Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Exodus 1:13
And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigor:
13. with rigour ] The rare word found otherwise only in v. 14, Lev 25:43; Lev 25:46; Lev 25:53 (all P or H); Eze 34:4. The root is not in use in Heb.; in Aram. it means to rub (Luk 6:1 Pesh.), or crush small.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
13, 14. The parallel, from P, to vv. 11, 12, and continuation of v. 7. P states simply the fact of the oppression, without referring to the grounds prompting it.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Verse 13. To serve with rigour] bepharech, with cruelty, great oppression; being ferocious with them. The word fierce is supposed by some to be derived from the Hebrew, as well as the Latin ferox, from which we more immediately bring our English term. This kind of cruelty to slaves, and ferociousness, unfeelingness, and hard-heartedness, were particularly forbidden to the children of Israel. See Le 25:43, Le 25:46, where the same word is used: Thou shalt not rule over him with RIGOUR, but shalt fear thy God.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Or, cruelty, or, tyranny; with hard words and cruel usage, without mercy or mitigation. This God permitted for wise and just reasons.
1. As a punishment of their idolatry, into which divers of them fell there. Jos 24:14; Eze 20:5,7,8; 23:8
2. To wean them from the land of Egypt, which otherwise was a plentiful and desirable land, and to quicken their desires after Canaan.
3. To prepare the way for Gods glorious works, and Israels deliverance.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
13, 14. The Egyptians . . . madetheir lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar, and in brickRuinsof great brick buildings are found in all parts of Egypt. The use ofcrude brick, baked in the sun, was universal in upper and lowerEgypt, both for public and private buildings; all but thetemples themselves were of crude brick. It is worthy of remark thatmore bricks bearing the name of Thothmes III, who is supposed to havebeen the king of Egypt at the time of the Exodus, have beendiscovered than of any other period [WILKINSON].Parties of these brickmakers are seen depicted on the ancientmonuments with “taskmasters,” some standing, others in asitting posture beside the laborers, with their uplifted sticks intheir hands.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigour. Or with breach c, with what might tend to break their strength; they laid heavier burdens upon them, obliged them to harder service, used them more cruelly and with greater fierceness, adding to their hard service ill words, and perhaps blows.
c “in fractione”, Cajetan. apud Rivet.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
13. And the Egyptians made. Thus Moses informs us that, so far from being induced to kindness by their fears, they were rather hardened, and spurred on to greater cruelty; for the wicked do not perceive that God is against them, when their perverse strivings are unsuccessful; and if this thought ever arises, still the blind impetuosity of their folly hurries them forwards, so that they doubt not to be able in their obstinate lust to prevail even in opposition to God; as will be made clearer in the progress of this history. The cruelty of the exactions is expressed, when he says that “their lives were made bitter,” nothing being sweeter than life; therefore, it appears, that their miseries were extreme and intolerable, which made life burdensome. He confirms this in other words, and also specifies their tasks, that they were engaged “in mortar and in brick, and in all manner of (similar) services.” He twice repeats that they were treated with rigor, i e. , harshly. (18)
(18) “Par lequel mot il intend inhumanite, ou grande rudesse;” by which word he means inhumanity, or great severity. — Fr.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Exo. 1:13-14
THE DESPOTISM OF SIN
I. That it commences by suggesting a small tribute to the sinner. The Egyptian King, no doubt, suggested to the Israelites that great advantage might arise to them if they would enter into certain engagements or investments under his authority. This they didpaying heavy tributewhich they were unable to meetand so placed themselves in his power.
1. Sin generally commences its tyranny by suggesting the probability of gain under its rule. It wins us by the hope of a good investmentwhereby we may secure wealthprosperityfame. But when we commence to work out the contract we find that we have been lured by a false hopea deceptive promise. We find ourselves involved in difficultiesnumerouscomplicateddepressingever increasinguntil we are reduced from the position of tenant to that of slave. Never enter into any bargains with sin. They are sure to end in woe. They promise libertythey give chains. The world is a great prison-house full of the dupes of sin.
(1.) Sin is cunning.
(2.) Sin has many counsellors.
(3.) Sin has many agencies. You are not a match for it.
II. That it succeeds in getting the sinner completely within its power. The Egyptians succeeded in getting the Israelites completely under their authority
1. Sin gets the sinner under its rule. It makes him obey the laws of hell. It makes him work the purposes of Satan. He must violate every holy instinct of his nature. He must reject the counsel of the Infinite. He becomes a subject of the infernal realm of being.
2. Sin makes the sinner subject to its counsel. The Israelites were enslaved as the result of a national consultation between the Egyptian king and his near advisers. Satan holds a council in reference to the moral servitude of human soulsthe sinner yields to the unjust and unholy requirements of his fiendish companions.
3. Sin makes the sinner responsible to its authority. The Israelites were responsible to the king of Egypt for the kind and amount of service they rendered. He made them feel obligated to build the house, and to serve in the field. So the devil tries to bring men to do his work as though they were obligated to follow his bidding, so completely is the soul brought under Satanic power. It is conscious of its burden. It has not the energy to cast it away.
III. That it ultimately imposes upon the sinner an intolerable servitude.
1. The servitude of a bitter life. How sad the lives of these abject Israelites. Every day spent in unrequited toilsubject to heavy tributesavage taskmastersa fierce kingan envious nationwithout hope of deliverance. Without free social intercoursewithout happy domestic life. Sin renders life bitterdestroys friendly companionshipsbreaks up family comfort. Fills life with grief.
2. The servitude of hard work. The Egyptians made the Israelites build cities, and attend in the fields. The devil gives sinners hard work to do. Sinners often work harder than saints. Their toil is far more exhausting and fatiguing. Nor are sinners recompensed for their toil; Satan makes them build houses for other people! The unprofitablenessthe folly of sin.
3. The servitude is degrading. The Israelites came into Egypt as a godly family, brought there by Joseph, who was distinguished as a God-fearing man. They were honoured by the king. They were respected by the peopleYet a few years afterwards they are employed as field-servants. What a transition in their position, and all because they yielded to the cunning allurements of a wicked king! So sin brings men from respect to derisionfrom plenty to beggaryfrom moral rulership to servitude, Repulse the first attempt of Satan to bind even a golden chain around your wrist, for, when fastened, you will find the gold to wear off, and disclose a steel manacle that will bruise your flesh. Sin degrades individualsand nations.
THE SPIRITUAL BONDAGE OF MAN
I. It was an entire and universal bondage. The dominion of the oppressor had no merciful limit, nor mitigation. Every Israelite in Goshen was the bondservant of the Egyptians. The bondage of Satan knows no limitno mercy:
1. The understanding is depraved.
2. The will is perverted.
3. The affections are depraved.
II. The Israelites under a severe and cruel bondage.
III. The Israelites were in a helpless bondage. Every refinement of policy, every effort of power, every device of craft, was practised against them by the might and subtilty of a nation unrivalled in arts and arms. They could not escape of themselves. Satan has a close alliance with every appetite and affection of our nature. Difficult to get from under his tyranny [Buddicoms Christian Exodus].
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Exo. 1:13-14. The sufferings of Israel were rendered more intense:
1. As a punishment for their idolatry.
2. To inspire within them a deep hatred toward Egypt, so that through their perils in the wilderness they might not wish to return thither.
3. That the prospect of Canaan might animate and refresh their souls.
4. That after such excessive and unpaid labour they might fairly spoil the Egyptians on their departure.
5. That they might be aroused to earnest prayer for deliverance.
6. That the power and mercy of God might be more forcibly displayed in their freedom. Here is a true picture of tyranny:i. Its rigour increases with failure. ii. It becomes more impious as it is in evident opposition to the Divine providence. iii. It discards all the claims of humanity. iv. It ends in its own defeat and overthrow.
It is the cruel design of persecutors to make Gods freemen their slaves.
Wicked persecutors are the more rigorous to those whom God favoureth.
Some men take a delight in making the lives of Gods people miserable.
Men are slow to be taught that, by their mad schemes, they are fighting against God.
By the Work of this bondage the Israelites, getting instructed in civilized life, were being prepared for their future home.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
(13) With rigour.Forced labour in Egypt was of a very severe character. Those condemned to it worked from morning to night under the rod of a task-master, which was freely applied to their legs or backs, if they rested their weary limbs for a moment. (See Records of the Past, vol. viii. p. 149; Chabas, Mlanges Egyptolo-giques, vol. ii. p. 121). The heat of the sun was great; the burthens which the labourers had to carry were heavy, and the toil was incessant. Death often resulted from the, excessive work. According to Herodotus, a single monarch, Neco, destroyed in this way 120,000 of his subjects (Herod, ii. 158).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
13, 14. The nature of their toil is here more fully described .
Hard bondage Rather, hard labour in clay and bricks, and all (kind of) service in the field. They were not made house-servants, or employed as artisans in any kind of skilled labour, but were set at the coarse work of brick-making for the great public buildings, canal digging, raising water from the river for irrigation, which is specially toilsome in Egypt, and similar rough outdoor labours. This remark applies only to this time of special oppression. Josephus says that they built the pyramids; but the great pyramids are made of stone, and were standing when Joseph went down into Egypt. A vast amount of brick was required for the walls of cities, fortresses, temple-courts, and private as well as public buildings. They were made of the Nile mud mixed with straw, and of clay without straw, baked in the sun, and their manufacture was a government monopoly. Immense piles of these bricks the ruins of ancient works, many of them stamped with the hieroglyphs of the Pharaohs are now found in the land of Goshen.
The opposite engraving represents a painting at Thebes, in the tomb of an officer of Thothmes III., of the eighteenth dynasty, and delineates all the processes of Egyptian brick-making, foreign captives being the labourers, directed by Egyptian task-masters.
It is a noteworthy fact, that, in an inscription of the twenty-second year of Amosis, alien labourers of some pastoral nation, like the Israelites, are described as carrying blocks of limestone from the Rufu quarries to Memphis. This, like the opposite picture, shows that events precisely like those narrated in the text were, according to the best chronology, transpiring in Egypt at the time when the Israelites were there.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
The Children of Israel Are Put To Hard Service ( Exo 1:13-14 ).
a
b They make their lives bitter with hard service (Exo 1:14 a).
b In mortar and brick and all manner of service (Exo 1:14 b).
a In all their service in which they make them serve with rigour (Exo 1:15).
Note the use of hard rigour in ‘a’ and its parallel, and the idea of service and its effects in ‘b’ and its parallel. But the fact that they ‘served’ (slaved) is stressed all the way through.
Exo 1:13-14
‘And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigour, and they made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and in brick and in all manner of service in the countryside, all their service in which they made them serve with rigour.’
Note the stress on their ‘service’ or slavery. The result was that their pleasant lives had been turned upside down. ‘In mortar and in brick.’ Contemporary Egyptian texts speak of the Egyptians employing the ‘Apiru in dragging the huge stones required for the construction of temples in different parts of Egypt. These would then be set in place under the supervision of Egyptian experts. These ‘Apiru probably included the children of Israel, the ‘Hebrews’ (1:15-16; 2:11-13), whom Egyptians would see as ‘Apiru ( see article, ” “). We should note that the term ‘Hebrew’ is only ever used of Israel when seen in terms of their being foreigners (thus Gen 14:13; Gen 39:14; Gen 39:17).
“To serve with rigour, and they made their lives bitter with hard service.” Emphasis is laid on the hardness of their lives and the bitterness with which they looked back on better times. But their service was not limited to building, for others of them were forced to work in the countryside. This would have included the gathering of straw and stubble to make bricks and the digging of canals and irrigation channels, and the construction and use of different methods of transporting irrigation water. They had become an even more enslaved people than the Egyptians, seen as suitable for degraded work. Brickmaking by foreigners under the eye of Egyptian taskmasters is readily witnessed to in inscriptions.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Exo 1:13. And the Egyptians The more sensibly God’s blessing was discerned towards the Israelites, the more furiously was the rage of their persecutors kindled against them. Moses represents them suffering, as it were, in a furnace of fire, Deu 4:20.
REFLECTIONS.We must not promise ourselves long prosperity in this world. Where we have found the warmest love we may soon experience the bitterest hatred; so transitory is the fashion of sublunary comforts. We have here,
1. The great unkindness shewn to the Israelites in a succeeding reign; not by Pharaoh’s immediate successor, but by one who, at a considerable distance of time, had forgotten the obligations which the country lay under to Joseph. Note; We shall often find men ungrateful, and unmindful of the kind offices we have done them; but what is done for God will be had in everlasting remembrance. The poor Israelites are now become obnoxious to the state; their multitude is a plea for their oppression, as if they were a dangerous people; they pretend at least to fear, lest they revolt to their enemies, or, according to the tradition which was well known, should secede into Canaan. Note; The people of God have been often misrepresented as enemies to the state, in order to countenance oppression and persecution against them. With a crafty policy they therefore harass them with taxes, burdens, buildings, to break their spirits, diminish their numbers, and perhaps with a view to enforce them to incorporate with the Egyptians, in order to avoid the afflictions of their brethren. Note; (1.) The most deep-laid schemes of the wicked, however wise in their own eyes, will appear folly at the last. (2.) Where men attempt to defeat God’s counsels, their very efforts against them shall sooner produce their accomplishment.
2. We have the great increase of the Israelites under their oppression. A persecuted church is almost always a thriving one.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Pro 27:4
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Exo 1:13 And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigour:
Ver. 13. To serve with rigour. ] Heb. ( ), With fierceness: a so thinking to cow out their spirits, and to exanimate them. So deals the Turk with the Christians.
a Quidam cam ferocia voce latina conferunt.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
with rigour = crushingly.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Reciprocal: Exo 1:14 – was with rigour Exo 3:9 – and I have Lev 25:43 – rule 2Sa 7:10 – as beforetime 1Ki 12:11 – I will add 1Ch 17:9 – as at the 2Ch 10:4 – grievous 2Ch 10:11 – I will put Job 24:12 – groan Psa 107:39 – oppression Ecc 4:1 – and considered Isa 52:5 – make Eze 34:4 – but with Joh 8:33 – and were Rev 11:8 – Egypt
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Exo 1:13. With rigour bepareck, with cruelty, or tyranny; with hard words and cruel usage, without mercy or mitigation. This God permitted for wise and just reasons: 1st, As a punishment of the idolatry into which, it appears, many of them had fallen: 2d, To wean them from the land of Egypt, which was a plentiful, and, in many respects, a desirable land, and to quicken their desires after Canaan: 3d, To prepare the way for Gods glorious works, and Israels deliverance.