The hidden hand of God (Exod 1:15-22)

On the surface, things continue to go from bad to worse for Israel. Pharaoh’s tactic for suppressing any rebellion against him is both psychological and physical. Hard labour is meant to crush God’s people to the point where they recognise the power of Egypt and their own weakness to fight it. The stakes are high: whom will Israel trust and serve? Likewise, Satan uses discouragement when we feel enslaved by the same sins and keep repeating them or when our mind goes round and round the same worries and we struggle to trust God. Although physical illness or sleeplessness can happen to all of us and there is no need to see anything sinister in these, Satan may use such opportunities to wear us down exploiting our weakness when our resistance is low.

This is not enough, however. Satan’s plan is to destroy, and so is Pharaoh’s. The Israelites have to be diminished in number in order to weaken the possibility of an uprising further, so the midwives are enlisted to ensure that baby boys will not survive their birth. By his actions Pharaoh will also go against God’s will, which for Israel meant being fruitful and multiplying. Satan, too, aims at thwarting God’s will in the life of His people. Nevertheless, we see the hidden hand of God throughout: the midwives do not kill the babies and the people multiply and become numerous or mighty (Exod 1:20). It is ironic that Pharaoh is busy aiming to strike at the obvious source of future resistance in the male babies and completely overlooks these women who, despite their apparent weakness, undercut his plans. Weakness triumphs over strength when it is combined with faithfulness to God. Unlike Pharaoh, God does not overlook the midwives and rewards their courage with families of their own. Indeed, these women are remembered by name in Israel’s tradition emphasising their value, whereas throughout the story of the exodus, Pharaoh remains nameless.

As we have seen, the exodus reflects in many ways our Christian experiences. Satan, like Pharaoh, seeks to weaken God’s people so they remain tied to him, to thwart God’s will for them and ultimately to destroy them. God allows the distress of His own – He has not taken us out of this world – yet through the events He is still working out His purposes. His will for us is to thrive and be fruitful (though in a spiritual rather than a physical sense), even in the midst of suffering. He also rewards those who resist evil because they fear God, i.e. respect God’s perspective on what is right and wrong, as the midwives did (Exod 1:17, 21). What looks negligible to human eyes (as it did to Pharaoh) is not missed by God. May we be encouraged that the God we serve sees both our struggles and our big or small attempts to serve Him.