Verse 6 is transitional.17 If Exodus 1:1 began by recounting events that transpired in Genesis 46, now at Exodus 1:6 the reader is taken to the events of Genesis 50:26, where the notice was given that Joseph had died.18 Exodus 1:6 reads, “Then Joseph died, and all his brothers and all that generation.” This verse is transitional
because it marks the end of the history of the particular family of Jacob. Moving forward to Exodus 1:7 and following, the focus shifts to an entire people, the wider group of the descendants of Abraham, who eventually become the established nation of Israel.
With verse 7 comes perhaps the most central verse of the passage, and it would be hard to overstate the importance of reading Exodus 1:7 through the lens of the prequel called Genesis, since Exodus 1:7 is brimming with allusions to Genesis. The verse reads,
“But the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them.” First, this verse is a direct fulfillment of Genesis 46:3, where God had promised Jacob that while in Egypt, Jacob and family would be made into a great nation.19 Exodus 1:7 declares the new victory of super-fertility in the descendants of Jacob, wrought by God, which has overcome the infertility found in Genesis (in people like Sarah, Rachel and Rebekah).20 Exodus 1:7
17Commenting on vv. 6-7, Currid, A Study Commentary on Exodus, 43, writes, “The author is attempting to move from a history centred on an individual (i.e., Abraham) or a family/clan (i.e., Jacob’s sons), as found in Genesis, to a history that will now focus on a people (eventually a nation).”
18Commenting on Exod 1:6 is Moshe Greenberg, Understanding Exodus: A Holistic
Commentary on Exodus 1-11, 2nd ed. (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2013), 16: “The true sequel to Gen 50:26 sets in only in verse 6.”
19As noted by Philip Graham Ryken, Exodus: Saved for God’s Glory, Preaching the Word (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2005), 36.
20Victor P. Hamilton, Exodus: An Exegetical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2011), 5, comments, “In Genesis the problem is too much infertility. Here so much fertility will arouse the paranoid fears of Pharaoh. Apparently there are few, if any, Sarahs or Rebekahs or Rachels in Goshen.” Similar is the comment of John Goldingay, Old Testament Theology, vol. 1, Israel’s Gospel (Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity, 2003), 291: “Extraordinarily . . . the old couple who could not have children have become a multitude, enough to fill a land.”
declares that the mass of the descendants of Jacob is the new Adam; the group of people being fruitful and multiplying in keeping with the command of God that had been given to Adam in Genesis 1:28, to Noah in Genesis 9:1 and 7, and to Jacob in Genesis 35:11.21 Exodus 1:7 announces that what God had promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in terms of making them fruitful and multiplying has come to pass.22 The mustard seed called Abraham has now become the tree; and a new creation moment has arrived.23
Exodus 1:7 plainly alerts the arrival of a new creation because it repeats four Hebrew words found in the creation account of Genesis 1:20-22.24 In Genesis 1:20-22, sea creatures and birds are commanded by God to “swarm” and be “fruitful” and
“multiply” and “fill” their domains. In Exodus 1:7, the Hebrew literally indicates that the descendants of Abraham were “swarming” and being “fruitful” and “multiplying” and
“filling” the land of Egypt. Thus Exodus 1:7 indicates a new creation moment. A new
21A great many commentators and theologians have observed the correspondences between Exod 1:7 and (at least!) Gen 1:28; 9:1, 7; and 35:11. Among these commentators are Brevard S. Childs, The Book of Exodus: A Critical, Theological Commentary, The Old Testament Library (Philadelphia:
Westminster, 1974), 2-3; Currid, A Study Commentary on Exodus, 44; Stephen G. Dempster, Dominion and Dynasty: A Theology of the Hebrew Bible, New Studies in Biblical Theology 15 (Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity, 2003), 93-94; William J. Dumbrell, The Faith of Israel: A Theological Survey of the Old Testament, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002), 32; Enns, Exodus, 40; Everett Fox, The Schocken Bible, vol. 1, The Five Books of Moses (New York: Schocken, 1995), 256; Terence E. Fretheim, Exodus,
Interpretation (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010), 25; Duane A. Garrett, A Commentary on Exodus (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2014), 150; James M. Hamilton, Jr., God’s Glory in Salvation through Judgment: A Biblical Theology (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010), 90; Hamilton, Exodus, 5; Cornelis Houtman, Exodus, Historical Commentary on the Old Testament, vol. 1 (Leuven, Belgium: Peeters-Leuven, 1993), 231, 233;
Mackay, Exodus, 32; Sarna, Exodus, 4, and Douglas K. Stuart, Exodus, The New American Commentary, vol. 2 (Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 2006), 61.
22Abraham: see Gen 17:2, 6; 22:17. Isaac: see Gen 26:4, 24. Jacob: see Gen 28:3; 35:11; 48:4.
23The idea in this sentence was gleaned from Garrett, A Commentary on Exodus, 150: “The unexpectedly rapid population increase recalls Jesus’ parables of the mustard seed and leaven (Luke 13:19, 21). The kingdom of God may look very small at a given time and place, but its destiny is to become a great multitude (Rev. 7:9).”
24The four words are ה ָר ָפּ (‘bear fruit’); ץ ַר ָשׁ (‘swarm, teem’); ה ָב ָר (‘multiply’); and א ֵל ָמ (‘fill’).
humanity has arisen in Egypt; a humanity whom God has purposed for his missionary purposes. Missionary purposes?25
Already noted is the fact that that Exodus 1:7 alludes directly to Genesis 1:28.
Genesis 1:28 is God’s commission to Adam to “be fruitful, multiply, and fill” the earth, and Exodus 1:7 tells that the descendants of Abraham were “fruitful, multiplied, and filled”
the land of Egypt. So Exodus 1:7 and Genesis 1:28 are certainly connected. The
descendants of Abraham are the new Adam in Egypt. However, it is interesting to consider that the two verses leading up to Genesis 1:28 are all about God’s image. Genesis 1:26-27 are about God making humankind in his image. The reason God wanted Adam to “be fruitful, multiply and fill” the earth in Genesis 1:28 was for mission: specifically, that God’s image and glory would spread across the globe. Adam failed, ultimately. So later in Genesis, when God commissioned Abraham, God reiterated his purpose to bless the globe through Abraham, the new Adam. In Genesis 12:3, God promised that through the descendants of Abraham, all the families of the earth would receive blessing. In Exodus 1:7, the descendants of Abraham are a teeming mass. Ross Blackburn explains, “Israel’s fruitfulness indicates that God’s missionary purposes were going forward in Egypt.”26 With this fact in mind, the attempt of Pharaoh to oppress the super-fertile descendants of Abraham looks all the more heinous.27 In trying to damage the psyche of God’s people
25In the paragraph that follows I am indebted to the argument presented in W. Ross Blackburn, The God Who Makes Himself Known: The Missionary Heart of the Book of Exodus, New Studies in Biblical Theology 28 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2012), 29-30.
26Blackburn, The God Who Makes Himself Known, 30.
27Ibid. Blackburn writes, “Pharaoh’s opposition threatens God’s purposes to be known
throughout the world.” Ibid. Enns, Exodus, 43, concurs, “The Egyptian king . . . is presented as an anti-God figure; he repeatedly places himself in direct opposition to God’s redemptive plan.” Peter Enns, “Exodus (Book),” in New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, ed. T. Desmond Alexander and Brian S. Rosner (Leicester:
InterVarsity, 2000), 147, writes, “Pharaoh represents not only a force which is hostile to God’s people and enslaves them (vv. 11-14), but also a force hostile to God himself, who wills that his people multiply.”
and snuff out their numbers, Pharaoh is raging against God’s missionary purposes, which will always be a losing battle and a highly dangerous one at that.