Exodus 1:8 Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph.
9 And he said unto his people, Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we:
10 Come on, let us deal wisely with them; lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that, when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land.
11 Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses.
12 But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were grieved because of the children of Israel.
13 And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigour:
14 And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in morter, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field: all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigour.
Yesterday we noted that God was blessing Israel and they were fruitful and multiplying in the land of Egypt. According to trusted chronology there were 144 years from the death of Joseph until the Exodus. During those years it is estimated that the population of Israel grew to be two million people.
We are told that the population of the Jews in Goshen was perceived to be a threat to the next king of Egypt.
Sloppy government is never good. A good government knows the history of the country they are governing. Wise decisions are based on knowledge. Joseph was a very important man in the history of the nation of Egypt. He had been able to keep the Egyptians alive during a seven year famine. He was also able to help people from other nations. Joseph helped to raise the profile of Egypt in the eyes of the people.
However, we are told that the king that rose up over Egypt after the death of Joseph did not bother to read the history of his own nation. He saw the large number of Jews living in Goshen and together with his ungodly counsellors, he determined that this massive group of people were a threat to the Egyptians.
At that time, God had not yet given the Jews His laws in detail. They knew about sacrificing to the Lord. They were to be a separated people. They were to be separated unto God. The fact that they did not mingle with the Egyptians and intermarry with them appeared to be a threat to the king. The world does not like someone who does not sing from their ungodly song book. This is true in our time as well. Mr. Trudeau stated that “evangelical Christians” were one of his biggest threats. He also could not stand to have the few who stood up against his wicked lockdown a few years ago. Most of those people were not born again Christians, but they understood that what he was doing was wrong. There were a few true Christians who did not bow to the government’s wicked agenda. They did not join the protests, but chose to honour God in their choices.
Unless the Lord rules in the life of the rulers, they will become quite puffed up with pride and they will assume that no one is wiser than they are. They will expect blind loyalty to their leadership. We know this is what the Liberal party in Canada expects. They believe they are the only party that should rule over this land. They tolerate the NDP and the Greens, but they have no use for any true Conservative thinking. Much of the current Conservative party is just Liberal light. They talk big, but they have done nothing to stop the ungodly rule we are under.
In verse 9 we read that the king assessed the situation and he observed that the Jews were more in number and mightier than the Egyptians. To him, this separated group of people were a threat. The Jews were not a violent people. Sure, they fought amongst themselves at times. However, they had not showed aggression toward the Egyptians. The king assumed there was trouble brewing and he was not going to allow that to develop.
He could have gone and observed what was actually happening and he could have assessed the situation wisely. He looked at his own mentality and that of his own people and he assumed that the Jews were the same.
In verse 10 we read of the plan he had developed together with his counsellors. He assumed the Jews would join with his enemies in case of a war. He was also concerned that they would take advantage of any war to leave the land of Egypt. The large number of Jews would be quite a tax base for the Egyptians.
The governments are always looking for more money. They may not like a person’s beliefs, but they certainly like their money. With the growing number of Jews, and with them not having their own leadership, the Egyptians had benefited greatly from having them contribute financially to the Egyptian economy.
The king decided the way to keep Israel in check would be to turn them into slaves. He would set up ruthless men who would force the Jews into bondage. He would try to force them into hard labour and thus keep them from having any opportunity to rise up against him.
Little did he know that by forcing them into construction work, he was helping to train them for the time they would build their own houses in the land of Canaan. This would be a ways off yet, but the cities that the Jews built under the Pharaoh’s orders, were well built cities. The Jews learned how to build solid structures that would stand for some time.
We read in verse 12 that the Pharaoh’s plans backfired on him. The Jews continued to multiply in numbers. The hard labour did not stop them from growing in numbers. The Pharaoh did not consider the fact that God was blessing the Jews. They did not consider the fact that God builds a nation and He can just as easily tear it down. God had built up the nation of Egypt in the days of Joseph. The Pharaoh that ruled after his death, did not consider that fact and he assumed that he had the power and that he just needed to suppress the Jews and things would go well for him.
In verses 13-14 we read that the Jews were not an aggressive, war type people. They were readily subdued. They did not put up much resistance to the demands of the Pharaoh. They were put to hard labour and they just seemed to bow to the pressure put upon them. The Egyptians did what they could to break the will of the Jews. They did not realize that the heart of the Jews was not broken through hard labour.
We can see here, the importance of being a separated people. As we have noted before, the Jews were developed to be a theocratic state. God chose Abram and changed his name to Abraham. God commanded Abraham to leave his homeland and to follow God to a new land. God established His covenant with Abraham, and He proved Himself to be the Almighty God. Abraham learned to trust in the Lord. Isaac continued to follow the same God and in spite of his shortcomings, he passed the fear of the LORD on to Jacob. Jacob was trained in Isaac’s house before he fled to Abraham’s homeland to escape the wrath of Esau. Jacob would spend a number of years in that pagan culture, but that did not turn him away from God.
It is important to lay a proper foundation for life so that the pressures of the world do not break down the foundation. We have noted that in every generation, God always has a remnant of people who do not bow to the paganism of the world. In our time, the nation of Israel has largely rejected God. They have adopted the ways of the world and they are quite aggressive in material matters. The fear of the LORD is missing from that land.
As we have noted as well, Jesus Christ came to establish a new thing, the true local church. He established the first church in Jerusalem. The book of Acts records the growth of that church. God then brought persecution upon the saints in that church to get them to spread out and establish other true churches in other parts of the world. That was God’s design, but the early saints were reluctant to do so. They liked the safety of numbers. God wants His children to realize that safety is not necessarily in numbers, but it is in trusting in Him. It is good to have other true Christians to fellowship with. It is also important to remember that faithfulness to the Lord is paramount to peer pressure. If we know the Lord and build upon Him, we will not succumb to peer pressure. If we are weak in the Lord, the love of the world will draw us away from the Lord.
We need a true and humble walk with God for our own good and in order to be able to help others to see the blessing of knowing the Lord.
Pastor Bartel
