The purpose of these Bible studies is to encourage everyone to get
his own Bible out and study. The Bible is of no private
interpretation. You can pray and ask the Holy Spirit of God to reveal
to you the meaning of the Scriptures, and He will. The explanation of
each Scripture in this book of the Bible is what God has revealed to
me. All scriptures have several meanings. My own method of study is
to look at each Scripture from the standpoint of the Spirit. You may
look at them literally, chronologically, historically, or many other
ways. This study, however, will deal more with the spiritual. We
will look at it a little bit from all of these ways, but our primary
look will be through the Spirit. You will find that the Strong’s
Concordance will be of great help to you in finding Scriptures that
relate to the subject at hand.
This study is of the book of Exodus. The book of Exodus is the
2nd book of Moses. Exodus means “the road out”. Exodus is a Greek
word. “Ek” means out. “Hodos” means road. Exodus tells us of the
years of bondage in Egypt of the Israelites. (From the death of
Joseph to the birth of Moses is approximately 270 years). It speaks
of their deliverance through the 10 plagues, and also of the beginning
of the history of the Israelites on their way to the Promised Land.
The number 10 we will see often. I believe the number 10 indicates
world government. The number 40 is symbolic of testing time. These
are just 2 of the numbers that we will deal with. Symbolism is very
prominent in this book, such as the crossing of the Red Sea
symbolizing water baptism. As we continue, we will try to effectively
deal with the symbols as well as with the realities. If we were to
pick out one message in this book as the most important, we would see
the deliverance from bondage of these Israelites and also see
ourselves being freed from the bondage of sin and headed for our own
promised land. We saw in Genesis, Jacob (Israel) going to Egypt (type
of world) to keep from starving. Seventy went into Egypt, and we will
see approximately three million come out. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
had been promised by God that He would make of them a people so large
it would be impossible to number them. They were also promised that
all nations would be blessed through them. Israel is the covenant
people through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (whose name was changed to
Israel). Jacob’s twelve sons became the leaders of the twelve tribes
of Israel. Jacob (a family) had become Israel (a nation). We will
see the redemptive power of God throughout this book. We will see a
deliverer (Moses) who shows us a shadow of the Deliverer (Jesus).
There is no question that Moses wrote the book of Exodus. The time
covered in this book is from the death of Joseph to the building of
the tabernacle. We can see, in this trip, these Israelites take to
the promised land, the walk that we make as Christians on our way to
heaven with God. We will see the Lamb (Jesus). We will see in all of
this the extent of trouble God will go to, to bring His people out of
bondage and to Him. More than any other book of the Bible, other than
Revelation, we will see symbols in nearly every sentence. Abraham was
told of God of the 400 years of bondage in Egypt that these covenant
people would spend, Genesis 15:13. This book brings in the ceremonial
and the moral law. We will see in this book God dealing with the
false gods of Egypt through the ten plagues. We, also see, the desire
of God to be with His people in the fire by night and the smoke by day
which accompanies them. We will see in this, that God will see us
through the troubles of this world, if we look to Him.
Exodus 1:1 “Now these [are] the names of the children of Israel,
which came into Egypt; every man and his household came with Jacob.”
As I said earlier, one man’s (Jacob) family came into Egypt and
grew into the nation of Israel. Joseph and his family were already in
Egypt, and his father and eleven brothers and their families fled the
famine and came to Egypt where there was food. Because they were of
Joseph’s family, Pharaoh treated them royally. Joseph had led Egypt
into a food storage program which not only saved Egypt, but saved his
family, as well. The Pharaoh had welcomed Joseph’s family and gave
them land to dwell on. The wealth that Joseph had brought to Egypt
was soon forgotten; and when the Pharaoh died, the new Pharaoh became
afraid of the Israelites and made slaves of them in Goshen to keep
them from overthrowing the Egyptian government. The beginning of this
book of Exodus lists the families of Jacob (the patriarch) at the time
of their entrance into Egypt. Each son and his family will be
mentioned separately.
Exodus 1:2 “Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah,”
Exodus 1:3 “Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin,”
Exodus 1:4 “Dan, and Naphtali, Gad, and Asher.”
We see Reuben mentioned first, because he was the oldest son.
Reuben displeased his father greatly when he practiced incest with his
father’s concubine, Bilhah. This is a terrible sin, and Reuben was
disinherited for this sin. (Genesis 35:22) Simeon and Levi, as you
recall, were not much better. We recall the cruelty of these, and the
embarrassment they caused their father. We see in these sons of
Jacob, really, a group of men with many faults. They really were not
very likely material for the spiritual leadership that God had called
them to. We see here, already, the symbol of God choosing people of
low estate to do mighty jobs for Him. God will take this lowly lot
(except for Joseph and perhaps Benjamin) and cause them to be the
heads of the twelve tribes of Israel. As I said, again we see in this
that God takes worldly people and changes them into the leaders of His
church. Twelve is a symbolic number, three means the trinity of God,
and four is the universal number; so we see in these twelve that God
is the God of the universe. We see throughout the Bible, and
particularly in Exodus, the number twelve being a representative
number of the whole.
We see, in this list, the names of the wives’ children first.
Joseph’s name is excluded because he was already in Egypt. You
remember from Genesis that his brothers had sold him as a slave. The
servant girls’ children were listed last. In fact, Leah’s children
were even named before Rachel’s child, because Leah was Jacob’s first
wife.
We looked before into the meaning of their names in Genesis so we
will not belabour that point here.
Exodus 1:5 “And all the souls that came out of the loins of Jacob
were seventy souls: for Joseph was in Egypt [already].”
This is just speaking of the families of Jacob and his sons and
their families in Egypt. We remember from the lessons in Genesis that
Joseph realized that his being sold into Egypt was part of God’s plan
for the provision of the covenant people. They must be preserved at
all cost. Joseph (a type of Christ) forgave his brethren and provided
for their needs. Joseph had left specific instructions not to leave
his bones in Egypt, but to carry them to the Promised Land to be
permanently buried. He believed God would keep His promise and
deliver His people.
Exodus 1:6 “And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that
generation.”
They were to be 430 years in Egypt, and all of the 12 brothers had
died and now a new generation was carrying on in the place of their
fathers.
Exodus 1:7 “And the children of Israel were fruitful, and
increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and
the land was filled with them.”
God’s blessings were not just material in nature. Children are
blessings from God. Especially, Hebrews, believe that many children
mean that God has blessed you abundantly. They believed it was a
curse not to have children. They were no threat to the Egyptians
when there were just 70 people, but now that they were near 3
million, it is a totally different story.
Exodus 1:8 “Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew
not Joseph.”
As we said, as long as Joseph was alive, the Pharaoh remembered
what he (Joseph) had done for Egypt. With the new leader, there was
no memory of this. He had not known Joseph, and he had not lived
during the famine; and he felt no obligation to this mass of
foreigners living in his land.
Exodus 1:9 “And he said unto his people, Behold, the people of the
children of Israel [are] more and mightier than we:”
Exodus 1:10 “Come on, let us deal wisely with them; lest they
multiply, and it come to pass, that, when there falleth out any war,
they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us, and [so] get
them up out of the land.”
Here we see fear gripping this new ruler. These Israelites were
growing in such numbers that he actually feared that they would
overthrow the Egyptian government. He believed that they might even
join in with Egypt’s enemies and turn against Egypt; after all, they
were foreigners. He wanted to be sure this will not happen. We will
see in the next few verses that this monarch believed if he could work
them enough, they would stop multiplying and would be too worn out to
mount up against the government.
Exodus 1:11 “Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to
afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure
cities, Pithom and Raamses.”
This meant that they were forced to labor for the government by
cruel overseers. These treasure cities were actually encampments of
war materials handy to be used to squelch any and all attacks that
came against Egypt. The word “Pithom” means abode of the sun. Some
believe that the miracles of Moses took place in this same Raamses.
This forced labor, as we said, was to keep them worn out so they could
not fight against Egypt. This ruler in Egypt was also using this free
labor to build mighty monuments. We will see as we go on in this book
of Exodus, how we Christians were in bondage to the world of sin
before our Deliverer comes and sets us free. This cruel ruler here
afflicting these people ( physical Israel), shows us of our great
affliction by Satan until we receive the free gift of salvation
through our Deliverer, the Lord Jesus Christ.