8 Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph.

9 And he said unto his people, Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we:

10 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.

Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph.

This verse is, of course, a most pivotal passage in the story of the Israelites. In just a few words the entire fate of the Israelites turned on its head. Without this verse, the story which the entire book of Exodus is dedicated to relating wouldn’t have occurred.

This verse describes the passage from one king of Egypt to another, notably one that never knew Joseph personally. We were told that Joseph lived to the age of one hundred and ten, and depending on the age of the Pharaoh who first made him a prince, it is entirely conceivable that this new pharaoh was three or four generations after that previous ruler. It is also possible that this new king was not the very next ruler born after the death of Joseph, for all we know decades might have passed between the sunset of Joseph and the rise of this new leader. In any case, to this new ruler Joseph was nothing more than a story, and clearly he had no respect to the man’s kin.

And he said unto his people, Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we:

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.

The new Pharaoh was frightened of the Israelites. It seems he didn’t expect them to start a war directly, but if another enemy arose, he thought Israel might join in with them. Apparently he did not know that it was never in the cards for the Israelite people to have a hand in the destruction of Egypt. At various times God would command the descendants of Abraham to eradicate certain nations, but only those in the land of Canaan. That was the land of their inheritance, not Egypt. The Pharaoh of Egypt had nothing to fear.

But, of course, these facts would mean nothing to a Pharaoh who approached the Israelites the same as any other nation. This is not the last time that a foreign nation in the Bible will view God’s chosen people with the same skepticism and pessimism as they held for all the rest of the world. Sadly, many times the godly are punished by the distrust of the ungodly.