What does it feel like to trust an invisible God when the visible gods seem to work?

For 400 years, the Hebrews lived under Egypt's theological shadow. The Nile flooded like clockwork. The harvests came. Egypt's gods had temples, priests, rituals—an entire infrastructure of divine power. And the Hebrews? They had stories. Promises passed down from Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph. A God with no image, no temple, no visible throne.

In Part 3 of our Egypt series, we explore Egypt's religious system—not as ancient mythology, but as the lived reality that shaped how the Bible's heroes understood faith and power.

In this episode, we explore:

• What Ma'at (cosmic order) meant—and why it made Egypt feel invincible
• How Pharaoh was literally considered a god whose existence held the cosmos together
• The Egyptian pantheon: Ra, Osiris, Isis, Horus—gods as political infrastructure
• Why the ten plagues were systematic theological warfare
• How each plague targeted a specific Egyptian god
• What it felt like to watch Egypt's gods proven powerless

The Exodus wasn't just about physical freedom. It was about theological liberation—freeing the Hebrews from a system that made Egypt's power feel inevitable.

You've Heard It Said: where faith meets history, and the stories we thought we knew come alive.

Subscribe to the show or read the written version on Substack:👉 https://youvehearditsaid.short.gy/spotify

Everyone went to Egypt during famine. Abraham went. Isaac almost went (God stopped him). Jacob’s family went—and 400 years later, their descendants couldn’t leave.

Why?

Because Egypt worked. The Nile flooded predictably every year, which meant predictable harvests, which meant Egypt could store grain, tax populations, and control labor with brutal efficiency. Egypt was the ancient world’s insurance policy—and also its most effective trap.

In this episode of You’ve Heard It Said, we unpack how Egypt turned water into power and people into subjects. We’ll trace the pattern of God’s people going to Egypt across Genesis, examine Joseph’s controversial agrarian reforms in Genesis 47, and see how the economic machine Joseph built to save Egypt became the system that enslaved his own descendants.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why the Nile made Egypt different from every other ancient civilization

• The Abraham/Isaac/Jacob cycle: famine, Egypt, wealth, entanglement

• Joseph’s reforms and the creation of Pharaoh’s totalitarian state

• Why Egypt was seductive precisely because it worked

• How the system that saved Israel eventually enslaved them

Egypt wasn’t just oppressive. It was efficient, stable, reliable. And that’s what made it so dangerous.

You’ve Heard It Said: where faith meets history, and the stories we thought we knew come alive.

Follow the show and/or read the written version on Substack (you'll get the reading plan if you do!): 👉 https://youvehearditsaid.short.gy/spotify

You've seen Egypt in Sunday school flannelgraphs. You've seen it in The Prince of Egypt. You've heard it reduced to "the bad guys" in the Exodus story.

But what if almost everything you think you know about Egypt is wrong?

In this episode of You've Heard It Said, we confront the Egypt in your head—the one built by centuries of art, film, and oversimplified retellings. Because if we don't understand what Egypt actually was, we can't fully grasp what God did when He brought Israel out.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why Egypt was a main character in Israel's story, not just a villain
• What ancient Egypt was actually like—and why it was both magnificent and terrifying
• How misunderstanding Egypt means misunderstanding the Exodus
• Why the plagues were a direct confrontation with Egypt's gods
• What it means that the God of enslaved people defeated the greatest empire of the ancient world

This is the foundation for everything that comes next. Welcome to Egypt.

You've Heard It Said: where faith meets history, and the stories we thought we knew come alive.

Follow the show and/or read the written version on Substack (you'll get the reading plan if you do!):👉 https://youvehearditsaid.short.gy/spotify