What is the significance of Egypt in the Bible?

If we were to examine closely the different characters of the nations who have been connected with the people of God, we should perhaps find in each a specific form of evil pretty clearly delineated. At all events it is so in the principal enemies of that people. Egypt, Babylon, Nineveh, are prominently marked by that which they morally represent. Egypt is the world in its natural condition, whence the people have come forth. Babylon is corruption in the activity of power, by which the people are enslaved. Nineveh is the haughty glory of the world, which recognises nothing but its own importance — the world, the open enemy of God's people, simply by its pride. She shall be judged like all the rest, and disappear for ever under the judgment of the Almighty. Jehovah has given a commandment against her, that no more of her name be sown. This judgment is so simple, that the prophecy which declares it requires very little explanation.

They were slaves in Egypt. Here was both their condition and position before Him — in bondage as to the one, and on the other in the territory where Satan ruled. We may ask the question here, What does Egypt signify? Just as Syria, and the Wilderness, and Canaan, have their spiritual and typical meaning, so has Egypt. It is not man in nature as God made him; nor is it man in nature fallen (that is Syria). Egypt is man in nature, fallen, and captive under the power of the enemy. Hence an Israelite redeemed and in the possession of the land, coming to worship the Lord with his basket of firstfruits, should own this as his former state and say, “A Syrian ready to perish was my father, and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous: and the Egyptians evil entreated us, and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage: and when we cried unto the Lord God of our fathers, the Lord heard our voice, and looked on our affliction, and our labour, and our oppression: and the Lord brought us forth out of Egypt, with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm” (Deut. 26:5-7). Man in nature had fallen, and he was under the enemy’s power; God alone could now deliver.

The descendants of Abraham went down into Egypt, which for the moment was a place of security and plenty under the benign rule of Joseph. Presently it became to them the house of bondage. If in Abram's day we see the world-system as the seat of man's progress in combination, yet under the idols of Satan's creation; and in Lot's day we see it as the seat of vile corruption; in the day of Moses we see Egypt as the world in its enslaving power, oppressing the people of God. Hence to Moses the word of God was, "I am come down to deliver them OUT of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them OUT of that land" (Ex. 3:8). At that epoch Egypt was a splendid and attractive place, apart from the taskmasters, but it was no place for the people, if they were to worship God.

Could God have sustained Abram in the land in spite of the famine? Certainly He could! But Abram forgot to consider this: he went down into Egypt, which was outside the land of promise. It is a type of the world in a little different form than Mesopotamia, where he had come from. Egypt's idolatry may not have been so blatant as that of Ur of the Chaldees, but Egypt symbolizes the world in its independence of God. Its name means "double straits" because of its dependence on the river Nile to water the land on both sides. Its character is portrayed in Ezekiel 29:3, where she is quoted as saying "My river is my own; I have made it for myself.". Since the source of the river is far removed, she does not give God credit for having originated it.

EGYPT as the place where the Israelites were in slavery to the Egyptians — type of the world where mankind is in bondage to Satan, the god of this world. Ex. 2:23; 2 Cor. 4:4; Gal. 1:4; 1 John 5:19.

Both of these represent the world. Egypt, is the world in its oppression, in which man is treated as the slave of the enemy (Satan), represented by Pharaoh, its prince. Man may groan under it, as he will, when the light shines in, or he may be ignorant of the chains that bind him. In either case, he is but a helpless slave in this world.

And yet there are other lessons. Egypt is the type of the world; Pharaoh the type of the prince of this world. The bondage of sin and the wretchedness of God's people, still undelivered, are here depicted. God permitted all so that they might groan for deliverance. The house of bondage opens the way for redemption by blood and by power.

Thus was it now between the Lord and Moses at this holy mount. Then by miracle upon miracle, in the sight of Egypt, and with plague upon plague, and fury poured out, this deliverer rescues Israel from under the hand of their taskmasters. It was the day of judgment to Egypt, as afterwards it was to Canaan. For Egypt was the world, as I have said. She had filled up her sins. She had despised the day of grace in Joseph, and now comes the day of judgment by Moses. It is as the wrath of the Lamb coming on those who refuse the blood of the Lamb. Pharaoh said he knew not the Lord, but Pharaoh must know Him (Ex. 5:2; Ex. 9:14). If Pharaoh would disown Him in goodness, he must know Him in righteousness, for His judgments were now to be made manifest, and "the Lord is known by the judgment which he executeth." As His holy prophet says to Him, "When thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness." God would be known in grace; but if that lesson be refused by Egypt, she must know Him in the uplifted hand of power, as she now does, till the strength and flower of her people lie on the banks of the Red Sea (Ex. 5 - 15).

As to Egypt, Joseph's history may indeed cast a halo of glory over it; - as even the world itself will be changed in its character when the humbled One comes to take His power;* still its real character is to be found only in the hard and bitter bondage of Israel. For how often is that word repeated in the books of Moses, "Remember ye were bondmen in Egypt!" And their redemption is thus characterised in Deuteronomy 4:20, "The Lord hath taken you, and brought you forth out of the iron furnace, even out of Egypt, to be unto Him a people of inheritance as it is this day."

Egypt too, it must be remembered, was the place of sojourn of God's favoured people Israel. It was a king of Egypt who caused to be translated the Old Testament into Greek, the LXX, quoted by the Lord Himself when on earth; and it was to Egypt that Joseph fled with the young child and His mother from the wrath of Herod. Egypt was a broken reed on which the Israelites rested: it oppressed them and even attacked and pillaged Jerusalem. But it has been punished and remains desolate to this day; and further, as the kingdom of the South it will yet be dealt with: cf. Dan. 11:42-43. Afterwards God will also heal and bring it into blessing: in grace He says "Blessed be Egypt my People."