Despite Pharaoh’s attempts to weaken the Israelite people, God’s plan for the Hebrews could not be thwarted
God used the conflict created by Pharaoh to bring about Israel’s freedom through Moses.
Even though it might not always be apparent, God’s plans will be accomplished; we can try to fight His will, or we can be used by God to fulfill it.
The Covenant of Abraham
In the beginning God the Father, through the agency of His eternal Son, created out of nothing
all that is not God by the word of His command; and moment by moment He holds in being all
things by that same word of power so that everything which comes into existence is His creation.
Therefore, God owns all things, has a purpose for all things, and on Him all things depend absolutely.
As the owner of the world, He has the right to do with us as He pleases.
What pleases Him is the fulfillment of His purpose to fill the earth with the knowledge of His glory.
Therefore, the full-time vocation of all God’s creatures should be to glorify Him by acknowledging His Lordship and by living in complete, childlike dependence on His mercy to give us everything that is good for us.
And now we arrive at a point in history which will prove to be of such tremendous importance as to shape the course of the world both in this age and the age to come.
God zeroes in on one man, Abram, a worshipper of false gods (Joshua 24:2, 3) in the land of Ur, and says, with unbelievably far-reaching implications, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse, and in you shall all the families of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 12:1–3).
In completely sovereign grace God comes to this undeserving idolater and says, with life creating authority, “I am going to bless you, and through you bring blessing to the whole world.”And with that begins the history of the people of Israel.
To see how amazing this beginning is, contrast it with what might have been. For example, why didn’t God send Christ into the world to die for sin and rise again in Genesis 12, instead of enduring the 2,000 year roller-coaster relationship of Israel’s apostasy and repentance?
Why didn’t God then issue the Great Commission to go to all the nations, instead of dealing almost solely with Israel for two millennia?
I raise these questions only that God’s mysterious freedom might strike us. Remember He is not following someone else’s script. He wrote the book! He could have designed redemptive history anyway He pleased.
And, contrary to all human expectations, for His own wise purposes, God set His favor on a single man, Abram, and commenced an amazing 2,000 year history that would, in the fullness of time, bring forth Jesus Christ the Redeemer for all the world.
One of those baby boys is going to be very familiar to us. His mother hides him for three months (2:2) before doing what Pharaoh commanded (casting him into the Nile River)—in letter but not in spirit.
She takes her baby son and places him in a basket hidden in the reeds of the Nile (2:3).
This sets up a theme that reappears throughout the Scriptures: the boy who lived.
Many interpreters have rightly pointed out the political overtones of this story, not just in its ancient Near Eastern context but also in the wider Exodus narrative.
The apostle James wrote, “Count it all joy my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (James 1:2–4).