Sons represent inheritance, strength, authority. Pharaoh knew that taking that away would destroy Israel. But if the son were to remain, then the enemy would utterly fall.
Alright folks…
I realized that I didn’t explain much in the introduction blog post, so here we go.
We are going through the book of Exodus. Hopefully we will only be writing one post per chapter. Maybe a post for every few chapters since 40 posts will take quite a while.
Okay, shall we begin?
Oh also, in case you didn’t know this about me, I love studying the Hebrew meaning behind words and phrases in the Bible (note the conclusion in my last instalment).
Okay, now… overall chapter 1 is about the enemy trying to change the Israelites. Pharaoh, in this instance, is the enemy. Looking at the first 7 verses, we see that Israel is prospering, multiplying, gaining strength, and following after God.
But then “...there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph [type of Christ].” v8
The enemy wanted to squash the might and the multiplication of the Israelites (which, by the way, are a type of the Church), so “they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens.” v11
Now, don’t get me wrong. Work is a good thing. But work cannot be the principal thing in your life. Life cannot be motivated by work. Work is the result of the motivation, but I digress.
Pharaoh got the Israelites to build Pithom and Raamses. Pithom means “house of the sun god” and Raamses means “son of Ra”.
Pharaoh was trying to change the people’s focus. He wanted them to focus on another god and another son.
But for some reason (which we will discover later) the people of Israel continued to multiply and spread (v12). So Pharaoh enslaved them and got them to use brick and mortar.
It is interesting that it mentioned the building of the storehouses of Egypt before they mentioned the bricks and mortar. You gotta wonder why.
Brick represents human effort and labor. Mortar represents transformation and trails.
Pharaoh tried giving them work, he tried giving them alternative gods, he tried enslaving them and putting more work on them, changing them. But there was another trick up his sleeve.
Remove the son from the picture. Take Jesus out of the equation and the whole thing falls apart.
Sons represent inheritance, strength, authority. Pharaoh knew that taking that away would destroy Israel. But if the son were to remain, then the enemy would utterly fall.
That brings us to chapter 2, which we will pick up next week!
See y’all there!