It will be remembered that when God made the covenant with Abraham, He told him that he himself should die without having received the inheritance, and that his descendants should be oppressed and afflicted in a strange land, and that afterwards, in the fourth generation, they should come into the promised land.
“And He gave him the covenant of circumcision; and so Abraham begat Isaac, and circumcised him the eighth day; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat the twelve patriarchs. And the patriarchs, moved with envy, sold Joseph into Egypt; but God was with him, and delivered him out of all his afflictions, and gave him favor and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh king of Egypt; and he made him governor over Egypt and all his house. . . . Then sent Joseph, and called his father Jacob to him, and all his kindred, threescore and fifteen souls. So Jacob went down into Egypt, and died, he, and our fathers, and were carried over into Sychem, and laid in the sepulcher that Abraham had bought for a sum of money of the sons of Emmor, the father of Sychem. But when the time of the promise drew nigh, which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt, till another king arose who knew not JosEphesians The same dealt subtly with our fathers, so that they cast out their young children, to the end they might not live.” Acts 7.8-19
The king “who knew not Joseph,” was one of another dynasty, a people from the East which conquered Egypt. “For thus saith the Lord, Ye were sold for naught, and ye shall be redeemed without money. For thus saith the Lord God, My people went down at the first into Egypt to sojourn there; and the Assyrian oppressed them without cause. Now, therefore, what do I here saith the Lord, seeing that My people is taken away for naught? They that rule over them do howl; saith the Lord; and My name continually all the day is blasphemed. Therefore My people shall know My name; therefore they shall know in that day that am He that doth speak; behold, it is I.” Isaiah 52.3-6. R.V.
From the text last quoted we learn that the oppression of Israel in Egypt was opposition and blasphemy against God; that contempt for their God and their religion had a great deal to do with its rigor. We learn also that their deliverance from Egypt was identical with the deliverance, which comes to all who are “sold under sin.” “Ye have sold yourselves for naught; and ye shall be redeemed without money.” “Knowing that ye were redeemed, not with corruptible things, with silver or gold, from your vain manner of life handed down from your fathers; but with precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, even the blood of Christ.” 1 Peter 1.18,19 R.V. A brief study therefore of what Egypt stands for in the Bible, and of the real condition of the Israelites while there, will enable us to understand what was involved in their deliverance.