Jacob's family of 70 is going to become the means by which God blesses all 70 nations that we saw in Genesis 10. But there's an obstacle to this, and that's going to be Pharaoh. So let's read verses 8 through 10. Now there arose a new king over Egypt who did not know Joseph, and he said to his people, Behold, the sons of Israel are too many and too mighty for us.
Come, let us deal shrewly with them, lest they multiply and have war befall us, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land. Alright, so Pharaoh doesn't know Joseph. This does not mean that Pharaoh didn't know about Joseph. Like he wasn't paying attention in his Egyptian history class and didn't realize that the very famous Joseph who saved all of Egypt and all the nations and made Egypt very wealthy.
He didn't really know about that. That's not what's going on at all. The word know is Yaddah. We talked about this in previous courses.
This is a very, very important word Yaddah in Hebrew. It's to know in a covenantal sense. Look out for that word. It's one of the key themes, key words, throughout the entire book of...
Actually, this is really the whole book of the Bible, to be honest with you. It's covenantal knowledge, right? It's knowing someone in a covenantal sense. Remember, Adam knew his wife Eve.
That's the bond of marriage, right? They're one flesh. In the same way God knows his people. He knows them in a covenantal way, and the people are supposed to know God.
They often, in the history of Israel, they don't know God, and that's another topic for another time here. So when it says Pharaoh didn't know Joseph, it wasn't because he was ignorant of Joseph himself, his position, the history, the people of Joseph as well. No. He repudiates this covenantal knowledge that Joseph had with...
or this really covenantal treaty that Joseph had with the predecessor. The previous Pharaoh knew Joseph, right? In other words, they had a political covenantal treaty packed together because Joseph was the chief dude, right? He was the al-Haba'i.
He was the prime minister of the land. Well, probably what happened was now, after many years, you know exactly how many years, there's probably some sort of coup d'etat change of power of some way. And this usurper Pharaoh didn't honor this covenantal relationship that Joseph's people had with the establishment at the time, the established political party, if you want to call it at the time. So now this political allegiance is being overthrown.
He doesn't want Joseph's people, the Israelites, the Hebrews, to potentially pile up with his enemies and get overthrown because his power is very unstable at this point. So that's what's going on here when it says Pharaoh didn't know Joseph. It's not... He knows about him.
He just is projecting the covenantal political treaty impact that Egypt had with Israel. So he fears Israel's large population, so now he's got to deal shrewly with him. That line, let us deal shrewdly with him, has two more echoes to Genesis. Like we saw the beginning of the lesson, Exodus continues the story of Genesis.
So it's no surprise that we're going to find all kinds of echoes to Genesis. And here's another example. First it says, let us deal shrewdly with him, two echoes. Number one, there's an echo to the Tower of Babel.
Remember the Tower of Babel? They said, let us make a name for ourselves. The expression, let us, was a subruler. They said it three times because they're rebelling against God and against God's people.
Now Pharaoh is doing the same thing, rebelling against God and God's people because he repudiates this covenant. So let us deal shrewdly with him, echoes the Tower of Babel, but that word shrewd also echoes Genesis 3 chapter 1 because Satan was the most cunning, the most shrewd of all God's creatures and he takes down through temptation Adam and Eve. So now Pharaoh is depicted as a type of Satan. We're going to see all kinds of typology here.
But now Pharaoh is acting against God and acting against God's people by being shrewd and being cunning with them. And his strategy is very shrewd and very cunning. First he's going to enslave the people into bitter service, Abothad. That's another word in your notes.
Abad is the verb, Abothad is the noun, it's work, it's service, it's also worship. And so there's going to be a play, like we saw in the last lesson introducing Exodus here, there's this play on the word where right now Israel is in service to Pharaoh, but God wants to deliver Israel so that Israel can be in service to God, right, to have peace and freedom to worship the one shrewd. So look out for that word as well, look out for Yaddah and look out for Aboth or whenever you see work or serve or anything like that. So let's go on and read this here.
We're going to see Pharaoh has a multi-point strategy to enslave the Israelites and to oppress them. I'm going to head to myself. Let's read verse 11. Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens and they built for Pharaoh's store cities, the pith and the ramseses, but the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad.
And the Egyptians were in dread of the sons of Israel. So they made the sons of Israel, Abad, right, so that's to serve with rigor and made their lives bitter with hard service in order and brick. And in all kinds of work in the field and all their work, they made them serve with rigor. It's being emphasized here because that's one of the great themes here.
They're right now in service to their avading Pharaoh now. So strategy number one is to enslave them in this bitter ablada, to demoralize them. And it's really ironic, don't you think, that once upon a time, Joseph's brothers sold him to slavery in Egypt. And now in this poetic justice, all of the Israelites are in slavery to Egypt.
What goes around comes around is really ironic to think about how it's come full circle here. So now they're all in slavery just as Joseph was in slavery to the reversal almost. And they're building these store cities and pith and ramseses. Ramesses is located in the Eastern Al-Dilta.
I have a little note here for you, your footnote. The word ramseses appears to be more of a general region than it is a specific city. And I think it's really, really important in the larger discussion of where exactly ramseses. I think it's the general region there according to Genesis 47 and number 33.
You can check out those notes in your footnote on your own time here. But they're building these store cities. It could be either military armories, which makes sense if it was a coup d'etat. It could also be for food storage, which is also ironic because Joseph is famous for storing up food in order to save Egypt.
And now in this reversal, Israel is enslaved to Egypt. It's just crazy reversal there. There's probably both military storage food storage. They're basically being forced to serve within bitterness here.
But this isn't working. They're not demoralized or continuing to grow. And so the second plan here is to instate infanticide, to infate wide infanticide actually. So let's read on in verse 15.
The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shipra the other Pu'ah, When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them upon the burst will fit as a son, you shall kill him. But if it is a daughter, she shall live. But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live. So the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them, why have you done this?
Why did you let them live? I love this response here. Not only are they disobeying this ridiculous immoral law to slaughter the male children, they say this to Pharaoh's face. The midwives said to Pharaoh, because the Hebrew women are not likely Egyptian women, they're vigorous and they're delivered before the midwife comes to them.
In other words, they're disobeying Pharaoh and they're also calling Pharaoh the same to Pharaoh that all the Egyptian women are weak and pathetic. They need all this help, but they're Hebrew women, they're strong and they're hardy and they bear these children without any help at all. So I like how they insult him in addition to disobeying him, right? Well, they're going to obey God before they're going to obey Pharaoh, that's a big theme in scripture.
We must obey God rather than men. And they're blessed by God to have families of their own, which is a huge blessing for sure. And their names here are recorded in scripture here, Shipra and Pu'ah, which is a huge irony because Pharaoh, he's all mighty, he's powerful, he's oppressing the people. The great Pharaoh, he has no name mentioned whatsoever.
That is judgment upon him, right? His name is forgotten, like his name is in the book of life, so to speak. His name is forgotten, but these humble, simple midwives, I think that these midwives should be like the patron saints of midwifery, right? Pro-life, okay, midwives, you're saving the Hebrew voice.
So Pharaoh's name isn't saved in for posterity, he's forgotten, right? That's judgment upon him. Okay, so then what he says next is, all right, fine. He then decrees, let's see here, verse 21, I'm sorry, 22, then Pharaoh commanded all his people, no that, really important.
He commanded all of his people, every son that was born to the Hebrews, cast into the Nile. Now, my friends, this is statewide and fact aside. This is really, really important. Now, all of Egypt is guilty for the sin of killing these baby boys.
That's going to be important later on because in the 10th plague, God is going to kill all the firstborn sons of Egypt. And a lot of people say, how this is a cruel God, how can you do this? Well, keep in mind, God is just. All of Egypt is guilty now.
So in God's justice, he makes, we'll talk about this a lot more when we get to the 10th plague, right? But suffice it to say right now, in God's justice, there is the older firstborn son that will die of all the Egyptians, because they're all guilty, but in his mercy is only the one son. So there's justice and mercy being displayed in that 10th plague, but people don't realize that all of Egypt is guilty now. They're all complicit in this crime.
Okay? So those were, that's the step one and step two. What is the flip of page in your notes now? What is the purpose?
What's the strategy in doing this? Like what does he hope to gain? Because it's very shrewd indeed, right? It's very, very cunning.
The purpose is that it is both a combined military or martial strategy with a marital strategy, both together, motivated by power, greed, lust. So first, number one, with all of the adult Hebrews enslaved, Pharaoh can simultaneously accomplish all of his building projects, whether it's military storage or food storage or whatever it is. And you can also render any uprising by these adult males, pretty much impotent, right? They're not able to rise up as readily as if they were just hanging around doing nothing, right?
That's the first strategy in the enslavement. Number two, by murdering the Hebrew male infants, Pharaoh can further reduce future military threats with no boys to grow up, to become rebels or become soldiers or anything like that. Okay? So you're eliminating any future risk of rebellion by also enslaving the Hebrew adults you can get his work done.
But now number three, when all of those baby boys are gone and the baby girls grow up and there's no men around or no Hebrew men around, who are they going to marry? They are going to marry the Egyptian males, right? And this is how Egypt will get back the land of Goshen. Because if you remember, Joseph was really, really intelligent.
He gave his own family the very, very best of the land. Time goes on. They've multiplied greatly. It's not super easy for Egypt to take that land back.
But they can marry into the families and then inherit that land for themselves. So it is very shrewd indeed all of this stuff. Israel can be eliminated here. The risk of uprising can be eliminated.
Even afterwards, Egypt will take back the land. Now I have to say, in terms of Pharaoh being a type of Satan and working against God. Now God is the protagonist and Satan is the antagonist in the story here. So God, in the beginning of this lesson, we talked about how God made them fruitful and multiplied and they grew exceedingly strong.
Now Pharaoh is acting against that. You see, Pharaoh is acting in opposition of God's plan of fruitfulness through this strategy as well. Alright, so I hope all that makes sense here. I just want to give you a couple of quick quotes before we move on to Moses's birth.
And that is despite all of these efforts, right, enslaved the adults, killed the Hebrew boys, in time marry the Hebrew girls, etc. etc. Despite all of this, they continue to multiply because God is protecting his people. He's that protagonist.
He's going to continue to bless them and make them fruitful despite all of these wicked schemes. It reminds me of Tertilian. I have this quote here for you in your notes. He says, the blood of the martyrs is the seat of the church.
He's talking about the period of the Roman emperors persecuting and killing all the Christian martyrs. But they continue to grow. It's like whack a mole, right? You hit those moles and they keep popping up everywhere.
You can't quite get them down. So just like the Christian martyrs, just the every time you kill the Christian, more Christians would come up. Same thing is going on here with Israel, right? And then there's this important typology, once again, with, as St.
Augustine gives us about Pharaoh being a type of Satan. And we're going to see this play out for the rest of our lessons on Exodus. St. Augustine says, Sinful Man serves the devil typified by the Pharaoh and is forced to labor in the mud of earthly desires.
But when Christ offers to lighten our burden, we are led to the sea of baptism where he destroys the sins that enslaved us. That is a lovely quote from St. Augustine pointing to so many points of typology. Hi, I'm Dr.
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