Exodus opens with names, memory, multiplication, oppression, and hidden courage. Pharaoh tries to turn covenant blessing into a political threat, then into forced labor, then into genocide. Before Moses speaks a word, God’s work of deliverance has already begun through two midwives who fear God more than the king.
Why this chapter matters
This chapter is not merely background. It establishes the spiritual conflict of Exodus: the living God remembers His covenant, while Egypt becomes an empire of fear, control, production, and death. Exodus 1 also gives one of Scripture’s clearest pictures of faithful resistance when human authority commands evil. The first named heroes of Exodus are not warriors, princes, or priests. They are women who protect life in secret.
1: These are the names of the sons of Israel that came into Egypt together with Jacob their father; they came in each with their whole family. 2: Ruben, Simeon, Levi, Judas, 3: Issachar, Zabulon, Benjamin, 4: Dan and Nephthalim, Gad and Aser. 5: But Joseph was in Egypt. And all the souls born of Jacob were seventy-five. 6: And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation. 7: And the children of Israel increased and multiplied, and became numerous and grew exceedingly strong, and the land multiplied them. 8: And there arose up another king over Egypt, who knew not Joseph. 9: And he said to his nation, Behold, the race of the children of Israel is a great multitude, and is stronger than we: 10: come then, let us deal craftily with them, lest at any time they be increased, and whensoever war shall happen to us, these also shall be added to our enemies, and having prevailed against us in war, they will depart out of the land. 11: And he set over them task-masters, who should afflict them in their works; and they built strong cities for Pharao, both Pitho, and Ramesses, and On, which is Heliopolis. 12: But as they humbled them, by so much they multiplied, and grew exceedingly strong; and the Egyptians greatly abhorred the children of Israel. 13: And the Egyptians tyrannised over the children of Israel by force. 14: And they embittered their life by hard labours, in the clay and in brick-making, and all the works in the plains, according to all the works, wherein they caused them to serve with violence. 15: And the king of the Egyptians spoke to the midwives of the Hebrews; the name of the one was, Sepphora; and the name of the second, Phua. 16: And he said, When ye do the office of midwives to the Hebrew women, and they are about to be delivered, if it be a male, kill it; but if a female, save it. 17: But the midwives feared God, and did not as the king of Egypt appointed them; and they saved the male children alive. 18: And the king of Egypt called the midwives, and said to them, Why is it that ye have done this thing, and saved the male children alive? 19: And the midwives said to Pharao, The Hebrew women are not as the women of Egypt, for they are delivered before the midwives go in to them. So they bore children. 20: And God did well to the midwives, and the people multiplied, and grew very strong. 21: And as the midwives feared God, they established for themselves families. 22: And Pharao charged all his people, saying, Whatever male child shall be born to the Hebrews, cast into the river; and every female, save it alive.
The book begins with names
Exodus begins, “These are the names.” That opening matters. Pharaoh’s world will treat Israel as a labor problem, a demographic threat, and eventually a population to be managed by death. Scripture begins differently. It remembers persons, households, and covenant identity.
This is spiritually important. Oppression often begins by erasing names. People become categories: slaves, immigrants, enemies, threats, statistics, problems. The biblical text refuses that reduction. Israel is not an anonymous mass. They are sons of Jacob, remembered before God.
The irony deepens as the chapter continues. Pharaoh, the most powerful figure in Egypt, remains unnamed. The midwives, Sepphora and Phua in Brenton’s Septuagint, are named. Earthly power often imagines that it writes history, but Scripture remembers the hidden faithful and leaves the tyrant generic. In the Kingdom of God, names are preserved by faithfulness, not by status.
Seventy-five souls and the Septuagint witness
Brenton’s Septuagint reads that “all the souls born of Jacob were seventy-five.” Many English Bibles based on the Hebrew Masoretic Text read seventy. This is not a mistake to hide. It is a useful Orthodox teaching moment because the New Testament often reflects the Septuagint tradition. In Acts 7:14, St Stephen also speaks of seventy-five persons.
For an Orthodox Bible study, this helps students understand why the Septuagint matters. The apostles and early Church often lived in and quoted from the Greek Old Testament. The number itself does not change the spiritual meaning of the chapter, but it shows that our reading of Exodus belongs inside the wider textual life of the Church, not only modern English harmonization.
The deeper point remains: the family that entered Egypt was small, vulnerable, and dependent on God’s providence. By Exodus 1, the promise has grown. Egypt sees danger. Scripture sees covenant blessing.
Multiplication under pressure
Exodus 1 says Israel increased, multiplied, became numerous, and grew exceedingly strong. Brenton’s wording is especially vivid: “the land multiplied them.” Egypt, the place of exile, becomes the place where God’s promise grows. Pharaoh does not create Israel’s strength. He fears what God has blessed.
This language echoes creation and covenant. God blessed creation with fruitfulness, and He promised Abraham that his seed would multiply. Pharaoh reads that blessing politically: “they are stronger than we.” He interprets fruitfulness as threat. This is one of the first marks of a fallen ruler: he cannot see blessing without imagining rivalry.
The same pattern appears spiritually. A fearful heart often interprets another person’s growth as danger. Envy and fear turn blessing into competition. Pharaoh is not only an ancient king; he is also an icon of the anxious ruler within the soul, the part that wants control more than truth.
A king who knew not Joseph
The new king “knew not Joseph.” This does not only mean he lacked information. Egypt had survived famine through Joseph’s wisdom. The nation had benefited from Joseph’s righteousness and administrative gift. But later power repudiates saving memory. Gratitude disappears, and ingratitude becomes policy.
This is one of the dangers of every society and every soul: to enjoy the fruit of God’s mercy and then forget the mercy itself. Egypt had received life through Joseph. Now Egypt organizes death against Joseph’s people.
The Christian reader should hear a warning. Forgetting gratitude creates room for cruelty. When memory of God’s works fades, people become easier to use. A person who forgets mercy becomes capable of hardness that would once have seemed impossible.
Pharaoh’s fear becomes policy
Pharaoh says, “Let us deal craftily with them.” Fear becomes strategy. Strategy becomes oppression. Oppression becomes murder. Exodus 1 shows evil hardening in stages.
First, Pharaoh creates a narrative: Israel is a threat. Second, he imposes forced labor. Third, he secretly orders selective killing through the midwives. Fourth, when hidden murder fails, he commands all his people to cast Hebrew male children into the river.
This progression is sobering. Great evils are rarely introduced all at once. They are prepared by suspicion, dehumanizing language, bureaucratic control, and the training of ordinary people to participate. Pharaoh first teaches Egypt to fear Israel, then to enslave Israel, then to kill Israel’s sons.
For spiritual formation, this matters. Sin often follows the same path. A thought becomes a story. A story becomes a habit. A habit becomes a system. A system becomes bondage. Exodus begins by revealing that deliverance is needed not only from external oppression, but from the logic of Egypt itself.
Slavery as life without worship
The Egyptians “embittered their life by hard labours, in the clay and in brick-making.” This is not merely hard work. Work becomes slavery when it is severed from worship, dignity, Sabbath, and the person’s calling before God. Pharaoh wants bodies for production. God will bring those same bodies out to worship.
This is a key Exodus theme: Israel is not delivered merely to have a better private life. Israel is delivered to serve the Lord. The movement is from Pharaoh’s bricks to God’s tabernacle, from forced production to holy offering, from bondage to liturgy.
That has direct pastoral force. Modern Egypt may not look like brick fields. It can look like endless output, anxiety, identity through productivity, and a life with no freedom for prayer. A person may be outwardly comfortable and still inwardly enslaved to Pharaoh’s rhythm. Exodus asks whether our labor serves worship or replaces it.
Pithom, Ramesses, and On which is Heliopolis
Brenton’s Septuagint includes “On, which is Heliopolis” among the strong cities built for Pharaoh. This detail is worth noticing. Heliopolis had already appeared in Joseph’s story: Joseph married Aseneth, daughter of the priest of Heliopolis. The place associated with Joseph’s Egyptian life is now named in a context of forced labor.
The contrast is sharp. Egypt once became the place where Joseph preserved life. Now Egypt has become the place where Pharaoh organizes death. The problem is not geography alone. The problem is power without remembrance of God.
Heliopolis was also associated with solar religious prestige. Without overstating the point, the LXX naming sharpens the contrast between imperial-sacral power and the God who works through hidden women. Pharaoh has cities, storage, priests, and command. God has covenant, memory, and two midwives who fear Him.
The midwives fear God
The moral center of the chapter is simple: “the midwives feared God.” Pharaoh commands murder. The midwives refuse. They are not described as politically powerful. They do not lead an uprising. They do what obedience requires in the moment given to them: they preserve life.
This is one of Scripture’s foundational pictures of faithful disobedience to evil authority. Human authority is real, but it is not absolute. When the king commands murder, obedience to God requires refusal. Acts 5:29 says the same principle directly: “We ought to obey God rather than men.”
The chapter does not invite self-righteous rebellion against every inconvenience or command. It does teach that no ruler, employer, institution, or culture has the right to command participation in evil. The fear of God liberates the conscience from the fear of Pharaoh.
Sepphora and Phua as hidden servants of deliverance
Before Moses is drawn from the water, Sepphora and Phua are already resisting death. Before the plagues, before the Red Sea, before Sinai, God’s deliverance is moving through hidden fidelity. This is one of the most beautiful features of Exodus 1.
The great saving work of God often begins quietly. A mother hides a child. A sister watches from a distance. Midwives refuse a murderous order. A cry rises from slaves. God’s public acts are prepared by hidden obedience.
This is deeply consonant with Orthodox spirituality. The Church honors public martyrs, but she also knows the power of hidden faithfulness: prayer, fasting, mercy, protection of the weak, quiet truthfulness, and refusal to cooperate with sin. Not every act of courage is visible. God sees all of it.
Did the midwives lie?
Pharaoh asks why the male children have been saved alive, and the midwives answer that the Hebrew women give birth before the midwives arrive. The text clearly praises the midwives for fearing God and preserving life. It does not pause to give a treatise on every moral feature of their reply.
A careful teacher should avoid two extremes. Do not use this passage to say falsehood is morally irrelevant. Also do not miss the narrative’s emphasis by making the whole chapter about whether the midwives lied. The central issue is that they refused to become collaborators in murder.
The safest pastoral reading is this: Scripture blesses their fear of God, their courage, and their defense of life under pressure. Their example teaches that when systems demand evil, God’s servants must protect the vulnerable even at personal risk.
God builds households for those who protect households
The chapter says God “did well to the midwives,” and because they feared God, “they established for themselves families.” This is a beautiful reversal. Pharaoh seeks to destroy Hebrew households. God builds households for the women who protect life.
That does not mean every righteous act receives immediate visible reward. Scripture is not teaching a mechanical prosperity formula. It is showing God’s approval and covenant justice. The tyrant may command death, but the Lord of life remains the true giver of households, future, and memory.
This matters pastorally because hidden courage can feel wasted. The midwives could not stop Pharaoh’s entire system. They could not free Israel. They could not abolish slavery. But they could refuse the evil assigned to them. God honored that refusal.
The Nile turned into an instrument of death
When the midwives fail to serve Pharaoh’s violence, Pharaoh expands the command to all his people: every Hebrew male child must be cast into the river. The Nile, Egypt’s source of life, is made an instrument of death.
This prepares a major Exodus reversal. Water will not belong to Pharaoh. The child cast toward death will be drawn out of water. Later, Israel will pass through water into freedom, and Egypt’s army will be judged in the sea. The waters that Pharaoh tries to weaponize become part of God’s saving pattern.
Christians naturally hear baptismal echoes here, though the full typology unfolds later at the Red Sea. Egypt’s water of death is not the final word. In Christ, water becomes the place where the old slavery is buried and new life begins.
Christological reading
Exodus 1 prepares the pattern fulfilled in Christ. Pharaoh fears the growth of God’s people and orders the killing of male children. Herod later fears the newborn King and orders the slaughter of the infants. Moses is preserved under a death decree and becomes a deliverer. Christ comes under another tyrant’s violence and becomes the true Deliverer from sin, death, and the devil.
There is also a broader ecclesial pattern. Israel multiplies under oppression. The Church, too, often grows under persecution. This is not because suffering is good in itself, but because the life of God cannot be extinguished by Pharaoh. The blood of martyrs becomes seed because Christ has already conquered death.
Moses will eventually confront Pharaoh from outside the palace, but Exodus 1 shows that Christlike courage is already present in the lowly. To protect the vulnerable, to fear God more than rulers, to preserve life under threat, and to resist death-dealing power are all signs of the coming Deliverer’s work.
Coptic Orthodox liturgical and spiritual connection
No confirmed Coptic lectionary assignment is included here. The thematic connections, however, are strong.
Coptic Orthodox life is deeply shaped by Exodus: Pascha, baptismal theology, the defeat of Pharaoh as image of demonic tyranny, the crossing of the sea, manna, priesthood, incense, and the tabernacle. Exodus 1 especially resonates with the Coptic memory of martyrdom and endurance under pressure. The people of God may be humbled, but they are not abandoned.
The midwives also fit a strong pastoral theme in Coptic spirituality: hidden service matters. Not all holiness is public. The Church is built by people whose names may be unknown to the world but remembered before God.
Hidden Deliverers and the Courage to Protect Life
Before Moses speaks publicly, Exodus shows hidden faithfulness through women who protect life under imperial pressure. Shiphrah and Puah fear God more than Pharaoh. Jochebed hides the child. Miriam watches with wisdom. Pharaoh’s daughter receives the baby whom her father’s policy condemned. Zipporah later appears in a difficult episode that should be handled carefully, but even there the text refuses to make deliverance a story of male public power alone.
This matters spiritually because God often begins deliverance through quiet obedience that empire cannot measure. The chapter should not be taught as if Moses simply appears from nowhere. He is preserved by people whose courage is domestic, hidden, risky, and remembered by God.
Source: Original schematic created from Exodus 1-2 and Exodus 4. Teaching aid for hidden faithfulness, not a genealogy.
Spiritual Fruit 🍇
This chapter asks what I fear most. Pharaoh fears losing control. The midwives fear God. Pharaoh’s fear produces slavery and murder. The midwives’ fear produces courage and life.
It also asks whether I have allowed productivity, anxiety, or social pressure to become a Pharaoh over my life. Am I free to worship, pray, rest, serve, and protect the vulnerable, or am I only making bricks for someone else’s kingdom?
Finally, Exodus 1 asks whether I am willing to do the faithful thing that is actually in front of me. The midwives did not deliver the whole nation. They protected the children placed in their hands. That is often how God begins deliverance.
Names Against Empire
Exodus begins with names because empire tries to erase persons. Pharaoh sees Israel as a demographic threat, a labor supply, and a problem to manage. Scripture remembers sons, mothers, midwives, and children. This is not incidental. The first resistance to Pharaoh is not military; it is the fear of God that refuses to let vulnerable life become disposable.
The Hebrew midwives are a major spiritual anchor. Their courage is not loud, but it is decisive. They fear God more than royal command. In Orthodox pastoral teaching, this chapter should form conscience: obedience to God is not abstract when the powerful normalize cruelty. The fear of God protects the weak.
Teaching Notes
Teaching Focus
- Key phrases: “Pharaoh counts bodies; God remembers names.” “The fear of God is the beginning of resistance to death.”
- Emphasize: personhood, courage, hidden obedience, and the defense of life.
- Avoid: turning the chapter into generic bravery without naming the spiritual root, fear of God.
Deeper Orthodox Reading
Exodus 1 should be taught as a clash between nameless empire and remembered persons. Pharaoh is powerful, but he is not named. The midwives are named. The oppressed people are counted and remembered. The chapter quietly says that God sees the persons whom empire treats as units of labor or demographic threat.
The fear of God in the Hebrew midwives is not religious sentiment. It is the courage to refuse a command when obedience to the state would mean murder. St John Chrysostom often presses the moral seriousness of fearing God more than human opinion, and that patristic instinct belongs here. The midwives are not loud revolutionaries. They are quietly faithful servants who protect life when the powerful demand death.
This chapter also needs pastoral honesty. Oppression does not always begin with open violence. It begins with fear, accusation, exaggeration, and the reduction of a people to a problem. Pharaoh says Israel is too many and too strong, so he turns fear into policy. That pattern still matters spiritually. The passions do the same inside the heart: fear invents enemies, pride justifies cruelty, and convenience asks conscience to be silent.
Christ is present here not by obvious symbol, but by the pattern of innocent life threatened by rulers. Moses’ generation anticipates the slaughter under Herod. The midwives’ courage anticipates every Christian act of protecting the vulnerable when it is costly. The chapter asks whether fear of God is stronger in us than fear of consequences.
Discussion Questions
- Why does Exodus begin with names, and why does that matter spiritually?
- How does Pharaoh turn blessing into threat?
- What are the stages by which fear becomes oppression and then violence?
- What does it mean that the midwives feared God more than the king?
- How should Christians distinguish holy obedience from sinful compliance?
- Where do we see “Egypt” today as life organized around production without worship?
- How does Exodus 1 prepare the story of Moses and ultimately point toward Christ?
Teacher-Facing Guidance
Teach this chapter as the beginning of redemption, not just the background before Moses. Keep the focus on names, memory, fruitfulness, fear, oppression, hidden courage, and life preserved under threat.
Do not flatten Pharaoh into a cartoon villain. Show how fear and control become systems. Also do not reduce the midwives to a moral anecdote about civil disobedience. They are icons of the fear of God, hidden service, and protection of the vulnerable.
For a church audience, connect the chapter to martyrdom, pro-life courage, resistance to evil commands, and freedom for worship. Make clear that Exodus is not about private escape. It is about God forming a worshiping people.
Translation and Source Notes
- Scripture text embedded in this guide uses Brenton’s English translation of the Septuagint, a public-domain Orthodox-friendly Old Testament translation.
- New Testament cross-references are cited briefly and should be read in full from the reader’s preferred approved Bible translation.
- Liturgical placements are stated only when verified from the Coptic Orthodox lectionary references. Broader worship connections are described as thematic resonance, not asserted lectionary usage.
Sources
Primary sources
- Exodus 1; Hebrews 11:23; Matthew 2; Acts 7:17-22; Origen, Homilies on Exodus; St. Gregory of Nyssa, Life of Moses.
Secondary academic sources
- Brevard Childs, The Book of Exodus; Nahum Sarna, Exodus; Carol Meyers, Exodus.
Coptic Orthodox / pastoral sources
- Fr. Tadros Yacoub Malaty, Commentary on Exodus; Orthodox Study Bible notes on Exodus 1.
Web pages and non-academic sources cited
- CCEL / New Advent patristic reference access; Coptic Orthodox lectionary references checked where lectionary claims are made.