Risks

16 “When you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.” 17 The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live. Exodus 1

Now that Esther's finished, on to Exodus!  I go through a chapter a week, so we'll be here for a while. 

I finished a very in depth study of Exodus on my own probably a year ago.  There's a lot that goes on in this book, so much in fact, that things are sometimes overlooked.  For example, the above two verses.

They wouldn't normally stand out to me, except I just finished going through Esther with you.  The fun fact that will stick with me about Esther is that God isn't mentioned in the book.  It's one of only two books in the bible that don't mention God's influence.  I brought up before that this leaves a lot of questions about Esther's relationship with God, and how willing or reluctant she was to do his will to save her people.  Yes, she did do it, but her motivation is unknown.

The Israelites suffered a whoooollle lot while they were in Egypt.  Everyone's familiar with the decree that all baby boys be killed and Moses being hidden and placed in a basket in the Nile to avoid this fate.  Yet that wasn't the first decree.  The first order went to the midwives and instructed them to kill the baby boys.  We are told specifically that the midwives feared God and they disobeyed.  They let those boys live.  Their disobedience and fear of God led to the second decree, made to all the Israelites.

I doubt that they knew the consequences of their actions, but they stood by them.  They trusted that they were doing God's will.  Trusting God means we have to sometimes go out on a limb and take a risk.