were suddenly reduced to a state of Naphtali;' and 17. 12, 'And Jehoshavassalage; they were declared to be the phat waxed great exceedingly; and he absolute property of the crown; and built in Judah castles, and cities of store the whole of the male population being ( miskenoth).' Different ver told off into companies, was employed sions, however, present different rennight and day under their task-masters, derings, among which are store-houses, upon public works, and driven like cat-granaries, fortresses, and walled towns. tle into the fields. They were com- The Chal. has 'Cities of the house of pelled to dig clay, to make bricks, to treasure ;' i. e. cities in which treasures bear burdens, and to build cities, whilst are deposited; but what kind of trea at the same time no doubt the great-sures we are not informed. Probably est cruelties were exercised towards them. Of this period of the Jewish history, Josephus thus speaks: And having, in length of time, forgotten the benefits they had received from Joseph, particularly the crown being now come into another family, they became very abusive to the Israelites, and contrived many ways of afflicting them; for they enjoined them to cut a great number of channels for the river, and to build walls for their cities, and ramparts that they might restrain the river, and hinder its waters from stagnating, upon its running over its own banks. They set them also to build pyramids; and by all this wore them out, and forced them to learn all sorts of mechanical arts, and to accustom themselves to hard labor.' All this was done under the expectation that multitudes of them would perish from over exertion, whilst all would become so enfeebled as that the progress of population would be effectually checked. But as usual where men set themselves to counteract the fixed purposes of God, the result proved directly contrary to their anticipations. When the language of his decree is, 'Increase and multiply,' it is equally idle and impious for the edict of puny mortals to proclaim, 'Abstain and be diminished.' And they built treasure cities. Heb. 77, va-yiben arë miskenoth, and he built (collect. sing.) cities of store, as the phrase is rendered 2 Chron. 16. 4, 'And they smote Ijon, and Dan, and Abel-maim, and all the store.cities (miskenoth) of they were cities that served not so much The the land of Rameses,' Gen. 47. 11, there is reason to believe that the latter town was in that land, to which it gave or from which it received its name. See Professor Stuart's Course of Hebrew Study, Vol. II., Excursus II., which con 12 But the more they afflicted | children of Israel to serve with them, the more they multiplied rigour. and grew. And they were grieved because of the children of Israel. 13 And the Egyptians made the tains a very able and interesting view of the topography of Goshen. 14 And they m made their lives m ch. 2. 23. & 6. 9. Numb. 20. 15. Acts 7. 19, 34. regarded the Israelites as an abomination. The import of the original word may be gathered from its use in the following connexions. Gen. 27. 46, 'I am weary (p) of my life, because of the daughters of Heth.' Num. 21. 5, 6 Our soul loatheth () this light bread.' Lev. 20. 23, They committed all these things, and therefore I abhorred (p) them.' A passage still more to the point occurs Num. 22. 3, where a like cause of vexation is hinted at; And Moab was sore afraid of the people, because they were many; and Moab was distressed (7) because of the children of Israel;' where Ainsworth renders, as in Gen. 27. 46, was irked.' 13. With rigor. Heb. bepharek, with fierceness. Gr. Bia, with force. With hardness.' From the orig 12. The more they afflicted them, &c. Heb. ka-asher ye-annu otho, according as they afflicted him (collect. sing.), so he multiplied and so he brake forth (into a multitude). The latter verb yiphrotz is the same as that which occurs Gen. 28. 14, to denote a rapid and, as it were, a bursting increase and diffusion; 'Thou shalt spread abroad (7 tiphrotz) to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south.' The historian's words depict to us the conflict between the favor of God and the cruelty of the Egyptian king. The more his people suffered from the tyranny of their masters, the more prolific the women proved to be, thus showing, that there| Chal. is no wisdom nor understanding nor inal counsel against the Lord.' Some commentators have been disposed to resort to natural causes to account for this amazing increase, but we are satisfied with the solution offered by the words of the promise, Gen. 15. 5, 'Look now toward heaven and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them-so shall thy seed be.' They were grieved because of the children of Israel. Heb. yakutzu. The leading idea is doubtless that of mingled chagrin and abhorrence. Finding that, in spite of all their efforts, the people continued to increase, they were filled with inward vexation, and there was something irksome in the very thought of the hated race of Israel. Chal. There was tribulation (vexation) to the Egyptians by reason of the children of Israel.' Gr. sẞdeλvoσovтo, they were abominated, just as one is said to be 'scandalized' by that which is a cause of offence; they pherek comes the Latin ferox and the English fierce. The Israelites were subsequently prohibited from ruling in this manner over their brethren, Lev. 25. 46, 'But over your brethren, the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigor (bepherek);' i. e. without mercy. So far were the pretended fears of the Egyptians from working within them the least sentiment of clemency, that they were evidently goaded on by the frustration of their hopes, to a still more relentless course of oppression. Wicked men are slow to be taught, when their mad schemes are defeated, that God fights against them; and even if such a thought now and then glances upon their minds, they seem to be stung and exasperated by it, to rush on yet more recklessly in the way of rebellion. This is strikingly evident from the sequel of the present narrative. 14. Made their lives bitter, &c. Gr. KaTwoVVWV AVTWv Tηy (wηv, made sorrow ful their life. Of a bad man it is said, in the East, 'He makes the lives of his servants bitter.' Also, Ah! the fellow: the heart of his wife is made bitter.' 'My soul is bitter.' 'My heart is like the bitter tree.'-Roberts. The intensity of their hardships could not well be better expressed, for as nothing is sweeter than life, it is only the extremest misery that can render existence itself grievous and burdensome. -T In mortar. Heb. behomer; more properly' in clay' of which bricks are made. This is considered by some as subversive of the statement of Josephus, that the pyramids were built by the Israelites, as it is well known that they are constructed of stone, instead of brick. But all the pyramids are not of stone, as in the province of Fayoum, the ancient Arsinoe, as also at Dashour and Saccara, pyramids of sun-dried brick are still found in a remarkable degree of preservation. Yet even if they were all of them stone structures, it is not a legitimate conclusion that because the Hebrews worked in brick, they therefore did not work in stone also. After all, however, the agency of the Israelites in rearing the pyramids is a point on which nothing positive can be asserted, although it is no doubt safe to affirm that, if the pyramids were built during the bondage of the Israelites, they were engaged upon them, and indeed upon all the public works which were then undertaken. Prisoners and slaves would seem to have been generally employed in such labors; for it was the proud boast of some of the princes of that country, that no Egyptian hand had labored in the greatest of their works. 'What masses were employed, and how profusely human life was wasted, is evinced by the statement in a previous note, that Necho worked away 100,000 lives in the attempt to cut a canal from the Nile to the Red Sea. Things are much the same now in the same country. Mehemet Ali, the Pasha of Egypt, obliged 150,000 men, chiefly Arabs from Upper Egypt, to work on his canal connecting the Nile with the sea at Alexandria: 20,000 of the number perished during the progress of the work. A new canal was in progress when Carne was at Alexandria. That writer says: The bed of the canal presented a novel spectacle, being filled with a vast number of Arabs of various colors, toiling in the intense heat of the day, while their Egyptian (?) task-masters, with whips in their hands, watched the progress of their la bor. It was a just and lively representation of the children of Israel forced to toil by their oppressive masters of old. The wages Mahmoud allowed to these unfortunate people, whom he had obliged to quit their homes and families in Upper Egypt, were only a penny a day and a ration of bread.' ('Letters from the East,' p. 71, 72.) Thus were the lives of the Israelites made bitwith hard bondage.''-Pict. Bib. -¶ In all manner of hard service in the field. That is, in all kinds of agricultural labor. We may here remark, that although the condition of the Hebrews in Egypt at this time was one of bondage, yet it does not appear to have been that of house-slaves or personal servants. It was rather a servitude which consisted in being subject to very grievous and excessive exactions imposed by public authority. They were slaves to the state rather than to individuals. In this respect their bondage differed very considerably from that which is unhappily common in our own country. It resembled more the condition of the serfs or vassals of feudal times, who held their lands at the pleasure of their lords, and who were subject to any exactions of rent or labor at the will of the baron. It appears clear from Ex. 12. 38, that the Hebrews as a body had continued to hold property of their own, though heavy bur ter bitter with hard bondage, in mortar, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field: all their n Ps. 81. 6. service wherein they made them serve was with rigour. 15 ¶ And the king of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives (of which quires to be somewhat more particularly considered. The original word for not a substantive, but a participle, signifying those who cause to bring forth, and the words, according to several of the ancient versions, and some modern critics, may be rendered,' And the king spake to those who made or aided the Hebrew women to bring forth; thus understanding from the original' midwives of the Hebrew women,' instead of' Hebrew midwives.' The construction certainly renders it in a degree doubtful whether they were Egyptian or Hebrew women. On the one hand it is difficult to suppose that the king should have entrusted such an order to Hebrew women. Could he have sup. dens had been laid upon them; and the accounts given elsewhere of the offerings and presents made to the taberna-midwives' (meyalledoth) is ele, &c., make it evident that the nation as such had not been reduced to precisely that kind of slavery with which we are familiar in modern times. They had only been subject to severe and oppressive demands of service, in behalf of the king of Egypt and his officers. Still it was a state of cruel suffering to which an innocent people, against the faith of covenants, were condemned, and such as could not but in the end draw down the judgments of Heaven. But let us not forget the wise and ultimately beneficent purposes which these afflictions were designed to subserve. To the suffering Israelites they were at Once penal and disciplinary. One great end to be attained by them was, that they might be inspired with so deep an abhorrence of the land of their oppressions, that the prospect of returning to Canaan should become more and more refreshing to their hearts, and that when once embarked in the journey thither, they might, remembering the wormwood and the gall, feel no desire to retrace their steps, and fix themselves again in the house of bondage. And as the ensuing narrative acquaints us with the fact, that notwithstanding all their previous calamities, many of them, during the sojourn in the wilderness, did actually project a return to Egypt, we can easily conjecture what would have been the case had they lived in ease, in fulness, and in pleasure, in the place of their sojourn. 15. The king of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives. Finding himself baffled in his first scheme of open and atrocious wrong, he now resorts to a secret stratagem of a more bloody character to compass his ends. This re posed that they would conspire with him in an attempt to extinguish their own race? And when they excused themselves by the plea mentioned v. 19, could he have relied implicitly on their word, without suspecting fraud, had they been Israelitish women? Yet he seems to have admitted the truth of their statement without the slightest hesitation. This was natural, provided the women were Egyptians, but less so if they were not. It is indeed said, ver. 17, that these women 'feared God,' and consequently refused to obey the royal mandate; from which it is inferred that they must have been Hebrew women. But the original 'Elohim' is here preceded by the article, and may, it is said, be rendered 'the gods,' i. e. the powers above; implying merely such a belief in a divine being and a superintending providence, as was perhaps generally prevalent in this early age of the world. But then, on the other hand, (1.) The more obvious import of the text leads us to understand Hebrew women as the name of one was Shiphrah, and V. women, and see them upon the stools; if it be a son, then ye shall kill him; but if it be a daughter, then she shall live. the chief persons of the profession, having the direction of the rest. We learn from Plutarch, that some of the nations of antiquity had schools established among them where females were taught the obstetrical art. This was perhaps the office of these two individuals. meant, whether we regard the construction of the original, or of the translation. Doubtless there were Hebrew women capable of employing themselves in this service in behalf of their kindred, and if Egyptian women had been procured, it would have excited suspicion at once, and perhaps prevented their 16. See them upon the stools. Heb. access to them. (2) It cannot be de-al ha-obnayim, upon the nied that the character given of them, stones. Commentators have been much divided in opinion as to the nature and use of the objects intended by the term here translated stools, but which is literally stones. It would seem perhaps at first view, that they were some contrivance for procuring a more easy delivery for women in labor. But besides that, stone-seats were obviously very unfit for such a purpose, the Heb. word in Ex. 7. 19, signifies a vessel of stone for holding water, a trough. A far more probable interpretation, therefore, is made out by referring the pronoun them,' which it will be observed is not in the original, not to the mothers, but to the children; 'When ye see the new-born children laid in the troughs or vessels of stone, for the purpose of being washed, ye shall destroy the boys.' A passage from the travels of Thevenot seems to confirm this construction: The kings of Persia are so afraid of being deprived of that power which they abuse, and are so apprehensive of being dethroned, that they destroy the children of their female relations, when they are brought to bed of boys, by putting them into an earthen trough, where they suffer them to starve; that is, probably, under pretence of preparing to wash them, they let them pine away or destroy them in the water. This view of the meaning represents the midwives above spoken of, as acting in the capacity of superintendents, for they are not 17, as 'fearers of God,' applies more naturally to Hebrew women, who had been instructed in the religion of their fathers. The phrase, we think, is indicative of general character, and not of any sudden dread with which they may have been smitten on this occasion. Being habitually under the influence of a salutary fear of God, they could not be persuaded for a moment to entertain the thought of such horrid cruelty, though they may have been restrained, from motives of policy, from expressly saying to the king at the time that they would have no hand in the perpetration of such a deed. (3) Their names are purely Hebraic and not Egyptian. (4) As to the improbability of Pharaoh's selecting Hebrew women to be the instruments of such a cruel scheme against their own flesh and blood, it may be replied that the same reason held against his appointing Hebrew officers over their own countrymen, which yet we find he actually did, Ex. 5. 14. On the whole, therefore, we cannot but conclude that the midwives were Hebrew and not Egyptian women, notwithstanding that Josephus affirms the contrary. The name of the one was Shiphrah, &c. Two individuals only are mentioned, but as this number would be wholly inadequate to the service of so many thousand Israelites, it is with great reason supposed, that Shiphrah and Puah were |
