Commentary - Exodus 1:1-7

Bird's-eye view

The book of Exodus opens by forging a deliberate and unbreakable link with the book of Genesis. This is not a new story, but the next chapter in the great story of God's covenant dealings with Abraham's seed. The book begins with a formal list of the sons of Jacob who went down to Egypt, grounding the epic of redemption that is to follow in the solid soil of history. These were real men with real families. The initial count of seventy souls serves as the covenantal seed, a small and vulnerable beginning. But this vulnerability is immediately contrasted with the explosive, supernatural fruitfulness of Israel, a direct fulfillment of God's promise to the patriarchs and a reiteration of the original creation mandate. The death of the founding generation, Joseph and his brothers, marks a crucial transition. The personal, familial relationship with Egypt's power structure is severed, setting the stage for the hostility and oppression that will necessitate the exodus. In these first seven verses, God is setting His chessboard. The pieces are a small family, a promise, a womb, and a tomb. And with these, He is preparing to checkmate an empire and redeem His people.

The central theme here is God's covenant faithfulness. He remembered His promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the astounding multiplication of Israel is the tangible evidence of that faithfulness. This fruitfulness, which should have been seen as a blessing, becomes the very thing that the new pagan Pharaoh perceives as a threat. Thus, the stage is set for the central conflict of Exodus: the battle between the God of life, who multiplies His people, and the culture of death, represented by Pharaoh, who seeks to control, suppress, and ultimately destroy them. This is a pattern that repeats throughout Scripture and history. God's blessings on His people often provoke the rage of the ungodly.

Outline

Context In Exodus

These opening verses are the bridge between the patriarchal narratives of Genesis and the national redemptive epic of Exodus. Genesis ends with Jacob's family safe and prosperous in Goshen, under the protection of Joseph. Exodus begins by recapping the manifest reason for their presence in Egypt, grounding the subsequent events in the history of God's providence. This section serves as the introduction to the entire book, establishing the initial conditions: Israel is in Egypt, they are numerous, and the generation that knew the old Pharaoh is gone. This sets up the problem of the new Pharaoh "who did not know Joseph" (Exod 1:8), which is the immediate catalyst for Israel's enslavement. The miraculous growth described in verse 7 is the theological foundation for the conflict. God's blessing creates the "problem" that Pharaoh tries to solve with tyranny, which in turn necessitates the divine deliverance that Exodus will recount.

Key Issues

The Unstoppable Promise

The book of Exodus begins not with a bang, but with a list of names. And this is exactly as it should be. God's covenants are not made with abstract principles or foggy notions; they are made with real people. The story of our redemption is an earthy one, full of genealogies, geography, and politics. Before God parts the Red Sea, He wants us to remember Reuben, Simeon, and Levi. Before He topples the gods of Egypt, He wants us to remember the seventy souls who went down in obedience and faith.

The hinge between Genesis and Exodus is the promise God made to Abraham: "I will make you a great nation" (Gen 12:2). Genesis shows the promise given, and Exodus shows the promise beginning to be fulfilled in a truly explosive way. The narrative slows down to count the initial seventy souls, a small, manageable number. Then, in a single verse, that number bursts forth into an innumerable multitude. This is the way of the kingdom. God loves to start small. He plants an acorn, and the world scoffs. Then they turn around and a forest has grown up while they were busy with their important affairs. The growth of Israel in Egypt was not just a biological phenomenon; it was a theological statement. It was God, in the darkness of a foreign land, quietly, relentlessly, and unstoppably keeping His word.

Verse by Verse Commentary

1 Now these are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob; they came each one with his household:

The book opens with a conjunction, "And," immediately tying it to the narrative that precedes it in Genesis. The Hebrew title for the book is simply its first words, Shemot, or "Names." This is a book about names, about identity. God knows His people by name. The story of redemption begins with a roll call. This is not mythology; it is history. These men, the sons of Israel, are the heads of the covenant community. The mention of "his household" is crucial. This was not a migration of twelve individuals, but of twelve clans, complete with wives, children, and servants. From the very beginning, the covenant is corporate and familial.

2-4 Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah; Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin; Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher.

The list itself is straightforward, a recitation of the twelve patriarchs. The order is interesting, grouping the sons of Leah first, then Rachel's son Benjamin, and finally the sons of the handmaids, Bilhah and Zilpah. This is not a random collection of names but a structured reminder of the family history recorded in Genesis, with all its rivalries and complexities. These are the men through whom God has promised to bring blessing to the world, and He will do it despite their manifest flaws. This list is a testament to God's sovereign grace, which works through crooked sticks to draw straight lines.

5 And all the persons who came from the loins of Jacob were seventy in number, but Joseph was already in Egypt.

Here we have the foundational number of the nation. The text specifies "seventy" souls descending from Jacob. This number is not accidental; it carries covenantal weight. For example, in Genesis 10, the table of nations lists seventy Gentile nations. Now, God is establishing His own covenant nation, starting with a symbolic seventy. It is as though God is creating a new humanity in miniature. The note that Joseph was already in Egypt is a crucial reminder of God's sovereign providence. The entire reason they are in Egypt is because of the sin of the brothers against Joseph, a sin which God turned into the means of their salvation from famine. God's plan moves forward not just despite human sin, but often through it.

6 Then Joseph died, and all his brothers and all that generation.

This verse marks a profound turning point. It is the closing of a door. The generation of the patriarchs, the men who had personally known Jacob and who had received the promises firsthand, passes from the scene. The death of Joseph is particularly significant. He was the Israelites' protector, their connection to the Egyptian court. With his death, and the death of his entire generation, Israel's position in Egypt becomes precarious. The personal goodwill they enjoyed is replaced by the cold calculus of politics. This is a reminder that every generation must lay hold of the covenant for itself; it cannot be inherited by simple biological descent. A generation is passing, and a new test is coming.

7 But the sons of Israel were fruitful and increased and multiplied and became exceedingly mighty, so that the land was filled with them.

This verse is the theological heart of the introduction. The word "But" sets up a sharp contrast with the death recorded in the previous verse. A generation dies, but God's promise does not. The language here is a deliberate and powerful echo of the creation mandate given to Adam in Genesis 1:28 ("be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth") and repeated to Noah in Genesis 9:1. Israel is fulfilling the original purpose of humanity. They are a new creation, a people teeming with life. The piling up of verbs, "fruitful," "increased," "multiplied," and "became exceedingly mighty," is meant to convey an sense of explosive, supernatural growth. This is not just normal population increase; this is God at work, fulfilling His promise to Abraham to make his descendants as numerous as the stars. Their fruitfulness fills the land, which will soon be perceived not as a blessing but as a demographic threat by the Egyptians. God's blessing is so abundant that it becomes politically inconvenient for the world.

Application

The opening of Exodus has several pointed applications for the church today. First, we must remember that our faith is rooted in history. It is not a collection of good ideas, but a story of God's mighty acts on behalf of real people in real time. We should not be embarrassed by the lists of names and the historical details of Scripture; they are the anchor of our faith.

Second, we see the pattern of God's kingdom work. He begins with a small, seemingly insignificant seed, the seventy souls in Egypt. The world overlooks it, but God waters it with His promise, and it grows into a great nation. We should not despise the day of small things in our own lives, our families, or our churches. Faithfulness in the small things is what God uses to build His kingdom. When we are tempted to despair at the smallness of our impact, we should remember the seventy souls in Goshen.

Finally, we must understand the relationship between God's blessing and the world's hostility. The very thing that demonstrated God's faithfulness to Israel, their fruitfulness, was the thing that triggered Pharaoh's fear and oppression. As the church is faithful to the Great Commission, as we are fruitful and multiply disciples, we should not be surprised when the world views our growth as a threat. The kingdom of God is a kingdom of life, and it is fundamentally at odds with the kingdoms of this world, which are all cultures of death. Like Israel, our calling is to be fruitful, to trust God's promise, and to be prepared for the inevitable opposition that faithfulness will provoke. Our security is not in a friendly Pharaoh, but in the God who raises up children for Abraham from the dust.