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Exodus 1:1–7
Most of us divide our lives into chapters.
Sometimes, the shift from one chapter of life to another happens so slowly that we only notice it years later. Other times, change comes suddenly. Something happens, and right away we start talking about life as 'before' and 'after.'
Before the diagnosis and after it. Before the funeral and after it. Before the conflict and after it. Before the children left home and after they left. Before the job ended and after the future became uncertain.
These transitions can leave us feeling lost. We know what part of our story has ended, but we cannot see what comes next or what God will do with what is left.
That is where the book of Exodus begins.
Genesis has ended. Joseph’s generation is passing away. Jacob’s family has been living in Egypt for many years, and a darker chapter is about to begin. Yet the first word of Exodus in the Hebrew text is simply the word “and.”
“And these are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob.”
English translations often leave out the word 'and' because it sounds odd at the start of a book. But that word matters. Exodus is not a brand new story; it continues what began in Genesis.
The chapter has changed, but the Author has not.
The people in Exodus are still living under the promises God gave to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They do not know yet how these promises will play out. They cannot see Moses before Pharaoh, the plagues, the Passover, or the path through the Red Sea. They cannot see Sinai, the covenant, or the tabernacle filled with God's glory. Right now, they see very little.
But God’s promise is already advancing.
This is the truth at the start of Exodus, and it is something we need to grasp before moving forward:
When we cannot see what God is doing, we need to look at our situation in light of what God has already shown us about himself.
Let us hear the Word of the Lord from Exodus 1:1–7:
These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob, each with his household: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin, Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher. All the descendants of Jacob were seventy persons; Joseph was already in Egypt. Then Joseph died, and all his brothers and all that generation. But the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them.
What Kind of People Has God Redeemed Us to Become?
Before we work through these opening verses, I want to explain why I believe Exodus is an important book for us to study together.
When we hear the word “Exodus,” most of us probably think first about Israel’s deliverance from slavery. We remember Moses standing before Pharaoh, the plagues falling upon Egypt, the Passover lamb, and Israel crossing through the Red Sea.
All of those events are central to the book. But Exodus does not end when Israel escapes from Egypt. In many ways, that is only the beginning.
God brings Israel out of Egypt so that he may bring them to himself. He redeems them, gathers them, speaks his Word to them, teaches them how to live together, establishes their worship, and eventually comes to dwell among them.
That means Exodus is not only a book about how God delivers people from bondage. It is also a book about what God does with the people he has redeemed.
What does it mean to belong to God?
What kind of life should redeemed people share?
How should they worship?
What responsibilities do they have toward one another?
How should they respond when they are afraid, exhausted, divided, or uncertain?
What distinguishes the people of God from every other gathering of people?
Those are not questions I expect us to answer in one sermon. They are questions Exodus will help us consider as we move through the book together.
We often describe Exodus as the story of Israel moving from slavery to freedom. That is true, but it is incomplete. Israel is not delivered into independence from every authority. They are delivered from serving Pharaoh so that they may worship and serve the Lord.
The repeated demand to Pharaoh will be, “Let my people go, that they may serve me.”
The conflict is therefore about more than political freedom. It concerns who has the rightful claim over Israel. Pharaoh claims their labor, their movement, their families, their children, and their future. The Lord declares that Israel belongs to him.
Exodus begins with Israel serving Pharaoh under oppression. It ends with Israel gathered around the tabernacle while the glory of God fills it. God does not merely bring them out of Egypt. He brings them to himself.
The ultimate blessing of redemption is not simply that our circumstances improve. The ultimate blessing is that we belong to God and may live in his presence.
That is the journey we are beginning together. And it begins quietly, with a list of names, the death of a generation, and the growth of a people.
We Belong to a Story That Began Before Us
Verse 1 begins:
These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob, each with his household:
The first words echo Genesis 46, when Jacob and his family went to Egypt. The writer wants us to remember what happened earlier.
If we began reading the Bible with Exodus, these opening verses would raise many unanswered questions. Who is Jacob? Why is he also called Israel? Why did his family go to Egypt? Why was Joseph already there? Why are these names important?
Exodus expects us to know the story from Genesis.
God had called Abraham and promised to make him into a great nation. He promised that Abraham would have descendants, that those descendants would receive a land, and that through Abraham all the families of the earth would be blessed.
Those promises passed to Isaac and then to Jacob. The family named in these verses is the family through whom God had determined to carry his redemptive purpose forward.
But it is important to remember what kind of family this was.
This was not a peaceful, ideal family that always trusted God and treated one another well. Genesis tells us about favoritism between parents and children, rivalry between brothers, deception, sexual sin, violence, betrayal, and years of grief.
Joseph had been sold into slavery by his own brothers. They lied to their father and allowed him to grieve as though Joseph were dead. Their family history was filled with consequences that could not simply be erased.
Still, God kept working.
That does not mean God approved of their sin. Scripture never treats the betrayal of Joseph lightly. His brothers were responsible for what they did. But their sin did not have the power to cancel God’s covenant faithfulness.
This is an important difference.
We sometimes assume that God can only work through families that are healthy, harmonious, and spiritually mature. We look at our own families and see conflict, disappointment, old wounds, and people making choices we cannot control. We may begin to wonder whether too much has gone wrong for God to continue working.
Jacob's family shows us that God can work even in very complicated situations. His grace does not excuse sin, but his purpose is not stopped by our failures.
Some of us need to hear that because we are carrying grief over our families. There are conversations we wish had gone differently. There are divisions we do not know how to repair. There are people we love whose choices frighten or grieve us.
This passage does not say every family conflict will be fixed quickly. It does not let us ignore what is wrong. But it reminds us that God's purpose is bigger than the hardest part of a family's story.
These opening names also establish Israel’s identity.
Before Pharaoh defines them as a political threat, Scripture identifies them as the sons of Israel. Before Egypt treats them as a labor force, the Word of God connects them to Jacob and to the covenant promises.
Egypt will soon speak about them as though they are a problem that must be managed. Their numbers will be studied. Their labor will be controlled. Their children will become the objects of state policy.
But Egypt does not get to decide who they are.
They belong to a story that began before Egypt became their home.
That remains true for the people of God today. The world around us constantly offers us identities. Our occupation, our income, our politics, our ethnicity, our age, our physical strength, our usefulness, or our success define us.
These things might describe parts of our lives, but they do not tell us who we truly are.
For the Christian, our deepest identity is found in Jesus Christ. We belong to him. We have been redeemed by him and joined to him. Because we are united to Christ, we are joined to his people.
The church does not make up its own identity. We receive it.
We do not create the gospel. We receive and proclaim the gospel that has already been given.
We do not decide who Jesus is. We confess the Lord who has already revealed himself.
We do not establish the purpose of the church according to our preferences. We live under the Word of the One who purchased the church with his blood.
The identity of every local church rests ultimately in Jesus Christ rather than in its size, resources, programs, building, or public visibility.
We are a people who belong to him.
Verse 5 continues:
All the descendants of Jacob were seventy persons; Joseph was already in Egypt.
Seventy people went to Egypt. They were just a small family, with no army, no land, and no power. They were vulnerable and depended on others.
Yet God had attached his promise to them.
Then the narrator adds almost casually, “Joseph was already in Egypt.”
That short sentence holds a whole story of suffering and God's care.
Joseph was already in Egypt because his brothers had hated him and sold him into slavery. He had been falsely accused and imprisoned. For years, Joseph could not have understood why his life had taken such a painful direction.
Yet before the famine came, Joseph was already there.
Before Jacob knew that his family would need food from Egypt, God had already placed Joseph in a position through which that family would be preserved.
God started providing before the family even knew they needed help.
That is often how providence works. We usually become aware of the crisis when it arrives. God is not limited to our moment of awareness.
We notice the problem once it appears. God sees the whole story from the start.
We see what has ended and what has been lost. God also sees what he has already prepared.
This does not mean we can always identify exactly what God is doing. Sometimes it would be presumptuous to claim that we understand the purpose of a painful event. Joseph himself spent years without an explanation.
But faith does not require us to know every detail of providence. Faith rests in the character of the God who governs it.
When we cannot explain our circumstances, we return to what God has already revealed. We remember his faithfulness in Scripture. We remember the cross and the resurrection. We remember that our present need did not become known to God when it became known to us.
The chapter we are in might confuse us, but it is still connected to God's faithfulness in the past.
God’s Work Does Not Depend upon One Generation
Verse 6 introduces a sobering transition:
Then Joseph died, and all his brothers and all that generation.
A whole generation is gone in just one sentence.
Within that sentence were decades of life. There were marriages, births, daily work, sickness, aging, funerals, and grief. Stories were told to children, and eventually the people who had lived those stories were gone.
Joseph died.
His brothers died.
The whole generation that remembered Jacob and the move into Egypt firsthand passed away.
Joseph had once appeared indispensable to the family's survival. He had influence, access to Pharaoh, administrative skill, and control of the food supply during the famine. God had used him in extraordinary ways.
But Joseph had never been the source of Israel’s security.
He was an instrument in God’s hand. He was not the foundation of the covenant.
That difference is important.
God uses people. He gives them real work to do, and their faithfulness has real consequences. Joseph’s obedience mattered. His wisdom mattered. His courage mattered.
But the future of God’s promise did not depend upon Joseph remaining alive forever.
That truth speaks directly to those of us who feel the weight of responsibility.
It is possible to bear a genuine responsibility and gradually come to feel that everything depends on us. The needs around us are real. Our family needs help. Our parents are aging. Our children are facing difficult choices. The church has needs. Work has demands. The house requires attention. Financial pressures do not go away simply because we are tired.
Because the responsibilities are real, we may begin to believe that we must somehow keep every part of life from falling apart.
But there is a difference between being responsible and being sovereign.
We are called to be faithful. We are not called to control every outcome.
No parent controls the entire future of an adult child. No husband can guarantee that every person in the family will make wise decisions. No pastor can meet every need in a congregation. No generation can preserve every familiar form forever.
Realizing this can be scary, but it can also set us free.
God gives us meaningful responsibilities without asking us to become the savior of everyone around us.
Joseph died, and God remained faithful.
That does not make Joseph’s death insignificant. The passage does not ask us to pretend that loss does not hurt. Joseph mattered to his family and to Israel's history.
Trusting God does not mean pretending we do not feel loss.
We grieve the people we lose. We feel the absence of those who once carried responsibilities with strength. We notice when aging changes what someone is able to do.
Many families eventually reach a season when roles begin to reverse. Parents who cared for their children now need care themselves. People who once handled every household responsibility become tired more easily. Health changes what is possible. The future feels less predictable.
Those changes are real, and they require wisdom, patience, shared responsibility, and sometimes difficult conversations.
But they do not mean that God’s providence has ended.
The people who played a part in one chapter are not the ones who write the whole story.
God is.
This also has implications for the church.
A healthy congregation cannot be built around the assumption that one person will carry every responsibility indefinitely. That is neither wise nor biblical.
As Exodus unfolds, Moses will need Aaron. He will need Hur. He will need the counsel of Jethro. He will need appointed leaders. Israel will need priests, craftsmen, generous givers, and people willing to serve in ordinary ways.
God's people are not meant to just watch while one tired person does all the work.
The life of the church is shared life, and the work of ministry is shared work.
One reason we share responsibilities is because every servant is human, and every generation is temporary. God's work is something we receive, carry for a time, and then pass on.
This should humble leaders. No pastor is the church’s redeemer. Christ is the head of the church.
It should also encourage leaders. The future of the church does not rest entirely upon their strength.
We should work hard, teach well, care for others, train people, and take our responsibilities seriously. But we do not have to make ourselves the only ones who matter.
We can receive help.
We can entrust meaningful work to others.
We can admit when we are tired.
We can prepare another generation to carry responsibilities that will eventually outlive us.
Joseph's death shows us that God's purpose is bigger than any one person, family, pastor, or generation.
Verse 7 says:
But the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them.
“But the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them.”
This is a big contrast with verse 6.
The generation died, but the people multiplied.
God Often Works Quietly Before He Acts Publicly
Human life was passing away, yet God’s promise continued to produce life.
The Hebrew uses several words to show growth. Israel was fruitful, they multiplied, and became very strong and numerous. The language is meant to sound overflowing.
This verse reaches back even farther than the patriarchs. It echoes the language of creation.
In Genesis 1, God blessed humanity and commanded them to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth. After the flood, God renewed that blessing to Noah and his sons.
Now the same kind of language is used of Israel.
The God who created life and commanded it to fill the earth is causing the family of Abraham to become a people.
Creation blessing and covenant promise meet in this verse.
God had promised Abraham that his descendants would become numerous. He had promised Jacob that a nation would come from him. Exodus 1:7 tells us that the promise was being fulfilled.
What stands out is how normal this process must have seemed to the people living through it.
There is no burning bush in this passage. God does not speak. No sea is divided. No plague falls upon Egypt.
Families continue to grow.
Children are born. Households expand. Years pass. One generation gives way to another.
No single birth looked like God's promise to Abraham was being fulfilled. No family could say, 'Now the nation has arrived.'
Yet over time, God transformed a family of seventy into a people numerous enough to fill the land.
We often expect God to work in dramatic ways.
We look for sudden answers, visible miracles, rapid change, or a breakthrough that makes his activity undeniable.
Sometimes God does work in dramatic ways. Exodus will soon be filled with dramatic acts of divine power.
But before God acts in big, public ways, he is already working quietly behind the scenes.
That is an important part of the theology of these opening chapters. God is barely mentioned at first. Israel will soon experience oppression, and for a long time it may appear that the God of Abraham has forgotten them.
But when God seems silent, he is not absent.
He is already fulfilling his promise.
This shows that ordinary faithfulness matters.
Some of the most important work God does in our lives happens slowly and without public recognition.
Parents teach children the truth over many years. A believer prays for a family member and sees little immediate change. Someone cares for an aging parent through repeated, ordinary acts. A church gathers, sings, prays, studies Scripture, shares meals, and bears one another’s burdens.
None of these things seem dramatic in the moment.
But God often works through accumulated faithfulness.
A meal prepared today does not look like a lifetime of care. One conversation does not look like discipleship. One sermon does not look like the formation of a mature believer. One act of forgiveness does not repair every relationship.
But God is not limited by what we can measure in a day.
This is especially important when we think about the health of a church.
It is easy to measure a church by what is visible: attendance, income, programs, property, online presence, or organizational complexity.
These things can be helpful, but they do not show us everything that really matters.
A church can have an impressive structure and very little genuine spiritual life. A smaller and simpler church can still be deeply faithful if its people worship God, obey Scripture, care for one another, share burdens, and grow in Christ.
Just being simple does not make a church holy. A smaller church is not always healthier than a bigger one. What matters is whether our life together is shaped by God's Word and his presence.
Are we learning to serve rather than merely attend?
Are we caring for the weak?
Are we telling the truth in love?
Are we bearing one another’s burdens?
Are we passing the gospel to the next generation?
Are we relying on Christ, or just trying to keep an institution going for its own sake?
Those are the questions Exodus will help us answer.
We should also notice that Israel’s multiplication does not mean life is about to become easier.
The next verse introduces a king who sees Israel’s growth as a threat. The blessing of verse 7 becomes the occasion for Pharaoh’s fear.
This helps us avoid a shallow view of God's faithfulness.
God’s faithfulness does not mean that every faithful step will produce immediate comfort. Sometimes obedience brings us into conflict with people or systems that resist God’s purposes.
God was blessing Israel, and oppression was about to intensify.
We should not think that hard times mean God is not blessing us, or that easy times mean we are spiritually healthy.
God's faithfulness goes deeper than just making us comfortable right now.
The Promise Was Moving Toward Christ
The people in Exodus 1 could not see where their story would ultimately lead.
They knew the promises made to their fathers, but they could not see their fulfillment in the way we can.
God was not merely preserving Israel so that Israel could survive as one nation among many. He was moving history toward the promised offspring through whom the nations would be blessed.
Judah’s name appears in the list. From Judah would eventually come David, and from David’s line would come Jesus Christ.
The God who preserved this family was preserving the line through which the Savior would enter the world.
Matthew begins his Gospel with another list of names. He identifies Jesus as the son of David and the son of Abraham. Luke traces the genealogy back even farther, all the way to Adam.
These genealogies show us that Jesus did not just appear out of nowhere. He came as the fulfillment of the story God was writing through many generations.
The themes present in Exodus 1 find their fullness in him.
Jesus is the Creator through whom all things were made, and he is the Redeemer through whom new creation comes.
He is the faithful Son where Israel repeatedly failed.
He is the greater Moses who brings a deeper deliverance.
He is the true Passover Lamb whose blood shelters his people from judgment.
He is the final Mediator who brings us to God.
And through union with Christ, we are joined to the people God is gathering from every tribe, language, people, and nation.
This is how this passage speaks to us, even though the church and Israel are not the same in every way. We share in God's fulfilled promises through Jesus Christ.
Our identity is in him.
Our confidence is in him.
Our future is secure because he lives.
The cross shows us most clearly that we should not judge God's faithfulness just by what we see right now.
When Jesus died, the disciples believed the story had ended. The promised King had been crucified. The One they trusted was placed in a tomb.
What people could see made it look like hope was gone.
But God was not absent at the cross.
He was accomplishing redemption.
The darkest chapter became the means through which sin was judged, forgiveness was secured, and the powers of darkness were defeated.
Then, on the third day, Jesus rose from the dead.
The resurrection shows that death cannot cancel God's promise. Human rulers do not decide how history ends. What looks like defeat does not mean God has left us.
Christ is risen, and because of that, we can trust him with the parts of our story we do not understand.
Living Faithfully Between the Chapters
Some of us are standing in the middle of a transition right now.
We know what has ended. We do not know what God will do next.
We can see the limitations of our strength. We are becoming more aware that we cannot carry every need or control every outcome.
Exodus 1:1–7 does not give us a simple explanation for every painful change. It does not promise that the next chapter will be comfortable. Pharaoh appears in the next verse.
This passage gives us a new way to look at things.
It teaches us to look back at what God has already shown us, instead of letting our current situation be the only thing we listen to.
It reminds us that God's work started before our time and will keep going after us.
It shows us that God might be working through everyday faithfulness long before we see his purpose clearly.
And the gospel gives us greater confidence than Israel could yet possess at this point in the story.
We know that God has kept his promise in Christ.
We know that the cross has been followed by resurrection.
We know that Jesus is Lord over history.
We know that he is gathering his church and that the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
So, we are not responsible for seeing the whole story.
Our job is to be faithful in the part God has given us.
We remember who he is.
We carry the duties that genuinely belong to us.
We share burdens.
We let go of the results that only God controls.
We keep obeying in everyday ways, trusting that God can use even the small things we do in faith.
The chapter of our lives may change, but the Author stays the same.
God's servants may pass away, but his promise continues.
And because every promise of God finds its fulfillment in Jesus Christ, we can trust him when the present chapter does not reveal the whole story.
Amen
Let us pray.
Covenant-keeping Lord, we confess that we often judge your faithfulness by what we can presently see. When circumstances change, when people weaken, and when the future becomes uncertain, teach us to remember who you are.
Thank you that your purposes do not depend upon our strength, our understanding, or our permanence. Give us wisdom to carry the responsibilities you have truly given us and humility to release the outcomes that belong to you.
Help us recognize your work in ordinary faithfulness. Form us into a people who worship you, obey your Word, care for one another, share ministry burdens, and depend upon your presence.
Above all, thank you for keeping your promises in Jesus Christ. Thank you that he died for our sins, rose from the grave, and now rules over all history.
Help us trust the Author when we cannot see the next chapter.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen.
And now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.
Amen.