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The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 1:14
They made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in morter and in brick. While stone was the material chiefly employed by the Egyptians for their grand edifices, temples, palaces, treasuries, and the like, brick was also…
Matthew Henry on Exodus 1:15-22
The Egyptians tried to destroy Israel by the murder of their children. The enmity that is in the seed of the serpent, against the Seed of the woman, makes men forget all pity. It is plain that the Hebrews were now under…
Matthew Henry on Exodus 1:15-22
The Egyptians' indignation at Israel's increase, notwithstanding the many hardships they put upon them, drove them at length to the most barbarous and inhuman methods of suppressing them, by the murder of their children…
The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 1:15-22
Steps in sin. Bad men, when their designs are frustrated, and things fall out otherwise than as they wish, are far from suspecting that it is God who opposes them and brings their counsels to nought. They find fault wit…
The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 1:15-22
EXPOSITION
The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 1:15-22
Some time—say five or six years—having elapsed and the Pharaoh's first plan having manifestly failed, it was necessary for him either to give up his purpose, or to devise something else. Persevering and tenacious, he pr…
The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 1:15
The Hebrew midwives. It is questioned whether the midwives were really Hebrew women, and not rather Egyptian women, whose special business it was to attend the Hebrew women in their labours. Kalisch translates, "the wom…
The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 1:15-22
A king's edicts. I. THE COMMAND TO THE MIDWIVES TO DESTROY THE MALES (Exodus 1:16). This was a further stage in the persecution of the Hebrews. Happily the command was not obeyed. There is a limit even to the power of k…
The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 1:16
The stools. The explanation furnished by a remark of Mr. Lane is more satisfactory than any other. In modern Egypt, he says, "two or three days before the expected time of delivery, the midwife conveys to the house the…
The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 1:17
The midwives feared God. The midwives had a sense of religion, feared God sufficiently to decline imbruing their hands in the innocent blood of a number of defenceless infants, and, rather than do so wicked a thing, ris…
The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 1:17
Duty of opposing authority when its commands are against God's Law. Few lessons are taught in Holy Scripture more plainly than this, that the wrongful commands of legitimate authority are to be disobeyed. "Saul spake to…
The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 1:18-21
God's acceptance of an imperfect obedience. The midwives had not the courage of their convictions. They did not speak out boldly,, like Daniel, and the "Three Children," and the Apostles. They did not say, "Be it known…
The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 1:19
They are vigorous. Literally, "they are lively." In the East at the present day a large proportion of the women deliver themselves; and the services of professional accoucheurs are very rarely called in. The excuse of t…
The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 1:22
Every son that is born. The words are universal, and might seem to apply to the Egyptian, no less than the Hebrew, male children. But they are really limited by the context, which shows that there had never been any que…
Matthew Henry on Exodus 2:1-4
Observe the order of Providence: just at the time when Pharaoh's cruelty rose to its height by ordering the Hebrew children to be drowned, the deliverer was born. When men are contriving the ruin of the church, God is p…
The Birth of Moses. (b. c. 1571.)
THE BIRTH OF MOSES. (B. C. 1571.) Moses was a Levite, both by father and mother. Jacob left Levi under marks of disgrace (Genesis 49:5); and yet, soon after, Moses appears a descendant from him, that he might typify Chr…
The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 2:1-10
A picture of true faith. I. WHAT TRUE FAITH IS. 1. There was obedience to a Divine impulse: her heart was appealed to, she saw he was a goodly child, and she hid him three months. She read in the child's appearance an i…
The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 2:1-10
The child of the water. "And she called his name Moses... water." — Exodus 2:10. Save Jesus, Moses is the greatest name in history. Compare with it Mahomet, or even that of Paul. As the founder of the Jewish religion —…
The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 2:1-10
EXPOSITION. Exodus 2:1-10. THE BIRTH, ESCAPE, AND EDUCATION OF MOSES. Some years before the Pharaoh issued his edict for the general destruction of the Hebrew male children, Amram of the tribe of Levi, had married Joche…
The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 2:1
There went a man. The Hebrew language is deficient in tenses, and cannot mark pluperfect time. The meaning is, that "a man of the house of Levi had gone, some time before, and taken to wife a daughter of Levi." Miriam m…
The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 2:1-2
§ 1. The birth of Moses. In the providence of God, great men are raised up from time to time, for the express object of working out his purposes. A great task is before them, but there is often nothing peculiar, nothing…
The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 2:1-11
A child of providence. This section recounts the birth, deliverance, and upbringing at the court of Pharaoh, of the future Deliverer of Israel. In which we have to notice — I. AN ACT OF FAITH ON THE PART OF MOSES' PAREN…
The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 2:1-9
The infancy of Moses. I. WE HAVE, IN THIS EXPERIENCE OF THE INFANT AND HIS MOTHER, A MOST AFFECTING ILLUSTRATION OF THE MISERABLE STATE TO WHICH ISRAEL HAD BEEN REDUCED. We come down from the general statement of the fi…
The Pulpit Commentary on Exodus 2:1-10
By works was faith made perfect. Bad times; harsh decrees against the Israelites; doubts and misgivings which must have occurred to one in Amram's position; a hard experience and a dark prospect. Still the man believed…