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Pharaoh Plans to Curb the Growth
v. 8. Now there arose up a new king over Egypt which knew not Joseph. The expression "arose up" indicates either that the new Pharaoh adopted entirely new policies with reference to the strange people within the boundaries of his land, or that a new dynasty was founded by conquest or by the overthrow of that which had been friendly to the people of Joseph, the savior of Egypt. This new Pharaoh knew not Joseph, either because he was entirely unfamiliar with the history of the strange people in Goshen, or because he determined to set aside the high regard in which the strangers had been held. A careful comparison of Biblical and secular history seems to show that Thothmes I must have been the Pharaoh of the oppression, while the Pharaoh of the Exodus was Amenhotep II.
v. 9. And he said unto his people, to the high officials and representatives of the people, who were his counselors, Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we. This was an exaggeration to emphasize the unwelcome growth of the Israelites which showed the abject fear of the despot.
v. 10. Come on, let us deal wisely with them, make use of political sagacity combined with despotic craftiness and malice, lest they multiply, and it come to pass that, when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land. The children of Israel were no citizens of Egypt, they had never become Egyptianized, neither in language nor in religion nor in customs, and so the new despot scented a danger which his policy bade him remove in time. He did not fear the conquest of his own country, but merely the departure of the Jews in case of a war. He considered the Israelites subject to his jurisdiction to the extent of treating them as serfs and bondmen.
v. 11. Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. The counselors advised impressing the Israelites into peonage, practically into slavery, by setting officers over them, the purpose being to enfeeble the people, both in body and mind, by enforced labor, to take the heart out of them by the grievousness of their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses. Certain cities had been set aside as places to store the annual tax of the harvest which Joseph had introduced, Pithom, which was situated on the canal connecting the Nile with the Arabian Gulf, and Raamses, later known as Heroopolis, in Goshen, about twenty-two miles east of Pithom, as nearly as may be determined at the present time.
v. 12. But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. God spoiled the success of the Egyptians' plans by continuing to bless the Israelites in spite of all the measures intended to destroy their fruitfulness. And they were grieved because of the children of Israel. They were not merely disgusted at them, but they felt an increasing horror of the mysterious power that was aiding the children of Israel.
v. 13. And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigor;
v. 14. and they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar and in brick and in all manner of service in the field; all their service wherein they made them serve was with rigor. Chagrined at the failure of their first plan, the Egyptians added ill treatment and cruelty to oppression. Two new forms of service were laid upon them, brick-making, which included both the preparing of the clay and the drying of the brick, and the hard field labor on the soil which had to be irrigated. Thus all the work which the Egyptians performed through the Israelites was done under hard pressure upon the latter. To this day tribulation and persecution is the lot of the people of God, but such crosses bring them only blessing and gain.