Jesus In Exodus

Chapters 1 & 2

In the closing chapters of Genesis we saw Joseph and his family settled in Egypt. When they arrived they were welcomed and given some of the best land in the country. But about thirty years after they arrived their welcome turned to envy.

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

They came to the land of bondage with their father Jacob. He was the one who brought them there. We need to notice that the name for the father given here is “Jacob”, which speaks of the “natural” man, not Israel his new name. This speaks clearly to us. We too, entered this land in spiritual bondage with our father, Adam.

· Exodus 1:6-7,  Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation die, but the Israelites were fruitful and multiplied greatly and became exceedingly numerous, so that the land was filled with them.

God has promised to make a great nation of them and it begins here in Egypt.

· Exodus 1:8, Then a new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt. This new king was not an Egyptian but an Assyrian and he did not know the history of Joseph and what he had done for the land.

· Exodus 1:9, “Look”, he said to his people, “the Israelites have become much too numerous for us.” 

The Israelites probably numbered about two million and it is very unlikely that they outnumbered the Egyptians. But notice that the new king said to his people, that the Israelites were too numerous for us. So it is likely that he was speaking of the Assyrians, not Egyptians. The Assyrians had conquered Egypt.

· Exodus 1:10-11, “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 they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithon and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. The new king was concerned that if war broke out, the Israelites would join up with the Egyptians against the Assyrians. So they made slaves out of the Israelites.

In oppressing the Israelites we have an illustration of the world’s hatred for the children of God. How relevant that is to our own time where in many areas of the world Christians are being persecuted for their faith.

· Exodus 1:12-13, But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites and worked them ruthlessly.

Times of severest trial have always been times of blessing to God’s people. Suffering tends to refine.

· Exodus 1:15-16, the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, “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.”

Do you remember the enmity between the serpent and the seed of the woman? If all the male children of the Hebrew women were destroyed there would have been no David, and if no David, then no David’s Son.

· Exodus 1:17, The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king had told them to do; they let the boys live.

Once more the king’s plans were foiled. If God be for us, it doesn’t matter who is against us.

· Exodus 1:20-21, So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. And because the midwives feared God, He gave them families of their own.

What an honor came to these women who were midwives; they were then able to have their own children by God’s grace. God rewards those who are obedient to His Word.

· Exodus 1:22, 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.”

You recall that it was the Devil himself who prompted Herod to have all the male children under two years of age to be killed, so here he was using the king of Egypt to destroy the channel through which Jesus was to come. Had the king’s effort succeeded, the channel through which God had chosen for the Savior to be born would have been destroyed.

Chapter 2

From Adam to Christ there is none greater than Moses. He is the most prominent character in the ancient world. All of God’s early dealings with Israel were through Moses.

He was the child of a slave, and the son of a queen. He was born in a hut, and lived in a palace. He inherited poverty, and enjoyed unlimited wealth. He was backward of speech, and talked with God. He was the giver of the Law, and the forerunner of grace. This chapter tells us about his infancy.

· Exodus 2:1-4, Now a man of the house of Levi married a Levite woman, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.

Scripture tells us that it was by faith that Moses’ mother took this action. It is interesting that Moses mother hid him in the very place that the male children were to be drowned.

I believe that there is a very important implication found here. Civil authorities are to be defied when their decrees are contrary to the expressed mind of God. The Word of God requires us to be subject to the civil authorities over us and to obey the laws of the land. Yet our obedience to human authority is qualified. If a human government enacts a law and compliance with it by a Christian would compel him to disobey some command or precept of God, then the human law must be rejected in favor of the Divine. This rejection should be done not in carnal defiance but in obedience to God.

In the first verses of chapter two we see that though Moses was brought to the place of death, the river, he was made secure in the basket, or the ark. And this speaks to us of Jesus.

· Exodus 2:5-9, Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the river bank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her slave girl to get it. She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This is one of the Hebrew babies,” she said. Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?” “Yes, go,” she answered. And the girl went and got the baby’s mother. “Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you.” So the woman took the baby and nursed him.

It was not by chance that Pharaoh’s daughter found Moses in the river. God is behind the scenes, ordering everything for His own glory. It was God who put it into the heart of the Egyptian princess to go to the river to bathe, and to that particular spot where Moses was found. And it was God that caused the real mother of Moses to be called to nurse him. In short, it was God who predestined these events. Even in his unregenerate days, the angel of God was camped around Moses.      

· Exodus 2:10, When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, “I drew him out of the water.”

So it was Pharaoh’s daughter who gave him the name Moses.

· Exodus 2:11-12, One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. Glancing this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.

You are to note that the Holy Spirit does not hide the defects in the character of Moses, or other Biblical characters.  Moses was running ahead of God because he knew that what he was doing was wrong which the text clearly indicates. He tried to hide his crime.

· Exodus 2:13-15, The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, “Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew? The man said, “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and thought, “What I did must have become known.” When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well.

The lesson God would have us learn from this event is that God did not plan for his people to be rescued by some insurrection on the part of the Hebrews. God’s time had not yet come and he would rescue them in his own way. It would be a way that they could not take credit for.

In the same way we are to learn that we cannot save ourselves from our sins. It is only God in the person of Jesus who can save us.