now preaching the gospel, whom God has blessed with a very considerable measure of success, may trace the opening of his career to a circumstance that occurred to myself. Sitting in my pulpit one evening, in a country village, where I had to preach, my text slipped from my memory, and with the text seemed o go all that I had thought to speak upon it. A rare thing to happen to me; but I sat utterly confounded. I could find nothing to say. With strong crying I lifted up my soul to God to pour out again within my soul of the living water that it might gush forth from me for others; and I accompanied my prayer with a vow that if Satans enmity thus had brought me low, I would take so many fresh men whom I might meet with during the week, and train them for the ministry, so that with their hands and tongues I would avenge myself on the Philistines. The brother I have alluded to came to me the next morning. I accepted him at once as one whom God had sent, and I helped him, and others after him, to prepare for the service, and to go forth in the Saviours name to preach the gospel of the grace of God. Often when we fear we are defeated, we ought to say, I will do all the more. Instead of dropping from this work, now will I make a general levy, and a sacred conscription upon all the powers of my soul, and I will gather up all the strength I ever had in reserve, and make from this moment a tremendous life-long effort to overcome the powers of darkness, and win for Christ fresh trophies of victory. After this fashion you will have an easier time of it, for if you do more good the more you are tempted, Satan will not so often tempt you. When he knows that all the more you are afflicted so much the more you multiply, very likely he will find it wiser to let you alone, or try you in some other method than that of direct and overt opposition. So whenever you have a trial, take it as a favour; whenever God holds in one hand the rod of affliction, He has a favour in the other hand; He never strikes a child of His but He has some tender blessing in store. If He visits you with unwonted affliction, you will have unusual delight; the Lord will open new windows for you, and show His beauty as He shows it not to others. According as your tribulations abound, so also shall your consolations abound in Christ Jesus. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Egypt, the house of bondage to Gods people

I. The character of Egypt, and her influence on her children.

1. Egypt was distinguished as the abode of a peculiarly easy and luxurious life. In Egypt, as in the world, there was all that could lay the soul to sleep under its vine and fig-tree, and reduce it to the level of the brutes which the Egyptian worshipped as more wise and wonderful than man. This easiness of the terms of life is fatal to the noblest elements in man. Look at Naples. No heroism can be extracted from the Lazzaroni. Give the fellow a bit of bread, a slice of melon, and a drink of sour wine, and he will lie all day long on the quays, basking in the sun and the glorious air; and what cares he if empires rise or totter to their fall? Egypt was the Naples of the old world; wealth, luxury, elaborate refinement, of a kind not inconsistent with grossness; but no moral earnestness, no manhood, no life. Nature wooed man to her lap in Egypt and won him, bathing him in luxurious pleasures–Egypt was the world.

2. Moreover, Egypt was cut off very much from all the political and intellectual activity in which Babylon was compelled to share. She could live to herself and die to herself, as was not possible for Babylon. She could play away her strength and her life in wanton pleasures at her will. Egypt is the image of the wanton world herein. It was full of the wisdom of this world, the wisdom of the understanding, which prostitutes itself easily to the uses of a sensual and earthly life.

II. The experience of Gods children there–its influence on a people conscious that they had a soul to be saved.

1. They went down to Egypt with the fairest prospect–certainty of sustenance, and promise of wealth, honour, and power. They were to settle in Goshen; better, richer land than the bare hills which would be their only home in Canaan, whose rich valleys would be mainly occupied by the native inhabitants–laud in every way suited to yield pasture to their flocks. So the world woos us. We are born in it, God placed us here, God gave us these keen senses, these imperious appetites, and the means of their fullest indulgence; and why should we tighten the rein? See you no new reason why Egypt, when the patriarchs dwelt there, was a fit and full image of the world?

2. They had not lived there long, before, rich and fruitful as was the land, they began to find their life a bondage. Egypt was strange to them. They could not amalgamate with the inhabitants. The Egyptians came to feel it; alienation sprang up and bitterness. Egypt laid chains on them to keep them in her service, while they groaned and writhed, and sighed to be gone–to be free. And rich as the worlds pastures may be, propitious as may be its kings, the soul of man grows uneasy in its abodes. There are moments of utter heart-sickness amidst plenty and luxury, such as a sick child of the mountains knows, tossing on a purple bed of state: Oh, for one breath of the sunny breezes, one glance at the shadows sweeping over the brown moorlands; one breath, one vision, would give me new life. The very prosperity makes the soul conscious of its fetters.

3. The moment comes, in every experience, when the bondage becomes too grevious to be borne; when the spirit cries out and wrestles for deliverance, and the iron, blood-rusted, enters the very heart. The men became conscious of their higher vocation, and wept and pleaded more earnestly; and their tyrants yoked them more tightly, and loaded them more heavily; till, like Job, they cursed Gods light and hated life, in bitterness of soul. And the soul in its Egypt, the world, drinks deep of this experience. The moment comes when it wakes up and says, I am a slave; I am a beast; I will shake off this yoke; I will be free. Then begins a battle-agony; a strife for life and immortality–the end either a final, eternal relapse into captivity, or an exodus into the wilderness and to heaven. Let the soul fight its own battles, and the most heroic struggles shall not save it. Let it follow the Captain of Salvation, and gird on the armour of God, and death and hell shall not spoil it. (J. B. Brown, B. A.)

The taskmasters of the world

1. Sin is a taskmaster.

2. The rich are often taskmasters.

3. The ambitious are often taskmasters. These taskmasters are–

(1) Authoritative: They did set over thee.

(2) Painful: To afflict thee.

(3) Inconsiderate: Burdens. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

That God allowed His people thus to be enslaved and afflicted

1. A mystery.

2. A problem.

3. A punishment.

4. A discipline. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

Suffering and strength

One thing experience teaches, that life brings no benediction for those who take it easily. The harvest cannot be reaped until the soil has been deeply ploughed and freely harrowed. Learn to suffer and be strong, says the poet; and certain it is that without suffering there can be no strength. Not, indeed, that suffering is or makes strength, but that it evokes the latent power, and rouses into action the energies that would have otherwise lain ingloriously supine. The discipline of life is a necessary prelude to the victory of life; and all that is finest, purest, and noblest in human nature is called forth by the presence of want, disappointment, pain, opposition, and injustice. Difficulties can be conquered only by decision; obstacles can be removed only by arduous effort. These test our manhood, and at the same time confirm our self-control. (W. H. D. Adams.)

Life maintained by struggling

You lament that your life is one constant struggle; that, having obtained what you tried hard to secure, your whole strength is now required in order to retain it; and that your necessities impose on you the further obligation of additional exertions. It is so; but do not repine. As a rule, the maintenance of life is everywhere conditional on struggling. It is not only so with men and animals. It is so even in the vegetable world. You struggle with obstacles; but the very trees have to do the same. Observe them; take heart and grow strong. M. Louis Figuier says that the manner in which roots succeed in overcoming obstacles has always been a subject of surprise to the observer. The roots of trees and shrubs, when cramped or hindered in their progress, have been observed to exhibit considerable mechanical force, throwing down walls or splitting rocks, and in other eases clinging together in bunches or spreading out their fibres over a prodigious space, in order to follow the course of a rivulet with its friendly moisture. Who has not seen with admiration how roots will adapt themselves to the special circumstances of the soil, dividing their filaments in a soil fit for them almost to infinity, elsewhere abandoning a sterile soft to seek one farther off which is favourable to them; and as the ground was wide or less hard, wet or dry, heavy or light, sandy or stony, varying their shapes accordingly? Here are wonderful energy, and illustrations of the way in which existence may be maintained by constant action. (Scientific Illustrations and Symbols.)

Use of adversity

The springs at the base of the Alpine Mountains are fullest and freshest when the summer sun has dried and parched the verdure in the valleys below. The heat that has burned the arid plains has melted mountain glacier and snow, and increased the volume of the mountain streams. Thus, when adversity has dried the springs of earthly comfort and hope, Gods great springs of salvation and love flow freshest and fullest to gladden the heart. (Irish Congregational Magazine.)

Moulding influences of life

The steel that has suffered most is the best steel. It has been in the furnace again and again; it has been on the anvil; it has been tight in the jaws of the vice; it has felt the teeth of the rasp; it has been ground by emery; it has been heated and hammered and filed until it does not know itself, and it comes out a splendid knife. And if men only knew it, what are called their misfortunes are Gods best blessings, for they are the moulding influences which give them shapeliness and edge, and durability, and power. (H. W. Beecher.)

The advantage of afflictions

Stars shine brightest in the darkest night; torches are better for the beating; grapes come not to the proof till they come to the press; spices smell sweetest when pounded; young trees root the faster for shaking; vines are the better for bleeding; gold looks the brighter for scouring; glow-worms glisten best in the dark; juniper smells sweetest in the fire; pomander becomes most fragrant for chafing; the palm-tree proves the better for pressing; camomile, the more you tread it, the more you spread it. Such is the condition of all Gods children, they are then most triumphant when most tempted; most glorious when most afflicted; most in the favour of God when least in mans; as their conflicts, so their conquests; as their tribulations, so their triumphs; true salamanders, that live best in the furnace of persecution, so that heavy afflictions are the best benefactors to heavenly affections. (J. Spencer.)

The university of hard knocks

A great deal of useless sympathy is in this day expended upon those who start in life without social or monetary help. Those are most to be congratulated who have at the beginning a rough tussel with circumstances. John Ruskin sets it down as one of his calamities that in early life he had nothing to endure. A petted and dandled childhood makes a weak and insipid man. You say that the Ruskin just quoted disproves the theory. No. He is showing in a dejected, splenetic, and irritated old age the need of the early cudgelling of adversity. He seems fretting himself to death. A little experience of the hardship of life would have helped to make him gratefully happy now. No brawn of character without compulsory exertion. The men who sit strong in their social, financial, and political elevations are those who did their own climbing. Misfortune is a rough nurse, but she raises giants. Let our young people, instead of succumbing to the influences that would keep them back and down, take them as the parallel bars, and dumb-bells, and weights of a gymnasium, by which they are to get muscle for the strife. Consent not to beg your way to fortune, but achieve it. God is always on the side of the man who does his best. God helps the man who tries to overcome difficulties. (Dr. Talmage.)

Graces multiply by affliction

Graces multiply by afflictions, as the saints did by persecutions. (T. Adams.)

Beneficial effects of affliction

The walnut tree is most fruitful when most beaten. Fish thrive best in cold and salt waters. The most plentiful summer follows upon the hardest winter. (J. Trapp.)

lnjuries overruled

Though your attempt to destroy a mans position may fail to accomplish that object, it may be productive of serious injury to him. Yet, fortunately for him, that very injury may afterwards bring forth good results. His friends may rally round him; his resources may be added to through the medium of the sympathetic; or he may be so acted on as to put forth power from within which develops new graces and fresh vigour. You injure a tree, and you will discover reparation is at work even there. The wheel of your cart, for instance, grazes the trunk, or the root of the tree is wounded by your passing ploughshare; the result is an adventitious bud comes. Wherever you see those adventitious buds which come without any order, you may recollect that their formation is frequently thus produced by the irritation caused by injury. You cut down the heads of a group of forest trees; you have not destroyed them. Like the men you have injured, they live to tell the tale. The pollarded dwarf remains to declare what the forest tree would have become but for you. Even the date of your attack can be ascertained; for the stunted group will cover themselves with branches all of the same age and strength, which will exhibit to the sky the evidence of the story: Injured these all are; yes, but not destroyed. (Scientific Illustrations and Symbols.)

Affliction and growth

Bunyans figure of Satan pouring water on the fire to extinguish it, and it all the while waxing brighter and hotter because the unseen Christ was pouring oil upon it, illustrates the prosperity of Gods people in affliction. The more they afflicted them, the more they grew. When a fire attains certain heat and volume, to pour water upon it is only to add fuel. The water, suddenly changed to its component gases, feeds, instead of extinguishing, the flame. So God changes the evil inflicted upon His people into an upbuilding and sanctifying power. (H. C. Trumbull.)

They made their lives bitter with hard bondage.–

The bondage of sin

I. The bondage as an illustration of sin. Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.

1. The unnaturalness of this bondage. Men were fitted to serve God, not Satan. All their powers are perverted, misused, and reversed, when they are in courses of disobedience, and rebellion. Right means straight, and wrong means wrung.

2. The severity of this bondage. No taskmaster for men has ever been found more brutal than a brutal man. The devil has no despot out of hell more despotic than sinners to place over sinners. When villains get villains in their power, how they do persist in lashing them into further villainy and vice!

3. The injustice of this bondage. Satan never remembers favours bestowed. One may give himself, body, soul, and spirit to the devil, and no fidelity will win him the least consideration. Injustice is the rule in sin, it never in any case has exceptions. The prince of evil simply uses his devotees all the worse because of their servility and patience.

4. The destructiveness of this bondage of sin. The wanton waste of all that makes life worth a struggle by persistent courses of sin is familiar to every thoughtful observer. Wickedness never builds up; it always pulls down. Once in the heat of a public discussion some infidels challenged an immediate reply to what they called their arguments. A plain woman arose in the audience; she proceeded to relate how her husband had been dissipated and unkind; she had prayed for him, and he had become a praying man and a good father; years of comfort and of peace had they now dwelt together in the love of each other and the fear of God. So much, she continued, has my religion done for me. Will you kindly state now what your religion has done for you in the same time? Done? unbelief does not do anything, it undoes.

II. And now with so sorrowful a showing as this bondage has to make, it seems surprising to find that the Israelites were counselled to remember it. Why should they recall such humiliation?

1. Such reminiscences promote humility. Spiritual pride is as dangerous as a vice. What have we that Gods mercy has not bestowed upon us? Why boast we over each other? Recollect that the Lord hath taken you, and brought you forth out of the iron furnace, even out of Egypt, to be unto Him a people of inheritance, as ye are this day. To Him we owe everything we are.

2. Such a remembrance quickens our considerate charity for others. Our disposition is to condemn and denounce the degeneracies of the times in which we live. Wherein are people worse now than we ourselves were once? How do we know what we might have been if it had not been for the arrest of our rebellion by the power of the Holy Ghost? Once, as a drunken man reeled past his door, John Newton exclaimed: But for the grace of God, there goes John Newton! (C. S. Robinson, D. D.)

Embittering the lives of others

It is no credit to Pharaoh that God overruled his oppression of the Israelites to their advantage. For his course there is nothing but guilt and shame. He who makes another life bitter has got the bitterness of that life to answer for, whatever good may come to his victim through the blessing of God. It is a terrible thing–a shameful thing also–to make anothers life bitter. Yet there are boys and girls who are making their mothers lives bitter; and there are husbands who are making the lives of their wives bitter; and there are parents who are making their childrens lives bitter. Is no ones life made bitter by your course? Is there no danger of bitterness of life to any one through your conduct–or your purposed action? Weigh well these questions; for they involve much to you. Pharaoh is dead; there is no danger of his making our lives bitter with hard bondage. But the devil is not dead; and there is danger of our being in hard bondage to him. Pharaohs bondage was overruled for good to those who were under it. The devils bondage is harder than Pharaohs, and no good ever comes of it to its subjects. It were better for us to have died under the hardest bondage of Pharaoh than to live on under the devils easiest bondage. (H. C. Trumbull.)

Pharaohs cruel policy

It is worth notice that the king holds council with his people, and evidently carries them with him in his policy. The Egyptians had more than their share of the characteristic ancient hatred and dread of foreigners, and here they are ready to second any harsh treatment of these intruders, whom three hundred years have amalgamated. Observe, too, that the cruel policy of Pharaoh is policy, and that only. No crime is alleged; no passion of hate actuates the cold-blooded proposal. It is simply a piece of state-craft, perfectly cool, and therefore indicating all the more heartlessness. Calculated cruelty is worse than impulsive cruelty. Like some drinks, it is more nauseous cold than hot. No doubt the question what to do with a powerful subject race, on a threatened frontier, who were suspected of kindred and possible alliance with the enemy on the other side of the boundary, was a difficult one. Rameses must have thought of Goshen and the Israelites much as we may fancy Prince Bismarck thinks of Alsace. He was afraid to let them become more powerful, and he was loath to lose them. Whether they stayed or went, they were equally formidable. High policy, therefore, which, in Old Egypt, and in other lands and ages nearer home, has too often meant undisguised selfishness and cynical cruelty, required that the peaceful happiness of a whole nation should be ruthlessly sacrificed; and the calm Pharaoh, whose unimpassioned, callous face we can still see on the monuments, laid his plans as unmoved as if he had been arranging for the diminution of the vermin in the palace wails. What a picture of these God-defying, man-despising, ancient monarchies is here! What would he have thought if any of his counsellors had suggested, Try kindness? The idea of attaching subject peoples by common interests, and golden bonds of benefit, had to wait millenniums to be born. It is not too widely spread yet. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

The despotism of sin

I. It commences by suggesting a small tribute to the sinner. It wins us by the hope of a good investment whereby we may secure wealth, prosperity, fame. A false hope; a deceptive promise. Sin is cunning; has many counsellors; many agencies. You are no match for it.

II. It succeeds in getting the sinner completely within its power.

1. Sin gets the sinner under its rule.

2. Sin makes the sinner subject to its counsel.

3. Sin makes the sinner responsible to its authority.

III. It ultimately imposes upon the sinner an intolerable servitude.

1. The servitude of a bitter life. Destroys friendly companionships, breaks up family comfort.

2. The servitude of hard work. Unprofitableness and folly of sin.

3. The servitude is degrading. Brings men from respect to derision–from plenty to beggary–from moral rulership to servitude. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

The spiritual bondage of men

I. An entire and universal bondage. No merciful limit nor mitigation (see 2Ti 2:26; 2Pe 2:19; Joh 8:34; Rom 5:18, Rom 3:23; Gal 3:22).

1. It extends to all mankind.

2. The slavery of the individual is as complete and total, as that of the species is universal.

(1) Understanding depraved.

(2) Will perverted.

(3) Affections depraved.

II. A severe and cruel bondage. No mastery can be found more pitiless than that of the unhallowed affections and passions which rule the mind, until the Almighty Redeemer breaks the yoke, and sets the captive free from the law of sin and death.

III. A helpless bondage.

1. The oppressor of the soul abounds too greatly in power and resources to dread any resistance from a victim so helpless. Our strength for combat against such an enemy is perfect weakness.

2. In addition to his own power Satan has established a close alliance with every appetite and affection of our nature. Morally unable to deliver ourselves. Hope in God alone. Seek His aid through prayer. (R. P. Buddicom, M. A.)

The sufferings of Israel were rendered more intense

1. As a punishment for their idolatry.

2. To inspire within them a deep hatred toward Egypt, so that through their perils in the wilderness they might not wish to return thither.

3. That the prospect of Canaan might animate and refresh their souls.

4. That after such excessive and unpaid labour they might fairly spoil the Egyptians on their departure.

5. That they might be aroused to earnest prayer for deliverance.

6. That the power and mercy of God might be more forcibly displayed in their freedom.

Here is a true picture of tyranny:

1. Its rigour increases with failure.

2. It becomes more impious as it is in evident opposition to the Divine providence.

3. It discards all the claims of humanity.

4. It ends in its own defeat and overthrow. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

The bondage

Situated as they were within the bounds of a foreign kingdom, at first naturally jealous, and then openly hostile towards them, it is not difficult to account for the kind of treatment inflicted on them, viewing the position they occupied merely in its worldly relations and interests. But what account can we give of it in its religious aspect–as an arrangement settled and ordained on the part of God? Why should He have ordered such a state of matters concerning His chosen seed? For the Egyptians though their hearts thought not so–were but instruments in His hands, to bring to pass what the Lord had long before announced to Abraham as certainly to take place (Gen 15:13).

1. Considered in this higher point of view, the first light in which it naturally presents itself is that of a doom or punishment, from which, as interested in the mercy of God, they needed redemption. For the aspect of intense suffering, which is latterly assumed, could only be regarded as an act of retribution for their past unfaithfulness and sins.

(1) It first of all clearly demonstrated, that, apart from the covenant of God, the state and prospects of those heirs of promise were in no respect better than those of other men–in some respects it seemed to be the worse with them. They were equally far off from the inheritance, being in a state of hopeless alienation from it; they had drunk into the foul and abominable pollutions of the land of their present sojourn, which were utterly at variance with an interest in the promised blessing; and they bore upon them the yoke of a galling bondage, at once the consequence and the sign of their spiritual degradation. They differed for the better only in having a part in the covenant of God.

(2) Therefore, secondly, whatever this covenant secured for them of promised good, they must have owed entirely to Divine grace.

(3) Hence, finally, the promise of the inheritance could be made good in their experience only by the special kindness and interposition of God, vindicating the truth of His own faithful word, and in order to this, executing in their behalf a work of redemption. While the inheritance was sure, because the title to it stood in the mercy and faithfulness of God, they had of necessity to be redeemed before they could actually possess it.

2. It formed an essential part of the preparation which they needed for occupying the inheritance.

(1) It was necessary by some means to have a desire awakened in their bosoms towards Canaan, for the pleasantness of their habitation had become a snare to them. The affliction of Israel in Egypt is a testimony to the truth, common to all times, that the kingdom of God must be entered through tribulation. The tribulation may be ever so varied in its character and circumstances; but in some form it must be experienced, in order to prevent the mind from becoming wedded to temporal enjoyments, and to kindle in it a sincere desire for the better part, which is reserved in heaven for the heirs of salvation. Hence it is so peculiarly hard for those who are living in the midst of fulness and prosperity to enter into the kingdom of God. And hence, also, must so many trying dispensations be sent even to those who have entered the kingdom, to wean them from earthly things, and constrain them to seek for their home and portion in heaven.

(2) But if we look once more to the Israelites, we shall see that something besides longing desire for Canaan was needed to prepare them for what was in prospect. For that land, though presented to their hopes as a land flowing with milk and honey, was not to be by any means a region of inactive repose, where everything was to be done for them, and they had only to take their rest, and feast themselves with the abundance of peace. There was much to be done, as well as much to be enjoyed; and they could neither have fulfilled, in regard to other nations, the elevated destiny to which they were appointed, as the lamp and witness of heaven, nor reaped in their own experience the large measure of good which was laid up in store for themselves, unless they had been prepared by a peculiar training of vigorous action, and even compulsive labour, to make the proper use of all their advantages. (P. Fairbairn, D. D.)

The bondage of sin

Throughout the Scriptures the circumstances of Israel in Egypt are referred to as typical of the servitude under which the sinner is held. There is more than guilt in wickedness. It would indeed be bad enough, even if that were all, but there is slavery besides. Our Lord Himself says, Whosoever committeth sin is the slave of sin; and there are no taskmasters so exacting as a mans own lusts. Look at the drunkard! See how his vile appetite rules him! It makes him barter every comfort he possesses for strong drink. It lays him helpless on the snowy street in the bitter winters cold. It sends him headlong down the staircase, to the injury of his body and the danger of his life. If a slaveholder were to abuse a slave as the drunkard maltreats himself, humanity would hiss him from his place, and denounce him as a barbarian. And yet the inebriate does it to himself, and tries to sing the while the refrain of the song which ends, We never, never shall be slaves. The same thing is true of sensuality. Go search the hospitals of this city; look at the wretched victims of their own lusts who fill the wards, and then say if mans inhumanity to himself be not, in some aspects of it, infinitely more terrible than his oppression of his neighbours. Visit our prisons, and see how avarice, fashion, frivolity, and the love of standing well with their companions, have held multitudes in their grip, forcing them–nay, I will not say forcing them, for they sin wilfully–but leading them to dishonesty day by day, until at last the inner servitude gives place to an external imprisonment. The setting of slaves to make bricks without straw is nothing to the drudgery and the danger–as of one standing on the craters edge–that dishonesty brings upon a man when once it has him in its power. And it is the same with every kind of sin. But this slavery need not be perpetual, for the Great Emancipator has come. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)

Egypt opposed to Israel

It is no new thing for Egypt to be unkind and cruel to Israel. Israelites and Egyptians are of contrary dispositions and inclinations; the delight of one is the abomination of the other. Besides, it is the duty of Israel to depart out of Egypt. Israel is in Egypt in respect of abode, not of desire. Egypt is not Israels rest. If Egypt were a house of hospitality, it would more dangerously and strongly detain the Israelites, than in being a house of bondage. The thoughts of Canaan would be but slight and seldom if Egypt were pleasant. It is good that Egyptians should hate us, that so they may not hurt us. When the world is most kind, it is most corrupting; and when it smiles most, it seduces most. Were it not for the bondage in Egypt, the food and idols of Egypt would be too much beloved. Blessed be God, who will by the former wean us from the latter; and will not let us have the one without the other: far better that Egypt should oppress us than we oppose God. (W. Jenkyn.)

The bondage of sin

Vice, as it groweth in age, so it improveth in stature and strength; from a puny child it soon waxeth a lusty stripling, then riseth to be a sturdy man, and after a while becomes a massy giant whom we shall scarce dare to encounter, whom we shall be very hardly able to vanquish; especially seeing that, as it groweth taller and stouter, so we shall dwindle and become more impotent, for it feedeth upon our vitals and thriveth by our decay; it waxeth mighty by stripping us of our best forces, by enfeebling our reason, by preventing our will, by corrupting our temper, by debasing our courage, by seducing all our appetites and passions to a treacherous compliance with itself; every day our mind growing more blind, our will more restive, our spirit more faint, our appetites more fierce, our passions more headstrong and untameable. The power and empire of sin do strangely by degrees encroach, and continually get ground upon us till it has quite subdued and enthralled us. First we learn to bear it, then we come to like it; by and by we contract a friendship with it; then we dote on it; at last we become enslaved to it in a bondage which we shall hardly be able or willing to shake off. (Isaac Barrow.)

Darkest before the dawn

Fear not to go down into Egypt; for I will there make of thee a great nation (Gen 46:3). Look down, thou sainted patriarch! see what has here become of thy posterity, increased now fourteen thousand fold; nay, see, Thou God of Abraham, what has become of Thine inheritance, how they have watched and prayed in vain! The Lord hath forsaken, the Lord hath forgotten! And this continues, not for years, but centuries, each year of which seems in itself a century! Verily, Thou art a God that hidest Thyself! With such a scene of sorrow in his view, the most unfortunate among us well may cease complaint; and he who has to some extent learned to observe Gods dealings in His providence, may have himself already marked how, in the present case, an old-established law in Gods government is set before us in the form of a most touching incident: the Lord ofttimes makes everything as dark as they can possibly become, just that thereafter and thereby the light may shine more brilliantly. Ishmael must faint beneath the shrubs ere Hagar shall be told about the well. Joseph must even be left to sigh, not merely in his slavery, but in imprisonment and deep oblivion, ere he is raised to his high dignity. The host of the Assyrians must stand before Jerusalems gates ere they are smitten by the angel of the Lord. The prophet Jeremiah must be let sink down into the miry pit, ere he is placed upon a rock. Did not a violent persecution of the Christians precede the triumph of the gospel? In the night of mediaeval times, must not star after star set ere the Reformation dawn arose? Yes; is not Israels history in this respect also the history of Gods own people in succeeding times, even in the present day? They suffer persecution, are oppressed, ill-treated, and opposed through a mistaken policy; all kinds of force are often used for their restraint under the sacred name of liberty; yet still they stand, and take deep root, and grow, expecting better times will come in spite of these fierce hurricanes. Nay, verily, the Lord has not forgotten to be gracious, though He sometimes seems to hide His face; nor does He cease to rule the world, though He delays to interpose. The Father watches and preserves his child amidst the fiercest fires of persecution; and although the furnace of the trial through which he comes be heated seven times more than usual, every degree of heat is counted, measured, regulated by the Lord Himself. Though He permits injustice, and even lets it grow to an extraordinary height, He yet employs it for a purpose that may well command our adoration and regard–the purifying and the perfecting of those who are His own. (J. J. Van Oosterzee, D. D.)

The bitter lives

I. Gods blessing makes fruitful

1. The promise to Abraham (Gen 17:2-8).

2. The number of the Israelites in Egypt (verses 9, 10).

II. Note the mistakes committed through prejudice.

1. The Egyptians hated and spurned the Israelites; therefore, ultimately, lost the blessing of their presence.

2. Statesmanship fails in placing policy before principle.

3. Cruelty begot enmity; kindness would have won.

III. Selfishness soon forgets past favours. A new ruler disregarded the claims of Josephs seed. This world works for present and prospective favours.

IV. Here is a type of the growth of sin. The Israelites came into the best part of Egypt; first pleasant, then doubtful, then oppressed, then finally enslaved.

1. Sin yields bitter fruit.

2. We have taskmasters in our habit.

3. Life becomes a burden: sorrows of servitude.

V. Note the reason for this affliction.

1. They were becoming idolatrous (Jos 24:14; Eze 20:5-8).

2. Bitterness now would help to prevent return to Egypt.

3. We sometimes find sorrow here that we may look above.

VI. Gods favour here contrasted with mans opposition. Pharaoh failed; the Israelities multiplied.

VII. Affliction helps us.

1. As afflicted, so they grew.

2. Christ purgeth us for more fruit.

3. Self-denial is the path to power. (Dr. Fowler.)

The mummy of Rameses the Great

After the verification by the Khedive of the outer winding-sheet of the mummy in the sight of the other illustrious personages, the initial wrapping was removed, and there was disclosed a band of stuff or strong cloth rolled all around the body; next to this was a second envelope sewed up and kept in place by narrow bands at some distance each from each; then came two thicknesses of small bandages; and then a new winding-sheet of linen, reaching from the head to the feet. Upon this a figure representing the goddess Nut, more than a yard in length, had been drawn in red and white colour, as prescribed by the ritual for the dead. Beneath this amulet there was found one more bandage; when that was removed, a piece of linen alone remained, and this was spotted with the bituminous matter used by the embalmers; so at last it was evident that Rameses the Great was close by–under his shroud. Think of the historic changes which have passed over the world since that linen cloth was put around the form of the king: Think what civilization stood facing an old era like his. A single clip of the scissors, and the king was fully disclosed. The head is long and small in proportion to the body. The top of the skull is quite bare. On the temple there are a few sparse hairs, but at the poll the hair is quite thick, forming smooth, straight locks about two inches in length. White at the time of death, they have been dyed a light yellow by the spices used in embalmment. The forehead is low and narrow; the brow-ridge prominent; the eyebrows are thick and white; the eyes are small and close together; the nose is long, thin, arched like the noses of the Bourbons; the temples are sunken; the cheek-bones very prominent; the ears round, standing, far out from the head, and pierced, like those of a woman, for the wearing of ear-rings; the jawbone is massive and strong; the chin very prominent; the mouth small but thick-lipped; the teeth worn and very brittle, but white and well preserved. The moustache and beard are thin. They seem to have been kept shaven during life, but were probably allowed to grow during the kings last illness; or they may have grown after death. The hairs are white, like those of the head and eyebrows, but are harsh and bristly, and a tenth of an inch in length. The skin is of earthy brown, splotched with black. Finally, it may be said the face of the mummy gives a fair idea of the face of the living king. The expression is unintellectual, perhaps slightly animal; bat, even under mummification, there is plainly to be seen an air of sovereign majesty, of resolve, and of pride. The rest of the body is as well preserved as the head; but, in consequence of the reduction of the tissues, its external aspect is less life-like. He was over six feet in height. The chest is broad; the shoulders are square; the arms are crossed upon the breast; the hands are small and dyed with henna. The legs and thighs are fleshless; the feet are long, slender, somewhat flat-soled, and dyed, like the hands, with henna. The corpse is that of an old man, but of a vigorous and robust old man The man was an incarnation of selfishness. To him there was but one being in the universe for whom he needed to care one great; only a single will was to be consulted, only a single mans comfort was to be sought; he himself was the sole centre of all things. Mans strength, and womans honour, life, wealth, time, and ease of other men, went for his personal glorification. And now the world looks at him, and gives him his due, in the light of the charities and decencies God commands. What do we mean when we speak of a hard man? One of the visitors who saw that mummy unrolled, a cool, quiet German, wrote afterwards this clause of description: The expression of the features is that of a man of decided, almost tyrannical, character. That ought to be so. This is the despot who ordered that the tally of bricks should remain undiminished, while his slaves should have to forage for their own necessity of straw. He was a hard man. Is any one of us hard? Do we need to be kings in order to have that name? Can one be hard upon his clerks, his journeymen, his neighbours, in so far as he has power? So, again, does a man of decided, almost tyrannical character fashion and fix his character in the expression of his features? Do you recognize a hard man by his looks, when you set eyes upon him in ordinary life? Will ones disposition grow on him, until it shows itself in his forehead, his lips, his chin, the poise of his proud head? As years pass, are your features growing heavier and colder? Furthermore, is it on the body alone that character makes an impression? Is it possible that, even unconsciously to ourselves, soul as well as body is becoming indurate and chilly? Is money forcing features on our inner life and being? As we rise in life, do we grow interested in others; unselfish, gentle, forbearing in our judgments, or stiff, and rigid, and violent, and impatient of others successes? And finally, if character thus perpetuates itself in the soul as well as on the body, is there anything disclosed to us of the world to come which will avail to change the destiny we have fashioned? On the day royal Rameses was buried, they wrapped his aged bald head in cerements, and covered him in the shadows. He comes up now after some awful centuries of silence, and he looks Just as he used to look. It is likely his soul has not grown different either. We know nothing about his future. It is ours that concerns us. What is going to change any lineament of soul in the mysterious Hereafter? (C. S. Robinson, D. D.)

If it be a son, then ye shall kill him.–

High social position used for the furtherance of a wicked purpose

I. Sometimes high social position exerts its authority for the accomplishment of a wicked and cruel purpose.

1. The king commands the murder of the male children of the Israelites. Diabolical massacre of innocents. Abuse and degradation of regal power.

2. He seeks to accomplish this by bringing the innocent into a participation of his murderous deed. Tyrants are generally cowards.

II. When high social authority is used to further a wicked design, we are justified in opposing its effort.

1. We are not to do wrong because a king commands it. To oppose murder, when advocated by a king, and when it could be accomplished unknown–or, if known, gain applause of nations–is–

(1) heroic;

(2) benevolent;

(3) divinely rewardable;

(4) duty of all who fear God.

2. Such opposition must embody the true principle of piety. The midwives feared God more than they feared the king.

3. Such opposition will secure for us the Divine protection.

III. For such opposition we shall be divinely rewarded (verses 20, 21). (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

Why were the males to be put to death?-

1. Because they were the most capable of insurrection and war.

2. Because the Israelitish women were fairer than the Egyptian, and so might be kept for the purposes of lust.

3. Because the Israelitish women were industrious in spinning and needlework, and so were kept for service. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

Pharaohs murderous intentions

His plan was a quiet one. I dread the quietness of murderers. When murderers lay their heads together, and fall into soft whispers, their whispers are more awful than the roar of cannon or the crash of thunder. The kings plan was to murder the male child the instant it was born. The thing could easily be done. A thumb pressed on the throat would do it. A hand covering the external organs of respiration for a few moments would be sufficient. This was his simple plan of beating back the manhood of the dreaded nation. He was going to do it very simply. Oh, the simplicity of murderers is more intricate than any elaboration of complexity on the part of innocent men! There was to be no external demonstration of violence–no unsheathing of swords–no clash of arms on the field of battle; the nation was to be sapped very quietly. Sirs! Murder is murder, whether it is done quietly or with tumult and thunder. Beware of silent manslaughter! Beware of quiet murder! Nothing sublimer than butchery struck the mind of this idiot king. Thoughts of culture and kindness never flashed into the dungeon of his soul. He had no idea of the omnipotence of love. He knew not of the power of that government which is founded on the intelligence and affection of the common people. Annihilation was his fierce remedy There is a profound lesson here. If a king fears children, there must be great power in children; if the tyrant begins with the children, the good man should begin with them too. (J. Parker, D. D.)

The midwives feared God.–

Pharaohs evil intention frustrated by God

1. Tyrants commands are sometimes crossed by Gods good hand.

2. The true fear of God, from faith in Him, will make weakest creatures abstain from sin.

3. The name of the only God is powerful to support against the word of mightiest kings.

4. Gods fear will make men disobey kings, that they may obey God.

5. The fear of God will make souls do good, though commanded by men to do evil.

6. Life preservers discover regard to God, and not bloody injurious life destroyers.

7. God makes them save life whom men appoint to destroy it.

8. The good hand of God doth keep the males or best helps of the Churchs peace, whom persecutors would kill (verse 17). (G. Hughes, B. D.)

Beneficent influence of the fear of God

They who fear God are superior to all other fear. When our notion of authority terminates upon the visible and temporary, we become the victims of fickle circumstances; when that notion rises to the unseen and eternal, we enjoy rest amid the tumult of all that is merely outward and therefore perishing. Take history through and through, and it will be found that the men and women who have most devoutly and honestly feared God have done most to defend and save the countries in which they lived. They have made little noise; they have got up no open-air demonstrations; they have done little or nothing in the way of banners and trumpets, and have had no skill in getting up torchlight meetings; but their influence has silently penetrated the national life, and secured for the land the loving and mighty care of God. Where the spiritual life is profound and real, the social and political influence is correspondingly vital and beneficent. All the great workers in society are not at the front. A hidden work is continually going on; the people in the shade are strengthening the social foundation. There is another history beside that which is written in the columns of the daily newspaper. Every country has heroes and heroines uncanonised. (J. Parker, D. D.)

A definition of the fear of God

Fear of God is that holy disposition or gracious habit formed in the soul by the Holy Spirit, whereby we are inclined to obey all Gods commands; and evidences itself by–

1. A dread of His displeasure.

2. Desire of His favour.

3. Regard for His excellences.

4. Submission to His will.

5. Gratitude for His benefits.

6. Conscientious obedience to His commands. (C. Buck.)

Civilizing influence of the fear of God

A weary day had been passed in visiting a wretched neighbourhood. Its scenes were sad, sickening, repulsive. Famine, fever, want, squalid nakedness, moral and physical impurities, drunkenness, death, and the devil were all reigning there. Those only who have known the sinking of heart which the miseries of such scenes produce, especially when aggravated by a close and tainted atmosphere, can imagine the grateful surprise with which, on opening a door, we stepped into a comfortable apartment. Its whitewashed walls were hung around with prints, the household furniture shone like a looking-glass, and a bright fire was dancing merrily over a clean hearth-stone. It was an oasis in the desert. And we well remember, ere question was asked or answered, of saying to ourselves, Surely the fear of God is in this place; this must be the house of a church-going family. It proved to be so. Yet it was a home where abject poverty might have been expected and excused. A blind man dwelt there. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)

The fear of God

Learn a life-lesson from the monument to Lord Lawrence in Westminster Abbey. Of all the memorials there, you will not find one that gives a nobler thought. Simply his name, and the date of his death, and these words; He feared man so little, because he feared God so much. Here is one great secret of victory. Walk ever in the fear of God. Set God ever before you. Let your prayer be that of the Rugby boy, John Laing Bickersteth, found locked up in his desk after his death: O God, give me courage that I may fear none but Thee. (Great Thoughts.)

Obedience to conscience

Lord Erskine, when at the bar, was remarkable for the fearlessness with which he contended against the Bench. In a contest he had with Lord Kenyon he explained the rule and conduct at the bar in the following terms:–It was, said he, the first command and counsel of my youth always to do what my conscience told me to be my duty, and leave the consequences to God. I have hitherto followed it, and have no reason to complain that any obedience to it has been even a temporal sacrifice; I have found it, on the contrary, the road to prosperity and wealth, and I shall point it out as such to my children. (W. Baxendale.)

Excellency of the fear of God

It hath been an usual observation, that when the kings porter stood at the gate and suffered none to come in without examination what he would have, that then the king was within; but when the porter was absent, and the gates open to receive all that came, then it was an argument of the kings absence. So in a Christian, such is the excellency of the fear of God, that when it is present, as a porter shutting the doors of the senses, that they see not, hear not what they list, it is an argument the lord of that house, even God Himself, is within; and when this fear is away, a free entrance is given to all the most dissolute desires, so that it is an infallible demonstration of Gods removal from such a soul. (J. Spencer.)

Fear of God a safeguard

If we fear God, we need know no other fear. That Divine fear, like the space which the American settler burns around him as a defence against the prairie fire, clears a circle, within which we are absolutely safe. The old necromancists believed that if a man was master of himself he enjoyed complete immunity from all danger; if his will was firmly set, the powers of evil could not harm him; he could defy a host of devils raging around. Against the malice of human and infernal power, the citadel of a mans heart that is set upon God is impregnable. (Dr. Hugh Macmillan.)

The best service

He who serves God, serves a good master. He who truly serves God is courageous and heroic. Here are two humble women who despise the patronage of a crown, and set a kings edict at defiance. There is no bravery equal to the bravery that is moral. It makes the weakest a conqueror, and lifts up the lowest to pluck the palm of victory. A short-sighted policy would have said, Please Pharaoh; a true heart said, Please God. Pharaoh had much to give. He held honours in his hand. He could deal out gold and silver. He could give a name among the Egyptians. What of it I God could turn his honours into shame, and send the canker on his gold. Serve God! Well tended is that fold which God watches. Pharaoh may frown, but his frowns will be unseen and unregarded amid the light of an approving heaven! (J. Parker, D. D.)

Cast into the river.–

The last edict of a tyrant king

I. It was public in its proclamation. How men advance from one degree of sin to another.

II. It was cruel in its requirements. Why should a tyrant king fear the infant sons of Israel? He knew they would be his enemies in the future if spared. Young life is the hope of the Church and the terror of despots. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

Progress in sin

There is a woful gradation in sin. As mariners, setting sail, lose sight of the shore, then of the houses, then of the steeples, and then of the mountains and land; and as those who are waylaid by a consumption first lose vigour, then appetite, and then colour; thus it is that sin hath its woful gradations. None decline to the worst at first, but go from one degree of turpitude to another, until the very climax is reached.

The climax of cruelty

If we glance once more at the different means which Pharaoh devised for the oppression and diminution of the Hebrews, we find that they imply the following climax of severity and cruelty: he first endeavoured to break their energy by labour and hardship (verses 11-14), then to effect their diminution by killing the newborn male children through the midwives (verses 15, 16); and when neither of these plans had the desired result–the former in consequence of the unusual robustness of the Hebrew women, the latter owing to the piety and compassion of the midwives–he tried to execute his design by drowning the young children (verse 22); which last device was in two respects more audacious and impious than the second: first, because he now, laying aside all shame, showed publicly his despotism against a harmless foreign tribe, which relied on the hospitality solemnly promised to them; and, secondly, because now the whole people were let loose against the Hebrews; spying and informing was made an act of loyalty, and compassion stamped as high-treason. (M. M. Kalisch, Ph. D.)

Increasing power of sin

When once a man has done a wrong thing it has an awful power of attracting him and making him hunger to do it again. Every evil that I do may, indeed, for a moment create in me a revulsion of conscience, but stronger than that revulsion of conscience it exercises a fascination over me which it is hard to resist. It is a great deal easier to find a man who has never done a wrong thing than to find a man who has only done it once. If the wall of the dyke is sound it will keep the water out, but if there is the tiniest hole in it, it will all come in. So the evil that you do asserts its power over you; it has a fierce, longing desire after you, and it gets you into its clutches. Beware of the first evils, for, as sure as you are living, the first step will make the second seem to become necessary. The first drop will be followed by a bigger second, and the second, at a shorter interval, by a more copious third, until the drops become a shower, and the shower becomes a deluge. The course of evil is ever wider and deeper, and more tumultuous. The little sins get in at the window and open the front door for the big housebreakers. One smooths the path for the other. All sin has an awful power of perpetuating and increasing itself. As the prophet says in his awful vision of the doleful creatures that make their sport in the desolate city, None of them shall want her mate. The wild beasts of the desert shall meet with the wild beasts of the islands. Every sin tells upon character, and makes the repetition of itself more and more easy. None is barren among them. And all sin is linked together in a slimy tangle, like a field of seaweed, so that the man once caught in its oozy fingers is almost sure to drown. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

.

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 7. The children of Israel were fruitful] paru, a general term, signifying that they were like healthy trees, bringing forth an abundance of fruit.

And increased] yishretsu, they increased like fishes, as the original word implies. See Ge 1:20, and the note there. See Clarke on Ge 1:20.

Abundantly] yirbu, they multiplied; this is a separate term, and should not have been used as an adverb by our translators.

And waxed exceeding mighty] vaiyaatsmu bimod meod, and they became strong beyond measure – superlatively, superlatively-so that the land (Goshen) was filled with them. This astonishing increase was, under the providence of God, chiefly owing to two causes:

1. The Hebrew women were exceedingly fruitful, suffered very little in parturition, and probably often brought forth twins.

2. There appear to have been no premature deaths among them. Thus in about two hundred and fifteen years they were multiplied to upwards of 600,000, independently of old men, women, and children.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Here are many words, and some very emphatical, to express their incredible multiplication. They

waxed exceeding mighty; which may relate either to their numbers, which greatly added to their strength, or to their constitution, to note that their offspring was strong as well as numerous. Atheistical wits cavil at this story, and pretend it impossible that out of seventy persons should come above six hundred thousand men within two hundred and fifteen years; wherein they betray no less ignorance than impiety. For, to say nothing of the extraordinary fruitfulness of the women in Egypt who oft bring forth four or five children at one birth, as Aristotle notes, Hist. Animal. 7.4, nor of the long lives of the men of that age, nor of the plurality of wives then much in use, nor of the singular blessing of God upon the Hebrews in giving them conceptions and births without abortion, all which are but very reasonable suppositions, the probability of it may plainly appear thus: Suppose there were only two hundred years reckoned, and only fifty persons who did beget children, and these begin not to beget before they he twenty years old, and then each of them beget only three children. Divide this time now into ten times twenty years. In the first time, of 50 come 150. In the second, of 150 come 450. Of them in the third, come 1350. Of them in the fourth, 4050. Of these in the fifth, 12150. Of these in the sixth, 36450. Of them in the seventh, 109350. Of them in the eighth, 328050. Of these in the ninth, 984150. And of them in the tenth, 2952450. If it be objected, that we read nothing of their great multiplication till after Josephs death, which some say was not above fifty years before their going out of Egypt, it may be easily replied:

1. This is a great mistake, for there were above one hundred and forty, years between Josephs death and their going out of Egypt, as may appear thus: It is granted that the Israelites were in Egypt about two hundred and ten or two hundred and fifteen years in all. They came not thither till Joseph was near forty years old, as is evident by comparing Gen 41:46 with Gen 45:6. So there rests only seventy years of Josephs life, which are the first part of the time of Israels dwelling in Egypt, and there remain one hundred and forty-five years, being the other part of the two hundred and fifteen years.

2. That the Israelites did multiply much before Josephs death, though Scripture be silent in it, as it is of many other passages confessedly true, cannot be reasonably doubted. But if there was any defect in the numbers proposed in the first fifty-five years, it might be abundantly compensated in the one hundred and forty-five years succeeding. And so the computation remains good.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

7. children of Israel werefruitfulThey were living in a land where, according to thetestimony of an ancient author, mothers produced three and foursometimes at a birth; and a modern writer declares “the femalesin Egypt, as well among the human race as among animals, surpass allothers in fruitfulness.” To this natural circumstance must beadded the fulfilment of the promise made to Abraham.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

And the children of Israel were fruitful,…. In their offspring; became like fruitful trees, as the word signifies:

and increased abundantly; like creeping things, or rather like fishes, which increase very much, see Ge 1:20

and multiplied; became very numerous, whereby the promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were fulfilled:

and waxed exceeding mighty; were hale, and strong, of good constitutions, able bodied men, and so more dreaded by the Egyptians: a heap of words is here used to express the vast increase of the people of Israel in Egypt:

and the land was filled with them; not the whole land of Egypt, but the land of Goshen: at first they were seated in a village in that country, but now they were spread throughout the towns and cities in it.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

Verses 7-14:

Verse 7 begins the real saga of the Exodus. Briefly outlined in verses 7-14 are: (1) Israel’s rapid multiplication; (2) a change of dynasties in Egypt; (3) the new king’s manner of dealing with Israel.

The narrative contains no reference to elapsed time. There is no note of how long Israel’s increase continued before the new Pharaoh came to the throne, nor how long it continued before he took note of it, nor how long the attempt continued to check this increase by forced labor.

Israel’s increase from “seventy souls” to the 600,000 mature men (Ex 12:37) is remarkable. Some critics declare this is to be impossible, and dismiss the entire Exodus narrative as fantasy, or allegorical. However

The “70 souls” (Ge 46:8-27) include only two women. The wives of Jacob’s sons are not included among them. To add the wives of 67 males, the actual number of Jacob’s family was 137 persons. In addition, each son’s family was accompanied by its “household” (Ex 1:1), likely consisting of many dependents. If each of Jacob’s sons had 50 servants or retainers, and Jacob himself had a household like that of his grandfather Abraham (Ge 14:14), the entire number who went into Egypt would have been at least 2,000 persons!

It is an established fact that population tends to double itself every 25 years, if not checked by disease, famine, or war. At this rate, assuming Jacob’s household numbered 2,000 people, this number would expand to 2,048,000 in 250 years. Only 500 persons would expand to this same number in 300 years, or 130 years before the Exodus!

In addition, the Land of Goshen was a broad, fertile region, and ideal for a large population. The Delta region of Egypt covers about 8,000 square miles, with the Land of Goshen occupying about half that area. A population of about 2 million people is what one would expect, at the rate of 500 to 600 people per square mile.

The king under whom Joseph served was likely Apophis, the last of the Hyksos kings. This dynasty was expelled about 1700 or 1600 BC. The “new king” who arose and who was hostile toward Israel was either Rameses I, founder of the 19th Dynasty, or his son Seti I who succeeded him.

This new king “knew not Joseph” He had no personal knowledge of Joseph, and he was ignorant of his history. Between two and three centuries had passed since Egypt enjoyed the benefits of Joseph’s administration.

The new Pharaoh became concerned over the population explosion among the Israelites. He feared that they would form an alliance with a potential enemy, to overthrow Egypt’s government. Although there was no war at that time, there was the potential threat from the east, the Hittites, who were a great power of Syria.

Pharaoh also recognized in the peaceful, wealthy Israelites a source of revenue. He feared that they would leave Egypt. To counter this possibility, he instituted a forced labor policy. The Israelites were not citizens of Egypt; thus they had no legal protection from forcible conscription of their persons or property.

Pharaoh appointed over the Israelites “taskmasters,” literally “lords of tribute.” The term used is the official title for overseers of forced labor. Among the tasks assigned was the manufacture of bricks, and the building of the treasure cities Pithom and Raamses, literally the “cities of store,” containing depots of provisions and military hardware. The locations of these two cities are uncertain today.

In addition to the rigorous labor of the brickyard, Israel was conscripted to tend the royal flocks and herds, as well as to the menial work of the fields. The geography of Egypt requires year-round cultivation and attention to the fields. The crops depend almost entirely upon irrigation, requiring an extensive system of canals. The labor is exhausting, under the hot Egyptian sun, from sunrise to sunset.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

7. And the children of Israel were fruitful. (8) To what an extent they increased Moses relates in the 12th chapter, viz., to the number of 600,000, besides women and children; which was certainly an incredible increase for so short a time. For, though 430 years be counted from the date of the covenant with Abraham to the departure of the people, it is clear that half of them had elapsed before Jacob went down into Egypt; so that the Israelites sojourned in that land only 200 years, or little more — say ten years more. How then could it come to pass that in so short a time a single family could have grown into so many myriads? It would have been an immense and extraordinary increase if 10,000 had sprung from every tribe; but this more than quadruples that number. Wherefore certain sceptics, perceiving that the relation of Moses surpasses the ordinary ratio of human propagation, and estimating the power of God by their own sense and experience, altogether refuse to credit it. For such is the perverseness of men, that they always seek for opportunities of despising or disallowing the works of God; such, too, is their audacity and insolence that they shamelessly apply all the acuteness they possess to detract from his glory. If their reason assures them that what is related as a miracle is possible, they attribute it to natural causes, — so is God robbed and defrauded of the praise his power deserves; if it is incomprehensible to them, they reject it as a prodigy. (9) But if they cannot bring themselves to acknowledge the interference of God except in matters by the magnitude of which they are struck with astonishment, why do they not persuade themselves of the truth of whatever common sense repudiates? They ask how this can be, as if it were reasonable that the hand of God should be so restrained as to be unable to do anything which exceeds the bounds of human comprehension. Whereas, because we are naturally so slow to profit by his ordinary operations, it is rather necessary that we should be awakened into admiration by extraordinary dealings.

Let us conclude, then, that since Moses does not here speak of the natural course of human procreation, but celebrates a miracle unheard of before, by which God ratified the truth of his promise, we should judge of it perversely, and maliciously, if we measure it by our own feeble reason, instead of meditating with reverence upon what far transcends all our senses. Let us rather remember how God reproves his unbelieving people by the Prophet Isaiah. ( Isa 51:1) For, in order to prove that it would not be difficult for Him, in spite of the small number to which the Israelites were reduced, to produce a great multitude, He bids them look into “the hole of the pit from whence they were digged,” viz., to Abraham, and Sarah that bare them, whom he multiplied though alone, and childless. Certain Rabbins, after their custom, imagine that four infants were produced at a birth; for as often as they meet with any point which perplexes them, they gratuitously invent whatever suits them, and then obtrude their imaginations as indubitable facts; and proceed foolishly, and unseasonably, to discuss that this is physically probable. There are Christians, too, who, with little consideration, have imitated them here, contending that what Moses describes is in accordance with experience, because the fecundity of certain nations has been almost as great. We indeed sometimes see confirmed by remarkable examples what the Psalmist says, ( Psa 107:36,) that God “maketh the hungry to dwell” in the wilderness, “that they may prepare a city for habitation, and sow the fields, and plant vineyards, which may yield fruits of increase; and he blesseth them also, so that they are multiplied greatly;” as also, that “He turneth a fruitful land into barrenness,” and strips it of inhabitants; but the design of Moses is to shew, that there never was any fecundity, which was not inferior to the increase of the people of Israel. Hence his comparison between the seventy souls, and the multitude which proceeded from them, that this special blessing of God might be distinguished from ordinary cases; hence too the accumulated expressions, which undoubtedly are meant for amplification, that “they were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them.” For the repetition of the adverb, Meod, Meod, marks an unusual abundance, Nor do I reject the conjecture of some, that in the word שרף, sharatz, there is a metaphor taken from fishes, but I know not whether it is very sound, since the word is used generally for any multiplication.

(8) שרף, rendered in A V increased abundantly, — occurs first in Gen 1:20, where it is rendered bring forth abundantly As a noun it signifies reptiles. מאד, meod; in A V exceeding is repeated twice after עצמו, they waxed mighty; but may properly be considered as augmenting the force of each of the preceding verbs. — W

(9) French, “un monstre incroyable:” an incredible prodigy.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

CRITICAL NOTES.

Exo. 1:11. Pithom] P. = a narrow place: a city of Lower Egypt, situated on the eastern bank of the Nile: Gr. Patoumos (Gosenius). Raamses] Prob. = son of the sun: should be looked for at the site of the modern Belbeis, called Pelusium in old time: days journey N.E. of Cairo, on the Syro-Egyptian road. As the name R. appears as a royal name, the city and province may have been called from it (Frst).

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Exo. 1:7-12

I. That a large population is of great advantage to a nation.

1. It gives an impulse to civilisation. The larger the number of people in a nation the greater likelihood of geniusbusiness tactinventionauthorshipcompetitionand therefore of a complete civilisation.

2. It augments the force of the national prowess. A large population will be able to supply a large army. It will hold in terror the enemy.

3. It invests the nation with importance in the estimation of surrounding kingdoms.

II. That a large population sometimes excites the suspicion and envy of neighbouring kings. (Exo. 1:8-9.)

1. He was jealous of the numerical growth of Israel.

2. He was suspicious of what might befall his country in future exigencies.

III. That this suspicion frequently leads kings to practise the most abject slavery. (Exo. 1:11.)

1. It was cunning. He first got the Israelites to promise heavy rentswhich they were unable to paythis brought them into servitudehad some appearance of fairness on his part.

2. It was unjust. What right had this new king to interfere with the rapid growth of the Israelites, and still less to make it the occasion of their bondage. He should have rejoiced in their joy. A tyrant is insensible to any prosperity but his own.

3. It was painful. They had to pay heavy tributethey were harshly treated. Slavery always occasions painmental, if no otherespecially to those who have once enjoyed the happiness of freedom.

4. It was apparently productive of gain. And they built for Pharoah treasure cities, Pithon and Raamses. But what the Egyptians and their king gained in public buildingsthey lost in sensitiveness of consciencein force of manhoodin worth of character. No man can keep slaves without weakening the sensibilities of his moral naturewhich are far more valuable than any property attained through the serfs. Slavery involves a loss of all that is noble in human natureit leads to murder. (Exo. 1:22.)

IV. That slavery is an incompetent method of conquest. (Exo. 1:12.)

1. Because it does not gain the sympathy of the people it conquers.

2. Because it arouses the indignation of those who are subject to its cruelties. What would be the feelings of the Israelites as day by day they were made to build the treasure cities of Pharoah?they would curse his very reign. Such treatment would offend their reasonaffront their humanityexcite their passionsuch people would be dangerous subjects to any ruler. It would have been a wiser policy to have made them his friends.

3. It does not save a Ruler from the calamity he seeks to avert. The slavery of the Israelites did not hinder their numerical increaseit alienated the sympathies of the increasing nationand prepared the way for all the conflicts of the future history.

We may take this passage in a symbolical sense

AS SHEWING THE INCREASE OF THE CHURCH

I. Notwithstanding the removal of its chief officer. (Exo. 1:6) Joseph was deadhis example would be gonehis authority in the nation would be no longer on the side of Israel. Many will go to church when the chief Ruler of the nation does, who would never go otherwise; religion is fashionable then. His influence would be gone. His counsel would be inaccessible. To-day the church loses its chief officers, but it still grows.

II. Notwithstanding the decade of the generation. (Exo. 1:6.) The generation contemporary with Joseph was dead. A vast army of human beings had marched into the grave, yet Israel grew. So to-day men die, but the Church, by making new converts, multiplies her progeny to an almost incredible extent.

III. Notwithstanding the persecution to which it was subjected. (Exo. 1:11.) Israel was severely persecutedwas reduced to slavery. Kings have tried to reduce the Churchthe truththe Biblethe pulpitthe religious press to bondagebut the fiercer their despotism, the more savage their atrocitiesthe firmer and stronger has the Church become. The Church can never be put down by force. The Infinite Power is on her side. This is more than all that can be against her.

IV. Notwithstanding the artifices by which it was sought to be betrayed. (Exo. 1:15; Exo. 1:22.) The king tried to get the midwives to kill, at the birth, all the male children of the Israelites. Ultimately, an edict was passed that they were to be cast into the river. Both failed. So the Church has been in danger of losing many of its members through the treachery of the outside world, and through the daring cruelty of meddlesome men. Still it grows. May it soon fill the world, as the Israelites did Egypt. All Church increase is from Godnot from mennot from means. God has promised to multiply the Church.

SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES

Exo. 1:7. That under favourable conditions of climate and health, nations have, within themselves, a great power of numerical increase. That the blessing of God is the great secret of true prosperity.

That there are times when the Divine promise appears to reach more rapid fulfilment.
The larger the population of a nation, the greater are its capabilities of sympathy, mutual dependency and help, and oftentimes the greater difficulty in its right government.
The Divine goodness is seen in the prosperity of nations.

A NEW KING

Exo. 1:8.

I. He was out of sympathy with the purpose and providence of God. He endeavoured to diminish a people whom God wished to multiply, to oppress a people whom God had led under his authority. Many kings, by their conducttheir enactmentstheir selection of counsellorsshew themselves to be out of sympathy with the Divine King.

II. He was out of sympathy with the conduct of his predecessors (Exo. 1:8.) He knew not Josephand had no desire to aid or succour the people whose history was associated with that revered name Kings are not often harmonious in their method of governmentunder one reign the Church is safe and peacefulunder the next it is probably persecuted. One king unbinds the legislationdiscards the friendship, and religious toleration of another.

III. He was envious in his disposition. (Exo. 1:9.) He envied and fearedthe numberthe strengththe military prowess of the Israelitesfears unfounded. But, by the force of his own envious disposition, and its consequent despotism, he made an otherwise peaceable people his enemies. Envious men generally bring on themselves the evils of which they suspect the innocent to be guilty. An envious spirit is sure to bring a king into difficulty.

IV. He was cunning in his arrangements. (Exo. 1:10.) He involved the Israelites in heavy debttried to depress their spiritto enervate their moral natureto degrade their humanityand so to deprive them of the timeopportunitymeansor disposition of joining, in case of war, another nation against himself. A cunning king is sure to outwit himself. Policy is a weak basis for a throneit invites suspicionalienates respectleads to ruin.

V. He was cruel in his requirements. (Exo. 1:11-12.) The Israelites were to pay tributeTaskmasters were set over themthey had to build treasure cities without remuneration. They were deprived of the right and value of their own labourthis not to serve any philanthropic, or heroic purposebut to satisfy the envious passion of a cruel monarch

VI. He was thwarted in his project. (Exo. 1:17.) The midwives spared the male children, contrary to the wish of the king. Mere power cannot always command obedience. It is sometimes defeated by weakness. Cunning is sometimes overcome by the Godly simplicity of a few women. Despotism is subdued by womanly tenderness. Heaven is on the side of the oppressed.

The difference in character, intention, and disposition, between the successive occupants of official position.
Changes in the official positions of a country often affect the Church. God can make are cunning envy of a cruel king subserve His purpose, and aid His Church. Good men, when dead, are frequently lost sight of, and their deeds are forgotten.
Nothing sooner perisheth than the remembrance of a good turn [Trapp].

The vicissitudes of power:

1. Are independent of past services.
2. Are independent of moral character.
3. Are frequently dependent upon the arbitrary caprice of a despotic king.

When forsaken by the king, a good man still has God to fall back upon. It is often at such times that he finds religion the most helpfulthen the Divine consolations more than make up for the loss of the human.

Exo. 1:9. A bad king will make a wicked people:

1. He will influence the weak by his splendour.
2. Terrify the timid by his power.
3. Gain the servile by his flattery.
4. Gain the simple by his cunning.
5. Sometimes gain the good by his deception.

An envious spirit magnifies its difficulties.
Moral goodness is the only thing worth envying in the life of a nationpower and numbers generally excite the ambition of monarchs.
Many wicked rulers cannot bear to witness the prosperity of the Church.
The prosperity of the Church is apparent to her enemies.

Exo. 1:10. Kings ought to know better than to convene councils to oppose the intentions of God. Such conduct is:

1. Daring.
2. Reprehensible.
3. Ruinous.
4. Ineffectual.

The end and design of the council was:i. To prevent the numerical increase of Israel. ii. To enfeeble the military power of Israel. iii. To detain the Israelites in permanent bondage.
Wicked rulers encourage all under them to set against the Church.
Policy and strength are combined in the world to vex Gods people.
The design of worldly wickedness is to keep Gods Church from growing.
It is usual with worldly powers to suspect Gods people of treachery.
Sinful rulers project wars, and then blame the innocent for them.
Worldly powers are solicitous that Gods Church may not get out of their hands Earth and Heaven are frequently in conflict over the Church.
It has been the policy of tyrants to represent the Church as dangerous.
Cunning the worst, the most degrading, and unsuccessful policy of kings.
Kindness is the most effective argument. Had the new king shewn sympathy with the Israelites, they would have become his willing allies in war, his obedient citizens in peace; whereas now they are his most inveterate enemies. A cunning policy is a losing one.

Exo. 1:11. The taskmasters of the world:

1. Sin is a taskmaster.
2. The rich are often taskmasters.
3. The ambitious are often taskmasters. These taskmasters are:i. Authoritative; They did set over thee. ii. Painful; To afflict thee. iii. Inconsiderate; Burdens.

That God allowed his people thus to be enslaved and afflicted:

1. A mystery.
2. A problem.
3. A punishment.
4. A discipline.

God can make a nursery for His Church anywhere.
God knows where to put His Church to school. God knows the best preparation for the future of the Church.
The Church must not measure the love of God towards her by the affliction she endures, but by His purpose therein.
Subtle counsels against the Church soon bring forth cruel practices.

Exo. 1:12. Moral growth proportionate to affliction.

1. This is true of individual moral character.
2. This is especially true in the developement of the Church.

Why does persecution and trial operate thus:

1. To manifest the love of God towards His Church.
2. To manifest the power of God over His enemies.
3. To fulfil the promise of God made to the good.
4. To manifest His providence towards the Church.
5. To strike terror into the hearts of tyrants.
6. To manifest the divinity of truth, and pure moral character.

God can soon find taskmasters to afflict an idolatrous church.
Tyrants find grief where they expected joy.
God is with the Church, even in her bondage.
The land of shelter becomes the house of slavery.
The place of our satisfaction may soon become the scene of our affliction.
The divine chastisements tend more to growth than to destruction. All true growth and progress are characterised by pain. Comfort and sorrow, growth and slavery, are made to unite in the discipline of the Church.
Welcome, bondage! if it is only accompanied by increased moral energy.
As the ground is most fruitful that is most harrowed. The walnut-tree bears best when most beaten. Fish thrive best in cold and salt water than in warm and fresh [Trapp]. The Egyptians were grieved:

1. Because their plots were a failure.
2. Because their cruelty was unavailing.
3. Because they had exasperated an enemy they could not subdue. Half the grief of the world is occasioned by the failure of wicked and cruel purposes.

ILLUSTRATIONS

Exo. 1:8-11. If the mountains overflow with waters, the valleys are the better; and if the head be full of ill-humours, the whole body fares the worse. The actions of rulers are most commonly rules for the peoples actions, and their example passeth as current as their coin. The common people are like tempered wax, easily receiving impressions from the seals of great mens vices; they care not to sin by prescription and damn themselves with authority. And it is the unhappy privilege of greatness to warrant, by example, others, as well as its own sins, whilst the unadvised take up crimes on trust and perish by credit [Hardings Sermons].

Exo. 1:11. As we say of fire and water, and as the Romans said of Caligula, Nemo melior servus, nemo pefor dominus, we may say of the Churchs enemiesThey are very bad masters, executing their own lusts and cruelty against Gods people, yet very good servants, if the Divine hand makes use of them for the Churchs service; just like the good husbandman, who makes use of briars and thorns which, though they be fruits of the curse, and cumber the ground, yet he will suffer them to grow in hedges, that he may make them a fence unto his fruitful ground [Strickland].

Exo. 1:12. Even as the palm-tree, the more it is laden and pressed down, the more it groweth and stretcheth out, or spreadeth its boughs in length and breadth: so, likewise, the Church, the more she is persecuted and afflicted, the more force, courage, and liveliness she taketh to herself. Like as roses and lilies are accustomed to flourish and to increase among thorns: so is this a common thing for the Church to flourish in the midst of persecutions.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

(7) The children of Israel were fruitful.A great multiplication is evidently intended. Egypt was a particularly healthy country, and both men and animals were abnormally prolific there. Grain was so plentiful that want, which is the ordinary check on population, was almost unknown. The Egyptian kings for many years would look favourably on the growth of the Hebrew people, which strengthened their eastern frontier, the quarter on which they were most open to attack. Gods blessing was, moreover, upon the people, which he had promised to make as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea-shore, for multitude (see Gen. 22:17). On the actual extent of the multiplication and the time that it occupied, see the comment on Exo. 12:37-41.

The landi.e., where they dweltGoshen (Gen. 47:4-6)which seems to have been the more eastern portion of the Delta.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

INCREASE AND OPPRESSION OF ISRAEL, Exo 1:7-22.

7. Here is an accumulation of figures to express the vast increase of the children of Israel .

Were fruitful A figure from the seed which multiplies a hundred or a thousand fold .

Increased abundantly Swarmed or teemed; a word applied to the myriad-fold spawn of fishes .

Multiplied exceeding mighty Literally, multiplied and grew strong (in numbers) exceedingly exceedingly . The fat Nile-land greatly favours fruitfulness both in animals and men, as is attested by travellers from Aristotle and Strabo to Robinson; and Goshen was the “best of the land” for a pastoral people. It was, besides, a border land, where Israel was isolated from the Egyptians. This isolation aided in developing an independent national life, while the descendants of Jacob would in Canaan have become absorbed among the native Hamites. Natural causes are thus ever taken up into providential plans.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

EXPOSITION

Exo 1:7-14

Here the real narrative of Exodus begins. The history of the Israelites from and after the death of Joseph is entered on. The first point touched is their rapid multiplication. The next their falling under the dominion of a new king. The third, his mode of action under the circumstances. It is remarkable that the narrative contains no notes of time. How long the increase continued before the new king arose, how long it went on before he noticed it, how long the attempt was made to cheek it by mere severity of labour, we are not told. Some considerable duration of time is implied, both for the multiplication (verse 7) and for the oppression (verse 11-14); but the narrator is so absorbed in the matters which he has to communicate that the question what time these matters occupied does not seem even to occur to him. And so it is with the sacred narrative frequentlyperhaps we should say, generally. The chronological element is regarded as of slight importance; “A thousand years in the Lord’s sight are but as yesterday””one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” Where a profane writer would have been to the last degree definite and particular, a sacred writer is constantly vague and indeterminate. We have in the Bible nothing like an exact continuous chronology. Certain general Chronological ideas may be obtained from the Bible; but in order to construct anything like a complete chronological scheme, frequent reference has to be made to profane writers and monuments, and such a scheme must be mainly dependent on these references. Archbishop Ussher’s dates, inserted into the margin of so many of our Bibles, are the private speculations of an individual on the subject of mundane chronology, and must not be regarded as in any way authoritative. Their primary basis is profane history; and, though taking into consideration all the Scriptural numbers, they do not consistently follow any single rule with respect to them. Sometimes the authority of the Septuagint, sometimes that of the Hebrew text, is preferred; and the result arrived at is in a high degree uncertain and arbitrary.

Exo 1:7

The multiplication of the Israelites in Egypt from “seventy souls” to “six hundred thousand that were men” (Gen 12:1-20 :37)a number which may fairly be said to imply a total of at least two millionshas been declared to be “impossible,” and to stamp the whole narrative of Exodus with the character of unreality and romance. Manifestly, the soundness of this criticism depends entirely on two thingsfirst, the length of time- during which the stay in Egypt continued; and secondly, the sense in which the original number of the children of Israel in Egypt is said to have been “seventy souls.” Now, as to the first point, there are two theoriesone, basing itself on the Septuagint version of Exo 12:40, would make the duration of the Egyptian sojourn 215 years only; the other, following the clear and repeated statement of the Hebrew text (Exo 12:40, Exo 12:41), literally rendered in our version, would extend the time to 430 years, or exactly double it. Much may be said on both sides of this question, and the best critics are divided with respect to it. The longer period is supported’ by Kalisch, Kurtz, Knobel, Winer, Ewald, Delitzsch, and Canon Cook among modems; by Koppe, Frank, Beer, Rosenmuller, Hofmann, Tiele, Reinke, Jahn, Vater, and J. D. Michaelis among earlier critics; the short period is approved by Calvin, Grotius, Buddeus, Morinus, Voss, Houbigant, Baumgarten; and among our own countrymen, by Ussher, Marsham, Geddes, and Kennicott. The point cannot be properly argued in an “exposition” like the present; but it may be remarked that both reason and authority are in favour of the simple acceptance of the words of the Hebrew text, which assign 430 years as the interval between Jacob’s descent into Egypt and the deliverance under Moses.

With respect to the number of those who accompanied Jacob into Egypt, and were assigned the land of Goshen for a habitation (Gen 47:6), it is important to bear in mind, first of all, that the “seventy souls” enumerated in Gen 46:8-27 comprised only two females, and that “Jacob’s sons’ wives” are expressly mentioned as not included among them (ib. Gen 46:26). If we add the wives of 67 males, we shall have, for the actual family of Jacob, 137 persons. Further, it is to be borne in mind that each Israelite family which went down into Egypt was accompanied by its “household” (Exo 1:1), consisting of at least some scores of dependants. If each son of Jacob had even 50 such retainers, and if Jacob himself had a household like that of Abraham (Gen 14:14), the entire number which “went down into Egypt” would have amounted to at least 2000 persons.

According to Malthus, population tends to double itself, if there be no artificial check restraining it, every twenty-five years. At this rate, 2000 persons would expand into 2,048,000 in 250 years, 1000 would reach the same amount in 275 years, and 500 in 300 years; so that, even supposing the “seventy souls” with their “households” to have numbered no more than 500 persons when they went down into Egypt, the people would, unless artificially checked, have exceeded two millions at the expiration of three centuriesthat is to say, 130 years before the Exodus! No doubt, the artificial checks which keep down the natural tendency of population to increase began to tell upon them considerably before that time. The “land of Goshen.”a broad tract of very fertile country, became tolerably thickly peopled, and the rate of increase gradually subsided. Still, as the Delta was a space of from 7000 to 8000 square miles, and the land of Goshen was probably about half of it, a population of two millions is very much what we should expect, being at the rate of from 500 to 600 persons to the square mile.
It is an interesting question whether the Egyptian remains do, or do not, contain any mention of the Hebrew sojourn; and if they do, whether any light is thereby thrown on these numbers. Now it is admitted on all hands that, about the time of the Hebrew sojourn, there was in Egypt a subject race, often employed in forced labours, called Aperu or Aperiu, and it seems impossible to deny that this word is a very fair Egyptian equivalent for the Biblical , “Hebrews.” We are forced, therefore, either to suppose that there were in Egypt, at one and the same time, two subject races with names almost identical, or to admit the identification of the Aperu with the descendants of Jacob. The exact numbers of the Aperu are nowhere mentioned; but it is a calculation of Dr. Brugsch that under Rameses II; a little before the Exodus, the foreign races in Egypt, of whom the Aperu were beyond all doubt the chief, “amounted certainly to a third, and probably still more,” of the whole population, which is usually reckoned at from 7,000,000 to 8,000,000, One-third of this number would be from 2,300,000 to 2,600,000.

The writer of Exodus does not, however, as yet, make anything like a definite calculation. He is merely bent on having it understood that there had been a great multiplication, and that the “family” had grown into a “nation.” To emphasise his statement, he uses four nearly synonymous verbs (“were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed-mighty“), adding to the last a duplicated adverb, bim‘od m‘od, “much, much.” Clearly, an astonishing increase is intended.

Exo 1:8

There arose up a new king. It is asked, Does this mean merely another king, or a completely different king, one of a new dynasty or a new family, not bound by precedent, but free to adopt and likely to adopt quite new principles of government? The latter seems the more probable supposition; but it is probable only, not certain. Assuming it to be what is really meant, we have to ask, What changes of dynasty fall within the probable period of the Israelite sojourn in Egypt, and to which of them is it most likely that allusion is here made? Some writers (as Kalisch) have supposed the Hyksos dynasty to be meant, and the “new king” to be Set, or Salatis, the first of the Hyksos rulers. But the date of Salatis appears to us too early. If Joseph was, as we suppose, the minister of Apophis, the last Hyksos king, two changes of dynasty only can come into considerationthat which took place about b.c. 1700, when the Hyksos were expelled; and that which followed about three centuries later, when the eighteenth dynasty was superseded by the nineteenth. To us it seems that the former of these occasions, though in many respects suitable, is

(a) too near the going down into Egypt to allow time for the multiplication which evidently took place before this king arose (see Exo 1:7), and

(b) unsuitable from the circumstance that the first king of this dynasty was not a builder of new cities (see Exo 1:11), but only a repairer of temples. We therefore conclude that the “new king” was either Rameses I; the founder of the nineteenth dynasty, or Seti I; his son, who within little more than a year succeeded him. It is evident that this view receives much confirmation from the name of one of the cities built for the king by the Hebrews, which was Raamses, or Rameses, a name now appearing for the first time in the Egyptian dynastic lists.

Who knew not Joseph. Who not only had no personal know]edge of Joseph, but was wholly ignorant of his history. At the distance of from two to three centuries the benefits conferred by Joseph upon Egypt, more especially as they were conferred under a foreign and hated dynasty, were forgotten.

Exo 1:9

And he said unto his people, Behold, the children of Israel are more and mightier than we. Literally, “great and strong in comparison with us.” Actual numerical superiority is not, perhaps, meant; yet the expression is no doubt an exaggerated one, beyond the truththe sort of exaggeration in which unprincipled persons indulge when they would justify themselves for taking an extreme and unusual course.

Exo 1:10

Come on. The “Come then” of Kalisch is better. Let us deal wisely. “The children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.” Severe grinding labour has often been used as a means of keeping down the aspirations of a people, if not of actually diminishing their numbers, and has been found to answer. Aristotle (Pol. 5.9) ascribes to this motive the building of the Pyramids and the great works of Polycrates of Samos, Pisistratus of Athens, and the Cypselidae of Corinth. The constructions of the last Tarquin are thought to have had the same object. Lest, when there falleth out any war, they join also to our enemies. ‘At the accession of the nineteenth dynasty, though there was peace, war threatened. While the Egyptians, under the later monarchs of the eighteenth dynasty, had been quarrelling among themselves, a great nation upon their borders “had been growing up to an importance and power which began to endanger the Egyptian supremacy in Western Asia”. Both Rameses I. and his son Seti had almost immediately after their accession to engage in a war, which was rather defensive the, offensive, with the Khita, or Hittites, who were the great power of Syria. At the commencement of his reign, Seti may well have feared a renewed invasion like that of the Hyksos, which would no doubt have been greatly helped by a rising of the Israelites. And so get them up out of the land. Literally, “And go up out of the land.” The Pharaoh already fears that the Israelites will quit Egypt. As men of peaceful and industrious habits, and in some cases of considerable wealth (Joseph. ‘Ant. Jud.’ 2.9, 1), they at once increased the strength of Egypt and the revenue of the monarch. Egypt was always ready to receive refugees, and loth to lose them. We find in a treaty made by Rameses II; the son of Seti, with the Hittites, a proviso that any Egyptian subjects who quit the country, and transfer themselves to the dominion of the Hittite king, shall be sent back to Egypt.

Exo 1:11

They did set over them taskmasters. Literally, “lords of tribute,” or “lords of service.” The term used, sarey massim, is the Egyptian official title for over-lookers of forced labour. It occurs in this sense on the monument representing brick-making, which has been supposed by some to be a picture of the Hebrews at work. To afflict them with their burdens. Among the tasks set the labourers in the representation above alluded to are the carrying of huge lumps of clay and of water-jars on one shoulder, and also the conveyance of bricks from place to place by means of a yoke. They built for Pharaoh treasure-cities, Pithom and Raamses. By “treasure-cities” we are to understand “store-cities,” or “cities of store,” as the same word is translated in 1Ki 9:19 and 2Ch 8:4. Such cities contained depots of provisions and magazines of arms. They were generally to be found on all assailable frontiers in ancient as in modern times. (Compare 2Ch 11:5, 2Ch 11:12; 2Ch 33:1-25 :28, etc.) Of the cities here mentioned, which the Israelites are said to have “built,” or helped to build, Pithom is in all probability the Patumes of Herodotus (2:158), which was not far from Bubastis, now Tel-Basta. Its exact site is uncertain, but if identical with the Thou, or Thoum, of the ‘ Itinerary of An-tonine,’ it must have lain north of the Canal of Necho, not south, where most maps place it. The word means “abode of the sun,” or rather “of the setting sun,” called by the Egyptians Tam, or Atum. Names formed on the model were very common under the nineteenth dynasty, Rameses II. having built a Pa-Ra, a Pa-Ammon, and a Pa-Phthah in Nubia. Pa-Tum itself has not been found among the cities of this period, but appears in the records of the twentieth dynasty as a place where the Setting-Sun god had a treasury. The name Rameses is probably put for Pa-Rameses (as Thoum for Pa-Tum), a city frequently mentioned in the inscriptions of the nineteenth dynasty, and particularly favoured by Rameses II; whose city it was especially called, and by whom it was greatly enlarged, if not wholly built. We incline to believe that the building was commenced by Seti, who named the place, as he did his great temple, the Rameseum, after his father. The city was, according to Brugsch, a sort of suburb of Tanis. It was a magnificent place, and under Rameses II. and his son Menephthah was the ordinary residence of the court. Hence the miracles of Moses are said to have been wrought “in the field of Zoan,” i.e. the country about Tanis (Psa 78:12, Psa 78:43).

Exo 1:12

They were grieved because of the children of Israel. The word grieved very insufficiently renders the Hebrew verb, which “expresses a mixture of loathing and alarm”. Kalisch translates forcibly, if inelegantly”They had a horror of the children of Israel.”

Exo 1:13

The Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigour. The word translated rigour is a very rare one. It is derived from a root which means “to break in pieces, to crush.” The “rigour” would be shown especially in the free use of the stick by the taskmaster, and in the prolongation of the hours of work.

Exo 1:14

They made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in morter and in brick. While stone was the material chiefly employed by the Egyptians for their grand edifices, temples, palaces, treasuries, and the like, brick was also made use of to a large extent for inferior buildings, for tombs, dwelling-houses, walls of towns, forts, enclosures of temples, etc. There are examples of its employment in pyramids; but only at a time long anterior to the nineteenth and even to the eighteenth dynasty. If the Pharaoh of the present passage was Seti I; the bricks made may have been destined in the main for that great wall which he commenced, but did not live to complete, between Pelusium and Heliopolis, which was to secure his eastern frontier. All manner of labour in the field. The Israelitish colony was originally employed to a large extent in tending the royal flocks and herds (Gen 47:6). At a later date many of them were engaged in agricultural operations (Deu 11:10). These, in Egypt, are in some respects light, e.g. preparing the land and ploughing, whence the remark of Herodotus (2.14); but in other respects exceedingly heavy. There is no country where care and labour are so constantly needed during the whole of the year. The inundation necessitates extreme watchfulness, to save cattle, to prevent the houses and the farmyards from being inundated, and the embankments from being washed away. The cultivation is continuous throughout the whole of the year; and success depends upon a system of irrigation that requires constant labour and unremitting attention. If the “labour in the field” included, as Josephus supposed (1.s.c.), the cutting of canals, their lives would indeed have been “made bitter.” There is no such exhausting toil as that of working under the hot Egyptian sun, with the feet in water, in an open cutting, where there can be no shade, and scarcely a breath of air, from sunrise to sunset, as forced labourers are generally required in do. Me-hemet Ali lost 20,000 labourers out of 150,000 in the construction of the Alexandrian Canal towards the middle of the present century.

HOMILETICS

Exo 1:7, Exo 1:12

God the Protector of his people.

I. THE MULTIPLICATION OF ISRAEL. All increase is of God, and comes to man by his blessing. As he gave the original command, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth” (Gen 1:28), so he in every case gives the new lives by which the earth is replenished. “Children, and the fruit of the womb, are an heritage and gift that cometh of the Lord” (Psa 128:3). He gives or withholds offspring as he pleases; enlarges families, tribes, nations, or causes them to decline, decay, and die out. Increase is a sign of his favour

1. To the individual”Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them” (Psa 128:5);

2. To the nation”I will multiply them and they shall not be few; I will also glorify them and they shall not be small” (Jer 30:19); and

3. To churches”Walking in the fear of the Lord, and the comfort of the Holy Ghost, they were multiplied” (Act 9:31). A nation or church that increases has, so far at any rate, a sign of God’s approval of it, of his favour, of his having in his eternal counsels work for it to do for him in the present and the future. One which dwindles has, on the contrary, a note of God’s disapprovalat the very least, a warning that all is not with it as it should be. Nations, when they can no longer do God service, die out; churches, when they become effete and useless, have their candlesticks removed (Rev 2:5).

II. EFFECT OF PERSECUTION ON IT. Note, that the effect of persecution was the very opposite of what was intended. The more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied. So is it ever with God’s people. Persecutions always “fall out for the furtherance of the Gospel” (Php 1:12). “They which were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen, travelled as far as Phoenice, and Cyprus, and Antioch preaching the word” (Act 11:19). Persecution brought Paul to Rome, and enabled him to proclaim the Gospel and make many converts in the very citadel of Satan, the headquarters of the enemy. So marked was the prevalence of the law, that among the early Christians it became a proverb, that “the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the Church.” After each of the ten great Imperial persecutions, the Church was found within a brief space to be more numerous than ever. And so it will be to the end. “The gates of Hell” cannot prevail against the Church. Out of the last and greatest of all the persecutions, when Antichrist shall be revealed, the Church will issue triumphant, a “great multitude, which no man can number” (Rev 7:9).

Exo 1:8

Joseph forgotten.

“The evil that men do lives after themthe good is oft interred with their bones.” Had Joseph been a tyrant, a conqueror, an egotist who crushed down the Egyptians by servile toil for the purpose of raising a huge monument to his own glory, he would no doubt have remained fresh in the memory of the nation, and his name and acts would have been familiar even to a “new king,” who was yet an Egyptian and an educated man. But as he had only been a benefactor of the nation, and especially of the kings (Gen 47:20-26), he was utterly forgottenas some think, within sixty-five years of his death, but according to our calculations, not till about 275 years after it. This is about the space that separates us from Queen Elizabeth, who is certainly not forgotten, as neither are her ministers. So Christian nations would seem to have better memories than heathen ones. In time, however, every man is forgotten; and Christians should therefore not make their object the praise of men, or posthumous fame, but the praise and approval of God, which will continue for ever. “God is not unrighteous to forget” (Heb 6:10)

Exo 1:10-12

The wisdom of the wise brought to nought.

God is wont to “destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent” (1Co 1:19). He “makes the devices of the people of none effect” (Psa 33:10). Humanly speaking, the Pharaoh had done “wisely,” had counselled well: many a people has been crushed utterly under the yoke of an oppressor, ground down by hard laboureven after a time well-nigh exterminated. It was a clever and crafty plan to avoid the risk and discredit of a massacre of unoffending subjects, and at the same time to gain advantage by their heavy labours while effectually thinning their ranks through the severity of the toils imposed on them. Unless God had interfered, and by his secret help supported and sustained his people; enabled them to retain their health and strength under the adverse circumstances; induced them, bitter and hopeless as their lot seemed, still to contract marriages, and blessed those marriages, not only with offspring, but with superabundant offspring (see Exo 1:12 and Exo 1:20)the result anticipated would without doubt have followed: the multiplication of the people would have been checkedtheir numbers would soon have begun to diminish. But God had determined that so it should not be. He had promised Abraham an extraordinary increase in the number of his descendants, and was not going to permit a cruel and crafty king to interfere with the carrying out of his designs, the performance of his gracious promises. So the more that Pharaoh and his obsequious subjects afflicted them, “the more they multiplied and grew””the little one became a thousand, and the small one a strong nation”the Lord “hastened it in his time” (Isa 60:22). Christians therefore need never fear the devices of their enemies, however politic they may seem. God has the power, and if he sees fit will exert it, to turn the wisdom of the world into foolishness, to upset all human calculations, confound all prudent counsels, and make each act done in opposition to his will help to work it out. In Israel’s case, the hard labour and unceasing toil which made their lives bitter (Exo 1:14), was at once needed to wean their minds from the recollection of the “fleshpots” and other delights of Egypt, and so make them content to quit it; and also it was required to brace them for the severe life of the wildernessthe hard fare, the scant water, the scorching heat by day, the chill dews at night; to harden their frames, relaxed by a time of sensual indulgence (Exo 16:3), and nerve their minds to endurance.

HOMILIES BY J. ORR

Exo 1:7-11

A multiplying people and a king’s fears.

The increase of Israel in Egypt excited Pharaoh’s jealousy. They were a useful people, and he dreaded their departure (Exo 1:10). But their staying was almost equally an occasion of uneasiness. Their position in Lower Egypt, so near the frontier, made them dangerous in case of wars. Revolutions were not infrequent, and many things were less likely than a future Hebrew dynasty. Hence the policy of breaking their power, and checking their increase, by reducing them to servitude.

I. VIEW ISRAEL‘S INCREASE AS A WORK OF DIVINE POWER. While

1. Naturalthat is, not miraculous, but due to the superabundant blessing of God on ordinary meansit was yet,

2. Extraordinary, and

3. Invincibledefying the efforts of the tyrant to check it. It may be legitimately viewed as a type of the spiritual increase of the Church. This also

1. Excites astonishment. So great a fruitfulness had never before been known. It was a marvel to all who witnessed it. Like surprise is awakened by the facts of the history of the Church. Consider

(1) The smallness of the Church’s beginnings.

(2) The rapidity of her growth.

(3) What opposition she has encountered.

(4) What efforts have been made to crush her.

(5) How she survives, and has from time to time renewed her youth.

(6) How she has even thriven in the fires of persecution.

(7) How, notwithstanding formidable resistance, and great internal lukewarmness and corruption, her progress is being steadily maintained.

2. Awakens jealousy and fear. The world does not relish the progress of the Gospel. It resents it as full of danger to itself. The filling of the land with sincere believers would mean the downfall of its power. Its spirit shown in opposition to revivals of religion, in decrying missions, in anger at bold and fearless preaching of Christ, followed by saving results, etc.

3. Can only be accounted for by ascribing it to God as its author, Naturalistic explanations have been offered. Gibbon has enumerated “secondary causes.” So “secondary causes,” might be pointed to in explaining the increase of Israel, yet these alone would not account for it. There was implied a Divine power, imparting to ordinary means an extraordinary efficacy. As little can the success of Christianity be explained on grounds of mere naturalism.

1. The Bible attributes it to Divine efficiency.

2. Those who experience its power unhesitatingly trace it to this source.

3. The Church is successful only as she relies on Divine assistance.

4. Naturalistic theories, one and all, break down in their attempts at explanation.

Each new one that appears founds itself on the failure of its predecessors. It, in turn, is exploded by a rival. The supernatural hypothesis is the only one which accounts for all the facts.

II. VIEW PHARAOH‘S POLICY AS A TYPE OF WORLDLY POLICY GENERALLY. Leave it to describe itself, and it is

1. Far-seeing.

2. Politic,

3. Unsentimental. Napoleon was unsentimental: “What are a hundred thousand lives, more or less, to me!”

4. A necessity of the time.

Describe it as it ought to be described, and it appears in a less favourable light.

1. Ever awake to selfish interests.

2. Acute to perceive (or imagine) danger.

3. Unrestrained by considerations of gratitude. The new king “knew not Joseph.” Nations, like individuals, are often forgetful of their greatest benefactors.

4. Regardless of the rights of others.

5. Cruelstops at nothing. It will, with Pharaoh, reduce a nation to slavery; or, with Napoleon, deluge continents with blood. Yet

6. Is essentially short-sighted. All worldly policy is so. The King of Egypt could not have taken a more effectual means of bringing about the evils that he dreaded. He made it certain, if-it was uncertain before, that in the event of war, the Hebrews would take part with his enemies. He set in motion a train of causes, which, as it actually happened, led to the departure of the whole people from Egypt. His policy thus outwitted itself, proved suicidal, proclaimed itself to be folly. Learn

1. The folly of trusting in man. “Beware of men” (Mat 10:17).

2. How futile man’s wisdom and cunning are when matched against God’s power.

3. The short-sightedness of selfish and cruel action.J.O.

Exo 1:11-14

The bondage.

I. HOW EFFECTED? Doubtless, partly by craft, and partly by force. To one in Pharaoh’s position, where there was the will to enslave, there would soon be found the way.

1. The Israelites were politically weak. “The patriarchal family had grown into a horde; it must have lost its domestic character, yet it had no polity a people in this state was ripe for slavery” (Maurice).

2. And Pharaoh had no scruples. Those engaged in tillage and keeping of cattle could easily be ruined by heaping on them tributes and exactions. Liberty once forfeited, they were at Pharaoh’s disposal, to do with as he listed. Of the rest, large numbers were probably already employedas forced labourerson Pharaoh’s works of construction. Over these (Exo 1:11), it was proposed to set “taskmasters””chiefs of tribute”to afflict them with their burdens.

3. Complaint was useless. The Hebrews soon found, as expressed afterwards (Exo 5:19), that they were “in evil case”that a general conspiracy, from the king downwards, had been entered into to rob, injure, and oppress them. Their subjugation in these circumstances was easily accomplished. Learn

1. A nation may outgrow itself. It will do so if intelligence and morals, with suitable institutions, do not keep pace with numbers.

2. Great prosperity is not always an advantage. It

(1) excites jealousy;

(2) tempts cupidity;

(3) usually weakens by enervating.

II. WHY PERMITTED? This question may be answered by viewing the bondage

1. Is a punishment for sins. The Hebrews had doubtless greatly corrupted themselves in Egypt, and had become in their masses very like the people around them. This was in them a sin that could not pass unpunished. God cannot suspend his moral Laws even for his own people. If they do wrong, they must, no less than others, suffer for it. Nay, they will be punished with even greater severity than others are for similar offences. It is this which explains the bitter servitude of Israel. The nation is allowed to sink into a condition which is at once a fit retribution for its own sin, and an apt image of the condition of the sinner generally. For sin is slavery. It is inward bondage. It is degradation. It is rigorous service, and bitterness, and misery. God’s law, the soul’s own lusts, an exacting world, become in different ways taskmasters. It is unprofitable service. It sends a man to the husks, to the swine-troughs. It is slavery from which nothing but the power of God Almighty can redeem us. We bless God for our greater Moses, and the grander Exodus.

2. As a trial of faith. It would be so in a very especial degree to the godly portion of Israel. For why this long hiding of God’s facethis keeping silence while his people were broiling and perishing under their terrible tasks? Did it not seem as though the promise had failed and God had forgotten to be gracious? (Psa 77:8, Psa 77:9.) Truly we need not wonder at anything in God’s dealings with his Church when we reflect on how long and how fearfully Israel was afflicted. The faith which endured this trial must have come out of the furnace seven times purified,

3. As a moral preparation. It is now manifest, though it could hardly have been seen then, how needful was this affliction, protracted through successive generations

(1) To wean the people’s hearts from Egypt.

(2) To make them willing to leave it.

(3) To make the thought of Canaan sweet to them.

(4) To break up trust in self and man.

(5) To lead them to cry mightily to God.

The same reasons, in whole or part, serve to explain why God lays trials on ourselves; indicate at least the ends which affliction is used to subserve. Had everything been prosperous, the hearts of Israel would naturally have clung to the fleshpots; their hopes would have been forgotten; even their God would in time have been abjured.J.O.

HOMILIES BY G.A. GOODHART

Exo 1:7-14

Israel in Egypt.

The life of a people, like that of an individual, to a great extent shaped by circumstances. In Canaan the Israelites might learn hardihood, but no room for much growth; few opportunities for national organisation; the tendency would be for the families to separate, each seeking pasturage for its own flocks (cf. Abraham and Lot). To become a nation they had to be placed

(1) where they might increase and multiply, and

(2) where their slightly connected elements might coalesce and be welded into one.

To attain this object God led his people into Egypt. [Cf. (1) Hothouse where plants may strike and grow before being planted out, and (2) Deu 4:20. Furnace where metal may be smelted into one homogeneous mass and the worst of. the dross removed.] We may notice in this view

I. PROSPERITY AND ITS USES. Cf. Deu 4:7. In Goshen life simple and the means of subsistence plentiful, ample room and ample provision. Happy years without a history, passed in a land which even now yields the largest revenue in Egypt, and where the population still increases more rapidly than in any other province. Probably no incident of more importance than some occasional skirmish with border tribes. No wonder that “they increased abundantly and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty.”

Prosperity has its uses as well as adversity. The long unnoticed years through which the fruit-tree attains maturity are necessary antecedents to the fiery summers which see the fruit ripening. Not much to notice in such years. Still their existence is noteworthy. They make no small portion of the sum of human life, whether viewed in its national or individual aspect. History grows out of them even whilst it is compelled to forget them in its records. The fruit of Life draws from them its substance, though other years may give it its colour and flavour.

II. ADVERSITY AND ITS USES. Deu 4:10-14 show how trouble came to Israel, and the nature of the trouble which did come. Originating in Pharaoh’s natural jealousy at the increasing influence of an alien race, it took the form of enforced labour, such asperhaps owing to Joseph’s land law (Gen 47:23, etc.)he clearly had the acknowledged right to levy at will from all his subjects. Pharaoh however was but the instrument which God used for the education of his people; he knew that adversity was needed to carry on the work which prosperity had begun. Notice

1. Affliction did not hinder progress. We gather from Deu 4:12 that it really advanced it. Prosperity long continued may be a greater hindrance than adversity. It tends to produce a stagnant condition [cf. the opening poems in Tennyson’s ‘Maud’]. The after-history shows us that Israel had, to some extent, morally deteriorated; and moral deterioration in the long run must lead to physical degradation. When the stock needs pruning the pruning process stimulates growth.

2. Affliction proved morally helpful. The people had been getting careless and slothful, forgetting God (cf. Jos 24:14, Eze 20:5-8) or paying him a merely nominal service. Now, however, of. Deu 2:23-25, God Could hear their cry because their cry was genuine; he could have respect unto them because they were learning to have respect unto him.

3. Affliction ensured national union. Hitherto the people was just a collection of families, united by a common name and common traditions. Mutual need begets mutual helpfulness, and it is by mutual help that tribes are dovetailed into one another and come to form one nation. [Isolated fragments of ore need smelting in the furnace to produce the consolidated metal.] It is in the heat of the furnace of affliction that rivalries, jealousies, and all kinds of tribal littlenesses can alone be finally dissolved. And affliction still has such uses. Prosperity is good, no doubt, but, in this world, it requires to be complemented by adversity. “Why is trouble permitted?” Because men cannot otherwise be perfected. It is just as necessary for our moral ripening as heat is necessary for the ripening of the fruit.

(1) It need not hinder any man’s progress;

(2) If rightly used it should purge out the dross, from us and make us morally better;

(3) It tends to dissolve the barriers which selfishness erects between man and man, and works towards the formation of that holy brotherhood which embraces in one family all the nations of the earth.G.

HOMILIES BY J. URQUHART

Exo 1:8-14

Egypt’s sin.

I. NATIONAL WRONG–DOING THE SEED OF NATIONAL DISASTER. The story of Egypt’s suffering begins with the story of Egypt’s injustice. There was wisdom in Pharaoh’s statesmanship, and a sincere desire to serve his country, and yet he was his country’s worst foe. The service rendered by wickedness is in the end rebuke and ruin.

II. THE CARE SOUGHT TO BE REMOVED BY SIN BECOMES GREATER (10-12).

1. The bondage was imposed to prevent their multiplying: “but the more they afflicted them the more they multiplied and grew.”

2. The trouble was at first simply a possibility detected by the statesman’s keen eye, and now all Egypt was “grieved because of the children of Israel.” The way of wickedness is through a deepening flood.

III. WRONG GROWS INTO GREATER WRONG (13, 14). Egypt had gone too far to retreat. Israel’s enmity was now a certainty, and they must be crushed. From being compelled to labour in the erection of strong cities, their lives are made bitter by all manner of hard bondage. Evil grows with an inward necessity. When a nation makes an unjust demand it does not mean murder, yet that is its next step. Satan dare not whisper all his counsel at first but by-and-by he can tell it all and have it all accomplished.U.

Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary

Exo 1:7. The children of Israel were fruitful, &c. A variety of terms, nearly synonimous, are used in this verse, to express the prodigious increase of the children of Israel; with whom, says the sacred writer, the land, i.e. of Goshen, was filled. Great increase of people naturally produces power; and so we read, that they not only increased abundantly, but also waxed exceeding mighty: so that the fears of the Egyptians were awakened. Moses, both here and in Deu 10:22 remarks this increase as miraculous, and owing to the providence of GOD, who made them thus fruitful amidst all the oppression and efforts of their enemies to prevent it. Population however, in Egypt, was naturally very rapid, according to the testimony of the best writers; and there was no country in the world, where children were more easily brought up, says Diodorus, both on account of the good temperature of the air, and the great abundance of all things necessary to life. Let it be remembered that upwards of six hundred thousand fighting men of the children of Israel, (Num 1:46.) came out of Egypt; and, in this view, it will be deemed no hyperbole to say, that the land was filled with them. Calculators have shewn, that from seventy persons, within two hundred and fifteen years, such a number as the Mosaic history relates, separate from any thing miraculous, might very easily have been produced.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Act 7:17 . It is worth the reader’s serious remark, that the first half of the period of 430 years from Abraham’s days when God promised the increase of his children, had produced only 70 souls. Whereas during the latter half, the seed of Israel multiplied to six hundred thousand men beside women and children. See Exo 7:25 .

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Exo 1:7 And the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them.

Ver. 7. Increased abundantly. ] Heb., Spawned, and bred swiftly, as fishes. Trogus author a firmat in Aegypto septenos uno utero simul gigni. Egypt is a fruitful country: it is ordinary there, saith Trogus, to have seven children at a birth. Solinus gives the reason, quod faetifero potu Nilus, non tantum terrarum, sed etiam hominum faecundat arva; – the river Nile, whereof they drink, makes men as well as fields fruitful. But this increase of the Israelites was also by the extraordinary blessing of God, that they might “become a mighty and populous nation.” Deu 26:5

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

fruitful: Exo 12:37, Gen 1:20, Gen 1:28, Gen 9:1, Gen 12:2, Gen 13:16, Gen 15:5, Gen 17:4-6, Gen 17:16, Gen 22:17, Gen 26:4, Gen 28:3, Gen 28:4, Gen 28:14, Gen 35:11, Gen 46:3, Gen 47:27, Gen 48:4, Gen 48:16, Deu 10:22, Deu 26:5, Neh 9:23, Psa 105:24, Act 7:17, Act 7:18

Reciprocal: Gen 1:21 – brought Gen 26:22 – be fruitful Exo 1:20 – the people Exo 5:5 – General Lev 26:9 – make you Num 22:5 – they cover Deu 6:3 – that ye may Job 12:23 – increaseth Psa 107:38 – He blesseth Ecc 1:4 – One generation Eze 16:7 – caused Zec 10:8 – and they Act 13:17 – and exalted Heb 6:15 – General

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Exo 1:7. And the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly Like fishes or insects, as one of the words here used signifies, and being generally healthful and strong, they waxed exceeding mighty, so that the land was filled with them At least Goshen, their own allotment. This wonderful increase was the product of the promise long before made to their fathers. From the call of Abraham, when God first told him he would make him a great nation, to the deliverance of his seed out of Egypt, were four hundred and thirty years; during the first two hundred and fifteen of which they were increased to seventy, but in the latter half, those seventy multiplied to six hundred thousand fighting men.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

1:7 And the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the {b} land was filled with them.

(b) He means the country of Goshen.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

GOD IN HISTORY.

Exo 1:7.

With the seventh verse, the new narrative, the course of events treated in the main body of this book, begins.

And we are at once conscious of this vital difference between Exodus and Genesis,–that we have passed from the story of men and families to the history of a nation. In the first book the Canaanites and Egyptians concern us only as they affect Abraham or Joseph. In the second book, even Moses himself concerns us only for the sake of Israel. He is in some respects a more imposing and august character than any who preceded him; but what we are told is no longer the story of a soul, nor are we pointed so much to the development of his spiritual life as to the work he did, the tyrant overthrown, the nation moulded, the law and the ritual imposed on it.

For Jacob it was a discovery that God was in Bethel as well as in his father’s house. But now the Hebrew nation was to learn that He could plague the gods of Egypt in their stronghold, that His way was in the sea, that Horeb in Arabia was the Mount of God, that He could lead them like a horse through the wilderness.

When Jacob in Peniel wrestles with God and prevails, he wins for himself a new name, expressive of the higher moral elevation which he has attained. But when Moses meets God in the bush, it is to receive a commission for the public benefit; and there is no new name for Moses, but a fresh revelation of God for the nation to learn. And in all their later history we feel that the national life which it unfolds was nourished and sustained by these glorious early experiences, the most unique as well as the most inspiriting on record.

Here, then, a question of great moment is suggested. Beyond the fact that Abraham was the father of the Jewish race, can we discover any closer connection between the lives of the patriarchs and the history of Israel? Is there a truly spiritual coherence between them, or merely a genealogical sequence? For if the Bible can make good its claim to be vitalised throughout by the eternal Spirit of God, and leading forward steadily to His final revelation in Christ, then its parts will be symmetrical, proportionate and well designed. If it be a universal book, there must be a better reason for the space devoted to preliminary and half secular stories, which is a greater bulk than the whole of the New Testament, than that these histories chance to belong to the nation whence Christ came. If no such reason can be found, the failure may not perhaps outweigh the great evidences of the faith, but it will score for something on the side of infidelity. But if upon examination it becomes plain that all has its part in one great movement, and that none can be omitted without marring the design, and if moreover this design has become visible only since the fulness of the time is come, the discovery will go far to establish the claim of Scripture to reveal throughout a purpose truly divine, dealing with man for ages, and consummated in the gift of Christ.

Now, it is to St. Paul that we turn for light upon the connection between the Old Testament and the New. And he distinctly lays down two great principles. The first is that the Old Testament is meant to educate men for the New; and especially that the sense of failure, impressed upon men’s consciences by the stern demands of the Law, was necessary to make them accept the Gospel.

The law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ: it entered that sin might abound. And it is worth notice that this effect was actually wrought, not only upon the gross transgressor by the menace of its broken precepts, but even more perhaps upon the high-minded and pure, by the creation in their breasts of an ideal, inaccessible in its loftiness. He who says, All these things have I kept from my youth up, is the same who feels the torturing misgiving, What good thing must I do to attain life?… What lack I yet? He who was blameless as touching the righteousness of the law, feels that such superficial innocence is worthless, that the law is spiritual and he is carnal, sold under sin.

Now, this principle need by no means be restricted to the Mosaic institutions. If this were the object of the law, it would probably explain much more. And when we return to the Old Testament with this clue, we find every condition in life examined, every social and political experiment exhausted, a series of demonstrations made with scientific precision, to refute the arch-heresy which underlies all others–that in favourable circumstances man might save himself, that for the evil of our lives our evil surroundings are more to be blamed than we.

Innocence in prosperous circumstances, unwarped by evil habit, untainted by corruption in the blood, uncompelled by harsh surroundings, simple innocence had its day in Paradise, a brief day with a shameful close. God made man upright, but he sought out many inventions, until the flood swept away the descendants of him who was made after the image of God.

Next we have a chosen family, called out from all the perilous associations of its home beyond the river, to begin a new career in a new land, in special covenant with the Most High, and with every endowment for the present and every hope for the future which could help to retain its loyalty. Yet the third generation reveals the thirst of Esau for his brother’s blood, the treachery of Jacob, and the distraction and guilt of his fierce and sensual family. It is when individual and family life have thus proved ineffectual amid the happiest circumstances, that the tribe and the nation essay the task. Led up from the furnace of affliction, hardened and tempered in the stern free life of the desert, impressed by every variety of fortune, by slavery and escape, by the pursuit of an irresistible foe and by a rescue visibly divine, awed finally by the sublime revelations of Sinai, the nation is ready for the covenant (which is also a challenge)–The man that doeth these things shall live by them: if thou diligently hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God … He shall set thee on high above all nations.

Such is the connection between this narrative and what went before. And the continuation of the same experiment, and the same failure, can be traced through all the subsequent history. Whether in so loose an organisation that every man does what is right in his own eyes, or under the sceptre of a hero or a sage,–whether so hard pressed that self-preservation ought to have driven them to their God, or so marvellously delivered that gratitude should have brought them to their knees,–whether engulfed a second time in a more hopeless captivity, or restored and ruled by a hierarchy whose authority is entirely spiritual,–in every variety of circumstances the same melancholy process repeats itself; and lawlessness, luxury, idolatry and self-righteousness combine to stop every mouth, to make every man guilty before God, to prove that a greater salvation is still needed, and thus to pave the way for the Messiah.

The second great principle of St. Paul is that faith in a divine help, in pardon, blessing and support, was the true spirit of the Old Testament as well as of the New. The challenge of the law was meant to produce self-despair, only that men might trust in God. Appeal was made especially to the cases of Abraham and David, the founder of the race and of the dynasty, clearly because the justification without works of the patriarch and of the king were precedents to decide the general question (Rom 4:1-8). Now, this is pre-eminently the distinction between Jewish history and all others, that in it God is everything and man is nothing. Every sceptical treatment of the story makes Moses to be the deliverer from Egypt, and shows us the Jewish nation gradually finding out God. But the nation itself believed nothing of the kind. It confessed itself to have been from the beginning vagrant and rebellious and unthankful: God had always found out Israel, never Israel God. The history is an expansion of the parable of the good shepherd. And this perfect harmony of a long record with itself and with abstract principles is both instructive and reassuring.

As the history of Israel opens before us, a third principle claims attention–one which the apostle quietly assumes, but which is forced on our consideration by the unhappy state of religious thought in these degenerate days.

“They are not to be heard,” says the Seventh Article rightly, “which feign that the old fathers did look only for transitory promises.” But certainly they also would be unworthy of a hearing who would feign that the early Scriptures do not give a vast, a preponderating weight, to the concerns of our life on earth. Only very slowly, and as the result of long training, does the future begin to reveal its supremacy over the present. It would startle many a devout reader out of his propriety to discover the small proportion of Old Testament scriptures in which eternity and its prospects are discussed, to reckon the passages, habitually applied to spiritual thraldom and emancipation, which were spoken at first of earthly tyranny and earthly deliverance, and to observe, even in the pious aspirations of the Psalms, how much of the gratitude and joy of the righteous comes from the sense that he is made wiser than the ancient, and need not fear though a host rose up against him, and can break a bow of steel, and has a table prepared for him, and an overflowing cup. Especially is this true of the historical books. God is here seen ruling states, judging in the earth, remembering Israel in bondage, and setting him free, providing supernatural food and water, guiding him by the fiery cloud. There is not a word about regeneration, conversion, hell, or heaven. And yet there is a profound sense of God. He is real, active, the most potent factor in the daily lives of men. Now, this may teach us a lesson, highly important to us all, and especially to those who must teach others. The difference between spirituality and secularity is not the difference between the future life and the present, but between a life that is aware of God and a godless one. Perhaps, when we find our gospel a matter of indifference and weariness to men who are absorbed in the bitter monotonous and dreary struggle for existence, we ourselves are most to blame. Perhaps, if Moses had approached the Hebrew drudges as we approach men equally weary and oppressed, they would not have bowed their heads and worshipped. And perhaps we should have better success, if we took care to speak of God in this world, making life a noble struggle, charging with new significance the dull and seemingly degraded lot of all who remember Him, such a God as Jesus revealed when He cleansed the leper, and gave sight to the blind, using one and the same word for the “healing” of diseases and the “saving” of souls, and connecting faith equally with both. Exodus will have little to teach us, unless we believe in that God who knoweth that we have need of food and clothing. And the higher spiritual truths which it expresses will only be found there in dubious and questionable allegory, unless we firmly grasp the great truth, that God is not the Saviour of souls, or of bodies, but of living men in their entirety, and treats their higher and lower wants upon much the same principle, because He is the same God, dealing with the same men, through both.

Moreover, He treats us as the men of other ages. Instead of dealing with Moses upon exceptional and strange lines, He made known His ways unto Moses, His characteristic and habitual ways. And it is on this account that whatsoever things were written aforetime are true admonition for us also, being not violent interruptions but impressive revelations of the steady silent methods of the judgment and the grace of God.

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary