Bible Commentaries

Exodus 1:8

It is a rare thing to find posterity heirs of their father's love. How should men's favour be but like themselves, variable and inconstant! There is no certainty but in the favour of God, in whom can be no change, whose love is entailed upon a thousand generations.

—Bishop Hall.

Exodus 1:10

Crimes and criminals are swept away by time, nature finds an antidote for their poisons, and they and their ill consequences alike are blotted out and perish. If we do not forgive the villain at least we cease to hate him, as it grows more clear to us that he injures none so deeply as himself. But the θηριώδης κακία, the enormous wickedness by which humanity itself has been outraged and disgraced, we cannot forgive; we cannot cease to hate that; the years roll away, but the tints of it remain on the page of history, deep and horrible as the day on which they were entered there.

—Froude, Short Studies, I. pp468-469.

Reference.—I:10-12.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xvii. No997.

Exodus 1:12

I have observed, the more the Lord's people are afflicted, and persecuted, the more they grow; and the Gospel never thrives better than when it is persecuted.

—Fraser of Brea.

Exodus 1:22

By the decree of Pharaoh, Moses is dead as soon as he is born; by the decree of God, Moses is brought up in Pharaoh's house. In spite of his own decree Pharaoh nurses, feeds, educates Moses; and Moses, on behalf of God, uses against Pharaoh all that he derives from Pharaoh. God is wiser than Pharaoh. The devil is old, but God is older. The devil is God's lowest drudge, and servant of servants, who knows not the wonderful fabric which will result from his cross-working.

—Dr. Pulsford, Quiet Hours, p18.

References.—I:22.—J. Parker, Wednesday Evenings at Cavendish Chapel, p77. II:1-10.—B. D. Johns, Pulpit Notes, p22. J. Parker, Wednesday Evenings at Cavendish Chapel, p77. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture—The Book of Exodus , etc, p12. II:2.—H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Holy-Tide Teaching, p15. A. Murray, The Children for Christ, p70. II:3.—C. Leach, Mothers of the Bible, p27. E. Tremayne Dunstan, Christ in the Commonplace, p41.