Exodus 1: The Flight from Egypt

Exodus: Part 1 of 40

The Israelites Oppressed

1 These are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt with Jacob, each with his family:

Genealogy alert!!!

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.

6 Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died,

7 but the Israelites were fruitful and multiplied greatly and became exceedingly numerous, so that the land was filled with them.

8 Then a new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt.

9 “Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become much 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.”

This is what happens when people are more worried about power than taking care of the country itself.

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 hard labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their hard labor the Egyptians used them ruthlessly.

15 The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah,

16 “When you help the Hebrew women in childbirth and observe them on the delivery stool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.”

Gendercide.  Such wonderful morals.

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.

It wasn’t that gendercide is wrong, but that they feared God. Which once again shows that the bible itself is not the basis of a believers morals. It is only a system of fear and repression and anyone advocating that this should be taught to our children needs to be locked up and made to undergo a lengthy period of psychotherapy.

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.”

They won’t commit gendercide but they will lie to save their own backsides.  What happened to the fear of God?  It seems there is a line they will cross.

20 So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous.

This tells us that God is alright with lying and therefore it’s only the reason for the lie that makes lying a problem.

21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.

You notice it says ‘gave‘ them families, not that he allowed them to ‘have‘ families.  This actually says that he diddled the midwives.

22 Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: “Every boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.”

Such wonderful morals in this so called “Good” book.

<< Index       Exodus 2 >>