And there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.
A new king takes the throne in Egypt, and the man who once saved the country from famine counts for nothing with him. Everything that follows — the slavery, the brick-kilns, the rescue — hangs on what this king chose not to know.
One writer ties this verse to a change of dynasty in Egypt:
It now seems certain that not long after Joseph died, the rule of the "Hyksos," or "Shepherd kings," came to an end. The native Egyptians rose up, drove them out, and put a man from their own ancient royal line on the throne. Joseph belonged to the same race as the Shepherd kings, so the new rulers detested him. They saw the people of Israel in the same way, and so as a possible danger to Egypt.
The same writer says the king's ignorance was a stance, not a gap in his education:
This may not mean that he did not know Joseph had ever lived. It may mean that he saw him as an intruder and an oppressor, and so ignored him completely.
Egypt owed her full storehouses and her strong throne to Joseph. One writer reads the whole nation's guilt in this single line:
So that land was the ungrateful one, the rebellious one. She had turned away from Joseph, and so from God Himself — from the One who had filled her storehouses with plenty, and her throne with honour and strength. Egypt was the world in miniature: the great deserter of its rightful Lord and kind Benefactor... Joseph's memory had been despised, and all that was left of him was put to work at the brick-kilns.
One writer takes Joseph as a picture of Christ in glory. That makes this verse a description of a heart, not just a reign:
The words that he "did not know Joseph" are deeply significant. Joseph in Egypt was a picture of Christ in His earthly glory, so not knowing him marks a moral state. Pharaoh is in fact the god of this world, and as such he must be opposed to the Lord's people.
Joseph and everyone who knew him were dead. One writer asks what difference that made to God:
"Joseph died, and all his brothers, and all that generation." What then? Could death touch the purposes of the living God? Surely not. He simply waited for the appointed moment, the right time, and then He used the most hostile forces to carry out His purposes.
Israel had settled in the best part of Egypt and could have expected only comfort. One writer says God's word had already marked Egypt out as something else:
Israel had come down under the prestige of Egypt's greatest governor and the warmest royal favour. Settled in the best of the land, in Goshen, they might have looked for nothing but ease and honour... But whatever it looked like, Egypt in Jehovah's eyes meant slavery and affliction; and that is what came, once Joseph's protection was gone. The word of God abides, and cannot fail, whatever the weakness of man, or the pride of unbelief.
At first Egypt suited Israel well. One writer says the slavery that followed came from God's own hand, and served a purpose:
There was a time when Egypt pleased us well enough, as for a time it pleased Israel... They had a flourishing and happy time, a time when they were not slaves, but quite the opposite. And it was God who, as He says, "raised up Pharaoh," and so brought about this state of bondage. God promised Abraham this very furnace of affliction in the vision of Genesis 15... It was the necessary means to bring them out for the inheritance He promised them.
The same pattern runs on today. God's people live in a world that refuses Christ, yet they are not left unfed:
They were no longer the favoured people who received Joseph's generosity, kept and fed under his kind rule. Now they felt the power of a man who was the open enemy of Jehovah and His people. But there is a spiritual application. We are the people of God, and we still live in the place where the claims of Christ are refused... yet our true Joseph keeps us and feeds us from heaven, from His exalted place on God's throne.
- Forgotten. The king chose not to know Joseph. He treated him as an intruder and ignored him completely.
- Ungrateful. Egypt turned from the man who had filled her storehouses, and so turned from God. She is the world in miniature.
- Exposed. Joseph pictures Christ in glory, so not knowing him marks a moral state. It sets the throne of this world against God's people.
- Overruled. Joseph died and his whole generation died, but God's purpose did not. He waited for the right moment and used hostile power to carry out His plan.
- Fulfilled. God promised Abraham this furnace long before, and it was the means of bringing Israel out to the inheritance. His people still live in a world that refuses Christ, and their true Joseph still feeds them from God's throne.
And he said to his people, Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more numerous and stronger than we.
A new king rises in Egypt, Joseph's name means nothing to him, and his first words warn his own people about the Hebrews. Why did a nation that welcomed Israel as guests now see them as a threat?
Egypt had once saved Jacob's family from famine. Under this king it became something else.
A century or two rolled by, and their fortunes changed completely. Egypt had been a place of refuge for them, a kindly shelter in the time of famine and affliction. It now became to them the house of bondage. It became the "smoking furnace" that Abraham had seen when the "horror of great darkness" fell upon him, as recorded in Genesis 15:12.
Egypt owed its plenty to Joseph, and the new king had forgotten him.
That land was the ungrateful one, the rebellious one. She had departed from Joseph, and so from God Himself, from Him who had filled her storehouses with plenty and her throne with honour and strength. So Egypt was the world in miniature — the great deserter from its rightful Lord and gracious Benefactor.
Pharaoh's complaint is really a report on what God had been doing. One writer, tracing these events in a psalm, puts it like this.
Through God's favour they increase greatly, and they become stronger than their enemies. Pharaoh's own words say so (Ex. 1:9). This, no doubt, is how we are to understand the verse that follows: "He turned their heart to hate His people." God has only to show His favour like this, and the tide of opposition rises in full force.
Another writer asks whether such a policy was just, or wise in the long run.
There had never been hostility. The sons of Israel were in no way prisoners of war or captives of any kind. They had given no reason for suspicion of seeking rule over Egypt... Yet the king who did not know Joseph dreaded their growing number and strength. They had served him for a long time... Was this in any way just? And is an unjust policy "wise" in the long run, or defensible in itself?
Pharaoh's plan reads like careful statesmanship. He weighs every factor except one.
Pharaoh could list the possible turns of human affairs, and list them correctly. The people might multiply. War might break out. They might join the enemy and escape out of the land. He could weigh all these circumstances with rare skill. But it never once occurred to him that God might have anything to do with the matter. One thought of God would have overturned his whole line of reasoning. It would have written folly across all his schemes.
The stated reasons are national security. Commentators point to a deeper struggle running underneath them.
Political reasons drove Pharaoh and his princes (Ex. 1:9-10). But there was a deeper reason than that. The enemy of souls was in all this, working behind the scenes to ruin the whole human race for ever, if he could. If Pharaoh had destroyed every male child of Israel, Christ could not have come from the house and line of David. The conflict looked like Egypt's interests against Israel's. It was really between God and the devil. God desired to bless men; the devil sought to ruin them.
Commentators differ on whether Pharaoh had real grounds for his fear. One points to where Israel lived, and to what the policy achieved in the end.
Israel lived on the frontier facing Canaan, and there were many of them. If a fresh war broke out with the old enemies in Canaan, they might open up the very heart of Egypt to them. He had grounds for his fears and for his policy, and he succeeded. His slaves made Egypt magnificent; their misery built his temples. But though Pharaoh did not know it, he did more — he made these Hebrew slaves long for liberty, and cry to their God for rest. So the enemy always defeats himself by his success.
There was also a promise standing over Israel that no Egyptian policy could get around.
In any case the righteous Lord loves righteousness. He is never indifferent to injustice, least of all injustice against the family of Abraham, "the friend of God." No one who is unfair or cruel to Abraham's descendants will prosper. "I will bless those who bless you," the Lord said to Abram, "and curse him who curses you."
- Increase — the numbers that alarmed Pharaoh came from God's favour, not from Israel's ambition.
- Fear — that visible favour was enough by itself to turn a whole nation's heart to hatred.
- Forgetting — a king who no longer remembered Joseph pictures a world that has forgotten the One who fed it.
- Scheming — Pharaoh weighed every possibility with skill but left God out. That one gap made folly of the whole plan.
- Defeat — the oppression built his cities, but it taught his slaves to cry to God for freedom. God had already promised to curse anyone who curses Abraham's line.
Come on, let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply, and it come to pass that, if war occur, they take side with our enemies and fight against us, and go up out of the land.
A new king in Egypt saw Israel's growth as a threat. His answer was a plan: outthink them before they outnumber us. The verse shows a ruler who can weigh every human factor except one. Commentators ask whether that kind of calculation deserves the name of wisdom at all. (Older translations read "let us deal wisely with them," and the quotes below use that wording.)
Pharaoh's speech is a chain of if-then reasoning. Each link holds on its own terms. What ruins the sum is the one factor he never counted.
In Pharaoh's case, we see that he could list every possible turn of human affairs — the people multiplying, war breaking out, their joining with the enemy, their escape out of the land. He could weigh all these things with unusual shrewdness. But it never once occurred to him that God could have anything at all to do with the matter. Had he only thought of this, it would have upset his whole line of reasoning, and written folly across all his schemes.
God had settled the outcome long before Pharaoh was born.
He did not know that, hundreds of years earlier, before he had ever drawn a breath, God's word and oath — "two unchangeable things" — had made the full and glorious deliverance of that very people certain. And these were the people he was setting out, in his wisdom, to crush... He imagined, in vain, that his own management could stop the growth of a people about whom God had said, "they shall be as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore." So his wise dealing was simply madness and folly.
In political terms, the king's worry had real grounds.
What we now know of Egypt's history shows us that on several grounds Pharaoh was wise here in his country's interest. Egypt's armies had only lately conquered the nations of Canaan. A true Egyptian could see the Hebrew only as more or less connected — by custom at least — with the peoples of Canaan. Israel lived on the border facing Canaan, and they were many. If war with the old Canaanite enemies broke out again, they could open up the very heart of Egypt to the enemy, for they lived inside the line of border forts.
Yet fear does not make a policy just. One writer weighs how Israel had actually behaved in Egypt, and ends with a question.
In this case it broke the friendly agreement that had settled Israel and his sons in Goshen. There had never been hostility. They had given no reason to suspect them of seeking to rule Egypt. They had never given up the hope of returning to Canaan as their promised land. The burial of Jacob announced this loudly; the unburied coffin of Joseph, still more loudly... Was this just in any degree? And is an unjust policy "wise" in the long run, or justifiable in itself?
Behind Pharaoh's plan, one writer sees another mind at work.
Satan knows what we tend to forget: the world must hate the children of God, and they, if faithful, must stand against the world. So, in the person of Pharaoh, he seems to plan ahead for the chance of war, and to prevent their deliverance.
The deeper aim reached past Israel altogether.
Political reasons drove Pharaoh and his princes. But there was a deeper reason than that. The enemy of souls was surely in all this, working behind the scenes to ruin the whole human race for ever, if he could. If every male child of Israel had died, Christ could not have been born of the house and family line of David. So the conflict looked like Egyptian interests against Israel's, but it was really between God and the devil.
The forced labour meant to weaken Israel became their training.
The wisdom of the world overreaches and defeats itself. It was bad policy for the Egyptians to live in idleness and luxury, and to dump their hard, skilled labour on their servants as a crushing burden. It was a good apprenticeship for those who were to be mighty as well as populous, and to possess the gate of their enemies.
The policy worked — and its success gave Israel something Pharaoh never intended.
But, though Pharaoh did not know it, he did more — he made these Hebrew slaves long for freedom, and cry to their God for rest. So the enemy always defeats himself by his success.
- Shrewd — Pharaoh weighed every human factor with real skill. He left out only God, and that one gap wrote folly across the whole plan.
- Grounded — his fear was not imaginary. Israel was large, and lived on the border facing Canaan, which Egypt had just conquered.
- Unjust — Israel had given no cause for suspicion. So can an unjust policy ever be called wise?
- Deeper — behind the throne stood an enemy. He aimed past Israel at the family line that would bring Christ.
- Backfired — the hard labour trained a future army, and made slaves cry to God. The enemy defeats himself by his own success.
And they set over them service-masters to oppress them with their burdens. And they built store-cities for Pharaoh, Pithom and Rameses.
Pharaoh's fear of a growing people turns into state policy. He sets taskmasters over Israel and puts the nation to work building two cities for himself.
Pharaoh's cruelty had a strategy behind it.
His plan was to reduce all Israelites to the status of slaves. He put them under slave-drivers to keep them under constant pressure of work, so they would have no chance to organise and no strength to resist. They were forced to build two store cities, which held supplies for Pharaoh's troops. In this way they went on forging the chains of their own slavery.
One of the two cities has left solid traces in the ground.
Excavation has uncovered enough of the stronghold Pithom, long buried in the sand, to tell us today that Israel worked in Egypt just as the Bible says. The monuments and papyri show that in it we have "Pi-tom," that is, "the town of the sun-god Tom." In these times of doubt about Bible history, God lets one discovery follow another, until bricks and stones lift up their voices and declare that His Word is true.
Israel's own work built Israel's prison. One writer takes that straight into ordinary life.
They built "treasure cities" — storehouse cities, cities of war supplies. Pharaoh sets to work to keep the people down and in slavery, and for this he uses their own strength against them. He makes them labour to rivet their own chains, for these cities stood in Goshen, the land given to Israel themselves. And that is what happens everywhere the world over. Take the drunkard. Every cup he takes makes him more and more a slave to it, though he knows what a hard and bitter service it is. If it is money that a man covets, every dollar he puts into his treasury only makes his heart more set upon it.
One writer looks behind Pharaoh to the power he stands for, and to the motive behind the burdens.
Pharaoh in fact is the god of this world, and as such he must stand against the Lord's people. So we read at once of his crafty schemes and malicious plans. Their aim was to destroy Israel's prosperity and reduce the people to helpless and hopeless slavery. And what was his motive? "Lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land." Satan knows what we tend to forget: the world must hate the children of God.
Pharaoh called his plan wise. He had left one factor out of the sum.
He did not know that hundreds of years earlier, before he had ever drawn a breath, God's word and oath — "two unchangeable things" — had surely secured the full and glorious deliverance of this very people. These were the people he was now going, in his wisdom, to crush. He imagined in vain that his own management could stop the increase of a people about whom God had said, "they shall be as the stars of heaven, and as the sand on the seashore." So his wise dealing was nothing but madness and folly.
The pressure did the opposite of what Pharaoh intended.
This did not, however, hinder what God had purposed. Verse 12 records that "the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew." So here was an illustration and confirmation of the word spoken by the Psalmist: "You have given me relief when I was in distress" (Ps. 4:1). The abundant increase God gave cancelled out every effort Pharaoh made to hold them down.
The older translation he used reads "You have enlarged me when I was in distress" — which is why he ties the verse to a people God enlarged.
The same writer finds a second purpose in the bondage, on God's side.
God makes the children of Israel feel the weight of their burdens, and taste the bitterness of their slavery, to awaken in them a desire for deliverance before He begins to act for them. A sinner can be unaware of how low he has sunk, and contented, if not happy, in being far from God. But if he is to be saved, he must pass through the experience pictured by this account of the Israelites. Until then, he never knows his real state, or desires deliverance.
- Fear — Pharaoh's alarm at a growing people became a labour policy. It was meant to wear Israel down so they could neither organise nor resist.
- Chains — their own strength built Pharaoh's cities. Sin still works that way: every indulgence tightens the grip.
- Stones — Pithom has been dug out of the sand, and its own monuments name it; the ground speaks up for the record.
- Blindness — the king planned without God. His wisdom was folly against a promise sworn centuries before his birth.
- Increase — the harder the affliction pressed, the more the people multiplied. God used the yoke both to enlarge them and to make them long for rescue.
But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and spread; and they were distressed because of the children of Israel.
In Exodus 1 a king fears a growing people and sets taskmasters over them to break them. The pressure only made them grow, and their oppressors came to dread them.
Here one weak man sets himself against the eternal God.
What a sad mistake it is for a weak mortal to set himself up against the eternal God! Pharaoh might as well have tried to hold back the ocean's tide with his small hand. He could not stop the increase of a people who were the subjects of God's everlasting purpose. So although they "set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens," still "the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad." It must always be this way. "He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision" (Ps. 2:4).
What looks like an accident of history had been announced to Abraham centuries earlier, which changes how the reader should hear the word "afflicted".
God foretold the condition of the children of Israel in Exodus 1 many years before. He said to Abraham: "Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions" (Gen. 15:13-14)… God harnesses even the wrath of man to the wheels of His own decrees. He did the same when Christ was "delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God" to men who crucified and killed Him (Acts 2:23).
The verse describes a mechanism, not a coincidence: the squeezing itself is the space in which they expand.
This did not stop what God had purposed… Here was an illustration and confirmation of the word spoken by the Psalmist, "You have given me relief when I was in distress" (Ps. 4:1). The abundant increase that God gave completely cancelled out Pharaoh's efforts to suppress them.
An older translation of Psalm 4:1 reads "You have enlarged me when I was in distress." That word "enlarged" is what ties the verse to Israel's increase.
The affliction did more than raise the numbers.
In that furnace of affliction they were welded together as a nation. They entered Egypt a feeble and divided family; they left it a united and powerful nation.
The verse ends with the Egyptians in dread of Israel.
Meanwhile man's will had its way, as Israel built store-cities for Pharaoh, Pithom and Raamses. But God's providence acted also. The more the Egyptians afflicted the Israelites, the more these multiplied and spread. So fear and horror filled their masters, and they added hardship to their bondage… But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. He cuts off the memory of them from the earth, even in a day when right and wrong are turned upside down. His eyes are on the righteous, and His ears are open to their cry.
Commentators see more than politics behind Pharaoh's hatred.
Pharaoh is in fact the god of this world, and so he must stand against the Lord's people. We read at once of his cunning schemes and malicious plans. He means to destroy their prosperity and reduce them to helpless and hopeless bondage… Satan knows what we easily forget. The world must hate the children of God, and they, if faithful, must stand against the world.
The burden also worked on the people themselves.
The condition of the Israelites is a striking picture of the sinner — of the sinner who has been made to feel the iron yoke of his slavery to sin and Satan… God makes the children of Israel feel the weight of their burdens. He lets them taste the bitterness of their vile servitude. He does it to awaken in them a desire for deliverance, before He begins to act on their behalf.
What happened once by the Nile is treated as a standing principle for God's people.
Egypt was the place where Jacob suddenly grew into a nation… It is the rule in all the ages that have been, for all God's people… Jacob needed humbling, but he grew by it.
The same pattern runs through Israel's later history.
Here we may read the history of Israel among the nations… Their miraculous increase always comes when oppression and persecution fall on them. When oppression comes, God's time for deliverance draws near.
- Purpose — Israel multiplied because they were "the subjects of God's everlasting purpose." Pharaoh's policy was as useless as holding back the tide by hand.
- Promise — God told Abraham in Genesis 15 what would happen. Even man's wrath serves God's decrees.
- Pressure — God let them feel the yoke to awaken a desire for deliverance, and the increase He gave cancelled Pharaoh's plan out.
- Product — A feeble, divided family entered Egypt. A united, powerful nation came out of the furnace.
- Pattern — Commentators call this the rule for all God's people in every age. When oppression is heaviest, deliverance is nearest.
And the Egyptians made the children of Israel serve with harshness;
Israel came into Egypt as honoured guests and settled in the best of the land. This verse marks the moment their welcome turned into slavery. Two questions press on us. Why did God allow His own people to be crushed? And what does the picture teach?
The change was total. This was not one ruler's whim. The whole nation turned on Israel, and what they suffered was no ordinary work.
Verse 13 shows that it was not only a new king who watched Israel's growing strength with fear and jealousy. "The Egyptians ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves," and made their lives bitter with hard labour, in town and country. This was not just service. It was harsh slavery — as complete a reversal of the place they first held in Goshen as could be.
Pharaoh had a reason. He feared a growing people who might one day leave. Commentators see in his policy the world's lasting quarrel with God's people.
Pharaoh is in fact the god of this world, and so he must be against the Lord's people. So we read at once of his crafty schemes and spiteful plans to destroy their prosperity, and to reduce them to helpless and hopeless slavery. And what was his motive? He feared that they would multiply, and that if war broke out they would join his enemies, fight against him, and leave the land. Satan knows what we easily forget: the world must hate the children of God.
Egypt had not always been bitter. That is why, one writer argues, the slavery was needed. And he says God Himself brought it about.
There was a time when Egypt pleased us well enough, as for a time it pleased Israel. We know how in the wilderness they not only longed after the good things of Egypt, but went after its gods too. They copied the worship of Egypt when they made the golden calf. They had a flourishing and happy time, a time when they were not slaves, but the very opposite. And it was God who, as He says, "raised up Pharaoh," and so brought about this slavery. God promised Abraham this very furnace of affliction in the vision of Genesis 15... It was the necessary means to bring them out for the inheritance He promised them.
Another writer points to the danger God was guarding them from.
Their oppression and sorrow in Egypt was also permitted for their own good. The idolatry of Egypt began to corrupt the chosen people.
Nothing in their condition qualified them for what God was about to say over them. He told Pharaoh, not Israel, that this despised workforce was His son, His firstborn.
He was to hear that this nation of slaves, whom he had trampled on, was the son, the firstborn of the Lord of Hosts... Who could have supposed that God would pass by the ruling, cultured race of the day, take up the cause of a nation of slaves, and bind them so closely to Himself? ... What had they done to deserve it? Nothing. What state were they in when He said it? Hopeless and utter misery.
Moses later had to make his own choice about these same slaves.
They were poor whip-driven slaves, worked without mercy, but they were THE PEOPLE OF GOD. That settled it for Moses.
One writer takes the Egyptian taskmaster as a picture of sin. Freedom from that master comes by one road only.
The flesh will always serve the law of sin. Sin is a cruel taskmaster, like the Egyptians who drove Israel without mercy. The only way of freedom from this great slave owner is death. A man owns a slave and holds him in hard bondage, but there comes a day when that slave no longer answers the master's call. He is dead, and there ends the domination of the master. "But," you may say, "I am not dead. I have not received the wages that sin pays." That is true. But it is also true that Jesus, in perfect love, received those wages for you.
- Ruthless — not ordinary work but harsh slavery, in town and field. It was the complete reverse of the place Israel first held in Goshen.
- Fear — Pharaoh crushed them so they would never leave. Commentators see in him the world's fixed hostility to the people of God.
- Furnace — God had promised Abraham this affliction. He used it to loosen Egypt's hold on a people who had grown comfortable there, and to guard them from Egypt's idols.
- Firstborn — they were still slaves and had earned nothing. Yet God called this nation His son, and their misery was no barrier to His claim.
- Freedom — sin is a taskmaster like Egypt. The slave goes free only through death, and Christ took that death in his place.
and they embittered their life with hard labour in clay and bricks, and in all manner of labour in the field all their labour with which they made them serve was with harshness.
Exodus opens with the family of Israel forced into slavery, and this verse shows what that slavery looked like day after day. Two questions press: why did God let His people sink so low, and what do the mortar and bricks teach us now?
One writer sets Egypt's cruelty beside what God is doing about it.
The Egyptians made the people of Israel serve harshly. … But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to wipe out all memory of them from the earth, even in a day when the moral foundations have collapsed. His eyes are on the righteous, and His ears are open to their cry. But the furnace grew hotter still, and God's intervention took a clearer and stronger form.
The verse names three kinds of labour. One writer sees each one serving a different Egyptian interest.
Take the three areas of labour in verse 14. "Mortar" would speak of Egypt forcing them to work to help its unity, since mortar is what unites. The "brick" speaks of Egypt's progress, and "all manner of service" of Egypt's prosperity. The world is determined to have believers bow to its authority for the sake of its own selfish ends.
Another writer traces bricks back to their first appearance in Scripture.
Scripture first mentions bricks at Babel, Gen. 11:3. The next mention is here in Egypt, Ex. 1:14. Bricks speak of human material, man's imitation of stone which is divine material. … In Babel it is "a name"; in Egypt it is "treasure cities."
The bondage did not begin the moment Israel arrived. It came later, and one writer ties it to a promise God made to Abraham.
There was a time when Egypt pleased us well enough, just as it pleased Israel for a time. … They had a flourishing and happy time, when they were not slaves at all, but quite the opposite. And it was God who, as He says, "raised up Pharaoh," and so brought about this slavery. God promised Abraham this very furnace of affliction in the vision of Gen. 15. … It was the necessary means to bring them out for the inheritance He promised them. It is His way to make them the people He wants them to be.
Their condition could hardly be lower. That is what makes God's tie to them so surprising.
Who could have supposed that He would pass by the ruling, highly cultured race of the day? Yet He took up the cause of a nation of slaves, and tied Himself closely to them. … What state were they in when God announced this? They were in hopeless, crushing misery (Exodus 1:13-14; 2:23). And He announced it not to them, to strengthen them for the fight, but to their slave-drivers, the Egyptians, to make them set the people free.
That is what Moses later saw when he looked at the brickfields and made his choice.
They were unwanted foreigners, treated with the utmost rigour as slaves. Their lives were made bitter by reason of their hard bondage as they laboured at brick-making and worked in the fields under the scorching sun (Exodus 1:13-14). But, in spite of their low estate and hard bondage, these slaves were the people of God.
One writer sees our own former position in theirs.
They were a set of slaves — so were we; they were in bondage to a hard taskmaster — so were you and I by nature. Satan, the god and prince of this world, keeps every unredeemed, unconverted sinner in his grip. … They were slaves in Egypt, which pictures the world. They were under the power of this heartless king, held in the bitterest slavery. No wonder their souls became distressed — they were miserable.
God did not mean to leave them there.
He was not going to leave His people in the brick-kilns of Egypt, under the lash of Pharaoh's slave-drivers. They were His people, and He would act toward them in a manner worthy of Himself. … He could use Egypt as a school and Pharaoh as a teacher, and He did. But when the needed work was done, He set aside both the school and the teacher. He brought His people out with a strong hand and an outstretched arm.
- Bitter — Egypt worked Israel harshly in clay, brick and field, and God's face is set against those who do such evil.
- Bricks — mortar, brick and field labour picture Egypt's unity, progress and prosperity. Bricks are human material, first used at Babel, then here.
- Furnace — the slavery came only after happier years. It answers the furnace of affliction God promised Abraham, His means of bringing them out to their inheritance.
- Ours — Egypt pictures the world, and Pharaoh the power that grips the unconverted. The misery of the brickfields is the misery of a life not yet delivered.
- Ended — the slaves in the mud were still God's people. God used Egypt only as a school, and set school and teacher aside when the work was done.