Egyptian Oppression

Filling the Land

Now these are the names of Israel’s sons who, along with their households, arrived in Egypt with Jacob: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Benjamin, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher. All Jacob’s descendants totaled seventy people. Joseph was already in Egypt.

Joseph died, as well as his brothers and that entire generation. But the Israelites were fruitful, abounded, and multiplied. They increased so prolifically they filled the land.

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The book of Exodus begins where Genesis ends. Jacob and his sons arrived in Egypt with their households. They joined Joseph, who already lived there and ruled over the land as the pharaoh’s second-in-command.¹ But Jacob’s seventy descendants living in Egypt presented two problems. First, according to God’s covenant with Abraham, the number of his descendants would be as uncountable as the stars.² Second, they would possess the land of Canaan, not live as foreigners in Egypt.³

Genesis records God’s promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Exodus begins the story of their fulfillment, starting with the promise of offspring. Joseph and his brothers died, but their descendants multiplied prolifically. Soon they filled the land of Goshen, where they lived.⁴ Their miraculous rate of reproduction evidenced God’s blessing on them. It also set up the conflict that would result in their departure from Egypt.

Forced Labor

Then a new king who didn’t know about Joseph rose to power over Egypt. He said to his people, “Look! The Israelite people multiply and increase faster than us. Let’s deal with them shrewdly so they won’t multiply. Otherwise when war breaks out, they’ll join our enemies, fight against us, and leave the land.”

The Egyptians appointed taskmasters over the Israelites to oppress them through forced labor. They built the storage cities of Pithom and Rameses for the pharaoh. But the more the Egyptians oppressed them, the more they multiplied and spread out. So the Egyptians detested the Israelites and forced them to work arduously. They made their lives bitter through hard labor making mortar and bricks and working in the fields. They made them work arduously at all their labor.

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Eventually, a pharaoh rose to power who didn’t know about how Joseph had saved Egypt. This likely indicates the beginning of a new dynasty, a series of rulers unrelated to the pharaoh of Joseph’s time. As a result, the Israelites no longer enjoyed a favored status. Quite the opposite, the new pharaoh convinced the Egyptians that the rapid growth of the Israelites made them a threat.

Historically, the pharaoh’s fears prove more founded than they seem. Both Judges 11:26 and 1 Kings 6:1 place the exodus in the mid-fifteenth century BC.⁵ About a hundred years prior, Pharaoh Ahmose I founded the 18th dynasty by defeating the Hyksos, a Semitic group who had ruled lower Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period.⁶ This likely explains the fear that the Israelites, a Semitic group distantly related to the Hyksos, might join with Egypt’s enemies during a war.

The Israelites must have already provided a valuable labor force if the pharaoh didn’t want them to leave. To slow their rate of reproduction, the Egyptians decided to oppress them with forced labor. They had to work without pay building cities, making bricks and mortar, and working in the fields. This would naturally leave them less time to build families while also increasing the mortality rate. But God overruled the pharaoh and made the Israelites increase even faster. Since they had already filled Goshen, they had to spread out into other parts of Egypt. And the Egyptians hated them for it.

The Brave Midwives

Then the king of Egypt told the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, “When you help the Hebrew women give birth, watch during the delivery. If he’s a son, kill him! If she’s a daughter, let her live.”

But the midwives feared God and didn’t do what the king of Egypt said. Instead, they let the boys live. So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives. “Why have you done this? Why do you let the boys live?”

“Hebrew women aren’t like Egyptian women. They are lively, and before a midwife arrives, they have already given birth.”

So God treated the midwives well, and the people multiplied and increased prolifically. Because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.

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Since God thwarted the pharaoh’s plan to slow the Israelite growth rate through forced labor, the pharaoh resorted to more desperate measures. He called in two midwives named Shiphrah and Puah and commanded them to kill the newborn boys. He instructed them to do so stealthily to make it appear the baby was stillborn.⁷ Since the midwives were Hebrew, another name for the Israelites, the pharaoh wanted them to kill their own people.⁸ He expected anyone to do whatever he said out of fear.

The pharaoh didn’t anticipate that Shiphrah and Puah might fear an even higher power than himself. But these worthy women feared God. They feared what would happen to anyone who dared lay a hand on Yahweh’s people, so they refused to obey the pharaoh’s command.⁹ Foiled again, the pharaoh summoned Shiphrah and Puah and demanded an explanation. So they made up a nonsense story about the Israelite women giving birth so fast the midwives couldn’t get there in time.

Their story also served as a thinly veiled insult. The root of the Hebrew word for “lively” is haya (“to live”). The Israelite mothers were lively, so their sons lived. And the pharaoh could do nothing about it! While some condemn the midwives for lying, God blessed them for their bold defiance. They feared God and trusted him to protect them from the cruel tyrant. For this, they deserve nothing but praise. God gave the midwives families of their own and continued to multiply the Israelites.

Infanticide

Then the pharaoh commanded all his people, “Throw into the Nile every son who is born! But let every daughter live.”

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Fed up with his own failures, the pharaoh resorted to a more overt method. He commanded the Egyptians to throw into the Nile River all newborn boys born to the Israelites. Subject to forced labor, the Israelite women would have trouble hiding their pregnancies and infant sons from their Egyptian taskmasters. But the pharaoh commanded any Egyptian who discovered a baby boy among the Israelites to drown the baby in the Nile. The pharaoh implicated his entire people in his crime and exposed them all to just punishment.

According to Exodus 2:2, the infanticide of the Israelite boys lasted at least three months. It likely lasted a lot longer, up to a few years, but Scripture doesn’t give a time frame. The pharaoh didn’t want to eliminate the Israelites but to slow their growth rate. He finally succeeded, but at the cost of his ultimate goal. He didn’t want to lose the Israelites as a free work force.¹⁰ Yet he set up the very circumstances that would give rise to the one who would lead them out of Egypt.

← Genesis 49:29–50:26

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Exodus 2:1–10 →

See Second-in-Command.
See The Promise of Offspring.
See The Promise of Land.
That “the land” refers to Goshen, not Egypt, is clear from Exodus 8:22; 9:26.
Kaiser, “Exodus,” 337–340; Oswalt, “Exodus,” 265–266.
HISTORY, s.v. “Ancient Egypt,” last modified April 24, 2023, https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-egypt/ancient-egypt#second-intermediate-period-c-1786-1567-b-c.
The meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain, but it probably means they were to kill the baby while still on the birthing stool where the mother squatted during delivery. That way the mother wouldn’t know the baby had been born alive.
The term Hebrew was a name for the Israelites commonly used by outsiders. It may have referred to a wider group that included Abraham’s descendants. See Genesis 14:13.
See The Fear of God
Exodus 1:10.