but so that their lives became bitter. The Israelites wonderfully increased. Christianity spread most
when it was persecuted: the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church. They that take counsel
against the Lord and his Israel, do but imagine a vain thing, and create greater vexation to themselves.
Verses 15–22
The Egyptians tried to destroy Israel by the murder of their children. The enmity that is in the
seed of the serpent, against the Seed of the woman, makes men forget all pity. It is plain that the
Hebrews were now under an uncommon blessing. And we see that the services done for God's
Israel are often repaid in kind. Pharaoh gave orders to drown all the male children of the Hebrews.
The enemy who, by Pharaoh, attempted to destroy the church in this its infant state, is busy to stifle
the rise of serious reflections in the heart of man. Let those who would escape, be afraid of sinning,
and cry directly and fervently to the Lord for assistance.
Chapter 2
Chapter Outline
Moses is born, and exposed on the river. (1–4)
He is found, and brought up by Pharaoh's (5–10)
daughter.
Moses slays an Egyptian, and flees to (11–15)
Midian.
Moses marries the daughter of Jethro. (16–22)
God hears the Israelites. (23–25)Verses 1–4
Observe the order of Providence: just at the time when Pharaoh's cruelty rose to its height by
ordering the Hebrew children to be drowned, the deliverer was born. When men are contriving the
ruin of the church, God is preparing for its salvation. The parents of Moses saw he was a goodly
child. A lively faith can take encouragement from the least hint of the Divine favour. It is said, Heb
11:23, that the parents of Moses hid him by faith; they had the promise that Israel should be
preserved, which they relied upon. Faith in God's promise quickens to the use of lawful means for
obtaining mercy. Duty is ours, events are God's. Faith in God will set us above the fear of man. At
three months' end, when they could not hide the infant any longer, they put him in an ark of bulrushes
by the river's brink, and set his sister to watch. And if the weak affection of a mother were thus
careful, what shall we think of Him, whose love, whose compassion is, as himself, boundless.
Moses never had a stronger protection about him, no, not when all the Israelites were round his
tent in the wilderness, than now, when he lay alone, a helpless babe upon the waves. No water, no
Egyptian can hurt him. When we seem most neglected and forlorn, God is most present with us.