Destruction of the Hebrew Children

HOW cruel is Satan! How bloody and how awful the conduct of his most faithful servants. How vast the distance that an angel, the highest in all the heavenly host, must fall to become the instigator of such deeds of wickedness as fill the history of man! Sin wrought this infinite change in that exalted being who once walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Eze. 28. Beware of this terrible evil. What has ruined Satan will also ruin others who are guilty of it.

When Jacob went down into Egypt it seemed to have been the turning point in his captivity. That is to say, his long-continued afflictions, which may be traced directly to his sin in the case of Esau, were closed up forever. The chastisement of his sin had wrought in him repentance so deep and thorough that the rod of God was now withdrawn. His sojourn in Egypt was the period assigned by Providence for his ripening off for the kingdom of God. His sun set in heavenly brightness. It was some time after this before the prosperity of the Hebrew people ceased. But the change came at last, and a terrible change it was. Joseph and his services were all forgotten. And not only this, but even rigorous cruelty was added to the wicked ingratitude of the Egyptians. See Ex. 1.

The king of Egypt made slaves of the Hebrews, lest, by-and-by, they "get them up out of the land." What made him think of such a movement on their part? Beyond all doubt he had heard that Israel expected, by-and-by, to return again to Canaan. He was determined that they should not. So by one edict, he reduced them to debasing servitude. Yet how shortsighted was all this! Had the Hebrew people continued to enjoy prosperity in Egypt, it is difficult to see how that God himself could have induced them to leave it with all its good things, and to undertake a tedious journey, at best, through a terrible wilderness to reach Canaan, and by force of arms drive out the well-armed hosts of the Canaanites. They certainly would have shrunk from such an undertaking. So God caused the wrath of man to praise him. He suffered a wicked king to stir up their nest so that they could no longer remain in it.

The king of Egypt, finding that the people increased even more rapidly in their bitter servitude than before, next ordered the destruction of all the male children of the Hebrews. Every one of them, he enacted, should be thrown into the river.

The king of Egypt thought by this means to blend the Hebrew people with the Egyptians, and to prevent their existence as a separate people. But Satan, who stirred up his mind to this cruel project, had something else in view. He knew that the time of deliverance to the Hebrews was at hand. He had no doubt that God was about to raise up their deliverer. Satan hoped to destroy this deliverer as soon as he should be born. What he attempted in the case of the child Jesus, he had tried before in the case of the child Moses. Thank God it failed each time. And now, see how impotent is Satan's malice. It was needful that Moses should be educated in Pharaoh's court.

This very edict, which Satan undoubtedly instigated, especially to destroy Moses, was the very means whereby Moses was raised to the place he needed first in the king's court, and whereby the utmost advantage of earthly wisdom would be secured to this noble child. Let us have stronger faith in God.