2.3 KiB
Israel Oppressed in Egypt
Chapter 1
-
These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob; each came with his family:
-
Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah;
-
Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin;
-
Dan and Naphtali; Gad and Asher.
-
The total number of Jacob's descendants was seventy; Joseph was already in Egypt.
-
Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation eventually died.
-
But the Israelites were fruitful, increased rapidly, multiplied, and became extremely numerous so that the land was filled with them.
-
A new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt.
-
He said to his people, "Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and powerful than we are.
-
Come, let's deal shrewdly with them; otherwise they will multiply further, and when war breaks out, they will join our enemies, fight against us, and leave the country."
-
So the Egyptians assigned taskmasters over the Israelites to oppress them with forced labor. They built Pithom and Rameses as supply cities for Pharaoh.
-
But the more they oppressed them, the more they multiplied and spread so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites.
-
They worked the Israelites ruthlessly
-
and made their lives bitter with difficult labor in brick and mortar and in all kinds of fieldwork. They ruthlessly imposed all this work on them.
-
The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives--the first, whose name was Shiphrah, and the second, whose name was Puah--
-
"When you help the Hebrew women give birth, observe them as they deliver. If the child is a son, kill him, but if it's a daughter, she may live."
-
The midwives, however, feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt had told them; they let the boys live.
-
So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, "Why have you done this and let the boys live?"
-
The midwives said to Pharaoh, "The Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife can get to them."
-
So God was good to the midwives, and the people multiplied and became very numerous.
-
Since the midwives feared God, he gave them families.
-
Pharaoh then commanded all his people, "You must throw every son born to the Hebrews into the Nile, but let every daughter live."