History, whether Heilsgeschichte (Salvation history), political history, social, or any other sort of history, is the story of learning, remembering, forgetting, cycling over and over, making some progress, taking some steps back, but always leaving markers along the trail of human experience.

The meaning emerges from the reflective insights that bubble forth in scriptural interpretation and contemplative prayer focused upon the key questions we ask and are asked by God and our fellow travelers.

Joseph died. His brothers died. His whole generation died.

At some point, all that will be left us us on earth will be the elements of our legacies.

What comes next is that which sets the stage for our decisions to reverence God and act with justice toward others or to bow to the waves of power and intimidation.

Deliverance would come decisively to the oppressed, but this passage only pulls back the curtain to reveal many coming years of darkness and oppression during which faithfulness itself would have to serve as its only reward.

It is a piece of the history.

Exodus 1:6-22:
Then Joseph died, and all his brothers, and that whole generation.

But the Israelites were fruitful and prolific; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them.

Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.

He said to his people, "Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land."

Therefore they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor. They built supply cities, Pithom and Rameses, for Pharaoh. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread, so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites.

The Egyptians became ruthless in imposing tasks on the Israelites, and made their lives bitter with hard service in mortar and brick and in every kind of field labor. They were ruthless in all the tasks that they imposed on them.

The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, "When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live."

But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live. So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, "Why have you done this, and allowed the boys to live?"

The midwives said to Pharaoh, "Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them."

So God dealt well with the midwives; and the people multiplied and became very strong.

And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, "Every boy that is born to the Hebrews you shall throw into the Nile, but you shall let every girl live."

 

We can help to shape the world through our influence.

We can change the course of history.

But we cannot freeze it. Time, altered by any influence, does not stagnate. We shall leave a legacy and others shall build upon it. We are responsible for the present while we live inasmuch as it is within the scope of our influence and actions.

After that, something of us remains, is remembered, is forgotten, continues to impact the world, but never dominates history again.

We shall die. All shall die. But as long as we live and beyond our lives, our living matters.

Live well.