Notes Ex. 1:8-2:10
1)A play may be made between not knowing Joseph and his wisdom and using a different tactic, shrewdness, in dealing with the numerous Israelites.Notice that be frutiful and multiply has turned into a curse as aliens.
2) The issues of resident aliens in our time is obvious.
3) Egypt, a land of plenty, is being governed by a scarcity ethic and its ally fear.
4)Janzen in Exodus p. 18 finds a linguistic parallel to the tower of Babel story.
5) Not only do the Egyptians employ brutal labor policies, they ask midwives to kill the male babies. It is impressive that their names are kept for us, when the Egyptian princes are left unnamed. Shiphrah-brightness, Puah=brilliance-so both deal with light -Can't you see how oppressed people would love that two midwives dared to fool the king in this way. I just read that King James I disapproved of this action and disliked the Geneva Bible notes approving it.
6) Moses comes from the priestly tribe. (Levi=attached)
7) Moses =son in Egyptian but mosheh in Hebrew means to draw out. The basket that is drawn from the nile is the same word as ark of Noah or the ark of the tabernacle, it could be a box, a container as well.