Exodus 1:1-14
When God created the universe and all things in it, God created humankind in the image of God. And God gave humankind a task that was as much a promise as it was a command. Be fruitful and multiply, fill the land and subdue it.
In due course, God chose a man and a woman and said, you will be a family special to me. And God gave to this family a task that was as much a command as it was a promise. “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be blessing.”
The story of Genesis is the story of that family struggling with those promises and commands; struggling to be fruitful and to bring blessing.
Eventually the family of God, the children of Israel wind up in Egypt, where one of their own, Joseph, has brought a kind of blessing to both Egyptian people and the Canaanite people by providing food in times of famine. But the family of God, the people of Israel didn’t return to the promised land; they stayed in Egypt and at the beginning of the book of Exodus we find that they have been there for 400 years.
During that time they have prospered. They have fulfilled the promise. They are numerous and strong and fill the land. In fact they are so numerous and strong that the Pharaoh, a new Pharaoh, who didn’t remember that Joseph was a friend, that Joseph had saved them all, a new Pharaoh is afraid that they will “subdue” the land, with the help of his other enemies, of course.
And because he is afraid, because the Israelites have become so numerous and so mighty, because they have swarmed over the land, Pharaoh sets over this people taskmasters and oppressors. But the more they are oppressed, the more they multiply until the Egyptians come to dread them.
I think I know how the Egyptians felt. I lived in Mesquite Texas for 17 years and in Mesquite, after a soaking rain (which, believe it or not we do get occasionally) there would appear in my yard a series of mounds of dirt. I don’t know what it means where you live when you see mounds of dirt pop up overnight in your yard, but in Texas what it means is fire ants. The first year that we lived in our new house in Mesquite I decided I wanted to be organic; and so when the ant hills would pop up, I would try the organic solution to getting rid of them. I tried simply drowning them out. This required that I stand aways away and hold the hose . . .
The next year, we decided we would try something like Amdro, bait that you sprinkle on the mound and let the ants come and get it. It was supposed to be taken to the queen and the queen would die and the ants would die.
Our yard became as poisoned as a toxic waste dump, but we never got rid of the ants. 17 years we fought the battle and we never won. The more we would oppress those ants, the more they would mulitply. I know why the Egyptians dreaded the swarming Israelites.
But what I don’t quite understand is this:
If the Israelites were so mighty, then why were they oppressed. I don’t want to be accused of blaming the victims here, but the fact is that God was clearly with them, clearly blessing them, so what’s up.
In preparing for this sermon, I watched that wonderful old film, The Ten Commandments starring Charlton Heston. It had been a long time since I had seen that movie and several things struck me this time. For one thing, I noticed that in the movie there is a prophecy of a deliverer. However, in the biblical text, that promise is not there, though the promise of God made in covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is intact.
In fact, in the biblical text, the people of God have forgotten about that covenant. Forgotten who they are and whose they are. The stated reason that they are being oppressed is that Pharaoh has forgotten Joseph. But the implied reason is that the people have forgotten the God of their fathers.
When the people forget that they are the mighty people of the living God, they become the miserable slaves of the current Pharaoh. The Pharaoh no longer knew Joseph but the sin of the people was greater: They no longer knew God. When they cry out in pain, they cry to no one in particular.
Brothers and sisters, we are the mighty people of God. We spread over this land. Methodist circuit riders went out and spread the gospel over the land. Sometimes they were there before the settlers. We have been fruitful, we have multiplied. We have built the kingdom.
Then why have we succumbed to slavery? You don’t think we have? Maybe it’s different in your conference, maybe you don’t have the problems we do in North Texas. But what we sometimes hear is the groaning of slaves. Groaning about losing members and falling attendance. Some groan about being slaves to culture and how the church is just catering to the whims of current fashion. Some groan about being slaves to the past and how hard it is to bring people into the 21st century.
Maybe the groaning is justified but maybe the real problem is that we have forgotten who we are and whose we are. Maybe we are more interested in maintaining the country club than in building the kingdom. And yes, this is true even of small, country churches. For five months, I served two churches in rural Arkansas. In the larger church the people lamented the fact that “there are no more children in this town.” The fact was that there were probably 15 children within walking distance of that church, but they did not belong to the members of the church. Some of those children were of a different cultural or ethnic background from the church members and from a different socio-economic stratum. So to the members of the church they were “no children”. However, the other church that I served, in an even smaller town had a completely different attitude. They opened the doors to any and all the children in the town. They worked with the other churches and opened their new fellowship hall to boy scouts and girl scouts. They were free from the blindness of the larger church and so they became the church that built the kingdom.
Maybe we are more interested in serving Pharaoh than in making disciples. You can tell who the current Pharaoh is by the way people respond to challenges. I don’t know about your congregation, but in my last congregation we were all but enslaved to a very nice man named Ken Lamb. Now Ken Lamb had not tried to enslave us, he would probably be horrified if he heard me saying this, we had enslaved ourselves to Mr. Lamb. Why? Because Ken Lamb was our insurance agent. The first question people asked about any new project or ministry that we though about was not: will this build the kingdom of God, but will our insurance cover it. The solution that was often proposed was not: get more insurance, but stop the program. I’m not saying we shouldn’t consider insurance issues. We would be poor stewards if we didn’t. But it shouldn’t be the first question we ask.
For some the Pharaoh is tolerance. They do not ask the question: will my words or actions reveal Christ to this person, but “will my words or actions offend someone?” And so we become enslaved to people who are more interested in power and position than in proclaiming the Gospel. We also have trouble with that Pharaoh “King relevance” We are more likely to ask “Is it relevant” than “Is it the truth?” Forgetting of course, that truth is always relevant!). I’ve noticed that Youth pastors are particularly prone to serve this Pharaoh.
When the people of Israel forgot God, they forgot to whom it was that they cried out. But the wonderful is that God did not forget the People of Israel. The text says that they groaned under their slavery and cried out, not that they cried out to God, but simply that they cried out. And then it says that their cry rose up to God and God heard.
When I was 15 my5 year old sister died. I thought I had to be strong. So I didn’t cry, I kept in the pain and the tears and I was strong and brave. But one night in the dark the pain became too much. I started crying and I cried quietly so that no one would hear. Except that after just a little while I looked up and my father had come into the room.. He came over and sat on the bed and talked with me and comforted me. I was not crying out to my father. But my father was also in pain and he was listening. He heard the sound of my cries and he came.
We have a God who hears. We have a God who knows our pain. And we have a God who through God’s own suffering has set us free.
Galatians 5:1 For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
I say again: We are the mighty people of God, Why are we afraid? We have the greatest good news in the history of world. We serve the one who is master of the universe. Who has untold power. We serve the one who hears the cry of his people. And unlike the Israelite people, we do not have to wait for a deliverer. We have already been delivered. We say in our baptismal vows that we accept the freedom that God gives to resist evil and injustice. We don’t have to do this alone.
The story of Exodus is the story of the New Testament. God gives the people a name, a gift, a journey and a task. The name is the name of God, Yahweh. The gift is the gift of the law/Jesus. The journey is to the promised land/Jerusalem. And the task is to bless the nations by showing them how this mighty God is a life-giving God. The task in the New Testament is to make disciples of the nations.
We are the mighty people of God, not the miserable slaves of Pharaoh.
Pharaoh delt in death, God deals in life. Pharaoh dealt in slavery, God deals in freedom. The people served Pharaoh thru forced labor and building Pharaoh’s supply cities. The people served God by worshiping God and building God’s tabernacle. The contrast could not be more clear. [Insert modern day contrasts]
We are the mighty people of God. We are not to be satisfied to a get-by, get-on-with-it, get-through-it life, not just a “life’s a bitch and then you die” kind of life, not just a we’ll be satisfied with slavery kind of life, but we are called to a life of freedom and power, a life of wholeness and health, a life of joy and redemption. We aren’t just going down the road to the next job, we are going on to the promised land of kingdom life. Why are we so scared? We are the mighty people of God. And when we return to our homes and our congregations, pray God that we will not forget, and pray God we will never let our congregations forget either.
Let us pray . . .
Abbreviated Exegesis of Exodus 1:1-14
No significant differences between translations.
Questions:
Why did the Egyptians fear the Israelites?
Why were the Egyptians able to oppress the Israelites if they were so numerous?
Sources:
1-7 and 13-14 are Priestly and 8-12 is Jahwist.
In both the fruitfulness is followed by the oppression. In the J source, this is explained more; the king is oppressing the Israelites because he is afraid of them. The issue of fear is not there in the P source. Interestingly however, both sources refer to the Israelites multiplying, which is initially a P source commandment in Gen 1.
Form Criticism:
A. Structure: What are the boundaries of the text?
This seems to be both an introduction to the book of Exodus and a bridge from Genesis to Exodus. The P source material in particular could be considered an editorial comment to set the stage for what is to come.
B. Genre. This is an introductory narrative; past that, can’t say much about genre
C. Sitz im Leben Certainly the J source material could be considered a story that explains why the Egyptians wanted to enslave the Israelite people. The P source, once again seems to be bridge material.
D. Purpose: this seems to be connecting the oppression of the Israelites with the fulfillment of the promise, since the wording is so much like the language in Gen 1. The people are being fruitful and prolific, spreading out as they have been told to do.
V. Literary considerations:
What comes before is, of course, Genesis. Important points: the command of God to be fruitful and multiply, the covenant made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the story of Joseph and why the people are in Egypt in the first place. The story of Abraham and Sarah in Egypt.
What comes after is the book of Exodus: the story of how the people cry out; the story of the plagues, etc.
Narrative: In one sense, this is only the introduction to the story. However, the one with the problem here is Pharaoh, and the solution is oppression. The only character that speaks is the Pharaoh. The Israelite people as a whole could also be considered as a character.
Need to look into the words: fruitful, multiply, etc.
The word sharatz is used in Genesis 1 of the creatures swarming over the earth. That image of swarming is also used in Exodus 7 where the frogs swarm over the land. Deut 14:19 it is used of swarming insects. Used in Leviticus a number of times of crawling things that will make one unclean. Psalm 105:30 is also about the frogs swarming over the land. Obviously this word brings up images of creepy, crawly things spreading over the land, like fire ants in Texas
God is not mentioned in this passage. Not mentioned until word about the midwives.
Thesis: The blessing of God is contrasted with the oppression of Pharaoh, setting up the conflict between God and Pharaoh that is to come in the book of Exodus.
The beginning of the book of Exodus makes a bridge between the book of Genesis and the book of Exodus. The book of Genesis has been the story of the relationship between God and the family of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. Joseph himself is a bridge figure, comfortable in both the Israelite and Egyptian worlds. In Exodus, we have the story of the creation of the people of God, broadening the covenant from one family to an entire people. Moses is the bridge figure here, once again comfortable in both the Egyptian and Israelite worlds. The book of Exodus is also the story of the battle between Pharaoh and God. In this introductory passage, the blessing of God is contrasted with the oppression of Pharaoh, setting up the conflict between God and Pharaoh over whether or not the people will be the mighty people of God or the miserable slaves of Pharaoh.
This passage is compiled from two sources: P in 1-7 and 13-14 and J source in 8-12. However, both speak of both the blessing of God. In 1:7 the P source uses the words from Gen 1:28: “be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth.” It adds a word from Gen 1:21: “prolific” or “swarming,” which is used in Gen 1:20 of the living creatures teeming in the seas. The J source also uses the wording of multiplying and spreading, which actually sounds more like the language of E in the covenant renewal with Jacob in Gen 28. In any case, in both sources, the Israelite people are seeing the fulfillment of the blessing. Clearly, God is with the people, as God has promised. And the implication is that God is continuing the covenant.
In both sources, however, the fulfillment of the blessing seems to be linked to the oppression of the Egyptians. The links to the Genesis texts that precede this text give us an idea of why the Pharaoh would be afraid of the Israelites. Certainly, in a previous encounter, that of Abraham and Pharaoh in Genesis 12, Pharaoh came out the loser. In addition, the story of Joseph is not promising for the Egyptians. Not only does an Israelite rise to be almost as powerful as Pharaoh himself, but Joseph is responsible for the enslavement of the entire people of Egypt. In exchange for the grain that keeps them alive, the people of Egypt must give up their money, their cattle, their land and their lives.
Not only are the people portrayed in Genesis as being potentially more powerful than the Egyptians, the fear of the Pharaoh that the Israelites will escape the land does come true. However, this foreshadowing is fulfilled, not through the agency of joining with other enemies, but by the hand of God. The fear of Pharaoh leads to oppressing the people, which paradoxically leads to further multiplication of the people and the dread of the Egyptians. This multiplication in the face of the Egyptian oppression emphasizes that the blessing of God is not dependent on good conditions, but solely on the promise of God.
Course of Study (COSS) 
Posted on July 29, 2011
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