“Come on, let us deal wisely with them; lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that, when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land.”
Pharaoh's strategy session with his officials reveals a mind shaped by fear and strategic calculation: let us deal shrewdly with them, he says, lest they multiply further, side with Egypt's enemies in war, and leave the country. The word 'shrewdly' in Hebrew carries a bitter irony — it is the same root used to describe the serpent's cunning in Genesis 3:1. The shrewdness Pharaoh deploys against Israel is the wisdom of the fall, not of the Creator. He fears losing both a labor force and a military buffer, which explains why his solution is oppression rather than expulsion. Psalm 2:1–4 pictures this kind of political scheming against God's purposes with devastating irony — the Lord in heaven laughs. Every human strategy designed to suppress what God is growing eventually provides the stage for a more dramatic display of his power.
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