{"id":40572,"date":"2018-09-20T12:27:27","date_gmt":"2018-09-20T09:27:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=40572"},"modified":"2022-04-14T16:37:50","modified_gmt":"2022-04-14T13:37:50","slug":"exodus-1-summary-the-birth-of-a-nation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/exodus-1-summary-the-birth-of-a-nation\/","title":{"rendered":"Exodus 1 Summary: The Birth of a Nation"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The book of Exodus begins with a list of names – the names of the children of Jacob who went down to Egypt – a reminder of what we were told in Genesis (Ch. 46). The purpose of this reminder is to take us straight to the next stop in the story: the family of the children of Jacob turn into the Israelite nation: “And the children of Israel were fruitful and swarmed abundantly and became extremely mighty and they filled the land” (1:7).<\/p>\n

The land which the Israelites filled was, of course, Egypt, where their wondrous fruitfulness was feared as the possibility of a fifth column. “And a new king arose over Egypt… and he said to his people: Behold, the Israelite nation is more numerous and powerful than us. Let us outsmart them lest they increase further, and lest war break out and they join our enemies and fight against us…” (Exodus 1:9-10)<\/p>\n

This fear and enmity manifest as a plan for enslavement which deteriorates into a plan for annihilation:<\/p>\n

Phase One: Enslavement – “And they set taskmasters over them” (1:11) – they were forced to build store-cities; basically the royal warehouses.<\/p>\n

Phase Two: Enslavement is stepped-up – “And the Egyptians set the Israelites to slave-labor.” We know what that means…<\/p>\n

Phase Three: A plan to annihilate the males – at the hands of the midwives. This plan required behind-the-scenes cooperation in Egypt’s maternity wards. That, by the way, was the reason it failed. “And the midwives feared God so they did not obey the King of Egypt and they kept the infants alive” (1:17).<\/p>\n

Phase Four: A plan to annihilate the males by throwing them into the Nile. This plan, too, required cooperation, this time in the open, by the entire Egyptian people. “And Pharaoh commanded his entire nation, saying: Cast every male infant into the Nile and keep all the females alive” (1:22). The text doesn’t tell us how the Egyptians felt about their king’s brutal decree. But in the next chapter we’ll meet a mother who is very concerned for the fate of her son. So there must have been something to worry about.<\/p>\n

Points to Ponder:
\n1. Fruitfulness<\/strong>. Remember how hard it was to give birth in Genesis? Three of the four mothers were barren. We counted each child by name. ??? In Egypt – a veritable baby boom… Even the verbs used to describe fruitfulness are taken from the animal world: “They were fruitful and swarmed abundantly…”<\/p>\n

2. The era of “connections” comes to an end<\/strong>. “And a new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph (1:8). Another historical pattern which repeats itself. Isn’t it?<\/p>\n

3. Nation<\/strong>. In this chapter the family becomes a nation. The first to describe it as such, surprisingly, is the foreign king, Pharaoh: “Behold, the Israelite nation is more numerous and powerful than us” (1:9).<\/p>\n

4. Courage<\/strong>. The midwives. Two women who disobey the royal decree, keep the male children alive, look Pharaoh straight in the eye and come up with an intelligent excuse: “The Hebrew women are not like the Egyptians; they are lively, and they deliver before the midwife comes to them” (1:19).<\/p>\n

5. Who are you?<\/strong> The text mentions the names of the brave midwives: Shifra and Puah. But what about their ethnic identity? The phrase “to the Hebrew midwives” is ambiguous, leaving the reader to decide if the midwives who delivered the Hebrew women were Hebrews or Egyptians.<\/p>\n","image":{"ID":86314,"id":86314,"title":"Points to ponder","filename":"Points-to-ponder.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Points-to-ponder.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/points-to-ponder-psalm-84\/points-to-ponder\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"points-to-ponder","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":86166,"date":"2021-01-09 20:56:58","modified":"2023-12-28 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