Chapter One

1–7. Multiplication of the descendants of Jacob in Egypt. 8–22. Their oppression by a new pharaoh.

Exodus 1:1. These are the names of the sons of Israel, who came into Egypt with Jacob, each came with his whole household: Exodus 1:2. Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, Exodus 1:3. Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin, Exodus 1:4. Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher. Exodus 1:5. All the souls born from Jacob’s loins were seventy, and Joseph was already in Egypt. Exodus 1:6. And Joseph died, and all his brothers, and all that generation; By listing the names of the sons of Israel who came into Egypt and mentioning the death of Joseph, Moses directs the reader to the last chapters of the book of Genesis (Gen 46:8-27) and thereby makes it clear that the book of Exodus is in close connection with them. Like them, it has as its subject the description of the life of Jacob’s descendants in Egypt, and by beginning it from the moment of Joseph’s death, it becomes their continuation. The listing of Jacob’s sons – the heads of generations – is conducted in the order of their mothers (Gen 35:23-26). In the total number of those who settled (Gen 46:27, Deut 10:22), which is greater in the Greek-Slavonic compared to the Hebrew by five because the LXX translators add three grandsons and two great-grandsons of Joseph (Gen 46:20), the wives of Jacob’s sons are not included (Gen 46:26) and other persons belonging to the patriarchal family – slaves and maidservants (Gen 32:6). With the inclusion of these latter, to which the expression of the 1st verse “came each with his whole house” gives right – with his family, including wives, children, servants (Gen 7:1), in general with his clan (1 Sam 20:16) – the number of those who came into Egypt is justly increased to several hundred. The death of Joseph and the entire old generation is marked as the beginning of a new period, described below, in the life of Jacob’s family. It is characterized by two features: the rapid multiplication of the Hebrews and new relations toward them by the Egyptians.

Exodus 1:7. And the sons of Israel were fruitful and multiplied and increased and became exceedingly mighty, and the land was filled with them. The multiplication of the Hebrews is spoken of also by the Hebrew expression “vayishretzу” – became swarming, like rapidly multiplying small animals (Gen 1:20), and is clearly testified to by the number of Israelites who left Egypt. By the time of the exodus, the patriarchal family had become, at least, 2,000,000 persons. Of these, 600,000 able-bodied men, that is, having 20 years and above from birth (Num 1:3-46), are noted in the 37th verse of the 12th chapter of the book of Exodus (Exod 12:37); the remaining figure – 1,400,000 – consists of women and children. Being a direct fulfillment of the promise given to Jacob (Gen 46:3), the work of God (Ps 104:24), the multiplication of the Hebrews is explained also by purely natural causes. The first place among them is occupied by the extraordinary fertility of Egyptian nature, which was communicated also to the inhabitants of the Nile valley. According to the testimony of Pliny, Seneca, Aristotle, Strabo, and others, Egyptian women gave birth frequently and in multitudes – three, four, and five children. The thought about the influence of Egyptian nature on the multiplication of the Hebrews is expressed, among other things, in the Greek-Slavonic translation, which employs instead of the original expression: “the land was filled with them,” another: “and the land multiplied them,” “ἐπλήθυνεν δὲ ἡ γῆ αὐτούς.” The multiplication of the Hebrews was also assisted, as is believed, by marriages with related Semitic tribes, long settled on the eastern border of Egypt.

Exodus 1:8. And there rose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph, The time of the multiplication of the Hebrews coincides with a change in their public status. The guilty party for this is the “new king.” Why he is called by such a name, whether it is because of new relations toward the Hebrews, or because of his origin from a new dynasty compared to the previous one, it is quite difficult to say. Most exegetes hold, however, the view that the pharaoh-persecutor (Thutmose III) came from the native Egyptian dynasty, which overthrew the yoke of the shepherd tribe of the Hyksos, during whose rule Jacob settled in Egypt. He transferred his hatred of these former oppressors to the Hebrews, who were friendly toward them. Confirmation of the correctness of such a view is provided by the consideration that the Hyksos pharaoh had no motivation to oppress the Hebrews. On the contrary, the foreign Hyksos naturally had to seek support from such, like themselves, foreign Hebrews. The new king “did not know Joseph,” – perhaps heard about his name and deeds, but did not acknowledge his merits as the first dignitary under a hostile dynasty pharaoh.

Exodus 1:9. And he said to his people: “Behold, the people of the sons of Israel is numerous and stronger than us; Exodus 1:10. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply; and when war breaks out, they also may join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land. The pharaoh’s fears that the Hebrews, already surpassing in number and strength (Ps 104:24) the native Egyptians of Goshen, could easily leave Egypt with further multiplication had basis in their own behavior. As evident from the testimony of 1 Chronicles of the slaying of two sons of Ephraim by the inhabitants of Gath (1 Chr 7:21) and the building in Canaan by the daughter or granddaughter of the same Ephraim of the cities of Beth-horon and Uzzen-Sheerah (1 Chr 7:24), the Hebrews during their time in Egypt maintained relations with Palestine, attempted to establish themselves there. This yearning for the land of their fathers spoke to the fact that the Hebrews had not merged with the native population of Egypt, and therefore, at the first opportunity, at a war common at that time on the eastern border, could easily abandon the foreign land to them.

Exodus 1:11. So the Egyptians set taskmasters over them to afflict them with hard labor. And they built for Pharaoh storage cities, Pithom and Ramesses, and On, otherwise Heliopolis. Exodus 1:12. But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and the more they spread, so that the Egyptians feared the sons of Israel. Exodus 1:13. And the Egyptians made the sons of Israel work with rigor Exodus 1:14. and made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and bricks, and in all sorts of field work; all their service was with rigor. The pharaoh’s fear of the loss from Egypt of an entire tribe, representing a source of unpaid labor, provoked a whole series of measures aimed at limiting the multiplication of the Hebrews: “let us deal shrewdly with them, let us devise cunning measures (“nakhal,” – Ps 104:25), so that they do not multiply.” It was impossible to act with open force both because of the absence of plausible pretext and from fear of the strength of the Hebrews. The first of the measures was hard labor (Deut 26:6, Ps 79:7), devised by the pharaoh. In the calculation that, by exhausting the Hebrews, by making them physically weak, they would stop their further multiplication, since a physically weak people cannot have large offspring. Representing special hardship because of the existence of special taskmasters, chosen, according to testimony of Egyptian monuments, from the harsh Libyan tribe and depicted with short clubs in their hands for striking, the labor was reduced at first to the building (and perhaps expansion, renovation, Hebrew “bana,” – see Ps 121:3, Amos 9:14) of two storage cities (for storage of provisions and weapons – 2 Chr 32:28), “Pithom and Ramesses.” The first is understood to be the city that lay at the western end of the valley of Tumilat, on the bank of a canal in the Red Sea, and was called by Greco-Roman writers Patoumos or Toum, and the second – the city found in the land of Goshen, east of the Pelusiac branch of the Nile. Calling these two cities by the existing fortifications “strong cities,” the LXX text mentions the building by the Hebrews of yet another city – On, or Heliopolis. The common opinion of exegetes sees in it the famous city in lower Egypt, An (Greek On), bearing also the sacred name Pera, house of the sun, from which comes the Greek Heliopolis.

Exodus 1:15. Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, Exodus 1:16. “When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them upon the birthstool, if it is a son, then you shall kill him; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live. Exodus 1:17. But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live. The execution of the second measure – the killing of Hebrew male infants at the moment of their birth was entrusted to the midwives. According to the Hebrew text, these were Hebrew women, whereby the measure itself appears strange and unattainable, since it is difficult to suppose that Hebrew women would kill the children of their countrywomen. The reading of the LXX, which the Russian translation follows, as well as the testimony of Josephus – expresses the thought of their Egyptian origin. The correctness of such understanding is confirmed by the unsatisfactory derivation of the names Shiphrah and Puah from the Hebrew language and the possibility of explaining them from the Egyptian language. Shiphrah – “fruitful,” or by another interpretation – “beautiful”; Puah – “giving birth to a child,” “radiant.” The mention of only two midwives is explained by the fact that only these two were known to the Egyptian government.

Exodus 1:18. So the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them: “Why have you done this, and let the male children live? Exodus 1:19. The midwives said to Pharaoh: “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and are delivered before the midwife comes to them. The answer of the midwives could satisfy the pharaoh in view, perhaps, of cases known to him of extraordinarily easy childbirth among Arab women.

Exodus 1:20. So God dealt well with the midwives; and the people multiplied and became very strong. Exodus 1:21. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. Exodus 1:22. Then Pharaoh commanded all his people: “Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live. Unable to be carried out because of the God-fearing nature of the midwives, the second measure is replaced by one similar in purpose – the command to throw newborn boys into the river. The expression “into the river” (Hebrew “yeor”) does not contain a necessary indication of the Nile, at which understanding the new measure appears strange, since the Nile does not flow through the land of Goshen, where the Hebrews lived. The Hebrew “yeor” means the Nile with its branches (Exod 7:19, Exod 8:5, Isa 19:6), and sometimes (Ezek 29:3-5) these latter alone. And since, according to the indication of Strabo and recent investigations of Brugsch, the eastern part of Egypt, in which the Hebrews lived, abounded in canals, it was into these that Hebrew boys were thrown. By issuing a new command “to all his people,” the pharaoh hoped for their sympathy because of the universal fear of the multiplication of the Hebrews (Exod 1:12). * * * Greek ἕτερος, Slavonic “other” (Acts 7:18). Hebrew “gaobnaim” Slavonic: “are for birth”; Russian: “upon the birthstool” (Exod 1:16).