Blogging Exodus chapter 1
Exodus is the story
of the liberation of ancient descendants of Israel from bondage in Egypt. Exodus 12:40-41 says that the children of
Israel spent 430 years in Egypt. Exodus chapter
1 says that they spent the latter majority of that time under conditions that
may sound familiar to some of you.
At some point, the
majority Egyptians began to look hostilely at the minorities living in their
own communities. “Why
are we paying 20% taxes while THOSE PEOPLE get to eat free in Goshen? Why are
we spending all of this money and taking care of THOSE PEOPLE in Goshen.” Joseph’s
descendants, the tribes Mannasseh and Ephraim, were descended from Egyptian
nobility. But in the eyes of the nation
they were all welfare babies.
Exodus 1: 9 And
he said to his people, “Look, the people of the children of Israel are more and
mightier than we;
So, the national
government of Egypt deliberately created unfair and discriminatory laws
targeting their Hebrew residents.
10 come,
let us deal shrewdly with them,
Without any evidence,
the Egyptians accused the Jews of disloyalty, of being a threat to national
security.
10b . . . lest they multiply, and it happen, in the event
of war, that they also join our enemies and fight against us, and so go up out
of the land.”
They created a new
Jim Crow, or perhaps the Bible’s original Jim Crow laws to exploit their labor
without paying them a fair wage.
11 Therefore
they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens. And they
built for Pharaoh supply cities, Pithom and Raamses.
But, despite the
whips, despite the indignities, despite every effort by the most powerful
nation on the planet to destroy a targeted minority, that minority increased in
number and they increased in prosperity.
12 But
the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew.
And that really
scared the Egyptians.
12 b . . . And
they were in dread of the children of Israel.
They decided that it
was time to “Take Our Country Back,” by putting those uppity minorities “in
their place.”
13 So
the Egyptians made the children of Israel serve with rigor.
14 And
they made their lives bitter with hard bondage—in mortar, in brick, and in all
manner of service in the field. All their service in which they made them serve
was with rigor.
The national leaders
of Egypt went so far as to pass laws and policies for government agents whose
official job was to protect Hebrew babies and serve Hebrew mothers. But the new laws directed those agents to target minority males with deadly force.
15 Then
the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of whom the name of one was
Shiphrah and the name of the other Puah; 16 and he said, “When
you do the duties of a midwife for the Hebrew women, and see them on the
birthstools, if it is a son, then you shall kill him; but if it is a daughter,
then she shall live.”
The nation’s set out
to break up the Hebrew family by devaluing the lives of their males while simultaneously
promoting Hebrew women as the heads of their families and devaluing those same
women through every cultural forum. It’s
almost like somebody at the top said:
if it is a son, then you shall kill him; but if it is a
daughter, then she shall live.”
They confronted the MIDWIVES who failed to kill off the Hebrew boys as fast as Pharaoh wanted.
But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king
of Egypt commanded them, but saved the male children alive. 18 So
the king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done
this thing, and saved the male children alive?” Exodus 1:17-18)
Pharaoh passed a new
set of laws to facilitate the murder of Hebrew males.
So
Pharaoh commanded all his people,
saying, “Every son who is born you shall cast into the river, and every
daughter you shall save alive.”
They authorized and
encouraged all ethnically Egyptian
citizens to “stand their ground” and take the lives of young, Hebrew males.
For 3 months, Moses’ family hid him because they knew that the
police, or the neighborhood watch, or some random Egyptian citizen could kill the
boy, be acquitted, and raise thousands on
Under the pressure
created by their nation Moses’ parents broke and abandoned their baby boy.
But
when she could no longer hide him, she took an ark of bulrushes for him, daubed
it with asphalt and pitch, put the child in it, and laid it in the reeds by the
river’s bank
(Exodus 2:3).
They left him to die
of exposure, or be attacked by an animal, or float off down the river and
drown. Moses’ parents loved him, but the
only right they had to exercise was the right to choose death for their child.
Then the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the
river. And her . . . . she saw the ark among the reeds, she sent her maid to
get it. And when she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the baby wept.
So she had compassion on him, and said, “This is one of the Hebrews’ children” (Exodus 2:5-6).
It’s interesting that
an Egyptian whose people would have thought nothing of Moses’ body floating in
the river (or lying in the street) if he’d been killed by an Egyptian felt compassion for the poor boy being a
victim of Hebrew-on-Hebrew crime. It’s
interesting that she whose wealth and power were secured by the blood of young
Hebrew males was moved to action (one might say “activism”) when a Hebrew woman
chose to end her own child’s life.
I’m not saying one is
any better than the other. I’m just
saying that it is interesting.
Our leaders have
revised and repackaged history to fit their present agendas. The king has forgotten Joseph.
Our cultural leaders
are so afraid of “those people,” so
envious of the idea that “those people” will take over “our” country that they
imagine, exaggerate, and invent national security threats
while ignoring the
actual blood on their own hands.
We have formed so
imperfect a union that we only care about the murder of children ----- depending
on who killed them.
We like to think of
America as the Promised Land, but spiritually and culturally speaking,
America’s not Israel.
We’re Egypt.
--Anderson T. Graves
II is a writer, community
organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership
development.
Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME
Church in Fairfield, Alabama. He writes a blog
called A Word to the Wise at
www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com
Email atgravestwo2@aol.com
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P O Box 132
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