Not only did the Israelite couples persist in having children in spite of all the government’s strong recommendations against it, but the midwives also helped them (Exodus 1:18). By including both these groups—couples and midwives—the Lord shows that the responsibility for children in the church does not just fall on those who have children of their own, but also on the unmarried and single, and those to whom God did not give children.

The most important driving force in the decision of the Hebrew couples and midwives to have and protect the children was their faith in the promises of God and their hope in the coming Messiah. The command from the beginning comes from God and is a command to be fruitful (Genesis 1:28; Genesis 9:1, Genesis 9:7; Genesis 35:11).

Further, inherent in the promise of enmity in Genesis 3:15 was the command to remain distinct from other nations, not to intermarry with other peoples, nor to adopt their religious practices and worldview. If the people of God only had daughters born to them in the land of Egypt, the names of the families could easily be erased as Egyptian men took these women into their own homes under their authority and religion. The danger of erasing the distinction between the holy people of God and the rest of the world becomes clear when we look at Genesis 12:1–3. Here we see that the Lord promises that the covenant people of God would become a great nation in their own land and that through them all the families of the earth would be blessed. Those who feared God among the people of Israel understood that their love for their neighbour compelled them to remain distinct from the world as God’s holy people and to care about the well-being and growth of the church into future generations.

The ongoing faithfulness of the people of God in having children was also closely connected to their own particular lives and their faith in God’s promise to rescue them from Egypt. The people of Israel would have known Genesis 15:16–21, and the promise of both affliction for four hundred years in a foreign land and a return to the Promised Land in the fourth generation. In this context we can understand why the genealogy that we find in Exodus 1:1–6 is a declaration of God’s triumph. In spite of the unfaithfulness of many of the sons of Jacob, their dance with the danger of intermingling with the surrounding nations, and their disregard for the promise of a coming Messiah, there was a unified church of Jacob’s twelve sons and their children and grandchildren in Egypt. The genealogy at the beginning of Exodus also served as a reminder to the Israelites of the importance of being faithful to the Lord in having children themselves. God was establishing the people of Israel as one holy nation in enmity with the world, in order to bring deliverance through them just as he had promised to Adam and Eve. The Lord was working to make things ready for their return to the Promised Land in anticipation of the birth of the Son of God, and it was this hope that encouraged God’s people to be faithful in their mandate.

The Hebrew midwives did what God wanted them to so that the Saviour could be born. Do we as Christian church still need to devote so much attention to children? Once again, Genesis makes the answer to those questions clear, for it shows us that God’s command to be fruitful and increase comes before his promise to use families to bring the Saviour into the world. Even after the Saviour has come, the original purpose of having children remains and also today we can know that the Lord is blessing believers with children so that all those whom he had chosen before the foundation of the world might experience the blessing of peace and fellowship with him. The gospel message is that there are more names to be added to the genealogies of the kingdom of God, under King Christ.

Although it is God alone who gives the growth in his way and in his time, as God’s people, young or old, single or married, parents or childless, we are all called to be a part of this work of God. Whether we are preparing ourselves to be married one day, changing diapers, babysitting for fellow church members, guiding teenagers, or contributing to Christian education, we can know that this is God’s work and it is glorious and wonderful. And knowing that the devil and his forces will continue to attack the future generations of the church, Exodus 1 urges us to be deliberately focused on our responsibilities, courageous and ready for battle. Whether or not the Lord has given us children of our own, let us work together as God’s covenant people to raise the children of the church in faith and confidence, not only for today but also for the coming generations. As we fight in this spiritual battle together, we thank the Lord that he is on our side and that no one can prevent him from fulfilling his purposes through us. Even though it is not always easy to see the power of God in a world that is so hostile, we know that Jesus Christ is King and he is and will continue to gather, defend, and preserve his church, until he comes again.