The history continues: Exodus 1

I've fallen behind on my reading (had a busy weekend) so am now catching back up. Our reading program is now into the book of Exodus. One thing I'm recalling from when I last power-read through the Bible was how one chapter of history blends into the next. I distinctly remember wrapping up with the final book in the Old Testament (the book of Malachi), and beginning the next day in the New Testament (the book of Matthew), and getting the same sense. Yes, the Old Testament and the New Testament are completely different sections within the Bible. [And, as a side note, it's a shame that those of the Jewish faith do not accept the New Testament as part of their sacred readings, because Jesus truly does change everything! I digress, though...] But I was amazed at how for the first time God revealed to me that the New Testament, beginning with the book of Matthew, really was simply a continuation of the history that He had His people write. That blew my mind.

Similarly, moving on to Exodus, a different book and a very different chapter on the history of God's people, still feels like a mere continuation of the chapter of history that I just finished reading. This stuff moves fast! In just a month, we've covered God creating the universe; the history of Adam and Eve's sin forever changing the course of human history; the history of Noah's obedience to God in building the ark to withstand the flood that would soon come; the history Job suffering undue circumstances, coming to the end of himself, and being restored after he repented to God and prayed for his friends; and then the histories of Abram (whom God renamed Abraham), Isaac, Jacob (whom God renamed Israel), Judah, and Joseph. Wow! We haven't even gotten to the miracle of God parting the Red Sea, and I'm already blown away by God's goodness. Only two books in, and it's easy for me to see how, as the pastor of my church occasionally says, the Bible is a love letter from God to us. I mean, how can people not see that?!

I digress. The passage that speaks to me in this moment comes from a reading a couple days ago (while I was catching up), of what may be the first written case of a monarch turning paranoid and delusional:

8 Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt. 9 “Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become far too numerous for us. 10 Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.” Exodus 1:8-10, NIV

I'm not really sure how this particular king decided that the Israelites were bad news, just because they had grown in number. But I imagine that with lust for power, as one gains more power, they begin seeing others automatically as threats, even if and when they aren't. Paranoia. Some of our most vile dictators, including folks like Hitler and Stalin, suffered from paranoia, which caused them to commit the crimes they did. Back to Egypt. The Bible doesn't list this particular king's name, but just from reading the passage, it sounds like he was almost as bad as those guys were. Below are his two heinous edicts:

“When you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.” Exodus 1:16, NIV

 The king issued the second edict below after the first failed to yield the results he sought: 

Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: “Every Hebrew boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.” Exodus 1:22, NIV

This is the backdrop in which God sent Moses into active duty. Considering that Moses at birth was both a boy and Hebrew, being born into Egypt at that point in history, that's circumstantially very dangerous right there. But, considering also that God was with him...

The history continues. That's the beautiful thing about the history of our God and His people, whether Jew (Hebrew) or Gentile. Even after the last book of the Bible is written, history continues where God sends people, generation after generation, to share the Good News and point people to Him.