Parenting Children Resources

What if your parents asked you to spend the whole weekend cleaning the house? Would you like doing it? Of course not. It would be hard work! Well, life for God’s people was very hard. They probably wished they only had to clean their own home. Instead, they had to work as slaves for the Egyptians every day in the hot sun. And they didn’t have a choice. They couldn’t throw a fit and say, “No! I won’t do it.” They would be whipped if they said something like that! Each day they arrived at work and the Egyptians “made their lives bitter with hard service” (1:14).

Some slaves had to make, carry, and set bricks in place; other slaves had to farm the land. Despite all of this, the people of Israel kept growing in number. Do you think Pharaoh liked that? No way! He was already worried that if the Israelites outnumbered the Egyptians, they would win against them in a war. That fear made him meaner. So mean that he even issued an order to kill all the baby boys of Israel. “If it is a son,” he told the women who helped deliver babies, “you shall kill him” (1:16). Because the women feared God, they secretly disobeyed the Pharaoh and let the babies live. And God blessed them for it.

Moms and dads also tried to save their sons from Pharaoh’s cruel command. One mom hid her boy in a basket and placed him in the Nile River. His name was Moses. Do you know what happened to that helpless baby? Did a crocodile eat him? No. Did he fall into the water? No. Did Pharaoh’s daughter, when she was taking a bath in the river, find him and raise him as her own son? Yes! Incredible! Oh how God protects his people!

God would deliver the Israelites through that baby Moses. When Moses grew up, he did something foolish and violent. The Egyptians were so mean to the Israelites. This upset Moses. One day, he saw an Egyptian hurting an Israelite, and Moses killed him. Another Egyptian saw the murder, so Moses feared for his life. He escaped into the wilderness and lived there forty years.

He got married, had children, and learned to take care of sheep. One day, he encountered God in a bushing bush. Our always-and-forever God called himself “I am who I am” (3:14) and said to Moses: “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I have seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and I have come to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians” (see 3:6–8). Then he told Moses that he had chosen him to save his people. But how? Moses would be the deliverer, but God would do the rescuing.