Policy Of Pharaoh

They made the life of God’s people miserable. Let me summarize it to you:

• “Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens”

• “And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses.”

• “But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were grieved because of the children of Israel. And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigour:”

• “And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field: all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigour.”

He drove them into slavery and gave them so much work their men should have been too tired to make their wives pregnant. It didn't work. The Hebrew women were fruitful and multiplied. Pharaoh was terrified the Hebrews would realize their strength and align with his enemies.

When all of this did not work, the new Pharaoh revealed how wicked he really was.

• And the king of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives, of which th name of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah: And he said, When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the stools; if it be a son, then ye shall kill him: but if it be a daughter, then she shall live. But the midwives feared God, and did not as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the men children alive.”

WHAT WAS THIS NEW PHARAOH SAYING? He summoned the two midwives. "Go about your work among the Hebrew slaves," he told them. "Tell them what to eat and how to breathe. Hold their hands through their pains if you think it's really worth it." Pharaoh's eyes grew narrow and his voice hard and deep, "But when they are delivered, if it is a male child, set it aside to die before its mother knows. The girls may live. But the boys must die."

Pharaoh condemned the Hebrews to worse than genocide. He believed in life after death, at least HIS life after death. He intended to live forever in the massive tomb his slaves were building.

But in those days the Hebrews did not believe in life after death. They believed a man lived only as long as his sons' and grandsons' memories. And Pharaoh intended they'd have no sons and no memories.

Why did this new Pharaoh want all the male children to be killed? Possibly for these reasons:

• Because they were the most capable of insurrection and war.

• Because the Hebrew women were fairer than the Egyptians, and so might be kept for the purposes of lust.

• Because the Hebrew women were industrious in spinning and needlework, and so were kept for service.

• Because if God had not allowed them to suffer in Egypt, perhaps they never would have wanted to leave Egypt.

But there were two mid-wives (Shiphrah and Puah) who feared God and would not do this. They were descendants of Issachar (Judges 10:1). They would not carry out the evil plan of this Pharaoh because they fear God more than they feared him.

WHY DO PEOPLE AND NATIONS PERSECUTE AND ENSLAVE OTHERS? There are primarily two reasons and both can be seen in Egypt’s enslavement of Israel.