The Heart's Cry: Psalm 105

Psalm 105

Then Israel came to Egypt;
    Jacob lived as an alien in the land of Ham.
And the Lord made his people very fruitful,
    and made them stronger than their foes,
whose hearts he then turned to hate his people,
    to deal craftily with his servants.

So the Lord brought his people to Israel to save them from a famine and then the Lord caused them to flourish in size and strength and then the Lord caused Egypt to hate and fear them and put them in slavery. I don't know about you but that seems a weird way to go about things in order to then rescue them from Egypt, was there no better way? Is that how things really happened? Or did Joseph get sold into slavery by his angry brothers, then triumph over those circumstances only to be betrayed by a woman [Potiphar's wife] and thrown into jail. Then after so long Joseph was set free and could see the coming famine, saving all of Egypt and in turn Israel. Living in a land that was prepared for the coming hardship Israel flourished beyond what Egypt was willing to allow and seeing the potential threat in her immigrants decided that something needed to be done. They most likely closed their borders to make sure that no more Israelites could enter and then changed their freedoms inch by inch until they were no longer able to take care of themselves. Once that happened it was easy to round them up and force them into slavery for the good of the Nation. Within this turn of events a mother saves her baby who ends up in the Pharaoh's own household where he grows in strength but understands that his people are in pain. One day he acts and kills an Egyptian which forces him to flee, many years later he is walking on a hill and comes across a bush that is burning and learns that the ground is Holy and that God is calling him to go back to Egypt and rescue his people.

Was that a long paragraph? I'll make this one shorter. I do not believe that God caused the Egyptians to hate and fear the Israelites. God is not a God who wants the people to be slaves, God is a God who wants the people to be free. What seems more likely to me than God causing the hatred to begin and grow is that the Psalmist heard the story of the Exodus and decided that since God is in the control room God must be responsible for everything, and Egypt hating her immigrants falls under the category of everything. And that there is the problem in believing that God makes everything happen. That belief leads to blaming God for car accidents and terrorist attacks and cancer diagnoses. That belief leads to people walking away from faith. That belief leads to fanatical followers of fanatical leaders who say 'it happened so God must have wanted it to happen.'

+ 'Bad things happen because bad things happen' Agree or disagree?