Exodus 1–2: Slavery in Egypt, and the Birth of Moses

These are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt with Jacob, each with his family:

Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah;
Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin;
Dan and Naphtali;
Gad and Asher.

The descendants of Jacob numbered seventy in all, including Joseph, who was already in Egypt.

Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died, but the Israelites were fruitful and increased rapidly; they multiplied and became exceedingly numerous, so that the land was filled with them.

Then a new king, who did not know Joseph, came to power in Egypt. “Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become too numerous and too powerful for us. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase even more; and if a war breaks out, they may join our enemies, fight against us, and leave the country.”

So the Egyptians appointed taskmasters over the Israelites to oppress them with forced labor. As a result, they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and flourished; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites.

They worked the Israelites ruthlessly and made their lives bitter with hard labor in brick and mortar, and with all kinds of work in the fields. Every service they imposed was harsh.

Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, “When you help the Hebrew women give birth, observe them on the birthstools. If the child is a son, kill him; but if it is a daughter, let her live.”

The midwives, however, feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt had instructed; they let the boys live. So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?”

The midwives answered Pharaoh, “The Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before a midwife arrives.”

So God was good to the midwives, and the people multiplied and became even more numerous. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.

Then Pharaoh commanded all his people: “Every son born to the Hebrews you must throw into the Nile, but every daughter you may allow to live.”

Now a man of the house of Levi married a daughter of Levi, and she conceived and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a beautiful child, she hid him for three months.

But when she could no longer hide him, she got him a papyrus basket and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in the basket and set it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. And his sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.

Soon the daughter of Pharaoh went down to bathe in the Nile, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. And when she saw the basket among the reeds, she sent her maidservant to retrieve it. When she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the little boy was crying. So she had compassion on him and said, “This is one of the Hebrew children.”

Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and call one of the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?”

“Go ahead,” Pharaoh’s daughter told her. And the girl went and called the boy’s mother.

Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse him for me, and I will pay your wages.” So the woman took the boy and nursed him.

When the child had grown older, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses and explained, “I drew him out of the water.”

One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to his own people and observed their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. After looking this way and that and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid his body in the sand.

The next day Moses went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, “Why are you attacking your companion?”

But the man replied, “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you planning to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?”

Then Moses was afraid and thought, “This thing I have done has surely become known.”

When Pharaoh heard about this matter, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and settled in the land of Midian, where he sat down beside a well.

Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came to draw water and fill the troughs to water their father’s flock. And when some shepherds came along and drove them away, Moses rose up to help them and watered their flock.

When the daughters returned to their father Reuel, he asked them, “Why have you returned so early today?”

“An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds,” they replied. “He even drew water for us and watered the flock.”

“So where is he?” their father asked. “Why did you leave the man behind? Invite him to have something to eat.”

Moses agreed to stay with the man, and he gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage. And she gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom, saying, “I have become a foreigner in a foreign land.”

After a long time, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned and cried out under their burden of slavery, and their cry for deliverance from bondage ascended to God.

So God heard their groaning, and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God saw the Israelites and took notice.