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THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES
( åְàֵìֶּä ùְׁîåֹú ; Ἐîïäïò : Exodus)
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THE PROPHETICO-MESSIANIC THEOCRACY—OR THE GENESIS, REDEMPTION AND SANCTIFICATION OF THE COVENANT PEOPLE
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FIRST DIVISION: MOSES AND PHARAOH
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FIRST SECTION
A.—growth and servitude of the israelites in egypt—and pharaoh’s purpose to destroy them
Chap. Exo_1:1-22
[Exo_1:14. Lange, with many others, takes àֵú here as a preposition, meaning “together with,” “besides.” and supplies “other” before “service.” Grammatically this is perhaps easier than to take it (as we have done as the sign of the Acc. But it requires us to supply the word on which the whole force of the clause depends.—Tr.].
[Exo_1:19. Lange translates, unaccountably, àֶìÎôַּøòֹä as being equivalent to a genitive: die Hebammen des Pharaoh, “Pharaoh’s midwives.”—Tr.].
Exo_1:2-4. The names of the children are given according to the rank of the mothers. So Gen_35:23-26.
Exo_1:5. The small number of seventy souls (vid. Gen_46:27) who entered Egypt, illustrates the wonderful increase. At the exodus 600,000 men, besides children, etc. Vid. Exo_12:37. On the terms denoting increase, éִøְáּåּ ôָּøåּ éִùְׁøְöåּ see Gen_1:28; Gen_8:17.
Exo_1:8. A new king.— åַéָּ÷ָí has a special significance. He rose up, as a man opposed to the previous policy. The LXX. translate çָãָùׁ by ἔôåñïò . Josephus and others inferred the rise of a new dynasty.—Who knew not Joseph, i.e., cared nothing for his services and the results of them, the high regard in which his people had been held.
Exo_1:9-10. “They are greater and stronger than we,” says despotic fear. “Come, let us be more prudent (more cunning) than they,” is the language of despotic craftiness and malice. Despotic policy adds, that in case of a war the people might join the enemy. A danger to the country might indeed grow out of the fact that the Israelites did not become Egyptianized. The power of Israelitish traditions is shown especially in the circumstance that even the descendants of Joseph, though they had an Egyptian mother, certainly became Jews. Perhaps it was dislike of Egyptian manners which led the sons of Ephraim early to migrate towards Palestine, 1Ch_7:22. An honorable policy would, however, have provided means to help the Jews to secure a foreign dwelling-place.
Exo_1:11. Taskmasters.—The organs of oppression and enslavement. “That foreigners were employed in these labors, is illustrated by a sepulchral monument, discovered in the ruins of Thebes, and copied in the Egyptological works of Rosellini and Wilkinson, which represents laborers, who are not Egyptians, as employed in making brick, and by them two Egyptians with rods, as overseers; even though these laborers may not be designed to represent Israelites, as their Jewish features would indicate” (Keil). See also Keil’s reference to Aristotle and Livy, (p. 422) on the despotic method of enfeebling a people physically and mentally by enforced labor. Store-cities.—For the harvests. See Keil (p. 422) on Pithom (Gr. ÐÜôïõìïò , Egypt. Thou, Thoum), situated on the canal which connects the Nile with the Arabian gulf. Raemses, the same as Heroopolis.
Exo_1:12. Horror is the appropriate designation of the feeling with which bad men see the opposite of their plans wonderfully brought about. Hengstenberg: Sie hatten Elcel vor ihnen. “They were disgusted at them.” But this was the case before. On ÷åּõ see the lexicons.
Exo_1:13-14. Aggravation of the servitude. Two principal forms of service. Brickmaking for other buildings, and field labor. The bricks were hardened in the hot Egyptian sun; the field labor consisted especially in the hard work of irrigating the soil.
Exo_1:15-18. Second measure. Resort to brutal violence, but still concealed under demoniacal artifice. Probably there was an organized order of midwives, and the two midwives mentioned were at their head.—He said unto them.—And again: he said. He tried to persuade them, and at last the devilish command came out—probably secret instructions like those of Herod, to kill the children in Bethlehem.—Over the bathing-tub. [So Lange.—Tr.]. Knobel and Keil assume a figurative designation of the vagina in the phrase äָàָáְðַéí , referring to Jer_18:3. Since the child is generally born head first, there is only a moment from the time when the sex can be recognized to the use of the bathing-tub. On the various interpretations, comp. the lexicons and the Studien und Kritiken, 1834, S. 81ff.,etc. A heathenish way, all over the world, of killing the males and forcing the women and girls to accommodate themselves to the mode of life of the murderers.
Exo_1:19. “With this answer they could deceive the king, since the Arab women bear children with extraordinary ease and rapidity. See Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahabis, I., p. 96; Tischendorf, Reise I., p. 108.” (Keil).
Exo_1:20-21. God built them houses—He blessed them with abundant prosperity. According to Keil, the expression is figurative: because they labored for the upbuilding of the families of Israel, their families also were built up by God. Their lie, which Augustine excuses on the ground that their fear of God outweighed the sinfulness of the falsehood, seems, like similar things in the life of Abraham, to be the wild utterance of a state of extreme moral exigency, and is here palliated by a real fact, the ease of parturition.
Exo_1:22. Now at last open brutality follows the failure of the scheme intervening between artifice and violence. On similar occurrences in profane history, see Keil. Probably also this command was paralyzed, and the deliverance of Moses by the daughter of Pharaoh might well have had the effect of nullifying the king’s command; for even the worst of the heathen were often terrified by unexpected divine manifestations.
Footnotes:
[The Authorized Version is followed in the translation from the Hebrew, except that “Jehovah” is everywhere substituted for “the Lord.” In other cases, where a change in the translation is thought to be desirable, the proposed emendation is inserted in brackets.—Tr]
[Exo_1:10. ðִúְçַëְּîָä . Lange, Gesenius, Arnheim, and Philippson, translate this überlisten, “outwit.” But the Hithp. form occurs, besides here, only in Ecc_7:16, and there has the signification proper to the Hithpel, viz., to deem one’s-self wise, to act the part of a wise man. Here, therefore, it is better to render it in nearly the same way.— úִּ÷ְøֶàðָä , a plural verb with a singular subject. Knobel, following the Samaritan version ( ú÷øàðå ), translates wird uns treffen, “shall befall us.” But there is no need of this assumption of a corrupt text. See Ewald, Ausf. Gram., § 191 c.—Tr.].
[Exo_1:14. Lange, with many others, takes àֵú here as a preposition, meaning “together with,” “besides.” and supplies “other” before “service.” Grammatically this is perhaps easier than to take it (as we have done as the sign of the Acc. But it requires us to supply the word on which the whole force of the clause depends.—Tr.].
[Exo_1:19. Lange translates, unaccountably, àֶìÎôַּøòֹä as being equivalent to a genitive: die Hebammen des Pharaoh, “Pharaoh’s midwives.”—Tr.].
[Aristotle, Polit. v. 9; Livy, Hist. i. 56, 59. The references to Keil conform to the translation published by the Clarks. Edinburgh. But the translations, when given here, are made directly from the original, and from a later edition than that from which the Edinburgh translation was made.—Tr.].
[An article by Prof. Rettig. There is, however, still another article on the same subject in the same volume of this periodical, p. 641 sqq., by Redslob. The principal views on this vexed phrase are these: (1) That àָáְðַéִí being the same word as is ued (and elsewhere only used) in Jer_18:3, of a potter’s wheel, must denote the same thing; or, rather, the seat on which the potter sits, this being adapted to the use of a parturient woman. (2) That it means bathing-tub, the dual form being accounted for by the supposition that a cover belonged to it. (3) That it is derived from àָôַï in the sense of turn, and refers to the pudenda of the parturient, from which the child is, as it were, turned forth, like the vessel from the potter’s wheel. (4) That the word, being radically the same as àֶáֶï , and being in the dual, may be used for the testiculi of the male child. (5) That àָáְðַéִí , from àָôַï , may mean Kinds, sexes. (6) That being derived from àָáַï in the sense of to separate (and so a stone is that which is separated from a rock), it means the two distinctions (so Meier, Studien und Krttiken, 1842, p. 1050). It is obvious to remark that, in order to determine the sex of the child, the thing to be looked at is not the bathing-tub, or the stool, or any part of the mother. This consideration is almost, if not quite, conclusive against the first three interpretations. But it is perhaps useless to hope for a complete solution of the meaning of the phrase.—Tr.].
[Probably a slip of the pen for Knobel. See his commentary on Exodus, p. 9, in the Kurzgefasstes exegetisches Handbuch zum alten Testament.—Tr.].