Exodus 1 - Sons and slavery.

Exodus Chapter 1

Exodus chapter 1 takes up where Genesis leaves off – with about 70 descendants of Israel living in Egypt.

Next moment it seems that about 300 years have passed and a new Pharaoh who is not familiar with the history of Joseph.

It seems that the Israelites have not been idle in the meantime and they are becoming a very significant minority in the country.

Pharaoh decides that unless they are bought into line they might side with enemies and tip the balance of a war, so he enslaves the Israelites and makes them work hard to take their minds off having children.

I wonder if the precedent for being able to make people slaves on a whim started with Joseph's financial dealing in Genesis?

Unfortunately it does not work – if anything the birth rate goes up.

Pharaoh then tells the midwives to kill all baby boys of the Israelites and reduce the population that way.

The Midwives don’t like this and carefully ignore the demand, so Pharaoh seems to lose the plot (and, as we shall see, not for the last time).

Can anybody explain how, if you want to reduce the ratio of Israelites to Egyptians, making EVERYBODY kill their new born sons will help in any way? 

Especially when he knows that the Israelites will happily ignore the edict.