Exodus 1: Bearing God's Name
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Why Exodus?
Why Exodus?
In the Old Testament book of Exodus, we see God revealing himself to his people—he’s teaching them about himself, who he is. He’s showing them how to live as a people who bear his name. (all humans are created in the image of God, and God has chosen a specific family, from the lineage of Abraham, to bear his name). He’s showing them what it means to worship the one true God. How to live in the world as the people of God…
I’ve watched us (followers of Christ) over the past few years, especially over the past couple of very difficult years…and this is the same stuff we need to learn!
We need to learn what it really means to live as the people of God, the people who bear the image and name of God in our world.
Are crosses just things we wear, or is the way of the cross an actual way to live our daily lives?
We need to learn who God has revealed himself to be, apart from culture—you realize that neither the culture on the right nor the culture on the left accurately reflect the God of the scriptures—who is God? and who are we as bearers of his image? And how are we supposed to live, as the people of God, in our current setting?
All of these questions are asked and answered as we look at the narrative of God and Israel’s story.
“There is a quest for identity—a need to find ourselves, find out who we are, what we're suppose to do with our lives—it's all at Mt. Sinai, its all in the book of Exodus.”
Bearing God's Name: Why Sinai Still Matters, by Dr Carmen Joy Imes
Today we’re going to tackle the entire first chapter, but before I do, I want to show you a little video by our friends at The Bible Project.
play the video to 2:07 “…and God responds…”
https://bibleproject.com/explore/video/exodus-1-18/
By the way – The Bible Project resources are spectacular. The various videos, their podcast which go way more in depth than even we can on the weekends, and their new series of bible classes are absolutely wonderful, if you’re longing for some more help in understanding the scriptures, and how the entire bible tells one story that points directly to Jesus. Check them out at bibleproject.com
So, for today, let’s look at a few of the points of this story in the text and make some application to our lives today…
Let’s turn to the first chapter and read the first few verses…
1 These are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt with Jacob, each with his family: 2 Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah; 3 Issachar, Zebulun and Benjamin; 4 Dan and Naphtali; Gad and Asher. 5 The descendants of Jacob numbered seventy in all; Joseph was already in Egypt.
In Hebrew, this book literally begins with the word…”and”
You may think that’s a strange way to begin a new book! But the writer is purposefully joining the book of Exodus to the book of Genesis.
This ancient Hebrew literature is known meditational literature, it’s meant to be read over and over again. It’s written in a way to help you notice themes and repeating patterns. It doesn’t only narrate the story, but it’s showing us, teaching us who this God is that created and continues to intervene in human history.
If you haven’t read these books at the beginning of the bible for awhile, or even if you have, I’d invite you to read them with me again this Autumn. And take time to jot down, to make note of some of the repeating patterns and numbers and themes and words. All of it is meant to teach us who we are as the people of God, as the followers of Christ in our day. And we are going to highlight a bunch of these things as we walk through it together.
So as we look at this first part of the story, beginning with the Hebrew word “and”, we’re meant to reflect on how…
Exodus is to be read as a continuation of the past; it is one part of a much larger story.
However the people might choose to view their present circumstance, this author reminds them that the full story is one that stretches back to their ancient ancestors and even to the very beginning of the world itself.
It is only in seeing our situation from the bigger, divine point of view that we can hope to gain a full understanding of what’s going on in our lives. It is this divine point of view that transcends the thousands of years to our lives today.
The people of God are never alone. God is with his people like he was in the past, and he will be with his people into the future much father than you or I can see. The people of God are never alone, no matter how alone you might feel. God sees, and knows, and names his people, and he is with them—no matter what.
In our day, there is something even more endemic than Covid—it’s loneliness. Whether its the transactional nature of our lives, or our compulsive attachments to our ubiquitous screens…
More recent studies have show that most people reach our maximum number of social connections around age 25, and that from then on the number steadily decreases. But that bonds of friendship and support are critically necessary for our physical and emotional health—
And that about 43 million of us suffer from chronic loneliness which greatly effects our health.
We’ve been created for connection to God and to one another – in person community is vital to our health, God made us to need it.
God is always present to you…always. The Holy Spirit is the experienced and personal presence of God. The Holy Spirit is the way you and I experience God today. I want each of us to experience the Holy Spirit in very tangible ways. The Holy Spirit is God’s empowering, transformative and dynamic presence.
story of turning to God and experiencing him meeting me/someone…
Also, I’m only going to briefly touch on this today – the importance of the number of descendents. There’s a storyline throughout the bible related to the number 7, and it begins on the very first page. God created the cosmos in six days, and on the seventh day, He stopped and He settled into His creation to rest and rule with his human partners in a day that has no end. The seventh-day rest is what we all long for and it's what God promises to recreate.
To start this recreation project, He chooses one family, the family of Abraham, and He wants to give them the rest that was lost and let them bring that rest to the whole world. As we journey through the book of Exodus, we are going to see this theme over and over again. The writer is reminding us that God has a purpose and that he’s relentless in accomplishing that purpose.
The people of God are never alone…
6 Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died, 7 but the Israelites were exceedingly fruitful; they multiplied greatly, increased in numbers and became so numerous that the land was filled with them.
All the descendents of Jacob have moved to Egypt because of a regional famine. That first generation has died… and they are multiplying. This language multiplication and fruitfulness and increase is meant to remind us of where we’ve heard it before… God’s initial blessing to the very first humans…
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
The descendents of Jacob are experiencing the blessing of God given at creation.
1 Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.
And the descendents of Jacob are experiencing the blessing of God given to Noah. This is the blessing of Eden which was forfeited by Adam and Eve when they brought a curse on the land…
God had singled out Abram and given him this blessing (Gen 12), and it has passed onto to the the children of Jacob.
The God of creation is a God who keeps his promises. God is doing what he’d promised to do – and a big part of that promise was to bless Abraham so the Abraham and his descendents would be a blessing to the entire world.
Genesis 12:1–3 (NIV)
1 The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.
2 “I will make you into a great nation,
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.”
The story of Exodus is the story of how God is continuing to bring about the fulfillment of this initial promise to Abram.
Remember that God had, through much hardship, placed Joseph in Egypt as a way to provide for Jacob, his father, and all of his siblings during the famine. And through Joseph’s leadership, all of Egypt was blessed and provided for during the years of famine.
And there’s a word in verse 7 that stands out; in English it reads that they increased in number, but the Hebrew word means that they became mighty/strong/powerful in number. This makes the next passage make more sense…
Exodus 1:8–10 (NIV)
8 Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt. 9 “Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become far too numerous for us. 10 Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.”
So we have a new king/Pharoah who could care less about where this immigrant population had come from, about the history of how all Egypt had been blessed and provided for because of their presence…
And the writer is highlighting how this new king is meant to remind us of someone else by the language he’s using… This king is saying, “We should deal Shrewdly/craftily/wisely with them”…the same language used of the snake/serpent in Genesis 3.
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
The new king is thinking, “We don’t want a situation where they fight against us, and/or decide to leave us. We want what they bring to our economy, but we are afraid of how strong they are becoming.”
This is the opposite of a blessing mentality, a mentality of abundance and generosity. The people of God are meant to be a blessing, not just accumulate blessing. We are to be a people shaped by God’s blessing trust, even when it’s difficult to trust.
“We are blessed to be a blessing”, is meant to be a key thought among the people of God. Can we trust that whatever God has given is enough, even enough to share? Yes we can.
The opposite of the shrewdness of the serpent and the Pharoah. When we define our own reality, when we put ourselves in the place of God, we step out from under the abundance and generosity and provision of God. The first humans experienced that, and now, under Pharaoh’s leadership, Egypt will as well.
11 So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. 12 But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites 13 and worked them ruthlessly. 14 They made their lives bitter with harsh labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their harsh labor the Egyptians worked them ruthlessly.
Whether or not they were enslaved before this, we don’t know. But now, out of fear, the Egyptians intensified the slavery of Israel. And look at what they were working to accomplish with this slave labor—they’ll building entire cities for storage, for more accumulation.
Remember the old story (probably not true) from John D Rockefeller, when asked how much money was enough, and the response is Just a little bit more. One of the human’s biggest fears in life is that whatever we currently have is not enough, whatever God has currently provided will run out, and we’ll be left—the insecurity runs deep.
The more Egypt oppresses Israel, they more they flourish.
The opening scene replays the Eden blessing of a big family (70), of being fruitful and multiplying (which puts Pharoah to the test). Pharoah become analogous to the snake and to Adam & Eve all at once.
This is one long story of this king of Egypt trying to harness God’s blessing for their own personal advantage—with three attempts…
First attempt: Enslavement—it’s not working, in fact, its accomplishing the opposite
The Second attempt: Kill them off as we milk them for all the labor they’re worth.
15 The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, 16 “When you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.” 17 The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live. 18 Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?”
19 The midwives answered Pharaoh, “Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.”
20 So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. 21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.
I love these two Hebrew midwives (whose names mean beautiful and sparkle). They are meant to remind us of Eve, and they don’t listen to the Pharoah/snake, they listen to God. They are like a redeemed Eve. When asked what’s going on, they deceive the deceiver—this is amazing!
And so the second attempt is also not working, it’s accomplishing the opposite—bringing about the very thing Egypt fears.
And so the third attempt becomes even more egregious…
22 Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: “Every Hebrew boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.”
But as we know, this also doesn’t work. but in fact this Pharoah will end up raising the one God will use to bring freedom to Israel, the one God will use to put Egypt.
God is in charge, no matter what our circumstances look like. Listen, I know it can be extremely difficult to believe this when the medical diagnosis is not good. There are all sorts of life situation that make it difficult to believe that God is always in charge. But just because something is difficult to believe doesn’t make it untrue.
In chapter one we don’t specifically read about God’s intervention in these difficult circumstances anywhere. Rather what we read could seem to point to the opposite…where is God in the midst of the abusive slavery? Where is he as orders are being given to kill baby boys? Where is he as baby boys are being thrown into the Nile river? These are atrocities! Where is God in it all?
What we read at the end of chapter 2 is that in their groaning and cries for help…God does hear them and this entire story is God’s response and judgment of Egypt’s leaders.
God is encouraging us to look at our circumstances in light of his character, rather than making assumptions about his presence or absence based on our circumstances.
God is there. And while you and I will be tempted to doubt his presence, whether we realize it or not, God is present. The question before you and I is this, will we turn to him? Neither our present circumstances, nor our perception of God’s presence/absence determines our reality.
The God of creation is the God of salvation. The God who started all of this, is the God who will finish it it all. The God who created you, is the God who will be present with you and walk through life with you, and who is always available to you, whether you feel it or not.
God’s message in the opening chapter of Exodus is similar: “If you want to know what will happen to you, my special people, you must remember who I am and what I have done in the past. I do not change, and my care for my people does not change.”
Always look at the present through the lens of the past—our link to the past is through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus
No matter how chaotic life feels, remember that God does not change.