Day 5: Exodus 1-15

Random thoughts:

- The sons of Israel have all moved down to Egypt to avoid the famine, and now the Pharaoh became concerned that they were becoming too strong. So they slowly began to deny the Israelites their rights and gradually enslaved them in oppression.

- One of the earliest forms of eugenics is mentioned in chapter 1. Pharaoh was worried that too many Hebrew boys born would make their people too strong. To prevent this, he ordered the midwives to go to the Hebrew women and kill any newborn that was a boy. However, the midwives "feared God" (v. 17) and would not do such an abominable thing. They refused to kill the babies. Why would they fear the Lord in doing such an act? They must have known two things - 1) that the Hebrews were God's special people, and 2) that God loves His children, especially the newborn. I think it's important to note that they were more afraid of a different people group's God, whom they had no relationship, than they were afraid of their own Pharaoh, who could have ordered them killed if they disobeyed him.

- Pharaoh's second attempt at extermination of the Hebrews involved him telling his own people to drown baby boys if they came across them. This wicked act is what sets Moses' path in motion, how he is removed from the vine of the Hebrews and grafted into the vine of the Egyptians during his formative years.

- 4:24-26: And it came to pass on the way, at the encampment, that the LORD met him and sought to kill him. 25 Then Zipporah took a sharp stone and cut off the foreskin of her son and cast it at Moses’[b] feet, and said, “Surely you are a husband of blood to me!” 26 So He let him go. Then she said, “You are a husband of blood!”—because of the circumcision.

I have no idea what this seemingly randomly inserted narrative means. The only thing I can conjecture is that Moses had been disobedient in not circumcising his son earlier, and because he was about to become the liberator of the Hebrews, he was being held to a high standard.

- Aaron just sort of shows up, doesn't he? How does Moses even know he has a brother, if he has spent his childhood away from his relatives?

- Moses & Aaron are both part of the tribe of Levi, which becomes the tribe of the priesthood.

- Moses doesn't want to lead.

The plagues:

1. water becomes blood
2. frogs. frogs!
3. Lice
4. Flies
5. diseased livestock
6. boils
7. hail
8. locusts
9. darkness
10. death of the firstborn

The death of the firstborn plague brings forth the event of the Passover. The only way the Israelites could be spared the punishment of death was to cover themselves with the shed blood of a pure lamb. The innocent lamb had to die so that the children of Israel could live.