Ex 1:8 Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.
9 And he said to his people, "Look, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we;
10 "come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and it happen, in the event of war, that they also join our enemies and fight against us, and so go up out of the land."
11 Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh supply cities, Pithom and Raamses.
12 But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were in dread of the children of Israel.
13 So the Egyptians made the children of Israel serve with rigor.
14 And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage-in mortar, in brick, and in all manner of service in the field. All their service in which they made them serve was with rigor.
15 Then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of whom the name of one was Shiphrah and the name of the other Puah;
16 and he said, "When you do the duties of a midwife for the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstools, if it is a son, then you shall kill him; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live."
17 But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the male children alive.
18 So the king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them, "Why have you done this thing, and saved the male children alive?"
19 And the midwives said to Pharaoh, "Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are lively and give birth before the midwives come to them."
20 Therefore God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and grew very mighty.
21 And so it was, because the midwives feared God, that He provided households for them.
22 So Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, "Every son who is born you shall cast into the river, and every daughter you shall save alive."
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Behind this anti-Israel campaign, was Satan trying to foil the coming Seed (the Lord Jesus Christ) from coming into this world. God told him that the Seed of the woman would crush his head. So, he mobilized the Pharaoh of Egypt to hinder it from becoming a reality. If all male children of the Israelites would be annihilated then the promise would practically be annulled.
The point of these verses is this --- God's plan and purpose can never be thwarted and sabotaged. He promised to multiply them, and look, they are multiplying even under adverse and severe opposition and circumstances. Not even the strongest and the most powerful nation on earth can cripple the onward march of the fulfillment of God's determination.
To be sure, the hardships and the persecutions that God allowed to happen to them were used by God for their good.
First of all, all these hardships sparked in them a desire to be liberated and freed from Egypt. In order for them to get out of Egypt and return back to the Promised Land, the desire to do so must spring up from their own hearts first. They must desire to go out.
Just like in the salvation of a sinner, before a sinner can be saved, God must first create the desire to be saved in the hearts of sinners, first of all.
Secondly, the persecution and the harshness of the Egyptians separated the children of Israel from paganism. By this time, if the Egyptians became friendly with them, they would have been absorbed and influenced by their ungodly practices.
Third, their suffering prepared them for what lay ahead of them. It made them physically strong for their journey to the Promised Land.
