Exodus 6:14
These be the heads of their fathers’ houses: The sons of Reuben the firstborn of Israel; Hanoch, and Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi: these be the families of Reuben. These be the heads of their fathers’ houses: The sons of Reuben the firstborn of Israel; Hanoch, and Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi: these be the families of Reuben.
The book containing this genealogy means going out, referring to the departure of Israel from Egypt, and the verse stands in its history section in chapters 1 to 18, which tells in detail the story of their great deliverance. Within that history it belongs to the record in chapters 1 to 12 of God's call to the kingdoms of earth, set three and one-half millenniums ago when Egypt ruled the world as the greatest of the kingdoms of earth. That Egypt was acknowledged for might and power and skill and wisdom in statecraft, deifying its annually overflowing and fertilizing river as a god and worshiping the sun, from whom its kings received title as representative of the sun-god upon the throne of men.
The heads and families named here are among the few descendants of the nomadic patriarch Abraham who had sought supplies from Egypt's granaries. Among them was the captive slave Joseph, who taught Pharaoh to store grain in plenteous years to become rich in famine and instituted an easy rental and tax land-law. While he was prime minister and as long as his memory lived among Egypt's rulers he was honored, his laws governed, the country flourished, and the people living in Egypt knew no oppression and prospered.
The verse stands at the beginning of Israel's deliverance, after the family of Israel settled in Egypt had grown more and mightier than the Egyptians. By then that family had become a nation with thorough organization, efficient leadership, a complete code of laws, and an established form of worship under the chosen leadership of Moses from his rescue in infancy onward. Yet Israel was then in bitter bondage and oppression with the whole power of Egypt set against them.
It comes before God's mighty work of saving them, which was creative power shown over again, such work as was never done in saving any other nation. That work ends with Israel in triumph on the farther side of the Red Sea with the host of Egypt overthrown. That deliverance of Israel from Egypt and at the Red Sea demonstrated God's wisdom, love, and power and His ability and right to rule, along with Israel's obligation to obey, while still leaving them to be tested and tried to prove whether they would walk in His law or not.