Jan. 4, 2009
Background Scripture: Exodus 8:1-21
Devotional Reading:  Proverbs 16:1-7

When Israel was in Egypt land, Let my people go!

Oppressed so hard they could not stand, Let my people go!
Go down, Moses, way down in Egypt land,
Tell Ol’ Pharaoh, “Let my people Go!”

A number of Negro spirituals identify the experience of African-Americans with that of the people of Israel held captive in Egypt more than 3,000 years ago. In fact, throughout much of the world, enslaved people or the children of the enslaved make this same identification.

I have just finished reading Douglas A. Blackmon’s Slavery By Another Name (Doubleday, 2008). Most Americans assume that slavery was ended by Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863.

But by exhaustive research, Blackmon has determined that from the Civil War to the dawn of World War II, tens of thousands of African-Americans were subjected to legal procedures that sold them as forced laborers to coal mines, lumber camps, railroads, quarries and farm plantations in a system of involuntary servitude evocative of  20th century concentration camps.

The reality of slavery remained the same; only the name was changed.

Slavery, by whatever names it may exist in our own times, is still experienced throughout the world. As we worship on pillowed pews, “Let my people go!” is still the plaint of millions unseen and unknown to us. But the work of their servile hands is evident in many of our stores and malls.

So, the Exodus story of Israel in Egypt is one that on this side of the Kingdom of God will never grow irrelevant.

Somber humor

Someone said, “Life is so serious that the only way is to handle it is with humor.” Sometimes, I do find that humor helps in the most somber situations.

One scholar has likened the story of Israel in Egypt to a “Divine Comedy.” It is a very serious subject, but the writer from time to time catches God chuckling at human arrogance.

For example: “Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph” (1:8). Where’s the humor? Well, there is irony: Joseph, the great hero whom Pharaoh chose to bring Egypt safely through a terrible famine, was unknown to the new king! Surely he would have heard of Joseph and known he was an Israelite.
Not that he did not know of Joseph, but chose not to “know” of him. Perhaps God chuckled at that.

Maybe God smiled in disbelief when Pharaoh dragged out that old chestnut of an excuse for prejudice: “Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us” (1:9). After all of these centuries, people are still playing the “fear” card.

So, the same fear that drove the Nazis to fill their extermination camps and Stalin to fill his gulags, as well as contemporary “ethnic cleansings” in West Africa, was also used for the “Final Solution” to the Israelite Problem in Egypt. “Therefore, they set taskmasters over them to afflict them” (1:11).

Duty outranked

Although the Pharaoh had commanded them to kill the firstborn of every Hebrew household, the midwives failed to obey the command of the world’s most powerful ruler. It was not that they did not fear him, but that they feared God more.

Scholar J. Coert Ryaarsdam observed that “for the midwives humaneness was an obligation that outranked national duty.” It may not be popular to say so, but God outranks national duty.
Important as the nation may be, God is the supreme importance.
When Pharaoh demanded to know why Shiphrah and Puah had let the Hebrew children live, they tried to keep a straight face while they observed that “Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and are delivered before the midwife comes to them” (1:19).

Because Hebrew women are so vigorous, they deliver their babies before the midwives can even get there!

But the last laugh of God at the impious king – and us – comes when we read: “So God dealt well with the midwives; and the people multiplied and grew very strong” (1:20). The more Pharaoh tried to stamp out these Israelites, the more they prospered and multiplied.

If anyone is going to snicker, remember that it is God who has the last laugh.
 
 The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World. Readers with questions or comments for Rev. Althouse may write to him in care of this publication.