Exodus 1-2

What’s Happening?

For hundreds of years, God’s people have battled an ancient enemy seeking to draw them out of life and into death. The serpent that tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden, along with his descendants, has been at war with Eve and her children. But at the very beginning of this war, God promised that one day, one of Eve’s sons would crush the head of the snake forever (Genesis 3:15). One of Eve’s sons would draw God’s people out of death and into life. The book of Exodus begins by reintroducing that ancient conflict and introducing a son of Eve who might be the promised Snake-Crusher.

Just as God commanded Adam and Eve, God’s people have been fruitful and multiplied for generations (Exodus 1:7). They now live in Goshen, some of the most Edenic, life-giving lands in Egypt (Genesis 47:6). But Pharaoh, a wicked king, rises to power in this seeming paradise. This new serpent figure feels threatened by God’s people so he makes a shrewd plan to bring death to God’s people of life (Exodus 1:8-10). He makes God’s people suffer like Adam and Eve suffered outside of Eden. Like Adam had to work the soil outside of Eden, Pharaoh enslaves God’s people and forces them to toil in his land. And like Eve suffered pain in childbirth, Pharaoh attacks her sons.

Pharaoh shrewdly decrees that the midwives kill all newborn Hebrew boys, so that no son of Eve rises against him (Exodus 1:15-16). But Eve’s daughters shrewdly outwit Pharaoh's law of death, and God’s people continue to increase and multiply in life (Exodus 1:17-21). Enraged, Pharaoh commands all his subjects to drown every newborn Hebrew boy in the Nile River (Exodus 1:22). But the book of Exodus will reveal that this genocidal command sealed the serpent king’s downfall.

The daughters of Eve shrewdly outmaneuver the serpent’s plan to preserve the life of a baby boy. A Hebrew mother has a son in secret. She seems to obey the serpent’s decree of death by placing her son in the water. But she outwits Pharaoh. She protects her son from the watery grave by hiding him in a basket (Exodus 2:1-3). This basket is called an ark, like the one Noah built to be saved from the watery grave of the flood (Genesis 6:14-17). Once again, God is providing a way to draw his people out of death and into life.

Under the watchful care of these shrewd women, the baby boy is drawn out of his watery grave and given a new life. Ironically, it is the daughter of the murderous Pharaoh who adopts him, saving the very life her father tried to kill (Exodus 2:4-9). She calls the baby ‘Moses’, which means “drawn out” (Exodus 2:10). Moses’ rescue shows that God will shrewdly outwit Pharaoh through the baby who was drawn out of death into life.

Where is the Gospel?

God told Eve that her descendants would be perpetually at war with the sons of the serpent. In this story, Eve’s daughters shrewdly outwit the serpent’s decrees and draw Moses out of death and into life. In the book of Exodus, God will use Moses to defeat Pharaoh, the serpent of Egypt. He will draw his people out of slavery to Pharaoh and into freedom, out of death in Egypt and into life. But the Serpent’s hold was not in Egypt or Pharaoh alone. The Serpent that shrewdly drew Adam and Eve out of life and into death still needed to be defeated.

This is why God shrewdly became a baby, a son of Eve, in Jesus—to outwit the Snake. His mother had a baby in the secret of her virgin womb. Protected in the ark of her womb, Jesus’ mother saw the shrewd way her child would outwit their death-bringing oppressors and lead God’s people to life (Luke 1:51-53). Yet, like Pharaoh in Exodus, those in power shrewdly plotted the death of this newborn son of Eve.

After Jesus was born, a shrewd king named Herod, felt threatened by a potential Hebrew uprising. So he called for the murder of all infant sons in Jesus’ hometown (Matthew 2:15-16). But God outwitted the serpent again. Jesus’ parents drew their son out of the reach of death and into life. They fled to Egypt, of all places, showing that Jesus would be the Moses-like snake-crusher who would draw God’s people out of slavery and into freedom (Matthew 2:13-14).

In a final murderous decree, the Serpent used all his oppressors to bring Eve’s promised son to death. But in targeting Jesus, the serpent sealed his own downfall. Like Moses’ mother, Jesus seems to obey his decree. He places his life in the hands of those who want to kill him (Matthew 26:55-57). But in dying, Jesus shrewdly outwits the Serpent’s scheme. For like Moses was drawn out of the watery grave, Jesus was drawn out of death. In his resurrection, Jesus crushed the power of the ancient death-bringer (1 Corinthians 15:25-26). Now, all of God’s people, all the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, are free from their slavery to the Snake (Hebrews 2:14-15). In Jesus’ resurrection, we are drawn out of death and into life.

See for Yourself

I pray that the Holy Spirit would open your eyes to see the God who rescues us out of slavery to the Serpent. And may you see Jesus as the one who draws us out of death and into life.