Hooray hooray! You finished Genesis...so how does it feel...you actually finished a book of the bible...I'm so proud of you...Today we begin in Exodus...please read Exodus 1:1-221Now these are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob; they came each one with his household:
2Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah;
3Issachar, Zebulun and Benjamin;
4Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher.
5All the persons who came from the loins of Jacob were seventy in number, but Joseph was already in Egypt.
6Joseph died, and all his brothers and all that generation.
7But the sons of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly, and multiplied, and became exceedingly mighty, so that the land was filled with them.
8Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.
9He said to his people, "Behold, the people of the sons of Israel are more and mightier than we.
10"Come, let us deal wisely with them, or else they will multiply and in the event of war, they will also join themselves to those who hate us, and fight against us and depart from the land."
11So they appointed taskmasters over them to afflict them with hard labor And they built for Pharaoh storage cities, Pithom and Raamses.
12But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and the more they spread out, so that they were in dread of the sons of Israel.
13The Egyptians compelled the sons of Israel to labor rigorously;
To read the rest of this passage if you haven't done so click here
It was during this time that the new king became concerned about the number of the Hebrews number and feared that they would overcome the Egyptians. He declared that the midwives kill all sons born to the Hebrew mothers and only the girl babies could live. But the midwives were God fearing and let the boy babies live...thy told the king that the women gave birth before they arrived.
He again declared that all boy babies found would be thrown into the Nile.
20So God was good to the midwives, and the people multiplied, and became very mighty.
21Because the midwives feared God, He established households for them.
22Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, "Every son who is born you are to cast into the Nile, and every daughter you are to keep alive."
The Ruins of Thebes,(taken out of The Halley's bible handbook)which Israelites helped to build, are among the grandest in the world. Thebes was situated on both sides of the Nile. Its ruins cover an area about 5 miles wide east temples, palaces, and monuments of stone, inscribed in the most gorgeous and brilliant colors and gold. It became a great city in the 12th dynasty, 2000 B C time of Abraham. Was in its glory 1600 to 1300 BC the period of Israel's sojourn in sent the toil and sweat of blood of unnumbered thousands of Israelite slaves. It was destroyed by the Assyrians 661 BC. Rebuilt. Destroyed by Persians 525 BC.
This part of History amazes me! Something that was built so long ago destroyed and rebuilt still has remnants left today. WOW. As we move on in the story I thought I would add that little snippet from Halley's handbook.
Please join me in tomorrow's reading Exodus 2:1-25
