The Living Bible (20 page)
Authors: Inc. Tyndale House Publishers
Tags: #BIBLES / Other Translations / Text
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This is the list of the sons of Jacob who accompanied him to Egypt, with their families: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Benjamin, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher.
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So the total number who went with him was seventy (for Joseph was already there).
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In due season Joseph and each of his brothers died, ending that generation.
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Meanwhile, their descendants were very fertile, increasing rapidly in numbers; there was a veritable population explosion so that they soon became a large nation, and they filled the land of Goshen.
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Then, eventually, a new king came
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to the throne of Egypt who felt no obligation to the descendants of Joseph.
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He told his people, “These Israelis are becoming dangerous to us because there are so many of them.
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Let’s figure out a way to put an end to this. If we don’t, and war breaks out, they will join our enemies and fight against us and escape out of the country.”
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So the Egyptians made slaves of them and put brutal taskmasters over them to wear them down under heavy burdens while building the cities of Pithom and Rameses as supply centers for the king.
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But the more the Egyptians mistreated and oppressed them, the more the Israelis seemed to multiply! The Egyptians became alarmed
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and made the Hebrew slavery more bitter still, forcing them to toil long and hard in the fields and to carry heavy loads of mortar and brick.
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Then Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, instructed the Hebrew midwives (their names were Shiphrah and Puah) to kill all Hebrew boys as soon as they were born, but to let the girls live.
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But the midwives feared God and didn’t obey the king—they let the boys live too.
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The king summoned them before him and demanded, “Why have you disobeyed my command and let the baby boys live?”
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“Sir,” they told him, “the Hebrew women have their babies so quickly that we can’t get there in time! They are not slow like the Egyptian women!”
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And God blessed the midwives because they were God-fearing women.
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So the people of Israel continued to multiply and to become a mighty nation.
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And because the midwives revered God, he gave them children of their own.
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Then Pharaoh commanded all of his people to throw the newborn Hebrew boys into the Nile River. But the girls, he said, could live.
There were at this time a Hebrew fellow and girl of the tribe of Levi who married and had a family, and a baby son was born to them. When the baby’s mother saw that he was an unusually beautiful baby, she hid him at home for three months.
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Then, when she could no longer hide him, she made a little boat from papyrus reeds, waterproofed it with tar, put the baby in it, and laid it among the reeds along the river’s edge.
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The baby’s sister watched from a distance to see what would happen to him.
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Well, this is what happened: A princess, one of Pharaoh’s daughters, came down to bathe in the river, and as she and her maids were walking along the riverbank, she spied the little boat among the reeds and sent one of the maids to bring it to her.
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When she opened it, there was a baby! And he was crying. This touched her heart. “He must be one of the Hebrew children!” she said.
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Then the baby’s sister approached the princess and asked her, “Shall I go and find one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?”
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“Yes, do!” the princess replied. So the little girl rushed home and called her mother!
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“Take this child home and nurse him for me,” the princess instructed the baby’s mother, “and I will pay you well!” So she took him home and nursed him.
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Later, when he was older, she brought him back to the princess and he became her son. She named him Moses (meaning “to draw out”
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) because she had drawn him out of the water.
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One day, many years later
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when Moses had grown up and become a man, he went out to visit his fellow Hebrews and saw the terrible conditions they were under. During his visit he saw an Egyptian knock a Hebrew to the ground—one of his own Hebrew brothers!
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Moses looked this way and that to be sure no one was watching, then killed the Egyptian and hid his body in the sand.
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The next day as he was out visiting among the Hebrews again, he saw two of them fighting. “What are you doing, hitting your own Hebrew brother like that?” he said to the one in the wrong.
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“And who are you?” the man demanded. “I suppose you think you are
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prince and judge! And do you plan to kill me as you did that Egyptian yesterday?” When Moses realized that his deed was known, he was frightened.
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And sure enough, when Pharaoh heard about it he ordered Moses arrested and executed. But Moses ran away into the land of Midian. As he was sitting there beside a well,
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seven girls who were daughters of the priest of Midian came to draw water and fill the water troughs for their father’s flocks.
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But the shepherds chased the girls away. Moses then came to their aid and rescued them from the shepherds and watered their flocks.
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When they returned to their father, Reuel, he asked, “How did you get the flocks watered so quickly today?”
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“An Egyptian defended us against the shepherds,” they told him; “he drew water for us and watered the flocks.”
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“Well, where is he?” their father demanded. “Did you just leave him there? Invite him home for supper.”
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Moses eventually decided to accept Reuel’s invitation to live with them, and Reuel gave him one of the girls, Zipporah, as his wife.
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They had a baby named Gershom (meaning “foreigner”), for he said, “I am a stranger in a foreign land.”
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Several years later the king of Egypt died. The Israelis were groaning beneath their burdens, in deep trouble because of their slavery, and weeping bitterly before the Lord. He heard their cries from heaven,
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and remembered his promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to bring their descendants back into the land of Canaan.
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Looking down upon them, he knew that the time had come for their rescue.
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One day as Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro,
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the priest of Midian, out at the edge of the desert near Horeb, the mountain of God,
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suddenly the Angel of Jehovah appeared to him as a flame of fire in a bush. When Moses saw that the bush was on fire and that it didn’t burn up,
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he went over to investigate. Then God called out to him, “Moses! Moses!”
“Who is it?” Moses asked.
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“Don’t come any closer,” God told him. “Take off your shoes, for you are standing on holy ground.
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I am the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” (Moses covered his face with his hands, for he was afraid to look at God.)
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Then the Lord told him, “I have seen the deep sorrows of my people in Egypt and have heard their pleas for freedom from their harsh taskmasters.
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I have come to deliver them from the Egyptians and to take them out of Egypt into a good land, a large land, a land ‘flowing with milk and honey’—the land where the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites live.
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Yes, the wail of the people of Israel has risen to me in heaven, and I have seen the heavy tasks the Egyptians have oppressed them with.
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Now I am going to send you to Pharaoh, to demand that he let you lead my people out of Egypt.”
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“But I’m not the person for a job like that!” Moses exclaimed.
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Then God told him, “I will certainly be with you, and this is the proof that I am the one who is sending you: When you have led the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God here upon this mountain!”
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But Moses asked, “If I go to the people of Israel and tell them that their fathers’ God has sent me, they will ask, ‘Which God are you talking about?’ What shall I tell them?”
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“‘The Sovereign God,’”
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was the reply. “Just say, ‘I Am has sent me!’
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Yes, tell them, ‘Jehovah,
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the God of your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, has sent me to you.’ (This is my eternal name, to be used throughout all generations.)
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“Call together all the elders of Israel,” God instructed him, “and tell them about Jehovah appearing to you here in this burning bush and that he said to you, ‘I have visited my people and have seen what is happening to them there in Egypt.
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I promise to rescue them from the drudgery and humiliation they are undergoing, and to take them to the land now occupied by the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, a land “flowing with milk and honey.’”
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The elders of the people of Israel will accept your message. They must go with you to the king of Egypt and tell him, ‘Jehovah, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us and instructed us to go three days’ journey into the desert to sacrifice to him. Give us your permission.’
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“But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go except under heavy pressure.
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So I will give him all the pressure he needs! I will destroy Egypt with my miracles, and then at last he will let you go.
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And I will see to it that the Egyptians load you down with gifts when you leave, so that you will by no means go out empty-handed!
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Every woman will ask for jewels, silver, gold, and the finest of clothes from her Egyptian master’s wife and neighbors. You will clothe your sons and daughters with the best of Egypt!”