Exodus 1:13-17 "And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigour: And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in morter, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field: all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigour. And the king of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives, of which the name of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah: And he said, When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the stools; if it be a son, then ye shall kill him: but if it be a daughter, then she shall live. But the midwives feared God, and did not as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the men children alive."
Exodus 1:21-22 "And it came to pass, because the midwives feared God, that he made them houses. And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river, and every daughter ye shall save alive."
As God blessed the children of Israel to grow, so too did Pharaoh’s frustration grow. It had come to the point where they were the Egyptians were truly treating the Israelites as mere slaves. They were making them serve with rigour. In our use of the word rigor (rigour) today, we take it to mean rigid, precise, or difficult.
The meaning of the word translated as rigour here means “ to break apart; fracture, that is, severity.” The Egyptians had made it their goal to fracture the children of Israel. No doubt, they were being beaten and physically broken. However, the real aim was to break their spirit and to make them ashamed of who they were.
When this cruelty failed to decrease Israel, the midwives were given the onerous charge to kill all the male children that were born to the children of Israel. The daughters were to be left alive to work and eventually be fully assimilated into the Egyptian culture. BUT the midwives feared (reverenced) the God of their forefather Jacob. They defied Pharaoh, and saved the baby boys that were born.
God blessed the midwives in their reverence of Him. He made them houses, which could have several implications. Certainly, they were in danger from Pharaoh, so God may have moved the children of Israel to build the midwives homes where they could be hidden from Pharaoh’s sight. It might also be that God blessed them with sons and daughters of their own, so that they became great houses among the children of Israel. Whatever the case, their faithfulness to God did not go unnoticed by Him.
Whatever the case, Pharaoh ordered the Egyptians to take a more direct hand in matters. He commanded all his people that if they found a son born to the Israelites that they were to throw them into the river to drown. His “wise” dealing with Israel (Exodus 1:10) had degenerated into greater and greater cruelty. Even in this, God was working to show that He was mightier than any new king.
Beloved of God, the world today is still working against us with rigor. Men would have you to be ashamed of being followers of Jesus, and there are some that should be ashamed for taking the teachings of Jesus and wrestling them to justify hatred and malice. But never be ashamed of loving like Jesus, living like Jesus, and standing in the righteous paths that Jesus has set for us. Never let the world fracture your desire to walk uprightly and glorify God!