The same dealt subtilly with our kindred, and evil entreated our fathers, so that they cast out their young children, to the end they might not live.
Pharaoh cloaked his cruelty in false pretense, the tyrant's way. He deceived himself with talk of burden-sharing while making free men into vile bondslaves. That he knew not Joseph shows how quickly men forget benefit; ingratitude is our most common vice. His command to destroy the offspring was meant to murder the whole seed of Abraham at a stroke, yet God's power proved invincible against all Pharaoh's devices.
AI summary
Israel swelled from seventy souls to six hundred thousand warriors not in haste but in God's time, and mark this: their fastest growth came when Egypt made their lives bitter. Suffering times have often been growing times with the church. Never lose heart at slowness; when the year of redemption draws near, God can do a double work in a single day.
AI summary
Commenting on Acts 7:17-29
Pharaoh took craftily cruel methods: weakening the people through hard labor, ordering midwives to kill male infants, commanding all males cast into the rivers. When Stephen says the children were cast out, he means Pharaoh's order to his officers and people, not the parents, who sometimes hid their sons to save them. The end was destruction; the Israelites themselves were meant to destroy their own seed.
AI summary