The site of Pithom, as identified by Naville, is to the east of Wadi Tumilat, south-west of Ismaïlia. Here was formerly a group of granite statues representing Ramesses II, two inscriptions naming Pr-Itm (the city in the reading today Pithom and Rameses), storehouses and bricks made without straw. Further excavation revealed, Tell el-Maskhuta dates only to the end of the 7th B.C. century, and may have been built by Pharaoh Necho II, possibly.Exodus 1:8-21 (God’s Word Translation)
8 Then a new king, who knew nothing about Joseph, began to rule in Egypt. 9 He said to his people, "There are too many Israelites, and they are stronger than we are. 10 We have to outsmart them, or they'll increase in number. Then, if war breaks out, they will join our enemies, fight against us, and leave the country." 11 So the Egyptians put slave drivers in charge of them in order to oppress them through forced labor. They built Pithom and Rameses as supply cities for Pharaoh. 12 But the more the Israelites were oppressed, the more they increased in number and spread out. The Egyptians couldn't stand them any longer. 13 So they forced the Israelites to work hard as slaves. 14 They made their lives bitter with back-breaking work in mortar and bricks and every kind of work in the fields. All the jobs the Egyptians gave them were brutally hard.
15 Then the king of Egypt told the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, 16 "When you help the Hebrew women in childbirth, look at the child when you deliver it. If it's a boy, kill it, but if it's a girl, let it live." 17 However, the midwives feared God and didn't obey the king of Egypt's orders. They let the boys live. 18 So the king of Egypt called for the midwives. He asked them, "Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?" 19 The midwives answered Pharaoh, "Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women. They are so healthy that they have their babies before a midwife arrives." 20 God was good to the midwives. So the people increased in number and became very strong. 21 Because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.
~ 18 So the king of Egypt called for the midwives. He asked them, "Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?"
We looked at Acts 16, the newly forming church Paul and his followers encounter two different Spirits.
Galatians 5:25
Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.
In this one verse of Exodus, we see two Spirits. A world leader, blessed with all the world has to offer, is reduced to namelessness in the Bible, because he lives in a spirit of fear. Fearful his worldly blessings will cease, he opts for murder of the innocent and helpless. Shiphrah and Puah survive their encounter with Pharoah, because their actions say they live in a Spirit of Hope.
Otto Frank (who survived the Holocaust, while his family and daughter, Anne Frank, did not) rejoices with Miep and Jan Gies’ in their baby son Paul in 1951. Miep and Jan Gies hid the Frank family and fed them during the Holocaust.<><
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