Israel Multiplies in Egypt
Exoduschapter 1
22 verses · BSB180 cross-references outward · 186 inwardExodus book hub →
Speaks with:Acts 7×5Genesis 46×3Genesis 35×3Psalms 105×3Exodus 1×3Genesis 50×2
Chapter summary
Israel in Egypt.
Read the rest, the context and the outline ▾Show less ▴
Chapter summary
Israel in Egypt.
Read the rest, the context and the outline ▾Show less ▴
Israel in Egypt. ‘There arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph.’ The Hebrews multiply; Pharaoh fears them; they are set to hard bondage under taskmasters. Pyramids of brick rise from their sweat. The midwives Shiphrah and Puah refuse to kill the male children and God rewards them with households. Pharaoh escalates: every son cast into the river. The chapter sets the scene — the covenant family has become a slave nation; the ground of their cry is prepared. Henry: God is already preparing a deliverer in a household by the Nile. Judgment on Israel will be the instrument of their deliverance.
Drawn from Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory, Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary, John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and John Calvin, Commentaries.
Context
Law · Moses — Exodus overview
- A. 1–7 Israel Multiplies in Egypt
- B. 8–14 A King Who Knew Not Joseph
- C. 15–22 The Midwives Who Feared God
Words in this chapter
- אֶת־ʾet-<obj.>
- לַֽמְיַלְּדֹ֖תlamyaledotto the midwives
- כָּל־kol-every
- בְּנֵ֣יbenei[the] sons of
- מִצְרָ֑יְמָהmitzrayemahEgypt towards
- וַיֹּ֖אמֶרvaiyomerand he said
- יִשְׂרָאֵ֔לyisraelIsrael
- אֲשֶׁ֥רʾasherwho
- וַֽיְהִ֗יvayhiand it was
- הַהֽוּא׃hahu'<the> that
- וַיִּרְבּ֥וּvaiyirbuand they multiplied
- מֶֽלֶךְ־melekh-a king
- עַל־ʾal-over
- אֶל־ʾel-to
- עַמּ֑וֹamopeople his
- כִּֽי־ki-that
- וָחָֽיָה׃vachayahand she will live
- שְׁמוֹת֙shemot[are] [the] names of
- הַבָּאִ֖יםhabaimwho went
- וְיוֹסֵ֖ףveyosefand Joseph
- בִּמְאֹ֣דbimodwith muchness
- לֹֽא־lo'-not
- לְפַרְעֹ֔הlefarohfor Pharaoh
- בַּעֲבֹדָ֣הbaavodahwith labor
Connections from this chapter
A letter pattern — shown for contrast1
Shown for contrast, not as proof. Rabbi Weissmandl noticed that counting every fiftieth letter from the first taw of Genesis spells T-O-R-H, with a parallel count near the opening of Exodus. It is a real count — and it is the foil for the visible taw of Ezekiel 9: that mark is on the page for anyone to read, while this one cannot be seen at all without a computer.
Genesis 1:1 →In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Weissmandl (posthumous); Chabad 'The Purim Code'; McKay et al. Statistical Science 14(2) 1999
A letter pattern in the text1
Weissmandl: every 50th letter from the first taw of Genesis spells TORH, with a parallel 50-interval TORH near the start of Exodus. A historically real OBSERVATION, never proof; short-word ELSs are mathematically trivial.
Genesis 1:1 →In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Weissmandl (posthumous); Chabad, 'The Purim Code'
Where scholars push back(1)
Genesis 1:1. Short-word letter-skip patterns turn up in any long text by chance; McKay and colleagues (Statistical Science 14:2, 1999) showed the statistical case for hidden codes collapses under controlled testing.
The world behind this chapter
Exodus 1The history
The work described is corvée — forced state labor. Egypt ran its building programs by conscripting whole populations for seasons at a time, overseen by taskmasters who set daily targets. It was not chattel slavery of the later kind; it was a state that owned your working days.
Store cities were fortified supply depots — granaries, magazines, and garrison quarters — built in the eastern delta to provision the army on the road to Canaan. That is exactly the region Israel was settled in.
Mud brick was the material of Egyptian civil building. Nile mud was mixed with chopped straw, pressed into wooden moulds, and dried in the sun. Egyptian tomb paintings show foreign laborers doing precisely this work under supervisors with sticks.
The order to the midwives is a policy of population control by killing male infants — the sons who would grow into fighting men and the daughters left to be absorbed into Egypt by marriage. The two midwives are named, Shiphrah and Puah, and their names are of a type attested among Semites in Egypt.
What it meant to them
The promise made to Abraham is being fulfilled in the worst possible circumstances: they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, and that is precisely why they were hated.
Israel heard that its survival began with two women who feared God more than they feared a king, and were given households of their own for it.
Sources cited
- James K. Hoffmeier, Israel in Egypt
- K. A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament