---

I. THE PRINCIPLE OF THE POLICY. This is indicated in vers. 9, 10. It was a policy of selfish fear, proceeding upon an unconcealed regard for the supremacy of Egypt. Whatever interfered with that supremacy was to be, if possible, swept completely out of the way. Pharaoh was dealing, not with the necessities of the present, but with the possibilities of the future. He made no pretence that Israel deserved to be dealt with in this merciless fashion. There was no attempt to cloak the cruelties of the tyrant under the aspect of needful severity against evil-doers. The fear of Pharaoh is seen in the very language he employs. It was not true as yet that the Israelites were more and mightier than the Egyptians: but Pharaoh feels that such a state of things is not improbable, and may not be remote. Something has already happened very different from what might have been expected. Who was to suppose that a handful of people from Canaan, instead of blending with the bulk of Egypt, would keep persistently separate and increase with such alarming rapidity? Seeing that such unexpected things have already happened, what may not be feared in the future? Who knows what allies Israel may ultimately find, and what escape it may achieve? Thus from this attitude and utterance of Pharaoh we learn -

1. Not to make our safety and our strength to consist in an unscrupulous weakening of others. The true strength, ever becoming more and more sufficient, is to be gained within ourselves. Pharaoh would have done more for his own safety and the safety of his people by putting away idolatry, injustice, and oppression, than by all his frantic attempts to destroy Israel. It is a sad business, if we must hold our chief possessions at the expense of others. If my gain is the loss or suffering of some one else, then by this very fact the gain is condemned, and however large and grateful it may be at present, it will end in the worst of all loss. Surely the luxuries of the few would become utterly nauseous and abhorrent, if it were only considered how often they depend on the privation and degradation of the many. Pharaoh's kingdom deserved to perish, and so deserve all kingdoms and all exalted stations of individuals, if their continuance can only be secured by turning all possible enemies into spiritless and emasculated slaves.

2. Not to set our affections on such things as lie at the mercy of others. Pharaoh had to be incessantly watching the foundations of his vast and imposing kingdom. Other nations only saw the superstructure' from a distance, and might be excused for concluding that the magnificence rested upon a solid base. But we may well believe that Pharaoh himself lived a life of incessant anxiety. The apprehensions which he here expresses must have been a fair sample of those continually passing through his mind. The world can give great possessions and many opportunities for carnal pleasure; but security, undisturbed enjoyment of the possession, it cannot give.

II. THE WORKING OUT OF THE POLICY. The thing aimed at was to keep the numbers of Israel within what were deemed safe bounds; and to this end Pharaoh began by trying to crush the spirits of the people. He judged - and perhaps not unwisely, according to the wisdom of this world - that a race oppressed as he proposed to oppress Israel would assuredly not increase to any dangerous extent. If only the rate of increase in Israel did not gain on the rate of increase in Egypt, then all would be safe. Pharaoh firmly believed that if only Egypt could keep more numerous than Israel, Egypt would be perfectly secure. Therefore he put these people into a state of bondage and oppression ever becoming more rigorous. Notice that he had peculiar advantages, from his point of view, in making this course of treatment successful. The Israelites had hitherto lived a free, wandering, pastoral life (Genesis 47:3-6), and now they were cooped-up under merciless taskmasters and set to hard manual toil. If any human policy had success in it, success seemed to be in this policy of Pharaoh. Nevertheless it utterly failed, from Pharaoh's point of view, for, whatever depressing effect it had on the spirits of the Israelites, there was no diminution in their numbers. The extraordinary and alarming increase still went on. The more the taskmasters did to hinder Israel, the more, in this particular matter of the numerical increase, it seemed to prosper. It was all very perplexing and unaccountable, but at last Pharaoh recognises the failure, even while he cannot explain it, and proceeds to a more direct method of action, which surely cannot fail in a perfectly efficacious result. He commands the men-children of Israel to be slain from the womb. But here he fails even in a more conspicuous and humiliating way than before. He was a despot, accustomed to have others go when he said "Go," and come when he said "Come" Accordingly, when he commanded men to become the agents of his harsh designs, he found obedient servants in plenty, and probably many who bettered his instructions. But now he turns to women - weak, despised women, who were reckoned to obey in the most obsequious manner - and he finds that they will not obey at all. It was an easy thing to do, if it had only been in their hearts to do it; for what is easier than to take away the breath of a new-born infant? They do not openly refuse; they even pretend compliance; but for all that they secretly disobey and effectively thwart Pharaoh's purpose. When we find others readily join with us in our evil purposes, then God interferes to disappoint both us and them; but we cannot always reckon even on the support of others. Notice lastly, that in carrying out this policy of defence against Israel, Pharaoh never seems to have thought of the one course which might have given him perfect safety. He might have expelled Israel altogether out of his coasts. But, so far from deeming this desirable, it was one of the very things he wished to guard against. Israel was a continual source of alarm and annoyance, a people beyond management, an insoluble problem; but it never occurred to him that Egypt would be better with them away. It would have had a very bad look to send them out of the land; it would have been a confession of inability and perplexity which those proud lips, so used to the privileged utterances of despotism, could not bring themselves to frame.

III. THE TOTAL RESULT OF THE POLICY. Though it failed in attaining the particular end which it had in view, it did not fail altogether; nay, it rather succeeded, and that with a most complete success, seeing that in doing so it effectually served the purpose of God. Pharaoh failed as dealing with the children of Israel. He called them the children of Israel, but in profound ignorance of all that this description involved. He did not know that Israel was the son of him who was born to Abraham and Sarah in their old age, contrary to all expectation and entirely of promise. But Pharaoh succeeded in a way he did not anticipate, in so far as he was dealing with the posterity of Jacob, the heirs of human infirmity. They did become, in the course of time, slaves in spirit as well as in body, personally so undeserving of freedom that when they had received it, they wished almost immediately to go back to the creature comforts of Egypt like a dog to its vomit, or a sow to her wallowing in the mire. Hence we see that God served himself, alike by Pharaoh's failure and Pharaoh's success. Pharaoh's failure showed how really and powerfully God was present with his people. It was another instance of the treasure being in an earthen vessel that the excellency of the power might be of God and not of men. And Pharaoh by his very success in making the iron to enter into the soul of Israel, was unconsciously working a way to make the stay of Israel in Egypt as full a type as possible of the tyrannous bondage of sin. As Egypt presented its pleasant side at first, so does sin. For a considerable time Egypt looked better than Canaan. There had been corn in Egypt; there had been a land of Goshen; there had been a reflected honour and comfort from the relation of the children of Israel to the all-powerful Joseph. But Joseph (lies, and then little by little it becomes plain that Egypt will be anything but a land of happiness. What the Israelites might have become if Pharaoh had not persecuted them, it is vain to speculate, as vain as to speculate what might happen to the sinner if he could go on sinning without suffering. We have to thank Pharaoh for helping to set before us in such a clear way the bitter bondage of sin, and the greatness of that deliverance by which God will liberate us from it. God moves in a mysterious way. He fills Israel with a strength whereby even in bondage and oppression their numbers are miraculously increased, but he denies to them the strength whereby they might have overthrown their oppressors. We can now see the why and wherefore of all this mysterious dealing. By the work of his Son God fills us with a life which, through all the discomforts of the present state, goes on undestroyed and still increasing into a state where these discomforts will be unknown. But at the same time God makes it clear that we cannot escape all the sufferings that belong to sin. So far as we have sown to the flesh, we must also out of the flesh reap corruption, Our joy is that, even in this world, amid all tribulation and all reaping the temporal results of sin, there is also the opportunity for another and better sowing, and the consequent opportunity for another and better reaping. ? Y.

---

---

Parallel Verses

KJV: Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph.

WEB: Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who didn't know Joseph.