God, I thought we had a deal! Have you ever thought something like that? I know there have been a few times that I have. Some situation arose and suddenly I was in complete doubt about the promises that God had made. I mean, I was doing my part (or at least I told myself that). So, why was God letting things turn out like this.
The book of Exodus opens with Jacob’s descendants, the people of Israel, probably asking a very similar question. God had given Jacob assurances, yet here they find themselves living the miserable lives of oppressed slaves in a foreign land.
Did their current situation mean God had abandoned them? Was Jacob wrong? Did God lie? No, no, and no.
Right now, things do not look great, but God always keeps His word. What situation are you doubting God about? Today would be a good day to remember that His promises are always trustworthy.
Exodus 1–2 (MEV)
1 Now these are the names of the sons of Israel, which came into Egypt (each man and his household came with Jacob):
2 Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah;
3 Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin;
4 Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher.
5 All the people who came from the seed of Jacob were seventy people, but Joseph was in Egypt already.
6 Joseph died, as did all his brothers, and all that generation.
7 Nevertheless, the sons of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and became exceedingly mighty, so that the land was filled with them.
8 Now there rose up a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.
9 He said to his people, “Surely, the people of the sons of Israel are more numerous and powerful than we.
10 Come, let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply, and it come to pass that when any war breaks out, they also join our enemies, and fight against us, and escape from the land.”
11 Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their labor. They built for Pharaoh storage cities: Pithom and Rameses.
12 But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew so that as a result they abhorred the sons of Israel.
13 The Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigor,
14 and they made their lives bitter with hard service—in mortar and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field, all their service in which they made them serve was with rigor.
15 The king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of which the name of one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah,
16 and he said, “When you perform the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the stools, if it is a son, then you must kill him, but if it is a daughter, then she may live.”
17 However, the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but kept the male children alive.
18 The king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this thing and preserved the male children’s lives?”
19 The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives come to them.”
20 Therefore God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and grew very mighty.
21 So it happened that because the midwives feared God, He gave them families.
22 Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, “You must cast every son that is born into the river, and you must preserve every daughter’s life.”
1 Now a man of the house of Levi went and married a daughter of Levi.
2 And the woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw him, that he was a beautiful child, she hid him three months.
3 When she could no longer hide him, she took for him a container made of bulrushes and daubed it with tar and with pitch. She then put the child in it and set it in the reeds by the river’s bank.
4 Then his sister stood afar off so that she might know what would happen to him.
5 The daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river while her maidens walked along by the river’s side, and when she saw the container among the reeds, she sent her maid, and she retrieved it.
6 When she opened it, she saw the child. He was crying. She had compassion on him and said, “This is one of the Hebrews’ children.”
7 Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and call for you a nursing woman of the Hebrew women so that she may nurse the child for you?”
8 And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Go.” So the young girl went and called the child’s mother.
9 Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child away, and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed him.
10 Now the child grew, and she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses and said, “Because I drew him out of the water.”
11 In those days, when Moses was grown, he went out to his brothers and looked on their burdens; and he saw an Egyptian striking a Hebrew, one of his brothers.
12 He looked this way and that way, and when he saw no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.
13 When he went out the next day, two men of the Hebrews struggled with each other; and he said to him that did the wrong, “Why do you strike your companion?”
14 He said, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you intend to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Moses feared and said, “Surely this thing is known.”
15 Now when Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought to slay Moses. But Moses fled from the presence of Pharaoh and settled in the land of Midian, and he dwelled by a well.
16 Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came and drew water, and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock.
17 Then shepherds came and drove them away, but Moses stood up and helped them, and watered their flock.
18 When they came to Reuel their father, he said, “Why is it you have come back so soon today?”
19 And they said, “An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds and also drew water for us and watered the flock.”
20 He said to his daughters, “So where is he? Why is it that you have left the man? Call him so that he may eat bread.”
21 Moses was content to dwell with the man, and he gave Zipporah, his daughter, to Moses.
22 Then she gave birth to a son, and he called his name Gershom, for he said, “I have been a sojourner in a foreign land.”
23 In the passing of time the king of Egypt died. And the children of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried out, and their cry came up to God on account of the bondage.
24 God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
25 God looked on the children of Israel, and God had concern for them.