Israel Multiplies Under Oppression

The second book of Moses is called שׁמות ואלה in the Hebrew Codex from the opening words; but in the Septuagint and Vulgate it has received the name Ἔξοδος, Exodus , from the first half of its contents. It gives an account of the first stage in the fulfilment of the promises given to the patriarchs, with reference to the growth of the children of Israel into a numerous people, their deliverance from Egypt, and their adoption at Sinai as the people of God.

It embraces a period of 360 years, extending from the death of Joseph, with which the book of Genesis closes, to the building of the tabernacle, at the commencement of the second year after the departure from Egypt. During this period the rapid increase of the children of Israel, which is described in Exo 1, and which caused such anxiety to the new sovereigns of Egypt who had ascended the throne after the death of Joseph, that they adopted measure for the enslaving and suppression of the ever increasing nation, continued without interruption.

With the exception of this fact, and the birth, preservation, and education of Moses, who was destined by God to be the deliverer of His people, which are circumstantially related in Exo 2, the entire book from Exo 3 to Exo 40 is occupied with an elaborate account of the events of two years, viz. , the last year before the departure of the Israelites from Egypt, and the first year of their journey.

This mode of treating the long period in question, which seems out of all proportion when judged by a merely outward standard, may be easily explained from the nature and design of the sacred history. The 430 years of the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt were the period during which the immigrant family was to increase and multiply, under the blessing and protection of God, in the way of natural development; until it had grown into a nation, and was ripe for that covenant which Jehovah had made with Abraham, to be completed with the nation into which his seed had grown.

During the whole of this period the direct revelations from God to Israel were entirely suspended; so that, with the exception of what is related in Exo 1 and 2, no event occurred of any importance to the kingdom of God. It was not till the expiration of these 400 years, that the execution of the divine plan of salvation commenced with the call of Moses (Exo 3) accompanied by the founding of the kingdom of God in Israel.

To this end Israel was liberated from the power of Egypt, and, as a nation rescued from human bondage, was adopted by God, the Lord of the whole earth, as the people of His possession. These two great facts of far-reaching consequences in the history of the world, as well as in the history of salvation, form the kernel and essential substance of this book, which may be divided accordingly into two distinct parts.

In the first part, Exo 1-15:21, we have seven sections, describing (1) the preparation for the saving work of God, through the multiplication of Israel into a great people and their oppression in Egypt (Exo 1), and through the birth and preservation of their liberator (Exo 2); (2) the call and training of Moses to be the deliverer and leader of Israel (Exo 3 and 4); (3) the mission of Moses to Pharaoh (Exo 5-7:7); (4) the negotiations between Moses and Pharaoh concerning the emancipation of Israel, which were carried on both in words and deeds or miraculous signs (Exo 7:8-11); (5) the consecration of Israel as the covenant nation through the institution of the feast of Passover; (6) the Exodus of Israel effected through the slaying of the first-born of the Egyptians (Exo 12-13:16); and (7) the passage of Israel through the Red Sea, and destruction of Pharaoh and his host, with Israel’s song of triumph at its deliverance (Exo 13:17-15:21). - In the second part, Exo 15:22-40:38, we have also seven sections, describing the adoption of Israel as the people of God; viz.

, (1) the march of Israel from the Red Sea to the mountain of God (Exo 15:22-17:7); (2) the attitude of the heathen towards Israel, as seen in the hostility of Amalek, and the friendly visit of Jethro the Midianite at Horeb (Exo 17:8-18:27); (3) the establishment of the covenant at Sinai through the election of Israel as the people of Jehovah’s possession, the promulgation of the fundamental law and of the fundamental ordinances of the Israelitish commonwealth, and the solemn conclusion of the covenant itself (Exo 19-24:11); (4) the divine directions with regard to the erection and arrangement of the dwelling-place of Jehovah in Israel (Exo 24:12-31:18); (5) the rebellion of the Israelites and their renewed acceptance on the part of God (Exo 32-34); (6) the building of the tabernacle and preparation of holy things for the worship of God (Exo 35-39); ); and (7) the setting up of the tabernacle and its solemn consecration (Exo 40). These different sections are not marked off, it is true, like the ten parts of Genesis, by special headings, because the account simply follows the historical succession of the events described; but they may be distinguished with perfect east, through the internal grouping and arrangement of the historical materials.

The song of Moses at the Red Sea (15:1-21) formed most unmistakeably the close of the first stage of the history, which commenced with the call of Moses, and for which the way was prepared, not only by the enslaving of Israel on the part of the Pharaohs, in the hope of destroying its national and religious independence, but also by the rescue and education of Moses, and by his eventful life. And the setting up of the tabernacle formed an equally significant close to the second stage of the history.

By this, the covenant which Jehovah had made with the patriarch Abram (Gen 15) was established with the people Israel. By the filling of the dwelling-place, which had just been set up, with the cloud of the glory of Jehovah (Exo 40:34-38), the nation of Israel was raised into a congregation of the Lord and the establishment of the kingdom of God in Israel fully embodied in the tabernacle, with Jehovah dwelling in the Most Holy Place; so that all subsequent legislation, and the further progress of the history in the guidance of Israel from Sinai to Canaan, only served to maintain and strengthen that fellowship of the Lord with His people, which had already been established by the conclusion of the covenant, and symbolically exhibited in the building of the tabernacle.

By this marked conclusion, therefore, with a fact as significant in itself as it was important in the history of Israel, Exodus, which commences with a list of the names of the children of Israel who went down to Egypt, is rounded off into a complete and independent book among the five books of Moses.

Exo 1:1-5 To place the multiplication of the children of Israel into a strong nation in its true light, as the commencement of the realization of the promises of God, the number of the souls that went down with Jacob to Egypt is repeated from Gen 46:27 (on the number 70, in which Jacob is included, see the notes on this passage); and the repetition of the names of the twelve sons of Jacob serves to give to the history which follows a character of completeness within itself. “ With Jacob they came, every one and his house, ” i.

e. , his sons, together with their families, their wives, and their children. The sons are arranged according to their mothers, as in Gen 35:23-26, and the sons of the two maid-servants stand last. Joseph, indeed, is not placed in the list, but brought into special prominence by the words, “ for Joseph was in Egypt ” (Exo 1:5), since he did not go down to Egypt along with the house of Jacob, and occupied an exalted position in relation to them there.

Exo 1:1-5 To place the multiplication of the children of Israel into a strong nation in its true light, as the commencement of the realization of the promises of God, the number of the souls that went down with Jacob to Egypt is repeated from Gen 46:27 (on the number 70, in which Jacob is included, see the notes on this passage); and the repetition of the names of the twelve sons of Jacob serves to give to the history which follows a character of completeness within itself. “ With Jacob they came, every one and his house, ” i.

e. , his sons, together with their families, their wives, and their children. The sons are arranged according to their mothers, as in Gen 35:23-26, and the sons of the two maid-servants stand last. Joseph, indeed, is not placed in the list, but brought into special prominence by the words, “ for Joseph was in Egypt ” (Exo 1:5), since he did not go down to Egypt along with the house of Jacob, and occupied an exalted position in relation to them there.

Exo 1:1-5 To place the multiplication of the children of Israel into a strong nation in its true light, as the commencement of the realization of the promises of God, the number of the souls that went down with Jacob to Egypt is repeated from Gen 46:27 (on the number 70, in which Jacob is included, see the notes on this passage); and the repetition of the names of the twelve sons of Jacob serves to give to the history which follows a character of completeness within itself. “ With Jacob they came, every one and his house, ” i.

e. , his sons, together with their families, their wives, and their children. The sons are arranged according to their mothers, as in Gen 35:23-26, and the sons of the two maid-servants stand last. Joseph, indeed, is not placed in the list, but brought into special prominence by the words, “ for Joseph was in Egypt ” (Exo 1:5), since he did not go down to Egypt along with the house of Jacob, and occupied an exalted position in relation to them there.

Exo 1:1-5 To place the multiplication of the children of Israel into a strong nation in its true light, as the commencement of the realization of the promises of God, the number of the souls that went down with Jacob to Egypt is repeated from Gen 46:27 (on the number 70, in which Jacob is included, see the notes on this passage); and the repetition of the names of the twelve sons of Jacob serves to give to the history which follows a character of completeness within itself. “ With Jacob they came, every one and his house, ” i.

e. , his sons, together with their families, their wives, and their children. The sons are arranged according to their mothers, as in Gen 35:23-26, and the sons of the two maid-servants stand last. Joseph, indeed, is not placed in the list, but brought into special prominence by the words, “ for Joseph was in Egypt ” (Exo 1:5), since he did not go down to Egypt along with the house of Jacob, and occupied an exalted position in relation to them there.

Exo 1:6-7 After the death of Joseph and his brethren and the whole of the family that had first immigrated, there occurred that miraculous increase in the number of the children of Israel, by which the blessings of creation and promise were fully realised. The words פּרוּ ישׁרצוּ ( swarmed ), and ירבּוּ point back to Gen 1:28 and Gen 8:17, and יעצמוּ to עצוּם גּוי in Gen 18:18.

“ The land was filled with them, ” i. e. , the land of Egypt, particularly Goshen, where they were settled (Gen 47:11). The extra-ordinary fruitfulness of Egypt in both men and cattle is attested not only by ancient writers, but by modern travellers also (vid. , Aristotelis hist. animal. vii. 4, 5; Columella de re rust. iii. 8; Plin. hist. n. vii. 3; also Rosenmüller a.

und n. Morgenland i. p. 252). This blessing of nature was heightened still further in the case of the Israelites by the grace of the promise, so that the increase became extraordinarily great (see the comm. on Exo 12:37). The promised blessing was manifested chiefly in the fact, that all the measures adopted by the cunning of Pharaoh to weaken and diminish the Israelites, instead of checking, served rather to promote their continuous increase.

Exo 1:6-7 After the death of Joseph and his brethren and the whole of the family that had first immigrated, there occurred that miraculous increase in the number of the children of Israel, by which the blessings of creation and promise were fully realised. The words פּרוּ ישׁרצוּ ( swarmed ), and ירבּוּ point back to Gen 1:28 and Gen 8:17, and יעצמוּ to עצוּם גּוי in Gen 18:18.

“ The land was filled with them, ” i. e. , the land of Egypt, particularly Goshen, where they were settled (Gen 47:11). The extra-ordinary fruitfulness of Egypt in both men and cattle is attested not only by ancient writers, but by modern travellers also (vid. , Aristotelis hist. animal. vii. 4, 5; Columella de re rust. iii. 8; Plin. hist. n. vii. 3; also Rosenmüller a.

und n. Morgenland i. p. 252). This blessing of nature was heightened still further in the case of the Israelites by the grace of the promise, so that the increase became extraordinarily great (see the comm. on Exo 12:37). The promised blessing was manifested chiefly in the fact, that all the measures adopted by the cunning of Pharaoh to weaken and diminish the Israelites, instead of checking, served rather to promote their continuous increase.

Exo 1:8-9 “ There arose a new king over Egypt, who knew not Joseph . ” ויּקם signifies he came to the throne, קוּם denoting his appearance in history, as in Deu 34:10. A “new king” (lxx: βασιλεὺς ἕτερος; the other ancient versions, rex novus ) is a king who follows different principles of government from his predecessors. Cf. חדשׁים אלהים, “new gods,” in distinction from the God that their fathers had worshipped, Jdg 5:8; Deu 32:17.

That this king belonged to a new dynasty, as the majority of commentators follow Josephus in assuming, cannot be inferred with certainty from the predicate new ; but it is very probable, as furnishing the readiest explanation of the change in the principles of government. The question itself, however, is of no direct importance in relation to theology, though it has considerable interest in connection with Egyptological researches.

The new king did not acknowledge Joseph, i. e. , his great merits in relation to Egypt. ידע לא signifies here, not to perceive, or acknowledge, in the sense of not wanting to know anything about him, as in 1Sa 2:12, etc. In the natural course of things, the merits of Joseph might very well have been forgotten long before; for the multiplication of the Israelites into a numerous people, which had taken place in the meantime, is a sufficient proof that a very long time had elapsed since Joseph’s death.

At the same time such forgetfulness does not usually take place all at once, unless the account handed down has been intentionally obscured or suppressed. If the new king, therefore, did not know Joseph, the reason must simply have been, that he did not trouble himself about the past, and did not want to know anything about the measures of his predecessors and the events of their reigns.

The passage is correctly paraphrased by Jonathan thus: non agnovit (חכּים) Josephum nec ambulavit in statutis ejus . Forgetfulness of Joseph brought the favour shown to the Israelites by the kings of Egypt to a close. As they still continued foreigners both in religion and customs, their rapid increase excited distrust in the mind of the king, and induced him to take steps for staying their increase and reducing their strength.

The statement that “ the people of the children of Israel ” (ישׂראל בּני עם lit. , “nation, viz. , the sons of Israel;” for עם with the dist. accent is not the construct state, and ישראל בני is in apposition, cf. Ges. §113) were “ more and mightier ” than the Egyptians, is no doubt an exaggeration.

Exo 1:8-9 “ There arose a new king over Egypt, who knew not Joseph . ” ויּקם signifies he came to the throne, קוּם denoting his appearance in history, as in Deu 34:10. A “new king” (lxx: βασιλεὺς ἕτερος; the other ancient versions, rex novus ) is a king who follows different principles of government from his predecessors. Cf. חדשׁים אלהים, “new gods,” in distinction from the God that their fathers had worshipped, Jdg 5:8; Deu 32:17.

That this king belonged to a new dynasty, as the majority of commentators follow Josephus in assuming, cannot be inferred with certainty from the predicate new ; but it is very probable, as furnishing the readiest explanation of the change in the principles of government. The question itself, however, is of no direct importance in relation to theology, though it has considerable interest in connection with Egyptological researches.

The new king did not acknowledge Joseph, i. e. , his great merits in relation to Egypt. ידע לא signifies here, not to perceive, or acknowledge, in the sense of not wanting to know anything about him, as in 1Sa 2:12, etc. In the natural course of things, the merits of Joseph might very well have been forgotten long before; for the multiplication of the Israelites into a numerous people, which had taken place in the meantime, is a sufficient proof that a very long time had elapsed since Joseph’s death.

At the same time such forgetfulness does not usually take place all at once, unless the account handed down has been intentionally obscured or suppressed. If the new king, therefore, did not know Joseph, the reason must simply have been, that he did not trouble himself about the past, and did not want to know anything about the measures of his predecessors and the events of their reigns.

The passage is correctly paraphrased by Jonathan thus: non agnovit (חכּים) Josephum nec ambulavit in statutis ejus . Forgetfulness of Joseph brought the favour shown to the Israelites by the kings of Egypt to a close. As they still continued foreigners both in religion and customs, their rapid increase excited distrust in the mind of the king, and induced him to take steps for staying their increase and reducing their strength.

The statement that “ the people of the children of Israel ” (ישׂראל בּני עם lit. , “nation, viz. , the sons of Israel;” for עם with the dist. accent is not the construct state, and ישראל בני is in apposition, cf. Ges. §113) were “ more and mightier ” than the Egyptians, is no doubt an exaggeration.

Exo 1:10-14 “ Let us deal wisely with them, ” i. e. , act craftily towards them. התחכּם, sapiensem se gessit (Ecc 7:16), is used here of political craftiness, or worldly wisdom combined with craft and cunning (κατασοφισώμεθα, lxx), and therefore is altered into התנכּל in Psa 105:25 (cf. Gen 37:18). The reason assigned by the king for the measures he was about to propose, was the fear that in case of war the Israelites might make common cause with his enemies, and then remove from Egypt.

It was not the conquest of his kingdom that he was afraid of, but alliance with his enemies and emigration. עלה is used here, as in Gen 13:1, etc. , to denote removal from Egypt to Canaan. He was acquainted with the home of the Israelites therefore, and cannot have been entirely ignorant of the circumstances of their settlement in Egypt. But he regarded them as his subjects, and was unwilling that they should leave the country, and therefore was anxious to prevent the possibility of their emancipating themselves in the event of war.

- In the form תּקראנה for תּקרינה, according to the frequent interchange of the forms הל and אל (vid. , Gen 42:4), nh is transferred from the feminine plural to the singular, to distinguish the 3rd pers. fem. from the 2nd pers. , as in Jdg 5:26; Job 17:16 (vid. , Ewald , §191 c , and Ges. §47, 3, Anm. 3). Consequently there is no necessity either to understand מלחמה collectively as signifying soldiers, or to regard תּקראנוּ drager ot , the reading adopted by the lxx (συμβῆ ἡμῖν), the Samaritan, Chaldee, Syriac, and Vulgate, as “certainly the original,” as Knobel has done.

The first measure adopted (Exo 1:11) consisted in the appointment of taskmasters over the Israelites, to bend them down by hard labour. מסּים שׂרי bailiffs over the serfs. מסּים from מס signifies, not feudal service, but feudal labourers, serfs (see my Commentary on 1Ki 4:6). ענּה to bend, to wear out any one’s strength (Psa 102:24). By hard feudal labour (סבלות burdens, burdensome toil) Pharaoh hoped, according to the ordinary maxims of tyrants ( Aristot.

polit. , 5, 9; Liv. hist. i. 56, 59), to break down the physical strength of Israel and lessen its increase-since a population always grows more slowly under oppression than in the midst of prosperous circumstances-and also to crush their spirit so as to banish the very wish for liberty. - ויּבן - . ytrebil r, and so Israel built (was compelled to build) provision or magazine cities vid.

, 2Ch 32:28, cities for the storing of the harvest), in which the produce of the land was housed, partly for purposes of trade, and partly for provisioning the army in time of war; - not fortresses, πόλεις ὀχυραί, as the lxx have rendered it. Pithom was Πάτουμος; it was situated, according to Herodotus (2, 158), upon the canal which commenced above Bybastus and connected the Nile with the Red Sea.

This city is called Thou or Thoum in the Itiner . Anton . , the Egyptian article pi being dropped, and according to Jomard (descript. t. 9, p. 368) is to be sought for on the site of the modern Abassieh in the Wady Tumilat. - Raemses (cf. Gen 47:11) was the ancient Heroopolis , and is not to be looked for on the site of the modern Belbeis . In support of the latter supposition, Stickel, who agrees with Kurtz and Knobel , adduces chiefly the statement of the Egyptian geographer Makrizi , that in the (Jews') book of the law Belbeis is called the land of Goshen, in which Jacob dwelt when he came to his son Joseph, and that the capital of the province was el Sharkiyeh .

This place is a day’s journey (for as others affirm, 14 hours) to the north-east of Cairo on the Syrian and Egyptian road. It served as a meeting-place in the middle ages for the caravans from Egypt to Syria and Arabia ( Ritter, Erdkunde 14, p. 59). It is said to have been in existence before the Mohammedan conquest of Egypt. But the clue cannot be traced any farther back; and it is too far from the Red Sea for the Raemses of the Bible (vid.

, Exo 12:37). The authority of Makrizi is quite counterbalanced by the much older statement of the Septuagint, in which Jacob is made to meet his son Joseph in Heroopolis ; the words of Gen 46:29, “and Joseph went up to meet Israel his father to Goshen ,” being rendered thus: εἰς συϚάϚτησιν Ἰσραὴλ τῷ πατρὶ αὐτοῦκαθ ̓ Ἡρώων πόλιν. Hengstenberg is not correct in saying that the later name Heroopolis is here substituted for the older name Raemses ; and Gesenius , Kurtz , and Knobel are equally wrong in affirming that καθ ̓ ἩρώωϚ πόλιν is supplied ex ingenio suo ; but the place of meeting, which is given indefinitely as Goshen in the original, is here distinctly named.

Now if this more precise definition is not an arbitrary conjecture of the Alexandrian translators, but sprang out of their acquaintance with the country, and is really correct, as Kurtz has no doubt, it follows that Heroopolis belongs to the γῆ Ῥαμεσσῆ (Gen 46:28, lxx), or was situated within it. But this district formed the centre of the Israelitish settlement in Goshen; for according to Gen 47:11, Joseph gave his father and brethren “a possession in the best of the land, in the land of Raemses .

” Following this passage, the lxx have also rendered גּשׁן ארצה in Gen 46:28 by εἰς γῆν Ῥαμεσσῆ, whereas in other places the land of Goshen is simply called γῆ Γεσέμ (Gen 45:10; Gen 46:34; Gen 47:1, etc.) But if Heroopolis belonged to the γῆ Ῥαμεσσῆ, or the province of Raemses , which formed the centre of the land of Goshen that was assigned to the Israelites, this city must have stood in the immediate neighbourhood of Raemses , or have been identical with it.

Now, since the researches of the scientific men attached to the great French expedition, it has been generally admitted that Heroopolis occupied the site of the modern Abu Keisheib in the Wady Tumilat, between Thoum = Pithom and the Birket Temsah or Crocodile Lake; and according to the Itiner . p. 170, it was only 24 Roman miles to the east of Pithom , - a position that was admirably adapted not only for a magazine, but also for the gathering-place of Israel prior to their departure (Exo 12:37).

But Pharaoh’s first plan did not accomplish his purpose (Exo 1:12). The multiplication of Israel went on just in proportion to the amount of the oppression (כּן = כּאשׁר prout , ita ; פּרץ as in Gen 30:30; Gen 28:14), so that the Egyptians were dismayed at the Israelites (קוּץ to feel dismay, or fear, Num 22:3). In this increase of their numbers, which surpassed all expectation, there was the manifestation of a higher, supernatural, and to them awful power.

But instead of bowing before it, they still endeavoured to enslave Israel through hard servile labour. In Exo 1:13, Exo 1:14 we have not an account of any fresh oppression; but “the crushing by hard labour” is represented as enslaving the Israelites and embittering their lives. פּרך hard oppression, from the Chaldee פּרך to break or crush in pieces. “ They embittered their life with hard labour in clay and bricks (making clay into bricks, and working with the bricks when made), and in all kinds of labour in the field (this was very severe in Egypt on account of the laborious process by which the ground was watered, Deu 11:10), כּל־עבדתם את with regard to all their labour, which they worked (i.

e. , performed) through them (viz. , the Israelites) with severe oppression . ” כל־ע את is also dependent upon ימררו, as a second accusative ( Ewald , §277 d ). Bricks of clay were the building materials most commonly used in Egypt. The employment of foreigners in this kind of labour is to be seen represented in a painting, discovered in the ruins of Thebes, and given in the Egyptological works of Rosellini and Wilkinson, in which workmen who are evidently not Egyptians are occupied in making bricks, whilst two Egyptians with sticks are standing as overlookers; - even if the labourers are not intended for the Israelites, as the Jewish physiognomies would lead us to suppose.

(For fuller details, see Hengstenberg’s Egypt and the Books of Moses , p. 80ff. English translation).

Exo 1:10-14 “ Let us deal wisely with them, ” i. e. , act craftily towards them. התחכּם, sapiensem se gessit (Ecc 7:16), is used here of political craftiness, or worldly wisdom combined with craft and cunning (κατασοφισώμεθα, lxx), and therefore is altered into התנכּל in Psa 105:25 (cf. Gen 37:18). The reason assigned by the king for the measures he was about to propose, was the fear that in case of war the Israelites might make common cause with his enemies, and then remove from Egypt.

It was not the conquest of his kingdom that he was afraid of, but alliance with his enemies and emigration. עלה is used here, as in Gen 13:1, etc. , to denote removal from Egypt to Canaan. He was acquainted with the home of the Israelites therefore, and cannot have been entirely ignorant of the circumstances of their settlement in Egypt. But he regarded them as his subjects, and was unwilling that they should leave the country, and therefore was anxious to prevent the possibility of their emancipating themselves in the event of war.

- In the form תּקראנה for תּקרינה, according to the frequent interchange of the forms הל and אל (vid. , Gen 42:4), nh is transferred from the feminine plural to the singular, to distinguish the 3rd pers. fem. from the 2nd pers. , as in Jdg 5:26; Job 17:16 (vid. , Ewald , §191 c , and Ges. §47, 3, Anm. 3). Consequently there is no necessity either to understand מלחמה collectively as signifying soldiers, or to regard תּקראנוּ drager ot , the reading adopted by the lxx (συμβῆ ἡμῖν), the Samaritan, Chaldee, Syriac, and Vulgate, as “certainly the original,” as Knobel has done.

The first measure adopted (Exo 1:11) consisted in the appointment of taskmasters over the Israelites, to bend them down by hard labour. מסּים שׂרי bailiffs over the serfs. מסּים from מס signifies, not feudal service, but feudal labourers, serfs (see my Commentary on 1Ki 4:6). ענּה to bend, to wear out any one’s strength (Psa 102:24). By hard feudal labour (סבלות burdens, burdensome toil) Pharaoh hoped, according to the ordinary maxims of tyrants ( Aristot.

polit. , 5, 9; Liv. hist. i. 56, 59), to break down the physical strength of Israel and lessen its increase-since a population always grows more slowly under oppression than in the midst of prosperous circumstances-and also to crush their spirit so as to banish the very wish for liberty. - ויּבן - . ytrebil r, and so Israel built (was compelled to build) provision or magazine cities vid.

, 2Ch 32:28, cities for the storing of the harvest), in which the produce of the land was housed, partly for purposes of trade, and partly for provisioning the army in time of war; - not fortresses, πόλεις ὀχυραί, as the lxx have rendered it. Pithom was Πάτουμος; it was situated, according to Herodotus (2, 158), upon the canal which commenced above Bybastus and connected the Nile with the Red Sea.

This city is called Thou or Thoum in the Itiner . Anton . , the Egyptian article pi being dropped, and according to Jomard (descript. t. 9, p. 368) is to be sought for on the site of the modern Abassieh in the Wady Tumilat. - Raemses (cf. Gen 47:11) was the ancient Heroopolis , and is not to be looked for on the site of the modern Belbeis . In support of the latter supposition, Stickel, who agrees with Kurtz and Knobel , adduces chiefly the statement of the Egyptian geographer Makrizi , that in the (Jews') book of the law Belbeis is called the land of Goshen, in which Jacob dwelt when he came to his son Joseph, and that the capital of the province was el Sharkiyeh .

This place is a day’s journey (for as others affirm, 14 hours) to the north-east of Cairo on the Syrian and Egyptian road. It served as a meeting-place in the middle ages for the caravans from Egypt to Syria and Arabia ( Ritter, Erdkunde 14, p. 59). It is said to have been in existence before the Mohammedan conquest of Egypt. But the clue cannot be traced any farther back; and it is too far from the Red Sea for the Raemses of the Bible (vid.

, Exo 12:37). The authority of Makrizi is quite counterbalanced by the much older statement of the Septuagint, in which Jacob is made to meet his son Joseph in Heroopolis ; the words of Gen 46:29, “and Joseph went up to meet Israel his father to Goshen ,” being rendered thus: εἰς συϚάϚτησιν Ἰσραὴλ τῷ πατρὶ αὐτοῦκαθ ̓ Ἡρώων πόλιν. Hengstenberg is not correct in saying that the later name Heroopolis is here substituted for the older name Raemses ; and Gesenius , Kurtz , and Knobel are equally wrong in affirming that καθ ̓ ἩρώωϚ πόλιν is supplied ex ingenio suo ; but the place of meeting, which is given indefinitely as Goshen in the original, is here distinctly named.

Now if this more precise definition is not an arbitrary conjecture of the Alexandrian translators, but sprang out of their acquaintance with the country, and is really correct, as Kurtz has no doubt, it follows that Heroopolis belongs to the γῆ Ῥαμεσσῆ (Gen 46:28, lxx), or was situated within it. But this district formed the centre of the Israelitish settlement in Goshen; for according to Gen 47:11, Joseph gave his father and brethren “a possession in the best of the land, in the land of Raemses .

” Following this passage, the lxx have also rendered גּשׁן ארצה in Gen 46:28 by εἰς γῆν Ῥαμεσσῆ, whereas in other places the land of Goshen is simply called γῆ Γεσέμ (Gen 45:10; Gen 46:34; Gen 47:1, etc.) But if Heroopolis belonged to the γῆ Ῥαμεσσῆ, or the province of Raemses , which formed the centre of the land of Goshen that was assigned to the Israelites, this city must have stood in the immediate neighbourhood of Raemses , or have been identical with it.

Now, since the researches of the scientific men attached to the great French expedition, it has been generally admitted that Heroopolis occupied the site of the modern Abu Keisheib in the Wady Tumilat, between Thoum = Pithom and the Birket Temsah or Crocodile Lake; and according to the Itiner . p. 170, it was only 24 Roman miles to the east of Pithom , - a position that was admirably adapted not only for a magazine, but also for the gathering-place of Israel prior to their departure (Exo 12:37).

But Pharaoh’s first plan did not accomplish his purpose (Exo 1:12). The multiplication of Israel went on just in proportion to the amount of the oppression (כּן = כּאשׁר prout , ita ; פּרץ as in Gen 30:30; Gen 28:14), so that the Egyptians were dismayed at the Israelites (קוּץ to feel dismay, or fear, Num 22:3). In this increase of their numbers, which surpassed all expectation, there was the manifestation of a higher, supernatural, and to them awful power.

But instead of bowing before it, they still endeavoured to enslave Israel through hard servile labour. In Exo 1:13, Exo 1:14 we have not an account of any fresh oppression; but “the crushing by hard labour” is represented as enslaving the Israelites and embittering their lives. פּרך hard oppression, from the Chaldee פּרך to break or crush in pieces. “ They embittered their life with hard labour in clay and bricks (making clay into bricks, and working with the bricks when made), and in all kinds of labour in the field (this was very severe in Egypt on account of the laborious process by which the ground was watered, Deu 11:10), כּל־עבדתם את with regard to all their labour, which they worked (i.

e. , performed) through them (viz. , the Israelites) with severe oppression . ” כל־ע את is also dependent upon ימררו, as a second accusative ( Ewald , §277 d ). Bricks of clay were the building materials most commonly used in Egypt. The employment of foreigners in this kind of labour is to be seen represented in a painting, discovered in the ruins of Thebes, and given in the Egyptological works of Rosellini and Wilkinson, in which workmen who are evidently not Egyptians are occupied in making bricks, whilst two Egyptians with sticks are standing as overlookers; - even if the labourers are not intended for the Israelites, as the Jewish physiognomies would lead us to suppose.

(For fuller details, see Hengstenberg’s Egypt and the Books of Moses , p. 80ff. English translation).

Exo 1:10-14 “ Let us deal wisely with them, ” i. e. , act craftily towards them. התחכּם, sapiensem se gessit (Ecc 7:16), is used here of political craftiness, or worldly wisdom combined with craft and cunning (κατασοφισώμεθα, lxx), and therefore is altered into התנכּל in Psa 105:25 (cf. Gen 37:18). The reason assigned by the king for the measures he was about to propose, was the fear that in case of war the Israelites might make common cause with his enemies, and then remove from Egypt.

It was not the conquest of his kingdom that he was afraid of, but alliance with his enemies and emigration. עלה is used here, as in Gen 13:1, etc. , to denote removal from Egypt to Canaan. He was acquainted with the home of the Israelites therefore, and cannot have been entirely ignorant of the circumstances of their settlement in Egypt. But he regarded them as his subjects, and was unwilling that they should leave the country, and therefore was anxious to prevent the possibility of their emancipating themselves in the event of war.

- In the form תּקראנה for תּקרינה, according to the frequent interchange of the forms הל and אל (vid. , Gen 42:4), nh is transferred from the feminine plural to the singular, to distinguish the 3rd pers. fem. from the 2nd pers. , as in Jdg 5:26; Job 17:16 (vid. , Ewald , §191 c , and Ges. §47, 3, Anm. 3). Consequently there is no necessity either to understand מלחמה collectively as signifying soldiers, or to regard תּקראנוּ drager ot , the reading adopted by the lxx (συμβῆ ἡμῖν), the Samaritan, Chaldee, Syriac, and Vulgate, as “certainly the original,” as Knobel has done.

The first measure adopted (Exo 1:11) consisted in the appointment of taskmasters over the Israelites, to bend them down by hard labour. מסּים שׂרי bailiffs over the serfs. מסּים from מס signifies, not feudal service, but feudal labourers, serfs (see my Commentary on 1Ki 4:6). ענּה to bend, to wear out any one’s strength (Psa 102:24). By hard feudal labour (סבלות burdens, burdensome toil) Pharaoh hoped, according to the ordinary maxims of tyrants ( Aristot.

polit. , 5, 9; Liv. hist. i. 56, 59), to break down the physical strength of Israel and lessen its increase-since a population always grows more slowly under oppression than in the midst of prosperous circumstances-and also to crush their spirit so as to banish the very wish for liberty. - ויּבן - . ytrebil r, and so Israel built (was compelled to build) provision or magazine cities vid.

, 2Ch 32:28, cities for the storing of the harvest), in which the produce of the land was housed, partly for purposes of trade, and partly for provisioning the army in time of war; - not fortresses, πόλεις ὀχυραί, as the lxx have rendered it. Pithom was Πάτουμος; it was situated, according to Herodotus (2, 158), upon the canal which commenced above Bybastus and connected the Nile with the Red Sea.

This city is called Thou or Thoum in the Itiner . Anton . , the Egyptian article pi being dropped, and according to Jomard (descript. t. 9, p. 368) is to be sought for on the site of the modern Abassieh in the Wady Tumilat. - Raemses (cf. Gen 47:11) was the ancient Heroopolis , and is not to be looked for on the site of the modern Belbeis . In support of the latter supposition, Stickel, who agrees with Kurtz and Knobel , adduces chiefly the statement of the Egyptian geographer Makrizi , that in the (Jews') book of the law Belbeis is called the land of Goshen, in which Jacob dwelt when he came to his son Joseph, and that the capital of the province was el Sharkiyeh .

This place is a day’s journey (for as others affirm, 14 hours) to the north-east of Cairo on the Syrian and Egyptian road. It served as a meeting-place in the middle ages for the caravans from Egypt to Syria and Arabia ( Ritter, Erdkunde 14, p. 59). It is said to have been in existence before the Mohammedan conquest of Egypt. But the clue cannot be traced any farther back; and it is too far from the Red Sea for the Raemses of the Bible (vid.

, Exo 12:37). The authority of Makrizi is quite counterbalanced by the much older statement of the Septuagint, in which Jacob is made to meet his son Joseph in Heroopolis ; the words of Gen 46:29, “and Joseph went up to meet Israel his father to Goshen ,” being rendered thus: εἰς συϚάϚτησιν Ἰσραὴλ τῷ πατρὶ αὐτοῦκαθ ̓ Ἡρώων πόλιν. Hengstenberg is not correct in saying that the later name Heroopolis is here substituted for the older name Raemses ; and Gesenius , Kurtz , and Knobel are equally wrong in affirming that καθ ̓ ἩρώωϚ πόλιν is supplied ex ingenio suo ; but the place of meeting, which is given indefinitely as Goshen in the original, is here distinctly named.

Now if this more precise definition is not an arbitrary conjecture of the Alexandrian translators, but sprang out of their acquaintance with the country, and is really correct, as Kurtz has no doubt, it follows that Heroopolis belongs to the γῆ Ῥαμεσσῆ (Gen 46:28, lxx), or was situated within it. But this district formed the centre of the Israelitish settlement in Goshen; for according to Gen 47:11, Joseph gave his father and brethren “a possession in the best of the land, in the land of Raemses .

” Following this passage, the lxx have also rendered גּשׁן ארצה in Gen 46:28 by εἰς γῆν Ῥαμεσσῆ, whereas in other places the land of Goshen is simply called γῆ Γεσέμ (Gen 45:10; Gen 46:34; Gen 47:1, etc.) But if Heroopolis belonged to the γῆ Ῥαμεσσῆ, or the province of Raemses , which formed the centre of the land of Goshen that was assigned to the Israelites, this city must have stood in the immediate neighbourhood of Raemses , or have been identical with it.

Now, since the researches of the scientific men attached to the great French expedition, it has been generally admitted that Heroopolis occupied the site of the modern Abu Keisheib in the Wady Tumilat, between Thoum = Pithom and the Birket Temsah or Crocodile Lake; and according to the Itiner . p. 170, it was only 24 Roman miles to the east of Pithom , - a position that was admirably adapted not only for a magazine, but also for the gathering-place of Israel prior to their departure (Exo 12:37).

But Pharaoh’s first plan did not accomplish his purpose (Exo 1:12). The multiplication of Israel went on just in proportion to the amount of the oppression (כּן = כּאשׁר prout , ita ; פּרץ as in Gen 30:30; Gen 28:14), so that the Egyptians were dismayed at the Israelites (קוּץ to feel dismay, or fear, Num 22:3). In this increase of their numbers, which surpassed all expectation, there was the manifestation of a higher, supernatural, and to them awful power.

But instead of bowing before it, they still endeavoured to enslave Israel through hard servile labour. In Exo 1:13, Exo 1:14 we have not an account of any fresh oppression; but “the crushing by hard labour” is represented as enslaving the Israelites and embittering their lives. פּרך hard oppression, from the Chaldee פּרך to break or crush in pieces. “ They embittered their life with hard labour in clay and bricks (making clay into bricks, and working with the bricks when made), and in all kinds of labour in the field (this was very severe in Egypt on account of the laborious process by which the ground was watered, Deu 11:10), כּל־עבדתם את with regard to all their labour, which they worked (i.

e. , performed) through them (viz. , the Israelites) with severe oppression . ” כל־ע את is also dependent upon ימררו, as a second accusative ( Ewald , §277 d ). Bricks of clay were the building materials most commonly used in Egypt. The employment of foreigners in this kind of labour is to be seen represented in a painting, discovered in the ruins of Thebes, and given in the Egyptological works of Rosellini and Wilkinson, in which workmen who are evidently not Egyptians are occupied in making bricks, whilst two Egyptians with sticks are standing as overlookers; - even if the labourers are not intended for the Israelites, as the Jewish physiognomies would lead us to suppose.

(For fuller details, see Hengstenberg’s Egypt and the Books of Moses , p. 80ff. English translation).

Exo 1:10-14 “ Let us deal wisely with them, ” i. e. , act craftily towards them. התחכּם, sapiensem se gessit (Ecc 7:16), is used here of political craftiness, or worldly wisdom combined with craft and cunning (κατασοφισώμεθα, lxx), and therefore is altered into התנכּל in Psa 105:25 (cf. Gen 37:18). The reason assigned by the king for the measures he was about to propose, was the fear that in case of war the Israelites might make common cause with his enemies, and then remove from Egypt.

It was not the conquest of his kingdom that he was afraid of, but alliance with his enemies and emigration. עלה is used here, as in Gen 13:1, etc. , to denote removal from Egypt to Canaan. He was acquainted with the home of the Israelites therefore, and cannot have been entirely ignorant of the circumstances of their settlement in Egypt. But he regarded them as his subjects, and was unwilling that they should leave the country, and therefore was anxious to prevent the possibility of their emancipating themselves in the event of war.

- In the form תּקראנה for תּקרינה, according to the frequent interchange of the forms הל and אל (vid. , Gen 42:4), nh is transferred from the feminine plural to the singular, to distinguish the 3rd pers. fem. from the 2nd pers. , as in Jdg 5:26; Job 17:16 (vid. , Ewald , §191 c , and Ges. §47, 3, Anm. 3). Consequently there is no necessity either to understand מלחמה collectively as signifying soldiers, or to regard תּקראנוּ drager ot , the reading adopted by the lxx (συμβῆ ἡμῖν), the Samaritan, Chaldee, Syriac, and Vulgate, as “certainly the original,” as Knobel has done.

The first measure adopted (Exo 1:11) consisted in the appointment of taskmasters over the Israelites, to bend them down by hard labour. מסּים שׂרי bailiffs over the serfs. מסּים from מס signifies, not feudal service, but feudal labourers, serfs (see my Commentary on 1Ki 4:6). ענּה to bend, to wear out any one’s strength (Psa 102:24). By hard feudal labour (סבלות burdens, burdensome toil) Pharaoh hoped, according to the ordinary maxims of tyrants ( Aristot.

polit. , 5, 9; Liv. hist. i. 56, 59), to break down the physical strength of Israel and lessen its increase-since a population always grows more slowly under oppression than in the midst of prosperous circumstances-and also to crush their spirit so as to banish the very wish for liberty. - ויּבן - . ytrebil r, and so Israel built (was compelled to build) provision or magazine cities vid.

, 2Ch 32:28, cities for the storing of the harvest), in which the produce of the land was housed, partly for purposes of trade, and partly for provisioning the army in time of war; - not fortresses, πόλεις ὀχυραί, as the lxx have rendered it. Pithom was Πάτουμος; it was situated, according to Herodotus (2, 158), upon the canal which commenced above Bybastus and connected the Nile with the Red Sea.

This city is called Thou or Thoum in the Itiner . Anton . , the Egyptian article pi being dropped, and according to Jomard (descript. t. 9, p. 368) is to be sought for on the site of the modern Abassieh in the Wady Tumilat. - Raemses (cf. Gen 47:11) was the ancient Heroopolis , and is not to be looked for on the site of the modern Belbeis . In support of the latter supposition, Stickel, who agrees with Kurtz and Knobel , adduces chiefly the statement of the Egyptian geographer Makrizi , that in the (Jews') book of the law Belbeis is called the land of Goshen, in which Jacob dwelt when he came to his son Joseph, and that the capital of the province was el Sharkiyeh .

This place is a day’s journey (for as others affirm, 14 hours) to the north-east of Cairo on the Syrian and Egyptian road. It served as a meeting-place in the middle ages for the caravans from Egypt to Syria and Arabia ( Ritter, Erdkunde 14, p. 59). It is said to have been in existence before the Mohammedan conquest of Egypt. But the clue cannot be traced any farther back; and it is too far from the Red Sea for the Raemses of the Bible (vid.

, Exo 12:37). The authority of Makrizi is quite counterbalanced by the much older statement of the Septuagint, in which Jacob is made to meet his son Joseph in Heroopolis ; the words of Gen 46:29, “and Joseph went up to meet Israel his father to Goshen ,” being rendered thus: εἰς συϚάϚτησιν Ἰσραὴλ τῷ πατρὶ αὐτοῦκαθ ̓ Ἡρώων πόλιν. Hengstenberg is not correct in saying that the later name Heroopolis is here substituted for the older name Raemses ; and Gesenius , Kurtz , and Knobel are equally wrong in affirming that καθ ̓ ἩρώωϚ πόλιν is supplied ex ingenio suo ; but the place of meeting, which is given indefinitely as Goshen in the original, is here distinctly named.

Now if this more precise definition is not an arbitrary conjecture of the Alexandrian translators, but sprang out of their acquaintance with the country, and is really correct, as Kurtz has no doubt, it follows that Heroopolis belongs to the γῆ Ῥαμεσσῆ (Gen 46:28, lxx), or was situated within it. But this district formed the centre of the Israelitish settlement in Goshen; for according to Gen 47:11, Joseph gave his father and brethren “a possession in the best of the land, in the land of Raemses .

” Following this passage, the lxx have also rendered גּשׁן ארצה in Gen 46:28 by εἰς γῆν Ῥαμεσσῆ, whereas in other places the land of Goshen is simply called γῆ Γεσέμ (Gen 45:10; Gen 46:34; Gen 47:1, etc.) But if Heroopolis belonged to the γῆ Ῥαμεσσῆ, or the province of Raemses , which formed the centre of the land of Goshen that was assigned to the Israelites, this city must have stood in the immediate neighbourhood of Raemses , or have been identical with it.

Now, since the researches of the scientific men attached to the great French expedition, it has been generally admitted that Heroopolis occupied the site of the modern Abu Keisheib in the Wady Tumilat, between Thoum = Pithom and the Birket Temsah or Crocodile Lake; and according to the Itiner . p. 170, it was only 24 Roman miles to the east of Pithom , - a position that was admirably adapted not only for a magazine, but also for the gathering-place of Israel prior to their departure (Exo 12:37).

But Pharaoh’s first plan did not accomplish his purpose (Exo 1:12). The multiplication of Israel went on just in proportion to the amount of the oppression (כּן = כּאשׁר prout , ita ; פּרץ as in Gen 30:30; Gen 28:14), so that the Egyptians were dismayed at the Israelites (קוּץ to feel dismay, or fear, Num 22:3). In this increase of their numbers, which surpassed all expectation, there was the manifestation of a higher, supernatural, and to them awful power.

But instead of bowing before it, they still endeavoured to enslave Israel through hard servile labour. In Exo 1:13, Exo 1:14 we have not an account of any fresh oppression; but “the crushing by hard labour” is represented as enslaving the Israelites and embittering their lives. פּרך hard oppression, from the Chaldee פּרך to break or crush in pieces. “ They embittered their life with hard labour in clay and bricks (making clay into bricks, and working with the bricks when made), and in all kinds of labour in the field (this was very severe in Egypt on account of the laborious process by which the ground was watered, Deu 11:10), כּל־עבדתם את with regard to all their labour, which they worked (i.

e. , performed) through them (viz. , the Israelites) with severe oppression . ” כל־ע את is also dependent upon ימררו, as a second accusative ( Ewald , §277 d ). Bricks of clay were the building materials most commonly used in Egypt. The employment of foreigners in this kind of labour is to be seen represented in a painting, discovered in the ruins of Thebes, and given in the Egyptological works of Rosellini and Wilkinson, in which workmen who are evidently not Egyptians are occupied in making bricks, whilst two Egyptians with sticks are standing as overlookers; - even if the labourers are not intended for the Israelites, as the Jewish physiognomies would lead us to suppose.

(For fuller details, see Hengstenberg’s Egypt and the Books of Moses , p. 80ff. English translation).

Exo 1:10-14 “ Let us deal wisely with them, ” i. e. , act craftily towards them. התחכּם, sapiensem se gessit (Ecc 7:16), is used here of political craftiness, or worldly wisdom combined with craft and cunning (κατασοφισώμεθα, lxx), and therefore is altered into התנכּל in Psa 105:25 (cf. Gen 37:18). The reason assigned by the king for the measures he was about to propose, was the fear that in case of war the Israelites might make common cause with his enemies, and then remove from Egypt.

It was not the conquest of his kingdom that he was afraid of, but alliance with his enemies and emigration. עלה is used here, as in Gen 13:1, etc. , to denote removal from Egypt to Canaan. He was acquainted with the home of the Israelites therefore, and cannot have been entirely ignorant of the circumstances of their settlement in Egypt. But he regarded them as his subjects, and was unwilling that they should leave the country, and therefore was anxious to prevent the possibility of their emancipating themselves in the event of war.

- In the form תּקראנה for תּקרינה, according to the frequent interchange of the forms הל and אל (vid. , Gen 42:4), nh is transferred from the feminine plural to the singular, to distinguish the 3rd pers. fem. from the 2nd pers. , as in Jdg 5:26; Job 17:16 (vid. , Ewald , §191 c , and Ges. §47, 3, Anm. 3). Consequently there is no necessity either to understand מלחמה collectively as signifying soldiers, or to regard תּקראנוּ drager ot , the reading adopted by the lxx (συμβῆ ἡμῖν), the Samaritan, Chaldee, Syriac, and Vulgate, as “certainly the original,” as Knobel has done.

The first measure adopted (Exo 1:11) consisted in the appointment of taskmasters over the Israelites, to bend them down by hard labour. מסּים שׂרי bailiffs over the serfs. מסּים from מס signifies, not feudal service, but feudal labourers, serfs (see my Commentary on 1Ki 4:6). ענּה to bend, to wear out any one’s strength (Psa 102:24). By hard feudal labour (סבלות burdens, burdensome toil) Pharaoh hoped, according to the ordinary maxims of tyrants ( Aristot.

polit. , 5, 9; Liv. hist. i. 56, 59), to break down the physical strength of Israel and lessen its increase-since a population always grows more slowly under oppression than in the midst of prosperous circumstances-and also to crush their spirit so as to banish the very wish for liberty. - ויּבן - . ytrebil r, and so Israel built (was compelled to build) provision or magazine cities vid.

, 2Ch 32:28, cities for the storing of the harvest), in which the produce of the land was housed, partly for purposes of trade, and partly for provisioning the army in time of war; - not fortresses, πόλεις ὀχυραί, as the lxx have rendered it. Pithom was Πάτουμος; it was situated, according to Herodotus (2, 158), upon the canal which commenced above Bybastus and connected the Nile with the Red Sea.

This city is called Thou or Thoum in the Itiner . Anton . , the Egyptian article pi being dropped, and according to Jomard (descript. t. 9, p. 368) is to be sought for on the site of the modern Abassieh in the Wady Tumilat. - Raemses (cf. Gen 47:11) was the ancient Heroopolis , and is not to be looked for on the site of the modern Belbeis . In support of the latter supposition, Stickel, who agrees with Kurtz and Knobel , adduces chiefly the statement of the Egyptian geographer Makrizi , that in the (Jews') book of the law Belbeis is called the land of Goshen, in which Jacob dwelt when he came to his son Joseph, and that the capital of the province was el Sharkiyeh .

This place is a day’s journey (for as others affirm, 14 hours) to the north-east of Cairo on the Syrian and Egyptian road. It served as a meeting-place in the middle ages for the caravans from Egypt to Syria and Arabia ( Ritter, Erdkunde 14, p. 59). It is said to have been in existence before the Mohammedan conquest of Egypt. But the clue cannot be traced any farther back; and it is too far from the Red Sea for the Raemses of the Bible (vid.

, Exo 12:37). The authority of Makrizi is quite counterbalanced by the much older statement of the Septuagint, in which Jacob is made to meet his son Joseph in Heroopolis ; the words of Gen 46:29, “and Joseph went up to meet Israel his father to Goshen ,” being rendered thus: εἰς συϚάϚτησιν Ἰσραὴλ τῷ πατρὶ αὐτοῦκαθ ̓ Ἡρώων πόλιν. Hengstenberg is not correct in saying that the later name Heroopolis is here substituted for the older name Raemses ; and Gesenius , Kurtz , and Knobel are equally wrong in affirming that καθ ̓ ἩρώωϚ πόλιν is supplied ex ingenio suo ; but the place of meeting, which is given indefinitely as Goshen in the original, is here distinctly named.

Now if this more precise definition is not an arbitrary conjecture of the Alexandrian translators, but sprang out of their acquaintance with the country, and is really correct, as Kurtz has no doubt, it follows that Heroopolis belongs to the γῆ Ῥαμεσσῆ (Gen 46:28, lxx), or was situated within it. But this district formed the centre of the Israelitish settlement in Goshen; for according to Gen 47:11, Joseph gave his father and brethren “a possession in the best of the land, in the land of Raemses .

” Following this passage, the lxx have also rendered גּשׁן ארצה in Gen 46:28 by εἰς γῆν Ῥαμεσσῆ, whereas in other places the land of Goshen is simply called γῆ Γεσέμ (Gen 45:10; Gen 46:34; Gen 47:1, etc.) But if Heroopolis belonged to the γῆ Ῥαμεσσῆ, or the province of Raemses , which formed the centre of the land of Goshen that was assigned to the Israelites, this city must have stood in the immediate neighbourhood of Raemses , or have been identical with it.

Now, since the researches of the scientific men attached to the great French expedition, it has been generally admitted that Heroopolis occupied the site of the modern Abu Keisheib in the Wady Tumilat, between Thoum = Pithom and the Birket Temsah or Crocodile Lake; and according to the Itiner . p. 170, it was only 24 Roman miles to the east of Pithom , - a position that was admirably adapted not only for a magazine, but also for the gathering-place of Israel prior to their departure (Exo 12:37).

But Pharaoh’s first plan did not accomplish his purpose (Exo 1:12). The multiplication of Israel went on just in proportion to the amount of the oppression (כּן = כּאשׁר prout , ita ; פּרץ as in Gen 30:30; Gen 28:14), so that the Egyptians were dismayed at the Israelites (קוּץ to feel dismay, or fear, Num 22:3). In this increase of their numbers, which surpassed all expectation, there was the manifestation of a higher, supernatural, and to them awful power.

But instead of bowing before it, they still endeavoured to enslave Israel through hard servile labour. In Exo 1:13, Exo 1:14 we have not an account of any fresh oppression; but “the crushing by hard labour” is represented as enslaving the Israelites and embittering their lives. פּרך hard oppression, from the Chaldee פּרך to break or crush in pieces. “ They embittered their life with hard labour in clay and bricks (making clay into bricks, and working with the bricks when made), and in all kinds of labour in the field (this was very severe in Egypt on account of the laborious process by which the ground was watered, Deu 11:10), כּל־עבדתם את with regard to all their labour, which they worked (i.

e. , performed) through them (viz. , the Israelites) with severe oppression . ” כל־ע את is also dependent upon ימררו, as a second accusative ( Ewald , §277 d ). Bricks of clay were the building materials most commonly used in Egypt. The employment of foreigners in this kind of labour is to be seen represented in a painting, discovered in the ruins of Thebes, and given in the Egyptological works of Rosellini and Wilkinson, in which workmen who are evidently not Egyptians are occupied in making bricks, whilst two Egyptians with sticks are standing as overlookers; - even if the labourers are not intended for the Israelites, as the Jewish physiognomies would lead us to suppose.

(For fuller details, see Hengstenberg’s Egypt and the Books of Moses , p. 80ff. English translation).

Exo 1:15-16 As the first plan miscarried, the king proceeded to try a second, and that a bloody act of cruel despotism. He commanded the midwives to destroy the male children in the birth and to leave only the girls alive. The midwives named in Exo 1:15, who are not Egyptian but Hebrew women, were no doubt the heads of the whole profession, and were expected to communicate their instructions to their associates.

ויּאמר in Exo 1:16 resumes the address introduced by ויאמר in Exo 1:15. The expression על־האבנים, of which such various renderings have been given, is used in Jer 18:3 to denote the revolving table of a potter, i. e. , the two round discs between which a potter forms his earthenware vessels by turning, and appears to be transferred here to the vagina out of which the child twists itself, as it were like the vessel about to be formed out of the potter’s discs.

Knobel has at length decided in favour of this explanation, at which the Targumists hint with their מתברא. When the midwives were called in to assist at a birth, they were to look carefully at the vagina; and if the child were a boy, they were to destroy it as it came out of the womb. וחיה for חייה rof ו from חיי, see Gen 3:22. The w takes kametz before the major pause, as in Gen 44:9 (cf.

Ewald , §243 a ).

Exo 1:15-16 As the first plan miscarried, the king proceeded to try a second, and that a bloody act of cruel despotism. He commanded the midwives to destroy the male children in the birth and to leave only the girls alive. The midwives named in Exo 1:15, who are not Egyptian but Hebrew women, were no doubt the heads of the whole profession, and were expected to communicate their instructions to their associates.

ויּאמר in Exo 1:16 resumes the address introduced by ויאמר in Exo 1:15. The expression על־האבנים, of which such various renderings have been given, is used in Jer 18:3 to denote the revolving table of a potter, i. e. , the two round discs between which a potter forms his earthenware vessels by turning, and appears to be transferred here to the vagina out of which the child twists itself, as it were like the vessel about to be formed out of the potter’s discs.

Knobel has at length decided in favour of this explanation, at which the Targumists hint with their מתברא. When the midwives were called in to assist at a birth, they were to look carefully at the vagina; and if the child were a boy, they were to destroy it as it came out of the womb. וחיה for חייה rof ו from חיי, see Gen 3:22. The w takes kametz before the major pause, as in Gen 44:9 (cf.

Ewald , §243 a ).

Exo 1:17 But the midwives feared God ( ha-Elohim , the personal, true God), and did not execute the king’s command.

Exo 1:18-19 When questioned upon the matter, the explanation which they gave was, that the Hebrew women were not like the delicate women of Egypt, but were חיות “vigorous” (had much vital energy: Abenezra ), so that they gave birth to their children before the midwives arrived. They succeeded in deceiving the king with this reply, as childbirth is remarkably rapid and easy in the case of Arabian women (see Burckhardt , Beduinen , p. 78; Tischendorf , Reise i. p. 108).

Exo 1:18-19 When questioned upon the matter, the explanation which they gave was, that the Hebrew women were not like the delicate women of Egypt, but were חיות “vigorous” (had much vital energy: Abenezra ), so that they gave birth to their children before the midwives arrived. They succeeded in deceiving the king with this reply, as childbirth is remarkably rapid and easy in the case of Arabian women (see Burckhardt , Beduinen , p. 78; Tischendorf , Reise i. p. 108).

Exo 1:20-21 God rewarded them for their conduct, and “made them houses,” i. e. , gave them families and preserved their posterity. In this sense to “make a house” in 2Sa 7:11 is interchanged with to “build a house” in 2Sa 7:27 (vid. , Rth 4:11). להם for להן as in Gen 31:9, etc. Through not carrying out the ruthless command of the king, they had helped to build up the families of Israel, and their own families were therefore built up by God.

Thus God rewarded them, “not, however, because they lied, but because they were merciful to the people of God; it was not their falsehood therefore that was rewarded, but their kindness (more correctly, their fear of God), their benignity of mind, not the wickedness of their lying; and for the sake of what was good, God forgave what was evil. ” (Augustine, contra mendac.

c. 19.)

Exo 1:20-21 God rewarded them for their conduct, and “made them houses,” i. e. , gave them families and preserved their posterity. In this sense to “make a house” in 2Sa 7:11 is interchanged with to “build a house” in 2Sa 7:27 (vid. , Rth 4:11). להם for להן as in Gen 31:9, etc. Through not carrying out the ruthless command of the king, they had helped to build up the families of Israel, and their own families were therefore built up by God.

Thus God rewarded them, “not, however, because they lied, but because they were merciful to the people of God; it was not their falsehood therefore that was rewarded, but their kindness (more correctly, their fear of God), their benignity of mind, not the wickedness of their lying; and for the sake of what was good, God forgave what was evil. ” (Augustine, contra mendac.

c. 19.)