The Unstoppable Arithmetic of the Covenant Text: Exodus 1:1-7
Introduction: The Long Silence
Between the last verse of Genesis and the first verse of Exodus, there is a gap of some four hundred years. Genesis ends with a coffin in Egypt, and Exodus begins with a list of names. It is a quiet beginning. For centuries, it appears that the grand story of redemption has been put on pause. The patriarchs are dead. The generation that knew Joseph is gone. The promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob seem to be gathering dust in a foreign land.
This is a familiar feeling for the people of God. We often experience the Christian life as a long obedience in the same direction, with long stretches of apparent silence. We see the coffin, we see the mundane list of names, and we wonder where the action is. But we must learn to read the Bible as God wrote it. We must learn to see His sovereign hand at work, not just in the dramatic Red Sea crossings, but in the quiet, unnoticed growth of a family tree. God's greatest works are often accomplished in the quietest ways. He is the God of the unseen, the God of the slow and steady, the God of the mustard seed.
These first seven verses of Exodus are not just a historical footnote to get us from one book to the next. They are the sound of a great engine turning over. They are the coiled spring of redemptive history, being compressed under the weight of time, preparing for the explosive events to come. God is about to go to war with the gods of Egypt, and this passage shows us how He musters His army. He does not do it with a draft or a call for volunteers. He does it with cradles. He does it through the fruitfulness of the womb. This passage is the foundation for everything that follows, and it teaches us that God's covenant promises do not have an expiration date. When God seems most silent, He is often working most powerfully.
The Text
Now these are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob; they came each one with his household: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah; Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin; Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher. And all the persons who came from the loins of Jacob were seventy in number, but Joseph was already in Egypt. Then Joseph died, and all his brothers and all that generation. But the sons of Israel were fruitful and increased and multiplied and became exceedingly mighty, so that the land was filled with them.
(Exodus 1:1-7 LSB)
The Covenant Roster (vv. 1-5)
The book begins not with a bang, but with a genealogy.
"Now these are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob; they came each one with his household: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah; Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin; Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher. And all the persons who came from the loins of Jacob were seventy in number, but Joseph was already in Egypt." (Exodus 1:1-5 LSB)
Why begin here? Because God's covenant is not an abstract philosophical system; it is a personal relationship with a particular people. God knows His people by name. These are not just entries in a ledger; they are the heads of the tribes, the bearers of the promise. The story of redemption is the story of real families, real households. Notice the phrase, "each one with his household." The covenant unit is not the isolated individual, but the family. This is the biblical pattern from start to finish. God saves households.
The number is also significant. "Seventy in number." This is a number of symbolic completeness. In Genesis 10, the table of nations lists seventy Gentile nations. Now, in Egypt, God is starting over with a new humanity, a new family of nations, also numbering seventy. Israel is a microcosm of the world that God intends to save. They go down into Egypt as a small, vulnerable clan. A rounding error in the Egyptian census. This is how God always works. He chooses the small, the weak, and the foolish to shame the wise and the strong. He begins with seventy souls to overthrow the mightiest empire on earth.
The text also reminds us, "but Joseph was already in Egypt." Their entry into Egypt was not an accident or a tragedy. It was an act of God's meticulous providence. They came not as slaves, but as the honored family of the prime minister. God's hand was in their descent, which means His hand will be in their exodus. He who brings them in will also bring them out.
The Turning of the Page (v. 6)
Verse 6 marks a solemn and crucial transition.
"Then Joseph died, and all his brothers and all that generation." (Exodus 1:6 LSB)
This is a stark, blunt statement. The era of the patriarchs is definitively over. The human shield of Joseph, the man who held the favor of Pharaoh, is gone. The generation that personally witnessed God's promises to their fathers is now in the grave. This verse is designed to create a sense of tension and vulnerability. The promises were given to these men, and now these men are dead. Will the promise die with them?
This is the perennial question for every generation of God's people. The great saints of the past are gone. The reformers, the martyrs, the mighty preachers of old are all dead. We are left, seemingly alone, in a hostile Egypt. The memory of past revivals fades. The favor we once enjoyed in the culture is gone. It is in this moment of apparent weakness and abandonment that the faithfulness of God shines most brightly. Man is mortal, his generations pass away like grass. But the Word of the Lord endures forever.
The Divine Explosion (v. 7)
After the stark reality of death in verse 6, verse 7 bursts onto the scene with the triumphant particle, "But."
"But the sons of Israel were fruitful and increased and multiplied and became exceedingly mighty, so that the land was filled with them." (Exodus 1:7 LSB)
Joseph died, but the sons of Israel were fruitful. A generation passed away, but God's covenant did not. This is not just a description of a population boom; this is a direct and thunderous fulfillment of God's foundational promise. The language here is a deliberate echo of the creation mandate given to Adam: "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth" (Genesis 1:28). It is an echo of the promise to Abraham: "I will make you exceedingly fruitful... and kings shall come from you" (Genesis 17:6).
The Hebrew piles on the verbs to create a sense of overwhelming, explosive growth. They were fruitful (parah), they swarmed (sharats, the same word used for swarming sea creatures), they multiplied (rabah), and they became mighty (atsam). This is God's arithmetic. He is building a nation right under Pharaoh's nose. While the Egyptians are building monuments to their dead gods, the living God is building a living nation in the nurseries of Goshen.
Their fruitfulness becomes a form of spiritual warfare. They "filled the land." They went from being a quaint ethnic minority to a demographic force to be reckoned with. This is what terrifies the new Pharaoh in the next section. The world is always terrified by the fruitfulness of the church. A culture of death, which embraces abortion and sterility, is spiritually and demographically terrified of a people who welcome children as a blessing from the Lord. The primary weapon of the covenant people has always been the cradle. We conquer not by the sword, but by filling the earth with godly seed.
Conclusion: The Unfailing Promise
This short passage sets the stage for the entire drama of the Exodus, and indeed, for the entire story of redemption. It establishes a pattern that we see repeated throughout history. God's people find themselves in a hostile land, a spiritual Egypt. The great leaders of the past are gone. The world looks at the church and sees a small, insignificant clan, a mere seventy souls.
But God has given us the same mandate. Through the Great Commission, we are to be fruitful and multiply, making disciples and filling the earth with the knowledge of the Lord. This happens through the preaching of the gospel, which brings the spiritually dead to life, and it happens through covenant households, where children are raised in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
The world will react just as Pharaoh did. They will see our fruitfulness as a threat. They will try to suppress it, control it, and destroy it. They will mock our faith, ridicule our families, and seek to enslave our children to their godless ideologies. But the lesson of Exodus 1 is that God's covenant promise is unstoppable. The God who turned seventy people into a mighty nation in the heart of Egypt is the same God who is building His church today. He is at work in the quiet, unseen places, in the family worship around a dinner table, in the cry of a newborn baby, in the faithful preaching of His Word.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the true and better Joseph, who went down into the Egypt of death for us. And though He died, He was raised, and now He is building a people for Himself more numerous than the stars in the sky. Therefore, do not lose heart. Be fruitful. Multiply. Trust the unstoppable arithmetic of the covenant. God is keeping His promises.