Exodus 1: God Is Still Working
Have you ever found yourself in a season where God feels distant, silent, or simply absent? The first chapter of Exodus speaks directly into that experience. When a new Pharaoh rose to power in Egypt, the favor Israel had enjoyed under Joseph vanished overnight. What followed was more than 400 years of brutal bondage. And yet, God is not mentioned by name in Exodus 1. No miracles. No burning bush. No Moses. Even so, God was clearly at work. The Hebrew people multiplied against every odd, and every attempt Pharaoh made to suppress them only caused them to grow stronger. This was not coincidence. It was God moving quietly and powerfully behind the scenes, keeping promises He had made long before.
Two midwives named Shiphrah and Puah stand out as a defining example of faithful obedience in impossible circumstances. When Pharaoh commanded them to kill every Hebrew baby boy at birth, they refused. They feared God more than they feared the most powerful ruler in the world. Because of that choice, God blessed them, and their names are preserved in Scripture while Pharaoh is remembered only by his title. One of the babies they protected was Moses, the man who would eventually lead an entire nation to freedom. A single act of quiet obedience shifted the trajectory of history.
Exodus is ultimately a revelation story, not just a rescue story. God did not simply pull Israel out of Egypt and leave them to figure out the rest. He formed a covenant people and moved to dwell among them. That same desire for relationship reaches its fullest expression in Jesus Christ, who came as the ultimate deliverer. Born under a king who, like Pharaoh, ordered the slaughter of infant boys, Jesus went on to accomplish a greater Exodus at the cross, freeing all of humanity from slavery to sin and death. When the stone was rolled in front of the tomb, heaven seemed silent. But even in that silence, He was working. The empty tomb declares that no opposition, no matter how powerful, gets the final word. God does. If you are living in an Exodus 1 season right now, take heart. God is already writing Exodus 2.