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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Exodus 1:8 - 1:8
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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.” וַיָּקָם 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. חֲדָשִׁים אֱלֹהִים, “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
(Note: Ant. ii. 9, 1. Τῆς βασιλέιας εἰς ἄλλον οἶκον μεταληλυθυΐ́ας.)
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.
(Note: The want of trustworthy accounts of the history of ancient Egypt and its rulers precludes the possibility of bringing this question to a decision. It is true that attempts have been made to mix it up in various ways with the statements which Josephus has transmitted from Manetho with regard to the rule of the Hyksos in Egypt (c. Ap. i. 14 and 26), and the rising up of the “new king” has been identified sometimes with the commencement of the Hyksos rule, and at other times with the return of the native dynasty on the expulsion of the Hyksos. But just as the accounts of the ancients with regard to the Hyksos bear throughout the stamp of very distorted legends and exaggerations, so the attempts of modern inquirers to clear up the confusion of these legends, and to bring out the historical truth that lies at the foundation of them all, have led to nothing but confused and contradictory hypotheses; so that the greatest Egyptologists of our own days, - viz., Lepsius, Bunsen, and Brugsch - differ throughout, and are even diametrically opposed to one another in their views respecting the dynasties of Egypt. Not a single trace of the Hyksos dynasty is to be found either in or upon the ancient monuments. The documental proofs of the existence of a dynasty of foreign kings, which the Vicomte de Rougé thought that he had discovered in the Papyrus Sallier No. 1 of the British Museum, and which Brugsch pronounced “an Egyptian document concerning the Hyksos period,” have since then been declared untenable both by Brugsch and Lepsius, and therefore given up again. Neither Herodotus nor Diodorus Siculus heard anything at all about the Hyksos though the former made very minute inquiry of the Egyptian priests of Memphis and Heliopolis. And lastly, the notices of Egypt and its kings, which we meet with in Genesis and Exodus, do not contain the slightest intimation that there were foreign kings ruling there either in Joseph's or Moses' days, or that the genuine Egyptian spirit which pervades these notices was nothing more than the “outward adoption” of Egyptian customs and modes of thought. If we add to this the unquestionably legendary character of the Manetho accounts, there is always the greatest probability in the views of those inquirers who regard the two accounts given by Manetho concerning the Hyksos as two different forms of one and the same legend, and the historical fact upon which this legend was founded as being the 430 years' sojourn of the Israelites, which had been thoroughly distorted in the national interests of Egypt. - For a further expansion and defence of this view see Hävernick's Einleitung in d. A. T. i. 2, pp. 338ff., Ed. 2 (Introduction to the Pentateuch, pp. 235ff. English translation).)
The new king did not acknowledge Joseph, i.e., his great merits in relation to Egypt. יָדַע לֹא 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 (חַכִּים) 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” (יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּנֵי עַם lit., “nation, viz., the sons of Israel;” for עַם 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. הִתְחַכֵּם, 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 הִתְנַכֵּל 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. עָלָה 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 תִּקְרֶאנָה for תִּקְרֶינָה, 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, §191c, and Ges. §47, 3, Anm. 3). Consequently there is no necessity either to understand מִלְחָמָה collectively as signifying soldiers, or to regard תִּקְרֶאנוּ 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. מִסִּים שָׂרֵי bailiffs over the serfs. מִסִּים from מַס signifies, not feudal service, but feudal labourers, serfs (see my Commentary on 1Ki 4:6). עִנָּה to bend, to wear out any one's strength (Psa 102:24). By hard feudal labour (סִבְלֹות 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. - וַיִּבֶן - .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 גֹּשֶׁן אַרְצָה 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 (כֵּן = כַּאֲשֶׁר prout, ita; פָּרַץ 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. פֶּרֶךְ hard oppression, from the Chaldee פְּרַךְ 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), כָּל־עֲבֹדָתָם אֵת 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 ימָרֲרו, as a second accusative (Ewald, §277d). 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).