Today’s passage is Exodus 1:1-22. When Joseph’s brothers and their families went to Egypt to live during the famine, they totaled just seventy people. But their numbers swelled so greatly that the Pharaoh worried about them being a fifth column. He began a policy of oppressive labor. And the midwives were instructed to kill all male births, but they didn’t. The Israelites multiplied and spread throughout Egypt. Pharaoh next said to throw the baby boys into the Nile.
Why are two midwives named?
Why do we have 70 as the original number but no number for how many presently exist?
“Serve with rigor”(13)
This phrase is repeated twice.
Rigor means strict, severe, harsh or unpleasant.
In education it is used in a positive sense because it means students are held to strict account and can demonstrate certain skills.
It is often seen as either weeding out the weak and the lazy or instilling a strong and focused attitude towards high achievement.
But the Israelites were turned into slaves in an effort to make life so hard that they’d either leave or have no energy to breed. Instead, the rigor made them thrive.
I slipped in my application from yesterday and once again tried to impose a rigor on my daughter Tess. I want her to be efficient in her homework.
I want her to apply herself and work instead of being distracted and playing.
My wife didn’t help tonight because we had dinner with a high school friend of hers that she hadn’t seen in many years.
They naturally wanted to talk a lot but her friend’s daughters and Tess and I got bored and had to go to a park and play.
The whole time I wanted to go home and get busy with Tess doing work. I think I’ve always been like that.
When we got home, I nagged at Tess to do her homework while I did my church homework.
My wife told me to stop being angry. I objected that I wasn’t angry.
She said my scowling face contradicted my words. She said I had to talk words of love to my daughter.
I realized she was right. I was provoking my child.
I repented, changed my attitude and took pleasure in her putting on my suit jacket and tying one of my ties. I’d taught her how to do that yesterday.
Where does my inappropriate attitude of rigor come from? How do I change from being Pharaoh to my child?
Application: learn to dance with my daughter.
Lord, remove the Pharaoh in me and change me to a father of love balanced with rigor.
