Jesus: From Genesis to Revelation

Day 1: A New Pharaoh and a Multiplying People

Reading

Historical Context

The opening verses of Exodus perform a dramatic literary bridge. The book begins by listing the seventy souls who descended into Egypt – the same list that closed Genesis 46 – as though the narrator is picking up a dropped thread after centuries of silence. The Hebrew phrase vayishretsu vayirbu vaya’atsmu bime’od me’od (1:7) – “they swarmed and multiplied and grew exceedingly strong” – deliberately echoes the creation mandate of Genesis 1:28 (“be fruitful and multiply”) and the language of Genesis 9:7 after the flood. The verb sharats (“to swarm”) is the same word used for the teeming sea creatures of creation. Israel’s multiplication in Egypt is not merely demographic growth. It is a recapitulation of creation itself, God’s life-giving power operating even in the land of bondage.

The phrase “a new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph” (1:8) likely refers to a dynastic change – possibly the transition from the Hyksos rulers (themselves of Semitic origin, who would have been sympathetic to Hebrew immigrants) to a native Egyptian dynasty, perhaps the Eighteenth Dynasty. The verb yada (“to know”) in Hebrew carries more weight than mere awareness. It implies relational acknowledgment, covenantal recognition. This new Pharaoh does not merely lack information about Joseph. He refuses the relationship, the obligation, the debt that Egypt owes to the man who saved it from famine. In ancient Near Eastern politics, a new dynasty was under no obligation to honor the treaties and arrangements of its predecessors. The Hebrews, once honored guests, are reclassified as a security threat.

Pharaoh’s strategy escalates in three stages: forced labor (sivlot mitsrayim, “the burdens of Egypt,” 1:11), intensified oppression designed to suppress population growth (1:13-14), and finally direct infanticide (1:16, 1:22). The store-cities of Pithom and Raamses, which the Hebrews are forced to build, have been identified with archaeological sites in the eastern Nile Delta – Tell el-Retabeh and Qantir, respectively. The Hebrew word homer (“mortar”) and levenim (“bricks”) describe the mud-brick construction that was the backbone of Egyptian building projects. Pharaoh’s empire is literally built on Hebrew backs.

The midwives Shiphrah and Puah represent the first recorded act of civil disobedience in Scripture. Their names are Semitic, not Egyptian – Shiphrah from shaphar (“to be beautiful”) and Puah possibly from pa’ah (“to cry out” or “to groan”), which may itself be a wordplay on the groaning of the people they serve. When Pharaoh commands them to kill the male infants on the birth-stones (ovnayim, a dual form referring to the two stones on which ancient Near Eastern women knelt during delivery), the midwives choose a higher allegiance. The text says they “feared God” (vatire’na hameyalledot et ha’Elohim, 1:17) – using the generic Elohim rather than the covenant name YHWH, perhaps because the midwives’ faith precedes the revelation of the covenant name that will come at the burning bush. Their courage is not yet informed by Sinai. It is informed by an instinct that the author of life outranks the king of Egypt.

The chapter closes with Pharaoh’s command to “every people” (1:22) – not merely the midwives but the entire Egyptian populace – to throw Hebrew boys into the Nile. The river that was Egypt’s source of life becomes an instrument of death. The irony is bitter and deliberate. Pharaoh makes the Nile a grave. God will soon make it a highway of deliverance.

Christ in This Day

The massacre of Hebrew infants in Exodus 1 casts a long shadow forward to Bethlehem, where another threatened king will order the slaughter of children to protect his throne. Matthew’s Gospel draws the connection explicitly. When Herod orders the murder of every male child two years old and under in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:16), the evangelist sees not coincidence but pattern – the same satanic strategy recurring across the centuries: destroy the deliverer before he can deliver. In both cases, an empire identifies a child as a threat and responds with indiscriminate violence. In both cases, God preserves the life that will carry his purposes forward. Moses is hidden in a basket on the Nile. Jesus is hidden in Egypt itself – the very land from which the first deliverer was called out. Matthew quotes Hosea 11:1 – “Out of Egypt I called my son” – a verse that originally referred to Israel’s exodus, now applied to the infant Christ. The typological echo is unmistakable: Jesus does not merely repeat the pattern of Moses. He fulfills it. He is the son called out of Egypt, the deliverer who survives the slaughter, the one through whom God’s people will finally be set free.

The paradox of Exodus 1:12 – “the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied” – anticipates the strange logic that will govern the growth of the early church. Acts records that persecution in Jerusalem scattered the believers “throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria” (Acts 8:1), and the scattering became the mechanism of the gospel’s advance. Pharaoh’s oppression multiplied Israel. The Sanhedrin’s persecution multiplied the church. The cross itself – the ultimate act of opposition against God’s anointed – became the means by which salvation reached the world. Paul will name this logic explicitly: “Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Romans 5:20). The pattern is set in Exodus 1 and consummated at Calvary. God does not merely survive opposition. He multiplies through it.

The courage of Shiphrah and Puah – two women defying the most powerful ruler on earth to preserve life – also points toward the women who will stand at the foot of the cross when the male disciples have fled, and who will be the first witnesses of the resurrection. Throughout Scripture, God entrusts the preservation of his redemptive purposes to those the world considers powerless. Two midwives outmaneuver Pharaoh. Mary Magdalene outruns the apostles to the empty tomb. The God who builds his kingdom through the small and the overlooked is already at work in the opening chapter of Exodus.

Key Themes

Connections

Old Testament Roots

The language of Exodus 1:7 – “the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong” – deliberately mirrors the creation mandate of Genesis 1:28 and the post-flood command of Genesis 9:1. God’s word to Abraham – “I will make of you a great nation” (Genesis 12:2) and “Look toward heaven, and number the stars… so shall your offspring be” (Genesis 15:5) – is being fulfilled in the slave camps of Egypt. Psalm 105:23-25 remembers this period: “Then Israel came to Egypt; Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham. And the Lord made his people very fruitful and made them stronger than their foes. He turned their hearts to hate his people, to deal craftily with his servants.” Even Pharaoh’s hostility falls within the scope of God’s sovereign direction.

New Testament Echoes

Stephen recounts this history in his speech before the Sanhedrin: “As the time of the promise drew near, which God had granted to Abraham, the people increased and multiplied in Egypt until there arose over Egypt another king who did not know Joseph. He dealt shrewdly with our race and forced our fathers to expose their infants, so that they would not be kept alive” (Acts 7:17-19). Stephen’s audience would have heard the parallel to their own moment: a new generation of rulers refusing to recognize the deliverer God has sent. Matthew’s account of the slaughter of the innocents (Matthew 2:16-18) draws the Pharaoh-Herod parallel into sharp focus, quoting Jeremiah 31:15 – “Rachel weeping for her children” – a text that bridges the grief of the patriarchal mothers with the grief of Bethlehem.

Parallel Passages

Psalm 124:1-3 – “If it had not been the LORD who was on our side… when people rose up against us, then they would have swallowed us up alive” – captures Israel’s retrospective gratitude for survival under impossible conditions. Isaiah 54:17 – “No weapon that is fashioned against you shall succeed” – declares the principle that Exodus 1 enacts: opposition to God’s people is ultimately self-defeating.

Reflection Questions

  1. The more Israel was oppressed, the more they multiplied. Where have you seen God’s purposes advance through – not despite – the resistance meant to stop them? How does this pattern shape the way you understand seasons of difficulty in your own life or in the life of the church?

  2. Shiphrah and Puah feared God more than Pharaoh. Their disobedience was quiet, unglamorous, and effective – two midwives against an empire. What does their example teach you about the kind of courage God honors? Is there a place in your life where fearing God more than a human authority would change how you act?

  3. Matthew connects the slaughter of Hebrew infants to the slaughter of the innocents in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:16-18). What does it mean that the pattern of a threatened king killing children to prevent a deliverer recurs across Scripture? How does Jesus’ survival of Herod’s massacre echo Moses’ survival of Pharaoh’s decree – and what does this tell you about God’s ability to protect his purposes?

Prayer

Lord God, you are the one who multiplies life in the very places where death commands the field. You heard the groaning of your people in Egypt before they knew your name, and you preserved the deliverer in a basket on the river that was meant to be his grave. We confess that we are often more afraid of the Pharaohs of our age than we are of you – that we accommodate the powers that oppress rather than trusting the God who liberates. Give us the quiet, stubborn courage of Shiphrah and Puah, who feared you more than the throne of Egypt and chose life when death was the law of the land. And as you preserved Moses through the waters of the Nile, and as you preserved your Son through the violence of Herod, preserve us – not from every trial, but through every trial – until the deliverance you have promised is complete. In the name of Jesus Christ, the deliverer whom no empire could destroy. Amen.