The children of Israel settled down well in Egypt, Exod. 1. 7. But Egypt was not Canaan, and God never intended His people to remain there. When the time came for them to return to the land of divine promise, God took steps to ensure that His people had no wish to remain in the land of the Pharaohs. Their adversity and hardship at the hands of the ‘new king over Egypt’ was no quirk of fate, 1. 8. Psalm 105 makes it clear that God ‘turned their heart to hate his people, to deal subtilly with his servants’, vv. 23-25. He sometimes reminds us rather sharply that ‘here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come’, Heb. 13. 14. Present trials remind us of our heavenly rest.
The suffering of God’s people in Egypt did not mean that He was unmindful and heedless of their sorry plight. ‘Their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage’, and four things followed.
- ‘And God heard their groaning’. The Apostle Peter, writing to suffering Christians, reminded them that ‘the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers’, 1 Pet. 3. 12. We must not forget, however, that Peter is speaking about the prayers of the ‘righteous’, and that ‘if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me’, Ps. 66. 18.
- ‘And God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob’. Moses later cited their deliverance from Egypt when reminding Israel that ‘the Lord thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him’, Deut. 7. 9. God honoured His covenant with the fathers then, and He will honour every one of His promises to us now. We can confidently exclaim, ‘there hath not failed one word of all his good promise’, 1 Kings 8. 56, and this will become abundantly clear in that ‘morning without clouds’, 2 Sam. 23. 4.
- ‘And God looked upon the children of Israel’. No detail of their suffering escaped His gaze. Like Job, we can say, ‘he knoweth the way that I take’, Job 23. 10.
- ‘And God had respect unto them’, meaning that He cared for them. David wrote about this in Psalm 103, ‘Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust’, v. 13. We can cast all our care upon Him, 1 Pet. 5. 7.
