Exodus 1 · The Lantern

The Israelites Multiply in Egypt

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

Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah,

Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin,

Dan, and Naphtali, Gad, and Asher.

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

And Joseph died, and all his brothers, and all that generation.

And the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and grew exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them.

Oppression by a New King

Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph.

And he said to his people, Look, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we:

Come on, let us deal wisely with them; lest they multiply, and it happen, that, when there falls out any war, they join also to our enemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land.

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

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

And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigor:

And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in morter, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field: all their service, in which they made them serve, was with rigor.

According to these things, therefore, God is perhaps said also to have hardened the heart of Pharaoh, namely because the material of his heart was such that it received the presence of the Sun of justice not on that side by which it illumines, but on that by which it burns and hardens: on this account, without doubt, that he too was afflicting the life of the Hebrews in hard wo…

I have already lived through many paschs, which was the fruit of a long life. But now I desire a purer pasch: to depart from this Egypt, the heavy and dark Egypt of this life, and to be freed from the clay and bricks that held us in bondage and to pass over to the land of promise.

We have been led out of Egypt where we were serving the devil as a pharaoh, where we were doing works of clay amid earthly desires, and we were laboring much in them.

And the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of which the name of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah:

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

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

And the king of Egypt called for the midwives, and said to them, Why have you done this thing, and have saved the men children alive?

And the midwives said to Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women; for they are lively, and are delivered before the midwives come in to them.

Therefore God dealt well with the midwives: and the people multiplied, and grew very mighty.

And it happened, because the midwives feared God, that he made them houses.

Just as Pharaoh was drowned in those very waters in which he had drowned the infants, so too David removed Goliath's head with that very sword with which he had destroyed many. Moses divided the waters through the symbol of the cross, while David laid Goliath low through the symbol of the stone.

Because they feared God, they built up houses. Without the fear of God, a house cannot be built. If then with the fear of God houses were built by those who had not committed sin but rather did their building at God's pleasure, we who have been captured, what must we do?

As for its being written that God dealt well with the Hebrew midwives and with Rahab the harlot of Jericho, he did not deal well with them because they lied but because they were merciful to the men of God. And so it was not their deception that was rewarded but their benevolence; the benignity of their intention, not the iniquity of their invention.

And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born you shall cast into the river, and every daughter you shall save alive.

Exodus1

The Israelites Multiply in Egypt

Oppression by a New King