Exodus 1
1
Israel Oppressed
1#Ge 46:8–26; 35:23–26Now these are the names of the sons of Israel, which came into Egypt (each man and his household came with Jacob): 2Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah; 3Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin; 4Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher. 5#Ge 46:26–27; Dt 10:22All the people who came from the seed of Jacob were seventy people, but Joseph was in Egypt already.
6#Ge 50:26Joseph died, as did all his brothers, and all that generation. 7#Ge 46:3; Dt 26:5Nevertheless, the sons of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and became exceedingly mighty,#Or numerous; also in v. 20. so that the land was filled with them.
8#Ac 7:18Now there rose up a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. 9#Ps 105:24–25He said to his people, “Surely, the people of the sons of Israel are more numerous and powerful than we. 10#Ac 7:19; Ps 83:3–4Come, let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply, and it come to pass that when any war breaks out, they also join our enemies, and fight against us, and escape from the land.”
11#Ge 15:13; 47:11Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their labor. They built for Pharaoh storage cities: Pithom and Rameses. 12But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew so that as a result they abhorred the sons of Israel. 13The Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigor, 14#Ex 2:23; 6:9and they made their lives bitter with hard service—in mortar and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field, all their service in which they made them serve was with rigor.
15The king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of which the name of one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah, 16and he said, “When you perform the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the stools, if it is a son, then you must kill him, but if it is a daughter, then she may live.” 17#Ac 5:29; Pr 16:6; Da 3:16–18However, the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but kept the male children alive. 18The king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this thing and preserved the male children’s lives?”
19The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives come to them.”
20#Ex 1:12; Pr 11:18Therefore God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and grew very mighty. 21#1Sa 2:35; 1Ki 11:38So it happened that because the midwives feared God, He gave them families.
22#Ac 7:19Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, “You must cast every son that is born into the river, and you must preserve every daughter’s life.”
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Exodus 1: MEV
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Military Bible Association
Exodus 1
1
The people of Israel become slaves
The people of Israel suffer
1-5When Jacob went to Egypt, his son Joseph was already there. So Jacob took his eleven other sons and their families. They were: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Benjamin, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher. Altogether, Jacob had seventy children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren#1.1-5 seventy children…great-grandchildren: See Genesis 46.8-27. who went with him.#Gn 46.8-27.
6After Joseph, his brothers, and everyone else in that generation had died, 7the people of Israel became so numerous that the whole region of Goshen was full of them.#Ac 7.17.
8Many years later a new king came to power. He did not know what Joseph had done for Egypt,#Ac 7.18. 9and he told the Egyptians:
There are too many of those Israelites in our country, and they are becoming more powerful than we are. 10If we don't outsmart them, their families will keep growing larger. And if our country goes to war, they could easily fight on the side of our enemies and escape from Egypt.#Ac 7.19.
11The Egyptians put slave bosses in charge of the people of Israel and tried to wear them down with hard work. Those bosses forced them to build the cities of Pithom and Rameses,#1.11 Pithom and Rameses: This is the only mention of Pithom in the Bible; its exact location is unknown, though it was probably in the northern Delta of Egypt. Rameses is the famous Delta city that was the home of Rameses II; its exact location is also unknown. where the king#1.11 the king: The Hebrew text has “Pharaoh”, a Hebrew word sometimes used for the title of the king of Egypt. could store his supplies. 12But even though the Israelites were ill-treated, their families grew larger, and they took over more land. Because of this, the Egyptians hated them more than before 13and made them work so hard 14that their lives were miserable. The Egyptians were cruel to the people of Israel and forced them to make bricks and to mix mortar and to work in the fields.
15Finally, the king called in Shiphrah and Puah, the two women who helped the Hebrew#1.15 Hebrew: An earlier term for “Israelite”. mothers when they gave birth. 16He told them, “If a Hebrew woman gives birth to a girl, let the child live. If the baby is a boy, kill him!”
17But the two women were faithful to God and did not kill the boys, even though the king had told them to. 18The king called them in again and asked, “Why are you letting those baby boys live?”
19They answered, “Hebrew women have their babies much quicker than Egyptian women. By the time we arrive, their babies are already born.” 20-21God was good to the two women because they truly respected him, and he blessed them with children of their own.
The Hebrews kept increasing 22until finally, the king gave a command to everyone in the nation, “As soon as a Hebrew boy is born, throw him into the River Nile! But you can let the girls live.”#Ac 7.19.
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© British and Foreign Bible Society 2012