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Exodus Chapter One

 

Exodus 1

Chapter Contents

The children of Israel increase in Egypt after the death of Joseph. (8-14) They are oppressed but multiply exceedingly. (1-7) The men-children destroyed. (15-22)

Commentary on Exodus 1:1-7

(Read Exodus 1:1-7)

During more than 200 years while Abraham Isaac and Jacob lived at liberty the Hebrews increased slowly; only about seventy persons went down into Egypt. There in about the same number of years though under cruel bondage they became a large nation. This wonderful increase was according to the promise long before made unto the fathers. Though the performance of God's promises is sometimes slow it is always sure.

Commentary on Exodus 1:8-14

(Read Exodus 1:8-14)

The land of Egypt became to Israel a house of bondage. The place where we have been happy may soon become the place of our affliction; and that may prove the greatest cross to us of which we said This same shall comfort us. Cease from man and say not of any place on this side heaven This is my rest. All that knew Joseph loved him and were kind to his brethren for his sake; but the best and most useful services a man does to others are soon forgotten after his death. Our great care should be to serve God and to please him who is not unrighteous whatever men are to forget our work and labour of love. The offence of Israel is that he prospers. There is no sight more hateful to a wicked man than the prosperity of the righteous. The Egyptians feared lest the children of Israel should join their enemies and get them up out of the land. Wickedness is ever cowardly and unjust; it makes a man fear where no fear is and flee when no one pursues him. And human wisdom often is foolishness and very sinful. God's people had task-masters set over them not only to burden them but to afflict them with their burdens. They not only made them serve for Pharaoh's profit but so that their lives became bitter. The Israelites wonderfully increased. Christianity spread most when it was persecuted: the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church. They that take counsel against the Lord and his Israel do but imagine a vain thing and create greater vexation to themselves.

Commentary on Exodus 1:15-22

(Read Exodus 1:15-22)

The Egyptians tried to destroy Israel by the murder of their children. The enmity that is in the seed of the serpent against the Seed of the woman makes men forget all pity. It is plain that the Hebrews were now under an uncommon blessing. And we see that the services done for God's Israel are often repaid in kind. Pharaoh gave orders to drown all the male children of the Hebrews. The enemy who by Pharaoh attempted to destroy the church in this its infant state is busy to stifle the rise of serious reflections in the heart of man. Let those who would escape be afraid of sinning and cry directly and fervently to the Lord for assistance.

── Matthew HenryConcise Commentary on Exodus

 

Exodus 1

Verse 1

[1] Now these are the names of the children of Israel which came into Egypt; every man and his household came with Jacob.

Every man of his household — That is children and grand-children.

Verse 3

[3] Issachar Zebulun and Benjamin

And Benjamin — Who tho' youngest of all is placed before Dan Naphtali etc. because they were the children of the hand-maidens.

Verse 5

[5] And all the souls that came out of the loins of Jacob were seventy souls: for Joseph was in Egypt already.

Seventy souls — According to the computation we had Genesis 46:27 including Joseph and his two sons. This was just the number of the nations by which the earth was peopled Genesis 10:1-32 for when God separated the sons of Adam he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel Deuteronomy 32:8.

Verse 6

[6] And Joseph died and all his brethren and all that generation.

All that generation by degrees wore off: perhaps all Jacob's sons died much about the same time for there was not past seven years difference in age between the eldest and the youngest of them except Benjamin.

Verse 7

[7] And the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly and multiplied and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them.

And the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly — Like fishes or insects so that they multiplied; and being generally healthful and strong they waxed exceeding mighty so that the land was filled with them at least Goshen their own allotment. This wonderful increase was the product of the promise long before made to the fathers. From the call of Abraham when God first told him he would make him a great nation to the deliverance of his seed out of Egypt was 430 years; during the first 215 of which they were increased to 70 but in the latter half those 70 multiplied to 600 000 fighting men.

Verse 8

[8] Now there arose up a new king over Egypt which knew not Joseph.

There arose a new king (after several successions in Joseph's time) which knew not Joseph - All that knew him loved him and were kind to his relations for his sake; but when he was dead he was soon forgotten and the remembrance of the good offices he had done was either not retained or not regarded. If we work for men only our works at farthest will die with us; if for God they will follow us Revelation 14:13.

Verse 10

[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.

Come on let us deal wisely with them lest they multiply — When men deal wickedly it is common for them to imagine that they deal wisely but the folly of sin will at last be manifested before all men.

Verse 11

[11] Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities Pithom and Raamses.

They set over them task-masters to afflict them — With this very design. They not only made them serve which was sufficient for Pharaoh's profit but they made them serve with rigour so that their lives became bitter to them; intending hereby to break their spirits and to rob them of every thing in them that was generous: to ruin their health and shorten their days and so diminish their numbers: to discourage them from marrying since their children would be born to slavery; and to oblige them to desert the Hebrews and incorporate with the Egyptians. And 'tis to be feared the oppression they were under did bring over many of them to join with the Egyptians in their idolatrous worship; for we read Joshua 24:14 that they served other gods in Egypt; and we find Ezekiel 20:8 that God had threatned to destroy them for it even while they were in the land of Egypt.

Treasure-cities — To keep the king's money or corn wherein a great part of the riches of Egypt consisted.

Verse 12

[12] But the more they afflicted them the more they multiplied and grew. And they were grieved because of the children of Israel.

But the more they afflicted them the more they multiplied — To the grief and vexation of the Egyptians. Times of affliction have oft been the church's growing times: Christianity spread most when it was persecuted. v. 15.

And the king spake to the Hebrew midwives — The two chief of them. They are called Hebrew midwives probably not because they were themselves Hebrews; for sure Pharaoh could never expect they should be so barbarous to those of their own nation but because they were generally made use of by the Hebrews and being Egyptians he hoped to prevail with them.

Verse 16

[16] And he said When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women and see them upon the stools; if it be a son then ye shall kill him: but if it be a daughter then she shall live.

The stools — Seats used on that occasion.

Verse 17

[17] But the midwives feared God and did not as the king of Egypt commanded them but saved the men children alive.

But the midwives feared God — Dreaded his wrath more than Pharaoh's and therefore saved the men-children alive.

Verse 19

[19] And the midwives said unto Pharaoh Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women; for they are lively and are delivered ere the midwives come in unto them.

I see no reason we have to doubt the truth of this; it is plain they were now under an extraordinary blessing of increase which may well be supposed to have this effect that the women had quick and easy labour and the mothers and children being both lively they seldon needed the help of midwives; this these midwives took notice of and concluding it to be the finger of God were thereby emboldened to disobey the king and with this justify themselves before Pharaoh when he called them to an account for it.

Verse 20

[20] Therefore God dealt well with the midwives: and the people multiplied and waxed very mighty.

Therefore God dealt well with them — That is built them up in families and blessed their children.

── John WesleyExplanatory Notes on Exodus

 

 ISRAEL’S BONDAGE IN EGYPT. Exodus 1:1-14.

Sin is presented to us in various ways in the Word of God. Sin is a consuming disease which has destroyed the organs of man’s spiritual sense. Sin is a huge barrier rising up like an impassable mountain which keeps God from man and man from God. Sin is represented as a heavy burden which oppresses the sinner with an awful weight when conscience is awakened. Sin is as a lurking monster which waits to pounce upon its unwary victim. Sin is a despotic master who rules his subjects with an iron hand and a relentless will. Sin is stated to be such a master in Romans 6. and is illustrated in the Pharaoh who knew not Joseph.

. The cunningness of sin (verse 10). “ Let us deal wisely with them ” was the conclusion the Egyptians came to with regard to the Israelites; or as the margin of Psalm 58:5 renders the term “ cunning ” where the word occurs in relation to the charmer seeking to charm the serpent. Sin’s policy is to present itself in as attractive a form possible and to hide its real purpose which is to get its victim entirely in its folds and then to crush to death as the serpent which first fascinates its prey and then folds it in the grip of death.

. The reign of sin. Pharaoh set taskmasters over the children of Israel (verse 11). The word here rendered “ taskmaster” is one that is generally used for a “ prince” or “ ruler” (Ex.2:14; 18:21). But these rulers soon developed into oppressors for when they are spoken of again (Ex.3:7; 5:6 10 13 14) a stronger term is used which means an “ oppressor” (Job 3:18). The same expression is him as the “ Exactor” (Dan.11:20 M.). Sin is a hard taskmaster and those who are under its rule find it to be a greater despot than even the King of Babylon who when his command was disobeyed caused the three Hebrew young men to be cast into the fiery furnace.

. The affliction of sin (verse 11). The meaning of the word “ afflict” is to humble. The word is so rendered in Deut. 8:2 16. What an affliction it was to the Israelites to come from being specially honoured by the king and his prime minister to be humbled to the position of serfs and to the lash of the taskmasters. Sin’s patronage may end in persecution. As the ruin of a stately castle will remind us of a glory passed away so many an one who bears the humbling marks of iniquity still carries with him a hearing which speaks of a position lost by sin. Anyone who has been in our common lodging houses will find many examples. Been in our common lodging houses will find many examples. Broken down clergymen lawyers and merchants are to be found in these places like stranded vessels which are shipwrecked on the rocks being broken to pieces by the waves as they dash against them.

. The burden of sin (verse 11). The way they afflicted Israel was with burdens. There is a pleasure in sin but there is also pain. Many a boy who has had pleasure in playing truant from school has found that it has led to the cane upon his back or twenty-four hours extra in bed much to his chafing. One cannot help being impressed with the fact that many a man will put himself to great trouble in seeking to achieve his sinful purpose. The sinner convicted by the Holy Spirit specially finds that sin is a terrible burden as Bunyan pictures in his Pilgrim’s Progress when he depicts Christian with a heavy burden upon his back; and as the Psalmist confesses when he exclaims “ Mine iniquities are gone over mine head as an heavy burden they are too heavy for me” (Ps.38:4).

. The bitterness of sin (verse 14). Sorrow is the child of sin and the bitter fruit of iniquity. At the bottom of every cup of iniquity there is a snake that bites the quaffer and leaves its poison in the veins to torment its victim. The young fellow who has weakened his body by his sinful ways and is filled with remorse at the prospect of an untimely death knows the bitterness of sin. The drunkard with his aching head parched throat and unsatisfied thirst knows the sorrow of his evil way; and the one who is put into prison because of his dishonest action feels the misery of his evil ways as he is kept in durance vile and hard labour.

. The rigour of sin (verse 13 14). The Egyptians were really cruel to the Israelites for so the term means as it is given in Ez. 34:4. By the sighs and cries which escaped the Israelites (Ex.2:23-24) this is evidenced. They were pressed and oppressed beyond measure and groaned beneath their hard lot. Sin is more cruel than the taskmasters of Egypt. It sears the conscience (1. Tim.4:2) blinds the eyes of the understanding (Mark 8:18) dulls the moral sense (Eph.4:19) kills kindly feeling (1. John 2:9) deafens the ears of the soul (Mark 8:18) binds the spirit with cords of iniquity ( John 8:34) and separates from God (Isa.59:2).

Jehovah graciously raised up a deliverer for Israel. In like manner the Lord has graciously sent a Saviour (John 3:16-18) for us. To receive Him is to be saved by Him and thus to be redeemed from the rigour of sin.

── F.E. MarshFive Hundred Bible Readings

                             

 

01 Chapter 1

 

Verses 1-5

Exodus 1:1-5

The children of Israel which came into Egypt.

Israel in Egypt

I. A retrospective view.

1. These verses lead us back to the time when Jacob came with his family to Egypt.

(1)
. It was a time of great distress from famine in Canaan.

2. These verses summarize the history of the children of Israel from the time of Jacob’s emigration to Egypt till the bondage of the Israelites--about 115 years.

(a) The entire period from the call of Abraham to the Exodus was 430 years.

(b) Up to the descent into Egypt a period of 215 years the family had increased to only “seventy souls.”

(c) From the going down to Egypt to the Exodus--215 years--the 70 had multiplied to 600 000 males giving a population of nearly 2 000 000.

II. The change of administration (Exodus 1:8). Not merely another but a “new” king implying a change of dynasty. Now probably commenced the rule of the “shepherd kings.”

2. The phrase “who knew not Joseph ” suggests the prestige of Joseph’s name to the former Pharaohs. A good man’s influence dies not with the death of his body.

III. The change of government policy (Exodus 1:9-14).

1. The nature of this change. From being a fostering government to being cruel and repressive. Unwise policy because suicidal.

2. The reason for this change (Exodus 1:10).

3. The result of this change (Exodus 1:12).

Lessons:

1. God’s children in Egypt a type of God’s children in the world.

2. The policy of the new king a type of the godlessness selfishness and inhumanity of those who work from a worldly standpoint.

3. The frustration of this policy a type of God’s overruling power. (D. C. Hughes M. A.)

God’s knowledge of man’s domestic life

I. He knows the children of the family. “Reuben Simeon ” etc.

1. He knows the character of each.

2. He knows the friendly relations or otherwise existing between them and the intentions of each.

II. He watches the journeying of the family--“which came ” etc. Do not journey into Egypt without an indication of the Divine will. All family changes should be under the instruction of heaven. This insures safety protection development--though sometimes discipline.

III. He marks the death of the family (Exodus 1:6). (J. S. Exell M. A.)

Israel in Egypt

With Israel in Egypt begins a new era in the world’s progress. Biography becomes history Instead of individuals or a tribe God has now a natron with which to work. He has undertaken a vast purpose. This people--united by common parentage common faith and common hope--He is to weld still more compactly by fellowship in disaster and deliverance into a nation which shall be the miracle of history as intensely and persistently individual as its founder. With this nation He enters into covenant and through its faith and experience reveals to the world the one holy God and brings in its Redeemer. Such a mission costs; its apostles must suffer. Yet this relief intervenes: personal blessing is not lost in national pains. The strong word covering this process is discipline: the development of character and efficiency under rigorous conditions. The first element is--

I. Faith: taking as real what cannot be seen accepting as sure what has not come to pass. Seemingly this fruit of heaven cannot grow on earthly soil unless it be wet with tears.

II. The second word of blessing is disentanglement. The hope of the ages lay in freeing Israel not from Egypt but from what Egypt represents. Heathenism is a bitter and bloody thing. But heathenism filled the world outside the chosen nation. Only stern guidance could lead away from it for over its deformities were spread distortions of natural needs and blandishments of sanctioned lust. God can accomplish vast things with a soul wholly consecrated to Him; but how rarely He finds such a soul except as He leads it through affliction to make it loose its hold on all but Him!

III. With this even partially gained comes that strong word efficiency. The nation which was Jacob the Supplanter passes its Peniel and becomes Israel the Prince of God having power with God and men. Into its hands are put the direction of earth’s history and the hope of its redemption. The distresses of those early generations are as the straining and rending of the crust or the grinding march of glaciers unsparing but beneficent preparing a fertile soil on which at last men shall dwell safely lifting thankful hands to heaven. (C. M. Southgate.)

Egypt a type of the world

Sodom is associated in our minds with wickedness only though no doubt it was a great place in its day; but Egypt stands out before us as a fuller and more adequate type of the world with her glory as well as her shame. And from Israel’s relation to Egypt we may learn two great lessons: one of counsel how to use the world the other of warning against abusing it. From God’s purpose in regard to Israel let us learn that just as Egypt was necessary as a school for His chosen people so the world ought to be a school for us. We are not to despise its greatness. No word of contempt for Egypt’s greatness is found in the sacred records. The nation was intended to learn and did acquire many useful arts which were of much service to them afterwards in the Land of Promise. Moses the chosen of God was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was thereby qualified for the great work for which he was called. In these examples we may see how to use this world making it a school to prepare us for our inheritance and the work the Lord may have for us there to do. On the other hand let us beware of so yielding to the seductions of this evil world as to lose our hold of God and His covenant and so incur the certainty of forfeiting our eternal birthright and becoming the world’s slaves helping perhaps to rear its mighty monuments with the prospect possibly of having our names engraved in stone among the ruins of some buried city but without the prospect of having them written “among the living in Jerusalem ” the eternal city of God. Earth’s great ones belong to the dead past; but heaven’s great ones have their portion in a glorious future. (J. M. Gibson D. D.)

Making history

We are making history when we least think of it. That which seems a little matter to us may be a link in a chain that binds the ages. What we do to-day or to-morrow is done for all time. It cannot be undone. It and all its countless results must stand entailed to the latest generations; and we are to have honour or shame according as our part is now performed. The poor boy who drives the horse along a canal tow.path may think it makes little difference whether he does that work well or poorly. But forty years after when he is in nomination for the presidency of a great nation he will find that men go back to his boyhood story to learn whether he was faithful in that which was least as proof that he would be faithful also in that which is much. There is no keeping out of history. We have got to be there. The only safe way of standing well in history is by doing well in all things. You are just now going to Boston or to New York or to Chicago or to Savannah or to London--will the record of your spirit and conduct as you go there read well ten years hence or a hundred? That depends on what your spirit and conduct are at the present time. And if you stay at home your place in history--in God’s record of history--is just as sure as if you went to Egypt or to the Holy Land. That record is making up to-day: “Now these are the names of the children of-- which came into-- or which stayed at--“ If you want a record which shall redound to your honour and of which your children’s children shall be proud you have no time to lose in getting things straight for it. (H. C. Trumbull.)


Verse 6

Exodus 1:6

Joseph died and all his brethren.

The death of a whole family

I. It was a very large family

II. It was a very diversified family.

1. They were diversified in their sympathies.

2. They were diversified in social position.

III. It was a very tried family.

IV. It was a very influential family.

V. It was a very religiously privileged family. Lessons:

1. A rebuke to family pride.

2. A warning against seeking satisfaction in family joys.

3. A lesson as to the right use of family relationships. Live together as those who must die.

4. Some strong reasons for expecting family meetings after death.

The universal characteristic

The succession of generations among the children of men has been from Homer downwards likened to that of the leaves among the trees of the forest. The foliage of one summer withering gradually away and strewing the earth with its wrecks has its place supplied by the exuberance of the following spring. But there is one point in which the analogy does not hold --there is one difference between the race of leaves and the race of men: between the leaves of successive summers an interval of desolation intervenes and “the bare and wintry woods” emphatically mark the passage from one season to another. But there is no such pause in the succession of the generations of men. Insensibly they melt and shade into one another: an old man dies and a child is born; daily and hourly there is a death and a birth; and imperceptibly by slow degrees the actors in life’s busy scene are changed. Hence the full force of this thought--“One generation passeth away and another generation cometh”--is not ordinarily felt. The first view of this verse that occurs to us is its striking significance and force as a commentary on the history of which it so abruptly and emphatically announces the close. The previous narrative presents to us a busy scene--an animated picture; and here as if by one single stroke all is reduced to a blank. It is as if having gazed on ocean when it bears on its broad bosom a gallant and well-manned fleet--bending gracefully to its rising winds and triumphantly stemming its swelling waves--you looked out again and at the very next glance beheld the wide waste of waters reposing in dark and horrid peace over the deep-buried wrecks of the recent storm. “And all that generation”: How startling a force is there in this awful brevity this compression and abridgment--the names and histories of millions brought within the compass of so brief a statement of a single fact concerning them--that they all died! Surely it seems as if the Lord intended by this bill of mortality for a whole race which His own Spirit has framed to stamp as with a character of utter mockery and insignificance the most momentous distinctions and interests of time; these all being engulfed and swallowed up in the general doom of death which ushers in the one distinction of eternity.

I. Let us ponder the announcement as it respects the individual--“Joseph died.” His trials with their many aggravations--his triumphs with all their glories--were alike brief and evanescent; and his eventful career ended as the obscurest and most commonplace lifetime must end--for “Joseph died.” Joseph is at home the idol of a fond parent. Ah I dote not thou venerable sire on thy fair and dutiful child. Remember how soon it may be said of him and how certainly it must be said of him that “Joseph died.” Joseph is in trouble--betrayed persecuted distressed a prisoner a slave. But let him not be disquieted above measure. It is but a little while and it shall be said of him that “Joseph died.” Joseph is exalted--he is high in wealth in honour and in power. But why should all his glory and his joy elate him? It will be nothing to him soon--when it comes to be said of him that “Joseph died.” Ah! there is but one of Joseph’s many distinctions whether of character or of fortune that does not shrivel beside this stern announcement. The simplicity of his trust in God the steadfastness of his adherence to truth and holiness the favour of Heaven his charity out of a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned--these will stand the shock of collision with this record of his decease.

II. “And all his brethren.” They too all died and the vicissitudes of their family history came to an end in the silent tomb. “Joseph died and all his brethren.” Ah! how intimately should this reflection have knit them together in unity of interest of affection and of aim! The tie of a common origin is scarcely stronger or closer than the tie of a common doom. The friend the beloved brother who has gone has acquired by his death new value in your esteem--a new and sacred claim to your regard. Now for the first time you discover how dear he should have been how dear he was to your hearts--dearer far than you had ever thought. How fondly do you dwell on all his attractions and excellencies! Hew frivolous are all former causes of misunderstanding all excuses for indifference now seen to be I And whither are they gone? And what are their views now and what their feelings on the matters which formed the subject of their familiar inter-course here? Are they united in the region of blessedness above? Or is there a fearful separation and are there some of their number on the other side of the great gulf?

III. “And all that generation.” The tide of mortality rolls on in a wider stream. It sweeps into the one vast ocean of eternity all the members of a family--all the families of a race. The distinctions alike of individuals and of households are lost. Every landmark is laid low. Some are gone in tender years of childhood unconscious of life’s sins and sufferings--some in grey-headed age weighed down by many troubles. Some have perished by the hand of violence--some by natural decay. And another generation now fills the stage--a generation that in all its vast circle of families can produce not one individual to link it with the buried race on whose ashes it is treading. On a smaller scale you have experienced something of what we now describe. In the sad season of bereavement how have you felt your pain embittered by the contrast between death reigning in your heart and home and bustling life going on all around! In the prospect too of your own departure does not this thought form an element of the dreariness of death that when you are gone and laid in the silent tomb others will arise that knew not you?--your removal will scarce occasion even a momentary interruption in the onward course and incessant hurry of affairs and your loss will be but as that of a drop of water from the tide that rolls on in its career as mighty and as majestical as ever. But here it is a whole generation with all its families that is engulfed in one unmeasured tomb! And lo! the earth is still all astir with the same activities all gay with the same pomps and pageantries all engrossed with the same vanities and follies and alas! the same sins also that have been beguiling and disappointing the successive races of its inhabitants since the world began! And there is another common lot--another general history--another universal characteristic: “After death the judgment.” Joseph rises again “and all his brethren and all that generation.” And they all stand before the judgment-seat. There is union then. The small and the great are there; the servant and his master--all are brought together. But for what? What a solemn contrast have we here! Death unites after separation: the judgment unites in order to separation. Death closing the drama of time lets the ample curtain fall upon its whole scenery and all its actors. The judgment opening the drama of eternity discloses scenery and actors once more entire. (R. S. Candlish D. D.)

Death

I. Death removes the most useful men--“Joseph.”

1. He had instructed his brethren.

2. He had enriched his father.

3. He had saved his nation.

4. He had taught the world an eternal lesson.

II. Death relieves the largest families--“All his brethren.”

III. Death relieves the proudest nations.

1. Pitiable.

2. Irremediable.

3. Admonitory. (J. S. Exell M. A.)

Death’s disciplinary power

God deprives the Church of her comfort and stay--

1. That she may gain the power of self-reliance.

2. That she may show her ability to be independent of all human instrumentalities.

3. That she may move into the exigencies of the future. (J. S. Exell M. A.)

Death common to all

In one of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s note-books there is a remark as to qualifying men by some common quality or circumstance that should bring together people the most unlike in other respects and make a brotherhood and sisterhood of them. “First by their sorrows; for instance whenever there are any whether in fair mansion or hotel who are mourning the loss of friends. Secondly all who have the same maladies whether they lie under damask canopies or on straw pallets or in the-wards of hospitals. Then proceed to generalize and classify all the world together as none can claim other exemption from either sorrow sin or disease; and if they could yet death like a great parent comes and sweeps them all through one darksome portal--all his children.” (H. O. Mackey.)

Death admonitory

There is a bird peculiar to Ireland called the cock of the wood remarkable for the fine flesh and folly thereof. All the difficulty to kill them is to find them out otherwise a mean marksman may easily despatch them. They fly in woods in flocks and if one of them be shot the rest remove not but to the next bough or tree at the farthest and there stand staring at the shooter till the whole covey be destroyed; yet as foolish as this bird is it is wise enough to be the emblem of the wisest man in the point of mortality. Death sweeps away one and one and one here one and there another and all the rest remain no whir moved or minding of it till at last a whole generation is consumed and brought to nothing. (J. Spencer.)

Death’s impartiality

Death levels the highest mountains with the lowest valleys. He mows down the fairest lilies as well as the foulest thistles. The robes of illustrious princes and the rags of homely peasants are both laid aside in the wardrobe of the grave. (Archbp. Seeker.)

Meditate on death

There was a motto on the walls of the Delphian Temple ascribed to Chile one of the seven wise men of Greece--“Consider the end.”

Death levels all distinctions

As trees growing in the wood are known--some by difference of their trunks and some by the properties of their branches leaves flowers and fruits; but this knowledge is had of them only whilst they stand grow and are not consumed; for if they be committed to the fire and are turned into ashes they cannot be known. It is impossible that when the ashes of divers kinds of trees are mingled together the tall pine should be discerned from the great oak or the mighty poplar from a low shrub or any one tree from another; even so men whilst they live in the wood of this world are known--some by the stock of their ancestors some by the flourishing leaves of their words and eloquence some in the flowers of beauty and some in the shrub of honesty many by their savage ignorance and some by their kindness; but when death doth bring them into dust and has mixed all together then their ashes cannot be known--then there is no difference between the mighty princes of the world and the poor souls that are not accounted of. (Cawdray.)


Verses 7-22

Exodus 1:7-22

The children of Israel were fruitful

The increase of the Church

I.
Notwithstanding the removal of its chief officer (Exodus 1:6). Joseph dead; his influence gone; his counsel inaccessible. To-day the Church loses her chief officers but it still grows.

II. Notwithstanding the decade of the generation (Exodus 1:6). So to-day men die but the Church by making new converts multiplies her progeny to an almost incredible extent.

III. Notwithstanding the persecution to which it was subjected (Exodus 1:11). The Church can never be put down by force. The Infinite Power is on her side. This is more than all that can be against her.

IV. Notwithstanding the artifices by which it was sought to re betrayed (Exodus 1:15-22). So the Church has been in danger through the treachery of the outside world and through the daring cruelty of meddlesome men. Still it grows. May it soon fill the world as the Israelites did Egypt! All Church increase is from God; not from men not from means. God has promised to multiply the Church. (J. S. Exell M. A.)

Increase by God’s blessing

1. The death of fathers cannot hinder God’s increase of the Church’s children. They decrease and these increase under God.

2. God’s promises for His Church’s increase cannot fall to the ground. He doth fulfil them.

3. Fruitfulness abundant increase multiplication excessive and strength are the Church’s blessing from God.

4. God works wonderfully to fulfil His promise of increasing His people.

5. The land of enemies is made by God a nursery for the increase of His Church.

6. God’s blessing makes His Israel to fill Egypt the Church to fill the world. (G. Hughes B. D.)

A large population and what it led to

I. A large population is of great advantage to a nation.

1. It gives an impulse to civilization.

2. It augments the force of the national prowess.

3. It invests the nation with importance in the estimation of surrounding kingdoms.

II. A large population sometimes excites the suspicion and envy of neighbouring kings.

1. Pharaoh was jealous of the numerical growth of Israel.

2. He was suspicious of what might befall his country in future exigencies.

III. This suspicion frequently leads kings to practise the most abject slavery.

1. It was cunning.

2. It was unjust.

3. It was painful.

4. It was apparently productive of gain.

But what was gained in public buildings was lost in sensitiveness of conscience force of manhood and worth of character. Slavery involves a loss of all that is noble in human nature and it leads to murder (Exodus 1:22).

IV. Slavery is an incompetent method of conquest.

1. Because it does not gain the sympathy of the people it conquers.

2. Because it arouses the indignation of those who are subject to its cruelties.

3. It does not save a ruler from the calamity he seeks to avert. (J. S. Exell M. A.)

A large population

The larger the population of a nation the greater are its capabilities of sympathy mutual dependency and help and often-times the greater difficulty in its right government. (J. S. Exell M. A.)

Oppression and growth

I. There are three aspects in which the oppression of Israel in Egypt may be viewed. It was the fulfilment of God’s own word; it was education; it was a type.

1. The covenant with Abraham had included the prediction of four hundred years of oppression in a strange land. The fulfilment is reached through the fears and cruel policy of Pharaoh. The Bible decisively upholds the view that not in Israel alone but everywhere the movements of nations as the incidents of individual lives are directed by God. To it the most important thing about Egypt and the mighty Rameses was that he and it were the instruments for carrying out God’s designs in reference to Israel. Has not history verified the view? Who cares about anything else in that reign in comparison with its relation to the slaves in Goshen?

2. The oppression was further education. We can say nothing certainly as to the teaching which Israel received in science art letters or religion. Some debts no doubt accrued in all these departments. Probably the alphabet itself was acquired by them and some tinge of acquaintance was made by a few with other parts of the early blossoming Egyptian civilization. But the oppression taught them better things than these. Pressure consolidates. Common sorrows are wonderful quickeners of national feeling. The heavier the blows the closer grained the produce of the forge. Not increase of numbers only but tough knit consciousness of their unity was needed for their future. They acquired some beginnings of that extraordinary persistency of national life which has characterized them ever since in these bitter days. Note further they learned endurance without which the education of a nation as of a man is defective. The knowledge of God’s covenant with Abraham would in some degree be preserved and it taught them that their affliction was part of the Divine plan for them. So they would learn--at least the best of them would--to look for the better things following which the covenant held forth and would be able to see some gleam of the dawn even in the thickest darkness. “If winter comes can spring be far behind?” The evil foretold and accomplished is turned into prophecy of the good foretold and yet unseen.

3. The growth of Israel under its oppression. The pressure which was intended to crush only condensed. “The more they afflicted them the more they . . . grew.” So the foiled oppressors glared at them with a mixture of awe and loathing for both feelings are implied in the words rendered “were grieved.” It is the history of the nation in a nutshell. The same marvellous tenacity of life the same power of baffling oppression and thriving under it have been their dower ever since and continue so yet. The powers that oppress them fill the world with their noise for awhile and pass away like a dream; they abide. For every tree felled a hundred saplings spring up. What does it mean? and how comes it? The only answer is that God preserves them for a better deliverance from a worse bondage and as His witnesses in their humiliation as they were His in their prosperity. The fable of the one of their race who bade Christ march on to Calvary is true concerning them. They are doomed to live and to wander till they shall recognize Him for their Messiah. That growth is a truth for God’s Church too. The world has never crushed by persecuting. There is a wholesome obstinacy and chivalry in human nature which rallies adherents to a persecuted cause. Truth is most powerful when her back is at the wall. Times of oppression are times of growth as a hundred examples from the apostles’ days down to the story of the gospel in Madagascar prove. The world’s favour does more harm than its enmity. Its kisses are poisonous; its blows do no hurt. (A. Maclaren D. D.)

Fruitfulness of Israelites in Egypt

Some commentators resort to natural causes to account for this amazing increase. A modern writer declares that “the females in Egypt as well among the human race as among animals surpass all others in fruitfulness.” But we prefer to ascribe the matter to Divine intervention. The blessing of Jehovah was now signally conferred upon the people. God “increased His people greatly and made them stronger than their enemies” (Psalms 105:24). The word that after a long delay came to Israel the third patriarch was now fulfilled (Genesis 35:11). Though the performance of God’s promises is sometimes slow yet it is always sure. It was when the Israelites lost the benefit of the protection of Joseph that God made their numbers their defence and they became better able than they had been to shift for themselves. If God continue our friends and relations to us while we most need them and remove them when they can be better spared let us own that He is wise and not complain that He is hard upon us. (A. Nevin D. D.)

Ancestry numerically regarded

The number of a man’s ancestors doubles in every generation as his descent is traced upward. In the first generation he reckons only two ancestors his father and mother. In the second generation the two are converted into four since he had two grandfathers and two grandmothers. But each of these four had two parents and thus in the third generation there are found to be eight ancestors; that is eight great-grandparents. In the fourth generation the number of ancestors is sixteen; in the fifth thirty-two; in the sixth sixty-four; in the seventh 128. In the tenth it has risen to 1 024; in the twentieth it becomes 1 048 576; in the thirtieth no fewer than 1 073 741 834. To ascend no higher than the twenty-fourth generation we reach the sum of 16 777 216 which is a great deal more than all of the inhabitants of Great Britain when that generation was in existence. For if we reckon a generation at thirty-three years twenty-four of such will carry us back 792 years or to a.d. 1098 when William the Conqueror had been sleeping in his grave at Caen only six years and his son William II. surnamed Rufus was reigning over the land. At that time the total number of the inhabitants of England could have been little more than two millions the amount at which it is estimated during the reign of the Conqueror. It was only one-eighth of a nineteenth-century man’s ancestors if the normal ratio of progression as just shown by a simple process of arithmetic had received no check and if it had not been bounded by the limits of the population of the country. Since the result of the law of progression had there been room for its expansion would have been eight times the actual population by so much the more is it certain that the lines of every Englishman’s ancestry run up to every man and every woman in the reign of William I. from the king and queen downward who left descendants in the island and whose progeny has not died there. (Popular Science Monthly.)

Successful colonists

Englishmen are not the only successful colonists; and the credit if any of exterminating aborigines they are entitled to share with insects. Let us take the case of the Australian bee. The Australian bee is about the size of a fly and without any sting; but the English bee has been so successfully introduced as to be now abundant in a wild state in the bush spreading all over the Australian continent and yielding large quantities of honey which it deposits in the hollows of trees; the immense quantities of honey-yielding flowers afford an abundant supply of material. The foreign bee is fast driving away the aboriginal insect as the European is exterminating the black from the settled districts so that the Australian bee is now very scarce. (Scientific Illustrations and Symbols.)

A new king.

Change of government

1. God’s blessing on His Church is the cause that worldly rulers consult against it.

2. Blessings from God and oppositions from worldly powers usually are connected.

3. Changes of kings and governments may bring changes on the Church’s state.

4. New and strange rulers are set up when new and strange things are to be in the Church.

5. God suffers such to rise up and orders them to His praise.

6. All God’s goodness by His instruments to the world are apt to be committed to oblivion and ignorance.

7. Ignorance and oblivion of God’s mercies by His Church causeth wicked rulers to persecute them. (G. Hughes B. D.)

Egypt’s new king

I. He was out of sympathy with the purpose and providence of God.

II. He was out of sympathy with the conduct of his predecessors.

III. He was envious in his disposition. Envious men generally bring on themselves the evils of which they suspect the innocent to be guilty.

IV. He was cunning in his arrangements. Policy a bad basis for a throne. It invites suspicion alienates respect leads to ruin.

V. He was cruel in his requirements.

VI. He was thwarted in his project. Mere power cannot always command obedience. It is sometimes defeated by weakness. Heaven is on the side of the oppressed. (J. S. Exell M. A.)

The vicissitudes of power

The vicissitudes of power--

1. Are independent of past services.

2. Are independent of moral character.

3. Are frequently dependent upon the arbitrary caprice of a despotic king. (J. S. Exell M. A.)

A bad king will make a wicked people

1. He will influence the weak by his splendour.

2. Terrify the timid by his power.

3. Gain the servile by his flattery.

4. Gain the simple by his cunning.

5. Sometimes gain the good by his deception. (J. S. Exell M. A.)

Like ruler like people

If the mountains overflow with waters the valleys are the better; and if the head be full of ill-burnouts the whole body fares the worse. The actions of rulers are most commonly rules for the people’s actions and their example passeth as current as their coin. The common people are like tempered wax easily receiving impressions from the seals of great men’s vices; they care not to sin by prescription and damn themselves with authority. And it is the unhappy privilege of greatness to warrant by example others’ as well as its own sins whilst the unadvised take up crimes on trust and perish by credit. (J. Harding.)

The king that knew not Joseph

It is said Joseph was not “known” by this dynasty. This is a strong expression used to denote the perfect obscurity into which this good and great man had fallen; or rather the contempt in which this benefactor and true patriot was held by those who were unable to appreciate him. It was not that Joseph’s character had waned in beauty; it was not that his intellect had lost its sagacity; but the new dynasty wished to pursue a course of action and conduct inconsistent with that purity integrity and candour which Joseph had counselled; and therefore he was cast off. Less worthy men were taken in his place. But what occurred to Joseph is just what befalls Christians still in proportion as their Christianity ceases to be latent. We are told by an apostle that the world knoweth us not because it knew Christ not.

1. The reason why the world does not appreciate the Christian character is that the Christian lives a higher life. He is in proportion as he is a Christian influenced by motives and hopes and guided by laws and a sense of a presence which an unconverted worldly man such as was the new king of Egypt who knew not Joseph cannot at all understand.

2. Another reason why the world does not appreciate the Christian now is that it judges a Christian by itself and thinks that he must be at heart notwithstanding all his pretences what it is. The world loves sin delights in it. And when the world meets with a man who professes to have laid his ambition at the foot of the Cross and whose thirst for power is the noble thirst of doing good it will say “This sounds very fine but we do not believe it. The only difference between you and us is that we do not pretend to these things and that you do; for behind the curtain you practise what we practise and are exactly what we are.” Therefore the world hates the Christian not simply for his Christianity but because it cannot conceive such a man to be any other than a thorough hypocrite. (J. Cumming D. D.)

A king’s ignorance

I. Who was this man?

1. Exiled for many years.

2. Belonged to an alien dynasty.

3. May simply mean that he refused to know Joseph.

II. Why did he reign? To carry out the promise of God.

1. God does not always use the same methods. Brought Israel into Egypt by prosperity; took them out by adversity.

2. God had to prepare the way for His work.

III. What has he to do with us?

1. He shows us how human wisdom overreaches itself. His policy only brought about the very object he wished to avoid.

2. He shows us the abuse of privileges. He might have known Joseph. Ignorance is no excuse for those who ought to know. (Homilist.)

Emptiness of fame

The readiness with which the populace forgets its vaunted idols has ever been a favourite topic with third-rate moralists; A surviving friend of William Pitt was convinced of the emptiness of fame by seeing the greatest statesman of the age completely forgotten in ten days. Queen Elizabeth’s passage into oblivion was even more rapid for according to an eminent historical authority she “was as much forgot in four days as if she had never existed.” To be sure in such cases the oblivion has been short-lived. Posterity has amply remedied the brief injustice of contemporary opinion (Christian Journal.)

Oblivion and neglect

It is a memorable example amongst many others that we have of William the Conqueror’s successor who being unhappily killed as he was hunting in the New Forest all his nobles and courtiers forsook him only some few that remained laid his body in a collier’s cart which being drawn with one silly lean beast through very foul and filthy way the cart broke and there lay the spectacle of worldly glory both pitifully gored and all bemired. Now if this were the portion of so mighty a prince whom immediately before so glorious a troop attended what then must others of meaner rank expect and look for but only with death’s closing up of their eyes to have all their friends excluded and no sooner gone but to be as suddenly forgotten. Hence it is that oblivion and neglect are the two handmaids of death. (J. Spencer.)

Let us deal wisely.--

Wrong councils

Kings ought to know better than to convene councils to oppose the intentions of God. Such conduct is--

1. Daring.

2. Reprehensible.

3. Ruinous.

4. Ineffectual. (J. S. Exell M. A.)

The end and design of the council

1. To prevent the numerical increase of Israel.

2. To enfeeble the military power of Israel.

3. To detain the Israelites in permanent bondage. (J. S. Exell M. A.)

Persecution of God’s people for hypothetical offences

Hypothetical offences have generally been the ground of the persecution of the people of God. It has rarely been for a crime proved but generally for a crime possible. And this dynasty in the exercise of what it thought a very far-reaching diplomacy but really a very wild and foolish hallucination determined to persecute and gradually crush the children of Israel. The result proved that the wisdom of man is folly with God. Whatever is undertaken that has no sanction from God never will have any real or permanent success before men. But attempt anything however wise it looks or talented it appears yet if it be not inspired by principle it is a rope of sand--it must fall to pieces. Let us therefore ever feel that we never can do wisely unless we do well and that the highest principle is ever the purest and best policy. The dynasty that succeeded the ancient Pharaoh did not know this. They thought they could extirpate God’s people. They might as well have tried to extirpate the sun from the firmament or the fruits and trees of the earth; for the everlasting arms are around all them that love and fear God; and they are an immortal people who are the sons and daughters of the Most High. The Egyptians found here that the more they afflicted them the more they multiplied. (J. Cumming D. D.)

A perversion of language

The wisdom here proposed to be employed was the wisdom of the serpent; but with men of reprobate minds governed solely by the corrupt spirit of this world whatever measures tend to promote their own interests and circumvent their opponents is dignified by the epithet wise though it be found when judged by a purer standard to be in reality nothing less than the very policy of hell. (G. Bush.)

Pharaoh’s sceptical reasoning

All Pharaoh’s reasoning was that of a heart that had never learnt to take God into its calculations. He could accurately recount the various contingencies of human affairs the multiplying of the people the falling out of war the joining with the enemy their escape out of the laud but it never once occurred to him that God could have anything whatever to do in the matter. Had he only thought of this it would have upset his entire reasoning. Ever thus is it with the reasonings of man’s sceptical mind. God is shut out and their truth and consistency depend upon His being kept out. The death-blow to all scepticism and infidelity is the introduction of God into the scene. Till He is seen they may strut up and down upon the stage with an amazing show of wisdom and plausibility but the moment the eye catches even the faintest glimpse of that blessed One whose

“Hand unseen

Doth turn and guide the great machine ”

they are stripped of their cloak and disclosed in all their nakedness and deformity. (A. Nevin D. D.)

Jealousy of autocrats

Autocrats whether elected or usurping are all more or less jealous. The female autocrat is in some respects worse than the male. Two queen bees will not live together in the same hive. And indeed as soon as a young queen-bee is about to lay her eggs she is anxious to destroy all the royal pupae which still exist in the hive. When she has become a mother she attacks one after the other the cells which still contain females. She may be seen to throw herself with fury upon the first cell she comes to. She tears an opening in it large enough for her to introduce her sting. When she has stung the female which it contains she withdraws to attack another. Man is not much behind these jealous insects. Among certain tribes of Ethiopians the first care of the newly crowned chief is to put in prison all his brothers so as to prevent wars by pretenders to the throne. And even among more civilized nations the records are numerous of the mean and petty tricks and cruelties adopted by kings and queens for disposing of any possible rivals. (Scientific Illustrations and Symbols.)

The more they multiplied.--

Moral growth proportionate to affliction

1. This is true of individual moral character.

2. This is especially true in the development of the Church. (J. S. Exell M. A.)

Why does persecution and trial operate thus

1. To manifest the love of God towards His Church.

2. To manifest the power of God over His enemies.

3. To fulfil the promise of God made to the good.

4. To manifest His providence towards the Church.

5. To strike terror into the hearts of tyrants.

6. To manifest the divinity of truth and pure moral character. (J. S. Exell M. A.)

The Egyptians were grieved

1. Because their plots were a failure.

2. Because their cruelty was unavailing.

3. Because they had exasperated an enemy they could not subdue Half the grief of the world is occasioned by the failure of wicked and cruel purposes. (J. S. Exell M. A.)

Persecution fertilising

“The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” Persecuting the Church is but like casting manure upon the ground. It for a while covers the plants and seems to destroy them; but it makes the earth more fertile and the plants more numerous and vigorous. (J. Orton.)

Strange increase

How diverse were the barbarities and kinds of death inflicted on the Christian confessors! The more they were slain the more rapidly spread the faith; in place of one sprang up a hundred. When a great multitude had been put to death one at court said to the king “The number of them increaseth instead of as thou thinkest diminishing.” “How can that be?” exclaimed the king. “But yesterday ” replied the courtier “thou didst put such-and-such a one to death and lo! there were converted double that number; and the people say that a man appeared to the confessors from heaven strengthening them in their last moments.” Whereupon the king himself was converted. (The Apology of Al Kindy a. d. 830.)

Prosperity under persecutions

Whatever has been done by enemies in rage or in recklessness God has always met it calmly and quietly. He has shown Himself ready for every emergency. And He has not only baffled and utterly defeated all the inventions of wicked men but He has turned their strange devices to good account for the development of His own sovereign purposes.

I. In the case of Israel it did seem to be a deep-laid plot very politic and crafty indeed that as the kings of Egypt themselves of an alien race had subdued the Egyptians they should prevent the other alien race the Israelites from conquering them. Instead of murdering them wholesale it did seem a wise though a cruel thing to make them slaves; to divide them up and down the country; to appoint them to the most menial work in the land that they might be crushed down and their spirits become so base that they would not dare to rebel. Thus we may suppose it was hoped that their physical strength would be so relaxed and their circumstances so reduced that the clan would soon be insignificant if not utterly extinct. But God met and overruled this policy in various ways. “The more they afflicted them the more they multiplied.” The glory of God shines forth conspicuously in the use to which He turned the persecutions they endured. The severe treatment they had to bear from the enemy became to them a salutary discipline. In order to cut loose the bonds that bound them to Egypt the sharp knife of affliction must be used; and Pharaoh though he knew it not was God’s instrument in weaning them from the Egyptian world and helping them as His Church to take up their separate place in the wilderness and receive the portion which God had appointed for them. Once more--and here you may see the wisdom of God the very means which Pharaoh devised for the effectual crushing of the people--the destruction of the male children--became the direct nay the Divine provision for educating a deliverer for them.

II. Let us now carry the same thought a stage farther and take a brief survey of the history of the children of God. The like means will appear in manifold operation. Men meditate mischief but it miserably miscarries. God grants protection to the persecuted and provides an escape from the most perilous exposure. Full often the darkest conspiracy is brought to the direst confusion. Persecution has evidently aided the increase of the Church by the scattering abroad of earnest teachers. We are very apt to get; hived--too many of us together--and our very love of one another renders it difficult to part us and scatter us about. Persecution therefore is permitted to scatter the hive of the Church into various swarms and each of these swarms begins to make honey. We are all like the salt if we be true Christians and the proper place for the salt is not massed in a box but scattered by handfuls over the flesh which it is to preserve. Moreover persecution helps to keep up the separation between the Church and the world. When I heard of a young man that after he joined the Church these in his workshop met him at once with loud laughter and reproached him with bitter scorn I was thankful because now he could not take up the same position with themselves. He was a marked man: they who knew him discovered that there was such a thing as Christianity and such a one as an earnest defender of it. Again persecution in the Christian Church acts like a winnowing fan to the heaps gathered on the threshing-floor. Persecution has a further beneficial use in the Church of God and it is this. It may be that the members of the Church want it. The Roman who professed that he would like to have a window in his bosom that everybody might see his heart would have wished I should think before long for a shutter to that window; yet it is no slight stimulus to a man’s own circumspection for him to know that he is observed by unfriendly eyes. Our life ought to be such as will bear criticism. And this persecution has a further usefulness. Often does it happen that the enmity of the world drives the Christian nearer to his God.

III. And now I close this address by just very briefly hinting that this great general truth applies to all believers; but I will make a practical use of it. Are you passing through great trials? Very well then to meet them I pray that God’s grace may give you greater faith; and if your trials increase more and more so may your strength increase. You will be acting after God’s manner guided by His wisdom if you seek to get more faith out of more trial for that trial does strengthen faith through Divine grace experience teaches us and as we make full proof of the faithfulness of God our courage once apt to waver is confirmed. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

How to defeat the devil

Always take revenge on Satan if he defeats you by trying to do ten times more good than you did before. It is in some such way that a dear brother now preaching the gospel whom God has blessed with a very considerable measure of success may trace the opening of his career to a circumstance that occurred to myself. Sitting in my pulpit one evening in a country village where I had to preach my text slipped from my memory and with the text seemed ¢o go all that I had thought to speak upon it. A rare thing to happen to me; but I sat utterly confounded. I could find nothing to say. With strong crying I lifted up my soul to God to pour out again within my soul of the living water that it might gush forth from me for others; and I accompanied my prayer with a vow that if Satan’s enmity thus had brought me low I would take so many fresh men whom I might meet with during the week and train them for the ministry so that with their hands and tongues I would avenge myself on the Philistines. The brother I have alluded to came to me the next morning. I accepted him at once as one whom God had sent and I helped him and others after him to prepare for the service and to go forth in the Saviour’s name to preach the gospel of the grace of God. Often when we fear we are defeated we ought to say “I will do all the more. Instead of dropping from this work now will I make a general levy and a sacred conscription upon all the powers of my soul and I will gather up all the strength I ever had in reserve and make from this moment a tremendous life-long effort to overcome the powers of darkness and win for Christ fresh trophies of victory.” After this fashion you will have an easier time of it for if you do more good the more you are tempted Satan will not so often tempt you. When he knows that all the more you are afflicted so much the more you multiply very likely he will find it wiser to let you alone or try you in some other method than that of direct and overt opposition. So whenever you have a trial take it as a favour; whenever God holds in one hand the rod of affliction He has a favour in the other hand; He never strikes a child of His but He has some tender blessing in store. If He visits you with unwonted affliction you will have unusual delight; the Lord will open new windows for you and show His beauty as He shows it not to others. According as your tribulations abound so also shall your consolations abound in Christ Jesus. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Egypt the house of bondage to God’s people

I. The character of Egypt and her influence on her children.

1. Egypt was distinguished as the abode of a peculiarly easy and luxurious life. In Egypt as in the world there was all that could lay the soul to sleep under its vine and fig-tree and reduce it to the level of the brutes which the Egyptian worshipped as more wise and wonderful than man. This easiness of the terms of life is fatal to the noblest elements in man. Look at Naples. No heroism can be extracted from the Lazzaroni. Give the fellow a bit of bread a slice of melon and a drink of sour wine and he will lie all day long on the quays basking in the sun and the glorious air; and what cares he if empires rise or totter to their fall? Egypt was the Naples of the old world; wealth luxury elaborate refinement of a kind not inconsistent with grossness; but no moral earnestness no manhood no life. Nature wooed man to her lap in Egypt and won him bathing him in luxurious pleasures--Egypt was the world.

2. Moreover Egypt was cut off very much from all the political and intellectual activity in which Babylon was compelled to share. She could “live to herself and die to herself ” as was not possible for Babylon. She could play away her strength and her life in wanton pleasures at her will. Egypt is the image of the wanton world herein. It was full of the wisdom of this world the wisdom of the understanding which prostitutes itself easily to the uses of a sensual and earthly life.

II. The experience of God’s children there--its influence on a people conscious that they had a soul to be saved.

1. They went down to Egypt with the fairest prospect--certainty of sustenance and promise of wealth honour and power. They were to settle in Goshen; better richer land than the bare hills which would be their only home in Canaan whose rich valleys would be mainly occupied by the native inhabitants--laud in every way suited to yield pasture to their flocks. So the world woos us. We are born in it God placed us here God gave us these keen senses these imperious appetites and the means of their fullest indulgence; and why should we tighten the rein? See you no new reason why Egypt when the patriarchs dwelt there was a fit and full image of “the world”?

2. They had not lived there long before rich and fruitful as was the land they began to find their life a bondage. Egypt was strange to them. They could not amalgamate with the inhabitants. The Egyptians came to feel it; alienation sprang up and bitterness. Egypt laid chains on them to keep them in her service while they groaned and writhed and sighed to be gone--to be free. And rich as the world’s pastures may be propitious as may be its kings the soul of man grows uneasy in its abodes. There are moments of utter heart-sickness amidst plenty and luxury such as a sick child of the mountains knows tossing on a purple bed of state: “Oh for one breath of the sunny breezes one glance at the shadows sweeping over the brown moorlands; one breath one vision would give me new life.” The very prosperity makes the soul conscious of its fetters.

3. The moment comes in every experience when the bondage becomes too grevious to be borne; when the spirit cries out and wrestles for deliverance and the iron blood-rusted enters the very heart. The men became conscious of their higher vocation and wept and pleaded more earnestly; and their tyrants yoked them more tightly and loaded them more heavily; till like Job they cursed God’s light and hated life in bitterness of soul. And the soul in its Egypt the world drinks deep of this experience. The moment comes when it wakes up and says “I am a slave”; “I am a beast”; “I will shake off this yoke”; “I will be free.” Then begins a battle-agony; a strife for life and immortality--the end either a final eternal relapse into captivity or an exodus into the wilderness and to heaven. Let the soul fight its own battles and the most heroic struggles shall not save it. Let it follow the Captain of Salvation and gird on the armour of God and death and hell shall not spoil it. (J. B. Brown B. A.)

The taskmasters of the world

1. Sin is a taskmaster.

2. The rich are often taskmasters.

3. The ambitious are often taskmasters. These taskmasters are--

That God allowed His people thus to be enslaved and afflicted

1. A mystery.

2. A problem.

3. A punishment.

4. A discipline. (J. S. Exell M. A.)

Suffering and strength

One thing experience teaches that life brings no benediction for those who take it easily. The harvest cannot be reaped until the soil has been deeply ploughed and freely harrowed. “Learn to suffer and be strong ” says the poet; and certain it is that without suffering there can be no strength. Not indeed that suffering is or makes strength but that it evokes the latent power and rouses into action the energies that would have otherwise lain ingloriously supine. The discipline of life is a necessary prelude to the victory of life; and all that is finest purest and noblest in human nature is called forth by the presence of want disappointment pain opposition and injustice. Difficulties can be conquered only by decision; obstacles can be removed only by arduous effort. These test our manhood and at the same time confirm our self-control. (W. H. D. Adams.)

Life maintained by struggling

You lament that your life is one constant struggle; that having obtained what you tried hard to secure your whole strength is now required in order to retain it; and that your necessities impose on you the further obligation of additional exertions. It is so; but do not repine. As a rule the maintenance of life is everywhere conditional on struggling. It is not only so with men and animals. It is so even in the vegetable world. You struggle with obstacles; but the very trees have to do the same. Observe them; take heart and grow strong. M. Louis Figuier says that the manner in which roots succeed in overcoming obstacles has always been a subject of surprise to the observer. The roots of trees and shrubs when cramped or hindered in their progress have been observed to exhibit considerable mechanical force throwing down walls or splitting rocks and in other eases clinging together in bunches or spreading out their fibres over a prodigious space in order to follow the course of a rivulet with its friendly moisture. Who has not seen with admiration how roots will adapt themselves to the special circumstances of the soil dividing their filaments in a soil fit for them almost to infinity elsewhere abandoning a sterile soft to seek one farther off which is favourable to them; and as the ground was wide or less hard wet or dry heavy or light sandy or stony varying their shapes accordingly? Here are wonderful energy and illustrations of the way in which existence may be maintained by constant action. (Scientific Illustrations and Symbols.)

Use of adversity

The springs at the base of the Alpine Mountains are fullest and freshest when the summer sun has dried and parched the verdure in the valleys below. The heat that has burned the arid plains has melted mountain glacier and snow and increased the volume of the mountain streams. Thus when adversity has dried the springs of earthly comfort and hope God’s great springs of salvation and love flow freshest and fullest to gladden the heart. (Irish Congregational Magazine.)

Moulding influences of life

The steel that has suffered most is the best steel. It has been in the furnace again and again; it has been on the anvil; it has been tight in the jaws of the vice; it has felt the teeth of the rasp; it has been ground by emery; it has been heated and hammered and filed until it does not know itself and it comes out a splendid knife. And if men only knew it what are called their “misfortunes” are God’s best blessings for they are the moulding influences which give them shapeliness and edge and durability and power. (H. W. Beecher.)

The advantage of afflictions

Stars shine brightest in the darkest night; torches are better for the beating; grapes come not to the proof till they come to the press; spices smell sweetest when pounded; young trees root the faster for shaking; vines are the better for bleeding; gold looks the brighter for scouring; glow-worms glisten best in the dark; juniper smells sweetest in the fire; pomander becomes most fragrant for chafing; the palm-tree proves the better for pressing; camomile the more you tread it the more you spread it. Such is the condition of all God’s children they are then most triumphant when most tempted; most glorious when most afflicted; most in the favour of God when least in man’s; as their conflicts so their conquests; as their tribulations so their triumphs; true salamanders that live best in the furnace of persecution so that heavy afflictions are the best benefactors to heavenly affections. (J. Spencer.)

The university of hard knocks

A great deal of useless sympathy is in this day expended upon those who start in life without social or monetary help. Those are most to be congratulated who have at the beginning a rough tussel with circumstances. John Ruskin sets it down as one of his calamities that in early life he “had nothing to endure.” A petted and dandled childhood makes a weak and insipid man. You say that the Ruskin just quoted disproves the theory. No. He is showing in a dejected splenetic and irritated old age the need of the early cudgelling of adversity. He seems fretting himself to death. A little experience of the hardship of life would have helped to make him gratefully happy now. No brawn of character without compulsory exertion. The men who sit strong in their social financial and political elevations are those who did their own climbing. Misfortune is a rough nurse but she raises giants. Let our young people instead of succumbing to the influences that would keep them back and down take them as the parallel bars and dumb-bells and weights of a gymnasium by which they are to get muscle for the strife. Consent not to beg your way to fortune but achieve it. God is always on the side of the man who does his best. God helps the man who tries to overcome difficulties. (Dr. Talmage.)

Graces multiply by affliction

Graces multiply by afflictions as the saints did by persecutions. (T. Adams.)

Beneficial effects of affliction

The walnut tree is most fruitful when most beaten. Fish thrive best in cold and salt waters. The most plentiful summer follows upon the hardest winter. (J. Trapp.)

lnjuries overruled

Though your attempt to destroy a man’s position may fail to accomplish that object it may be productive of serious injury to him. Yet fortunately for him that very injury may afterwards bring forth good results. His friends may rally round him; his resources may be added to through the medium of the sympathetic; or he may be so acted on as to put forth power from within which develops new graces and fresh vigour. You injure a tree and you will discover reparation is at work even there. The wheel of your cart for instance grazes the trunk or the root of the tree is wounded by your passing ploughshare; the result is an adventitious bud comes. Wherever you see those adventitious buds which come without any order you may recollect that their formation is frequently thus produced by the irritation caused by injury. You cut down the heads of a group of forest trees; you have not destroyed them. Like the men you have injured they live to tell the tale. The pollarded dwarf remains to declare what the forest tree would have become but for you. Even the date of your attack can be ascertained; for the stunted group will cover themselves with branches all of the same age and strength which will exhibit to the sky the evidence of the story: Injured these all are; yes but not destroyed. (Scientific Illustrations and Symbols.)

Affliction and growth

Bunyan’s figure of Satan pouring water on the fire to extinguish it and it all the while waxing brighter and hotter because the unseen Christ was pouring oil upon it illustrates the prosperity of God’s people in affliction. “The more they afflicted them the more they grew.” When a fire attains certain heat and volume to pour water upon it is only to add fuel. The water suddenly changed to its component gases feeds instead of extinguishing the flame. So God changes the evil inflicted upon His people into an upbuilding and sanctifying power. (H. C. Trumbull.)

They made their lives bitter with hard bondage.--

The bondage of sin

I. The bondage as an illustration of sin. “Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.”

1. The unnaturalness of this bondage. Men were fitted to serve God not Satan. All their powers are perverted misused and reversed when they are in courses of disobedience and rebellion. “Right” means “straight ” and “wrong” means “wrung.”

2. The severity of this bondage. No taskmaster for men has ever been found more brutal than a brutal man. The devil has no despot out of hell more despotic than sinners to place over sinners. When villains get villains in their power how they do persist in lashing them into further villainy and vice!

3. The injustice of this bondage. Satan never remembers favours bestowed. One may give himself body soul and spirit to the devil and no fidelity will win him the least consideration. Injustice is the rule in sin it never in any case has exceptions. The prince of evil simply uses his devotees all the worse because of their servility and patience.

4. The destructiveness of this bondage of sin. The wanton waste of all that makes life worth a struggle by persistent courses of sin is familiar to every thoughtful observer. Wickedness never builds up; it always pulls down. Once in the heat of a public discussion some infidels challenged an immediate reply to what they called their arguments. A plain woman arose in the audience; she proceeded to relate how her husband had been dissipated and unkind; she had prayed for him and he had become a praying man and a good father; years of comfort and of peace had they now dwelt together in the love of each other and the fear of God. “So much ” she continued “has my religion done for me. Will you kindly state now what your religion has done for you in the same time?” Done? unbelief does not do anything it undoes.

II. And now with so sorrowful a showing as this bondage has to make it seems surprising to find that the Israelites were counselled to “remember” it. Why should they recall such humiliation?

1. Such reminiscences promote humility. Spiritual pride is as dangerous as a vice. What have we that God’s mercy has not bestowed upon us? Why boast we over each other? Recollect that “the Lord hath taken you and brought you forth out of the iron furnace even out of Egypt to be unto Him a people of inheritance as ye are this day.” To Him we owe everything we are.

2. Such a remembrance quickens our considerate charity for others. Our disposition is to condemn and denounce the degeneracies of the times in which we live. Wherein are people worse now than we ourselves were once? How do we know what we might have been if it had not been for the arrest of our rebellion by the power of the Holy Ghost? Once as a drunken man reeled past his door John Newton exclaimed: “But for the grace of God there goes John Newton!” (C. S. Robinson D. D.)

Embittering the lives of others

It is no credit to Pharaoh that God overruled his oppression of the Israelites to their advantage. For his course there is nothing but guilt and shame. He who makes another life bitter has got the bitterness of that life to answer for whatever good may come to his victim through the blessing of God. It is a terrible thing--a shameful thing also--to make another’s life bitter. Yet there are boys and girls who are making their mothers’ lives bitter; and there are husbands who are making the lives of their wives bitter; and there are parents who are making their children’s lives bitter. Is no one’s life made bitter by your course? Is there no danger of bitterness of life to any one through your conduct--or your purposed action? Weigh well these questions; for they involve much to you. Pharaoh is dead; there is no danger of his making our lives bitter with hard bondage. But the devil is not dead; and there is danger of our being in hard bondage to him. Pharaoh’s bondage was overruled for good to those who were under it. The devil’s bondage is harder than Pharaoh’s and no good ever comes of it to its subjects. It were better for us to have died under the hardest bondage of Pharaoh than to live on under the devil’s easiest bondage. (H. C. Trumbull.)

Pharaoh’s cruel policy

It is worth notice that the king holds council with his people and evidently carries them with him in his policy. The Egyptians had more than their share of the characteristic ancient hatred and dread of foreigners and here they are ready to second any harsh treatment of these intruders whom three hundred years have amalgamated. Observe too that the cruel policy of Pharaoh is policy and that only. No crime is alleged; no passion of hate actuates the cold-blooded proposal. It is simply a piece of state-craft perfectly cool and therefore indicating all the more heartlessness. Calculated cruelty is worse than impulsive cruelty. Like some drinks it is more nauseous cold than hot. No doubt the question what to do with a powerful subject race on a threatened frontier who were suspected of kindred and possible alliance with the enemy on the other side of the boundary was a difficult one. Rameses must have thought of Goshen and the Israelites much as we may fancy Prince Bismarck thinks of Alsace. He was afraid to let them become more powerful and he was loath to lose them. Whether they stayed or went they were equally formidable. High policy therefore which in Old Egypt and in other lands and ages nearer home has too often meant undisguised selfishness and cynical cruelty required that the peaceful happiness of a whole nation should be ruthlessly sacrificed; and the calm Pharaoh whose unimpassioned callous face we can still see on the monuments laid his plans as unmoved as if he had been arranging for the diminution of the vermin in the palace wails. What a picture of these God-defying man-despising ancient monarchies is here! What would he have thought if any of his counsellors had suggested “Try kindness”? The idea of attaching subject peoples by common interests and golden bonds of benefit had to wait millenniums to be born. It is not too widely spread yet. (A. Maclaren D. D.)

The despotism of sin

I. It commences by suggesting a small tribute to the sinner. It wins us by the hope of a good investment whereby we may secure wealth prosperity fame. A false hope; a deceptive promise. Sin is cunning; has many counsellors; many agencies. You are no match for it.

II. It succeeds in getting the sinner completely within its power.

1. Sin gets the sinner under its rule.

2. Sin makes the sinner subject to its counsel.

3. Sin makes the sinner responsible to its authority.

III. It ultimately imposes upon the sinner an intolerable servitude.

1. The servitude of a bitter life. Destroys friendly companionships breaks up family comfort.

2. The servitude of hard work. Unprofitableness and folly of sin.

3. The servitude is degrading. Brings men from respect to derision--from plenty to beggary--from moral rulership to servitude. (J. S. Exell M. A.)

The spiritual bondage of men

I. An entire and universal bondage. No merciful limit nor mitigation (see 2 Timothy 2:26; 2 Peter 2:19; John 8:34; Romans 5:18 Romans 3:23; Galatians 3:22).

1. It extends to all mankind.

2. The slavery of the individual is as complete and total as that of the species is universal.

II. A severe and cruel bondage. No mastery can be found more pitiless than that of the unhallowed affections and passions which rule the mind until the Almighty Redeemer breaks the yoke and sets the captive free from the law of sin and death.

III. A helpless bondage.

1. The oppressor of the soul abounds too greatly in power and resources to dread any resistance from a victim so helpless. Our strength for combat against such an enemy is perfect weakness.

2. In addition to his own power Satan has established a close alliance with every appetite and affection of our nature. Morally unable to deliver ourselves. Hope in God alone. Seek His aid through prayer. (R. P. Buddicom M. A.)

The sufferings of Israel were rendered more intense

1. As a punishment for their idolatry.

2. To inspire within them a deep hatred toward Egypt so that through their perils in the wilderness they might not wish to return thither.

3. That the prospect of Canaan might animate and refresh their souls.

4. That after such excessive and unpaid labour they might fairly spoil the Egyptians on their departure.

5. That they might be aroused to earnest prayer for deliverance.

6. That the power and mercy of God might be more forcibly displayed in their freedom.

Here is a true picture of tyranny:

1. Its rigour increases with failure.

2. It becomes more impious as it is in evident opposition to the Divine providence.

3. It discards all the claims of humanity.

4. It ends in its own defeat and overthrow. (J. S. Exell M. A.)

The bondage

Situated as they were within the bounds of a foreign kingdom at first naturally jealous and then openly hostile towards them it is not difficult to account for the kind of treatment inflicted on them viewing the position they occupied merely in its worldly relations and interests. But what account can we give of it in its religious aspect--as an arrangement settled and ordained on the part of God? Why should He have ordered such a state of matters concerning His chosen seed? For the Egyptians “though their hearts thought not so”--were but instruments in His hands to bring to pass what the Lord had long before announced to Abraham as certainly to take place (Genesis 15:13).

1. Considered in this higher point of view the first light in which it naturally presents itself is that of a doom or punishment from which as interested in the mercy of God they needed redemption. For the aspect of intense suffering which is latterly assumed could only be regarded as an act of retribution for their past unfaithfulness and sins.

2. It formed an essential part of the preparation which they needed for occupying the inheritance.

The bondage of sin

Throughout the Scriptures the circumstances of Israel in Egypt are referred to as typical of the servitude under which the sinner is held. There is more than guilt in wickedness. It would indeed be bad enough even if that were all but there is slavery besides. Our Lord Himself says “Whosoever committeth sin is the slave of sin”; and there are no taskmasters so exacting as a man’s own lusts. Look at the drunkard! See how his vile appetite rules him! It makes him barter every comfort he possesses for strong drink. It lays him helpless on the snowy street in the bitter winter’s cold. It sends him headlong down the staircase to the injury of his body and the danger of his life. If a slaveholder were to abuse a slave as the drunkard maltreats himself humanity would hiss him from his place and denounce him as a barbarian. And yet the inebriate does it to himself and tries to sing the while the refrain of the song which ends “We never never shall be slaves.” The same thing is true of sensuality. Go search the hospitals of this city; look at the wretched victims of their own lusts who fill the wards and then say if man’s inhumanity to himself be not in some aspects of it infinitely more terrible than his oppression of his neighbours. Visit our prisons and see how avarice fashion frivolity and the love of standing well with their companions have held multitudes in their grip forcing them--nay I will not say forcing them for they sin wilfully--but leading them to dishonesty day by day until at last the inner servitude gives place to an external imprisonment. The setting of slaves to make bricks without straw is nothing to the drudgery and the danger--as of one standing on the crater’s edge--that dishonesty brings upon a man when once it has him in its power. And it is the same with every kind of sin. But this slavery need not be perpetual for the Great Emancipator has come. (W. M. Taylor D. D.)

Egypt opposed to Israel

It is no new thing for Egypt to be unkind and cruel to Israel. Israelites and Egyptians are of contrary dispositions and inclinations; the delight of one is the abomination of the other. Besides it is the duty of Israel to depart out of Egypt. Israel is in Egypt in respect of abode not of desire. Egypt is not Israel’s rest. If Egypt were a house of hospitality it would more dangerously and strongly detain the Israelites than in being a house of bondage. The thoughts of Canaan would be but slight and seldom if Egypt were pleasant. It is good that Egyptians should hate us that so they may not hurt us. When the world is most kind it is most corrupting; and when it smiles most it seduces most. Were it not for the bondage in Egypt the food and idols of Egypt would be too much beloved. Blessed be God who will by the former wean us from the latter; and will not let us have the one without the other: far better that Egypt should oppress us than we oppose God. (W. Jenkyn.)

The bondage of sin

Vice as it groweth in age so it improveth in stature and strength; from a puny child it soon waxeth a lusty stripling then riseth to be a sturdy man and after a while becomes a massy giant whom we shall scarce dare to encounter whom we shall be very hardly able to vanquish; especially seeing that as it groweth taller and stouter so we shall dwindle and become more impotent for it feedeth upon our vitals and thriveth by our decay; it waxeth mighty by stripping us of our best forces by enfeebling our reason by preventing our will by corrupting our temper by debasing our courage by seducing all our appetites and passions to a treacherous compliance with itself; every day our mind growing more blind our will more restive our spirit more faint our appetites more fierce our passions more headstrong and untameable. The power and empire of sin do strangely by degrees encroach and continually get ground upon us till it has quite subdued and enthralled us. First we learn to bear it then we come to like it; by and by we contract a friendship with it; then we dote on it; at last we become enslaved to it in a bondage which we shall hardly be able or willing to shake off. (Isaac Barrow.)

Darkest before the dawn

“Fear not to go down into Egypt; for I will there make of thee a great nation” (Genesis 46:3). Look down thou sainted patriarch! see what has here become of thy posterity increased now fourteen thousand fold; nay see Thou God of Abraham what has become of Thine inheritance how they have watched and prayed in vain! “The Lord hath forsaken the Lord hath forgotten!” And this continues not for years but centuries each year of which seems in itself a century! “Verily Thou art a God that hidest Thyself!” With such a scene of sorrow in his view the most unfortunate among us well may cease complaint; and he who has to some extent learned to observe God’s dealings in His providence may have himself already marked how in the present case an old-established law in God’s government is set before us in the form of a most touching incident: the Lord ofttimes makes everything as dark as they can possibly become just that thereafter and thereby the light may shine more brilliantly. Ishmael must faint beneath the shrubs ere Hagar shall be told about the well. Joseph must even be left to sigh not merely in his slavery but in imprisonment and deep oblivion ere he is raised to his high dignity. The host of the Assyrians must stand before Jerusalem’s gates ere they are smitten by the angel of the Lord. The prophet Jeremiah must be let sink down into the miry pit ere he is placed upon a rock. Did not a violent persecution of the Christians precede the triumph of the gospel? In the night of mediaeval times must not star after star set ere the Reformation dawn arose? Yes; is not Israel’s history in this respect also the history of God’s own people in succeeding times even in the present day? They suffer persecution are oppressed ill-treated and opposed through a mistaken policy; all kinds of force are often used for their restraint under the sacred name of liberty; yet still they stand and take deep root and grow expecting better times will come in spite of these fierce hurricanes. Nay verily the Lord has not forgotten to be gracious though He sometimes seems to hide His face; nor does He cease to rule the world though He delays to interpose. The Father watches and preserves his child amidst the fiercest fires of persecution; and although the furnace of the trial through which he comes be heated seven times more than usual every degree of heat is counted measured regulated by the Lord Himself. Though He permits injustice and even lets it grow to an extraordinary height He yet employs it for a purpose that may well command our adoration and regard--the purifying and the perfecting of those who are His own. (J. J. Van Oosterzee D. D.)

The bitter lives

I. God’s blessing makes fruitful

1. The promise to Abraham (Genesis 17:2-8).

2. The number of the Israelites in Egypt (verses 9 10).

II. Note the mistakes committed through prejudice.

1. The Egyptians hated and spurned the Israelites; therefore ultimately lost the blessing of their presence.

2. Statesmanship fails in placing policy before principle.

3. Cruelty begot enmity; kindness would have won.

III. Selfishness soon forgets past favours. A new ruler disregarded the claims of Joseph’s seed. This world works for present and prospective favours.

IV. Here is a type of the growth of sin. The Israelites came into the best part of Egypt; first pleasant then doubtful then oppressed then finally enslaved.

1. Sin yields bitter fruit.

2. We have taskmasters in our habit.

3. Life becomes a burden: sorrows of servitude.

V. Note the reason for this affliction.

1. They were becoming idolatrous (Joshua 24:14; Ezekiel 20:5-8).

2. Bitterness now would help to prevent return to Egypt.

3. We sometimes find sorrow here that we may look above.

VI. God’s favour here contrasted with man’s opposition. Pharaoh failed; the Israelities multiplied.

VII. Affliction helps us.

1. As afflicted so they grew.

2. Christ purgeth us for more fruit.

3. Self-denial is the path to power. (Dr. Fowler.)

The mummy of Rameses the Great

After the verification by the Khedive of the outer winding-sheet of the mummy in the sight of the other illustrious personages the initial wrapping was removed and there was disclosed a band of stuff or strong cloth rolled all around the body; next to this was a second envelope sewed up and kept in place by narrow bands at some distance each from each; then came two thicknesses of small bandages; and then a new winding-sheet of linen reaching from the head to the feet. Upon this a figure representing the goddess Nut more than a yard in length had been drawn in red and white colour as prescribed by the ritual for the dead. Beneath this amulet there was found one more bandage; when that was removed a piece of linen alone remained and this was spotted with the bituminous matter used by the embalmers; so at last it was evident that Rameses the Great was close by--under his shroud. Think of the historic changes which have passed over the world since that linen cloth was put around the form of the king: Think what civilization stood facing an old era like his. A single clip of the scissors and the king was fully disclosed. The head is long and small in proportion to the body. The top of the skull is quite bare. On the temple there are a few sparse hairs but at the poll the hair is quite thick forming smooth straight locks about two inches in length. White at the time of death they have been dyed a light yellow by the spices used in embalmment. The forehead is low and narrow; the brow-ridge prominent; the eyebrows are thick and white; the eyes are small and close together; the nose is long thin arched like the noses of the Bourbons; the temples are sunken; the cheek-bones very prominent; the ears round standing far out from the head and pierced like those of a woman for the wearing of ear-rings; the jawbone is massive and strong; the chin very prominent; the mouth small but thick-lipped; the teeth worn and very brittle but white and well preserved. The moustache and beard are thin. They seem to have been kept shaven during life but were probably allowed to grow during the king’s last illness; or they may have grown after death. The hairs are white like those of the head and eyebrows but are harsh and bristly and a tenth of an inch in length. The skin is of earthy brown splotched with black. Finally it may be said the face of the mummy gives a fair idea of the face of the living king. The expression is unintellectual perhaps slightly animal; bat even under mummification there is plainly to be seen an air of sovereign majesty of resolve and of pride. The rest of the body is as well preserved as the head; but in consequence of the reduction of the tissues its external aspect is less life-like. He was over six feet in height. The chest is broad; the shoulders are square; the arms are crossed upon the breast; the hands are small and dyed with henna. The legs and thighs are fleshless; the feet are long slender somewhat flat-soled and dyed like the hands with henna. The corpse is that of an old man but of a vigorous and robust old man The man was an incarnation of selfishness. To him there was but one being in the universe for whom he needed to care one great; only a single will was to be consulted only a single man’s comfort was to be sought; he himself was the sole centre of all things. Man’s strength and woman’s honour life wealth time and ease of other men went for his personal glorification. And now the world looks at him and gives him his due in the light of the charities and decencies God commands. What do we mean when we speak of “a hard man”? One of the visitors who saw that mummy unrolled a cool quiet German wrote afterwards this clause of description: “The expression of the features is that of a man of decided almost tyrannical character.” That ought to be so. This is the despot who ordered that the tally of bricks should remain undiminished while his slaves should have to forage for their own necessity of straw. He was “a hard man.” Is any one of us hard? Do we need to be kings in order to have that name? Can one be hard upon his clerks his journeymen his neighbours in so far as he has power? So again does” a man of decided almost tyrannical character” fashion and fix his character in the expression of his features? Do you recognize “a hard man” by his looks when you set eyes upon him in ordinary life? Will one’s disposition grow on him until it shows itself in his forehead his lips his chin the poise of his proud head? As years pass are your features growing heavier and colder? Furthermore is it on the body alone that character makes an impression? Is it possible that even unconsciously to ourselves soul as well as body is becoming indurate and chilly? Is money forcing features on our inner life and being? As we rise in life do we grow interested in others; unselfish gentle forbearing in our judgments or stiff and rigid and violent and impatient of others’ successes? And finally if character thus perpetuates itself in the soul as well as on the body is there anything disclosed to us of the world to come which will avail to change the destiny we have fashioned? On the day royal Rameses was buried they wrapped his aged bald head in cerements and covered him in the shadows. He comes up now after some awful centuries of silence and he looks Just as he used to look. It is likely his soul has not grown different either. We know nothing about his future. It is ours that concerns us. What is going to change any lineament of soul in the mysterious Hereafter? (C. S. Robinson D. D.)

If it be a son then ye shall kill him.--

High social position used for the furtherance of a wicked purpose

I. Sometimes high social position exerts its authority for the accomplishment of a wicked and cruel purpose.

1. The king commands the murder of the male children of the Israelites. Diabolical massacre of innocents. Abuse and degradation of regal power.

2. He seeks to accomplish this by bringing the innocent into a participation of his murderous deed. Tyrants are generally cowards.

II. When high social authority is used to further a wicked design we are justified in opposing its effort.

1. We are not to do wrong because a king commands it. To oppose murder when advocated by a king and when it could be accomplished unknown--or if known gain applause of nations--is--

2. Such opposition must embody the true principle of piety. The midwives feared God more than they feared the king.

3. Such opposition will secure for us the Divine protection.

III. For such opposition we shall be divinely rewarded (verses 20 21). (J. S. Exell M. A.)

Why were the males to be put to death?-

1. Because they were the most capable of insurrection and war.

2. Because the Israelitish women were fairer than the Egyptian and so might be kept for the purposes of lust.

3. Because the Israelitish women were industrious in spinning and needlework and so were kept for service. (J. S. Exell M. A.)

Pharaoh’s murderous intentions

His plan was a quiet one. I dread the quietness of murderers. When murderers lay their heads together and fall into soft whispers their whispers are more awful than the roar of cannon or the crash of thunder. The king’s plan was to murder the male child the instant it was born. The thing could easily be done. A thumb pressed on the throat would do it. A hand covering the external organs of respiration for a few moments would be sufficient. This was his simple plan of beating back the manhood of the dreaded nation. He was going to do it very simply. Oh the simplicity of murderers is more intricate than any elaboration of complexity on the part of innocent men! There was to be no external demonstration of violence--no unsheathing of swords--no clash of arms on the field of battle; the nation was to be sapped very quietly. Sirs! Murder is murder whether it is done quietly or with tumult and thunder. Beware of silent manslaughter! Beware of quiet murder! Nothing sublimer than butchery struck the mind of this idiot king. Thoughts of culture and kindness never flashed into the dungeon of his soul. He had no idea of the omnipotence of love. He knew not of the power of that government which is founded on the intelligence and affection of the common people. Annihilation was his fierce remedy There is a profound lesson here. If a king fears children there must be great power in children; if the tyrant begins with the children the good man should begin with them too. (J. Parker D. D.)

The midwives feared God.--

Pharaoh’s evil intention frustrated by God

1. Tyrants’ commands are sometimes crossed by God’s good hand.

2. The true fear of God from faith in Him will make weakest creatures abstain from sin.

3. The name of the only God is powerful to support against the word of mightiest kings.

4. God’s fear will make men disobey kings that they may obey God.

5. The fear of God will make souls do good though commanded by men to do evil.

6. Life preservers discover regard to God and not bloody injurious life destroyers.

7. God makes them save life whom men appoint to destroy it.

8. The good hand of God doth keep the males or best helps of the Church’s peace whom persecutors would kill (verse 17). (G. Hughes B. D.)

Beneficent influence of the fear of God

They who fear God are superior to all other fear. When our notion of authority terminates upon the visible and temporary we become the victims of fickle circumstances; when that notion rises to the unseen and eternal we enjoy rest amid the tumult of all that is merely outward and therefore perishing. Take history through and through and it will be found that the men and women who have most devoutly and honestly feared God have done most to defend and save the countries in which they lived. They have made little noise; they have got up no open-air demonstrations; they have done little or nothing in the way of banners and trumpets and have had no skill in getting up torchlight meetings; but their influence has silently penetrated the national life and secured for the land the loving and mighty care of God. Where the spiritual life is profound and real the social and political influence is correspondingly vital and beneficent. All the great workers in society are not at the front. A hidden work is continually going on; the people in the shade are strengthening the social foundation. There is another history beside that which is written in the columns of the daily newspaper. Every country has heroes and heroines uncanonised. (J. Parker D. D.)

A definition of the fear of God

Fear of God is that holy disposition or gracious habit formed in the soul by the Holy Spirit whereby we are inclined to obey all God’s commands; and evidences itself by--

1. A dread of His displeasure.

2. Desire of His favour.

3. Regard for His excellences.

4. Submission to His will.

5. Gratitude for His benefits.

6. Conscientious obedience to His commands. (C. Buck.)

Civilizing influence of the fear of God

A weary day had been passed in visiting a wretched neighbourhood. Its scenes were sad sickening repulsive. Famine fever want squalid nakedness moral and physical impurities drunkenness death and the devil were all reigning there. Those only who have known the sinking of heart which the miseries of such scenes produce especially when aggravated by a close and tainted atmosphere can imagine the grateful surprise with which on opening a door we stepped into a comfortable apartment. Its whitewashed walls were hung around with prints the household furniture shone like a looking-glass and a bright fire was dancing merrily over a clean hearth-stone. It was an oasis in the desert. And we well remember ere question was asked or answered of saying to ourselves “Surely the fear of God is in this place; this must be the house of a church-going family.” It proved to be so. Yet it was a home where abject poverty might have been expected and excused. A blind man dwelt there. (T. Guthrie D. D.)

The fear of God

Learn a life-lesson from the monument to Lord Lawrence in Westminster Abbey. Of all the memorials there you will not find one that gives a nobler thought. Simply his name and the date of his death and these words; “He feared man so little because he feared God so much.” Here is one great secret of victory. Walk ever in the fear of God. Set God ever before you. Let your prayer be that of the Rugby boy John Laing Bickersteth found locked up in his desk after his death: “O God give me courage that I may fear none but Thee.” (Great Thoughts.)

Obedience to conscience

Lord Erskine when at the bar was remarkable for the fearlessness with which he contended against the Bench. In a contest he had with Lord Kenyon he explained the rule and conduct at the bar in the following terms:--“It was ” said he “the first command and counsel of my youth always to do what my conscience told me to be my duty and leave the consequences to God. I have hitherto followed it and have no reason to complain that any obedience to it has been even a temporal sacrifice; I have found it on the contrary the road to prosperity and wealth and I shall point it out as such to my children.” (W. Baxendale.)

Excellency of the fear of God

It hath been an usual observation that when the king’s porter stood at the gate and suffered none to come in without examination what he would have that then the king was within; but when the porter was absent and the gates open to receive all that came then it was an argument of the king’s absence. So in a Christian such is the excellency of the fear of God that when it is present as a porter shutting the doors of the senses that they see not hear not what they list it is an argument the lord of that house even God Himself is within; and when this fear is away a free entrance is given to all the most dissolute desires so that it is an infallible demonstration of God’s removal from such a soul. (J. Spencer.)

Fear of God a safeguard

If we fear God we need know no other fear. That Divine fear like the space which the American settler burns around him as a defence against the prairie fire clears a circle within which we are absolutely safe. The old necromancists believed that if a man was master of himself he enjoyed complete immunity from all danger; if his will was firmly set the powers of evil could not harm him; he could defy a host of devils raging around. Against the malice of human and infernal power the citadel of a man’s heart that is set upon God is impregnable. (Dr. Hugh Macmillan.)

The best service

He who serves God serves a good master. He who truly serves God is courageous and heroic. Here are two humble women who despise the patronage of a crown and set a king’s edict at defiance. There is no bravery equal to the bravery that is moral. It makes the weakest a conqueror and lifts up the lowest to pluck the palm of victory. A short-sighted policy would have said “Please Pharaoh”; a true heart said “Please God.” Pharaoh had much to give. He held honours in his hand. He could deal out gold and silver. He could give a name among the Egyptians. What of it I God could turn his honours into shame and send the canker on his gold. Serve God! Well tended is that fold which God watches. Pharaoh may frown but his frowns will be unseen and unregarded amid the light of an approving heaven! (J. Parker D. D.)

Cast into the river.--

The last edict of a tyrant king

I. It was public in its proclamation. How men advance from one degree of sin to another.

II. It was cruel in its requirements. Why should a tyrant king fear the infant sons of Israel? He knew they would be his enemies in the future if spared. Young life is the hope of the Church and the terror of despots. (J. S. Exell M. A.)

Progress in sin

There is a woful gradation in sin. As mariners setting sail lose sight of the shore then of the houses then of the steeples and then of the mountains and land; and as those who are waylaid by a consumption first lose vigour then appetite and then colour; thus it is that sin hath its woful gradations. None decline to the worst at first but go from one degree of turpitude to another until the very climax is reached.

The climax of cruelty

If we glance once more at the different means which Pharaoh devised for the oppression and diminution of the Hebrews we find that they imply the following climax of severity and cruelty: he first endeavoured to break their energy by labour and hardship (verses 11-14) then to effect their diminution by killing the newborn male children through the midwives (verses 15 16); and when neither of these plans had the desired result--the former in consequence of the unusual robustness of the Hebrew women the latter owing to the piety and compassion of the midwives--he tried to execute his design by drowning the young children (verse 22); which last device was in two respects more audacious and impious than the second: first because he now laying aside all shame showed publicly his despotism against a harmless foreign tribe which relied on the hospitality solemnly promised to them; and secondly because now the whole people were let loose against the Hebrews; spying and informing was made an act of loyalty and compassion stamped as high-treason. (M. M. Kalisch Ph. D.)

Increasing power of sin

When once a man has done a wrong thing it has an awful power of attracting him and making him hunger to do it again. Every evil that I do may indeed for a moment create in me a revulsion of conscience but stronger than that revulsion of conscience it exercises a fascination over me which it is hard to resist. It is a great deal easier to find a man who has never done a wrong thing than to find a man who has only done it once. If the wall of the dyke is sound it will keep the water out but if there is the tiniest hole in it it will all come in. So the evil that you do asserts its power over you; it has a fierce longing desire after you and it gets you into its clutches. Beware of the first evils for as sure as you are living the first step will make the second seem to become necessary. The first drop will be followed by a bigger second and the second at a shorter interval by a more copious third until the drops become a shower and the shower becomes a deluge. The course of evil is ever wider and deeper and more tumultuous. The little sins get in at the window and open the front door for the big housebreakers. One smooths the path for the other. All sin has an awful power of perpetuating and increasing itself. As the prophet says in his awful vision of the doleful creatures that make their sport in the desolate city “None of them shall want her mate. The wild beasts of the desert shall meet with the wild beasts of the islands.” Every sin tells upon character and makes the repetition of itself more and more easy. “None is barren among them.” And all sin is linked together in a slimy tangle like a field of seaweed so that the man once caught in its oozy fingers is almost sure to drown. (A. Maclaren D. D.)

──The Biblical Illustrator