A Prophecy of Esau and Jacob

The two hundred and ten years of Israel’s stay in Egypt were divided into two unequal periods, in the former and longer of which they were prosperous and favoured, while in the latter they were oppressed. Both periods had their uses and place in the shaping of the nation and its preparation for the Exodus.

Exodus 1

¹ Now these are the names of the children of Israel who came into Egypt; every man and his household came with Jacob: — every man and his household came with Jacob; into Egypt, all excepting Joseph, and along with them their families, wives, children, and servants;

— though wives and servants are not reckoned into the number of the seventy, only such sons as came out of Jacob’s loins:

— the Targum of Jonathan is, “a man with the men of his house,” as if only male children were meant, the sons of Jacob and his grandsons;

² Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah, — Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah. The first sons of Jacob by Leah;

— the sons are arranged according to their mothers, as in Genesis 35:23-26, and the sons of the two maid-servants stand last. Leah has precedence over Rachel; Bilhah over Zilpah.

³ Issachar, Zebulun and Benjamin, —and Benjamin; who, though youngest of all, is placed before Dan, Naphtali, Gad and Ashe; because they were the children of the maidens.

⁴ Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher. — the children of each wife and concubine are given in order of seniority. The omission of Joseph from the list is explained in the last clause of Exodus 1:5.

⁵ And all the souls who came out of the loins of Jacob were seventy souls, for Joseph was already in Egypt. — on the number 70, in which Jacob is included; but not Joseph;

— seventy souls; Jacob himself, 1; his sons, 12; his daughter, Dinah, 1; his grandsons, 51; his grand-daughter Serah, 1; his great-grandsons, 4—Total, 70. His daughters, except Dinah, and his sons’ daughters, except Serah, spoken of in Genesis 46:7, are not included;

— if his female descendants were, at the time of his descent into Egypt, as numerous as the males, the entire number of those who “came out of his loins” must have been 132.

⁶ And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation. — Plant by plant the leaves drop, and the stem rots and its place is empty.

⁷ And the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them. — Seed by seed the tender green spikelets pierce the mould, and the field waves luxuriant in the breeze and the sunshine. ‘The children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly.’

⁸ Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, who knew not Joseph. — “a new king” is a phrase not found elsewhere; perhaps to imply that he did not succeed his predecessor in the natural order of descent and inheritance;

— he “arose up over Egypt,” occupying the land, as if on different terms from the previous king whose place he took, either by usurpation or conquest.

⁹ And he said unto his people, “Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we. — “his people” no doubt they were his nobles, or, at any rate, his courtiers;

— ancient Egypt must have had a population of seven or eight millions, which would imply nearly two millions of adult males, whereas the adult male Israelites, near a century later, were no more than six hundred thousand (Exodus 12:37).

¹⁰ Come on, let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply and it come to pass, when there befalleth any war, that they join also unto our enemies and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land.” — let us deal wisely; instead of open force, the king proposes stratagem;

— he thinks that he has hit upon a wise scheme, a clever plan, by which the numbers of the Israelites will be kept down, and they will cease to be formidable. The nature of the plan appears in Exodus 1:11.

¹¹ Therefore they set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses. — Raamses is a place different from Ramesses, Genesis 47:11 and had its name from the then reigning Pharaoh, Ramesses Miamun;

— Raamses; Pi-Ramesu, the city of Rameses, was the ordinary seat of the Court during the earlier part of the nineteenth dynasty. It appears to have been a new name for Tanis, or for a suburb of Tanis, which overshadowed the old city;

¹² But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew; and they were grieved because of the children of Israel. — and they were grieved because of the children of Israel; because of their multiplication and increase, and because their schemes for lessening them did not succeed; they were as thorns in their eyes;

¹³ And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigor. — with rigour; forced labour 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.

¹⁴ And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar and in brick and in all manner of service in the field; all their service wherein they made them serve was with rigor. — all their service wherein they made them serve was with rigour; they not only put them to hard work, but used them in a very churlish manner, abusing them with their tongues, and beating them with their hands;

¹⁵ And the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of whom the name of one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah. — Hebrew midwifes; or “midwives of the Hebrew women.”

¹⁶ And he said, “When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women and see them upon the birthstools, if it be a son then ye shall kill him; but if it be a daughter then she shall live.”

— if it be a son, then ye shall kill him; opinions are divided, however, what was the method of destruction which the king did recommend; short-term thinking: for he feared not them, but the males only;

¹⁷ But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the men children alive. — but the midwives feared God; their faith inspired them with such courage as to risk their lives, by disobeying the mandate of a cruel tyrant;

¹⁸ And the king of Egypt called for the midwives and said unto them, “Why have ye done this thing, and have saved the men children alive?”

¹⁹ And the midwives said unto Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women; for they are lively, and are delivered ere the midwives come in unto them.”

— for they are lively; they are vigorous; a large proportion of the women deliver themselves; and the services of professional accoucheurs are very rarely called upon; or that they gave birth to their children before the midwives arrived.

²⁰ Therefore God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and waxed very mighty. — God dealt well with the midwives; this represents God as rewarding them for keeping their faith.

²¹ And it came to pass, because the midwives feared God, that He made them houses. — that he made them houses; making houses for them, being moved by the Lord, to preserve them from the insults of the Egyptians; others of Pharaoh building houses for them;

²² And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, “Every son who is born ye shall cast into the river, and every daughter ye shall save alive.” — every son that is born; the Targums and the Septuagint add “to the Hebrews,” but without any necessity, since the context shows that only Hebrew children are meant.

Exodus 2

¹ And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took for a wife a daughter of Levi.

² And the woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months. — there went a man of the house of Levi; Amram the husband, the son of Kohath, and grandson of Levi, as appears from Exodus 6:18; and Jochebed his wife; and their two children, Miriam and Aaron;

— Miriam, a daughter, born probably soon after their marriage, and Aaron, a son, born some twelve years later. Soon after the issue of the edict, Jochebed gave birth to her third child, a son;

³ And when she could no longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the reeds by the river’s brink. — Moses, was born, as the Jews say, in the thirty seventh year after the death of Levi, AM 2368;

— the ark was made of the papyrus which was commonly used by the Egyptians for light and swift boats.

⁴ And his sister stood afar off to learn what would be done to him. — and his sister stood afar off; this was Miriam, as the Targum of Jonathan expresses it; who is supposed to be about ten or twelve years of age;

⁵ And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river, and her maidens walked along by the riverside; and when she saw the ark among the reeds, she sent her maid to fetch it. — the princess would, of course, seek a part of the river which was reserved for females; probably Jochebed know where she was accustomed to bathe.

⁶ And when she had opened it, she saw the child; and behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him and said, “This is one of the Hebrews’ children.” — Jewish writers say, she knew it by its being circumcised, the Egyptians not yet using circumcision.

⁷ Then said his sister to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee?” — the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee; for she perceived that she was desirous of having the child brought up as her own.

⁸ And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Go.” And the maid went and called the child’s mother. — called the child’s mother; Jochebed must have been waiting near, eagerly expecting—perhaps, while concealed from sight, watching the result, and ready to appear the moment that she was summoned.

⁹ And Pharaoh’s daughter said unto her, “Take this child away and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages.” And the woman took the child, and nursed it. — take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages; by which means she, who was unknown to the princes, had not only the nursing of her own child, but was paid for it;

¹⁰ And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses [that is, Drawn out], and she said, “Because I drew him out of the water.” — the child grew; in stature and in strength; Josephus regards these words as implying a growth that was strange and extraordinary (Ant. Jud. ii. 9, § 6);

¹¹ And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out unto his brethren and looked on their burdens; and he spied an Egyptian smiting a Hebrew, one of his brethren. — he went out unto his brethren; it is probable that Pharaoh’s daughter had never concealed from Moses that he was not her own child, but one of the oppressed race.

¹² And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he slew the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. — he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand; this act of Moses may seem and indeed by some has been condemned as rash and unjustifiable—in plain terms, a deed of assassination.

¹³ And when he went out the second day, behold, two men of the Hebrews strove together; and he said to him that did the wrong, “Why smitest thou thy fellow?” — the second day; that is, the next day;

— wherefore smitest thou thy fellow? Compare with Acts 7:26, where the words of Moses are reported somewhat differently, “Sirs, ye are brethren; why do ye wrong one to another?”

¹⁴ And he said, “Who made thee a prince and a judge over us? Intendest thou to kill me as thou killed the Egyptian?” And Moses feared and said, “Surely this thing is known.” — and Moses feared; lest the thing should be discovered and be told to Pharaoh, and he should suffer for it: this fear that possessed Moses was before he fled from Egypt and went to Midian;

¹⁵ Now when Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought to slay Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Midian; and he sat down by a well. — and dwelt in the land of Midian: a country so called from Midian, one of Abraham’s sons by Keturah, Genesis 25:2.

¹⁶ Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters; and they came and drew water, and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock. — the Priest of Midian; Reuel Exodus 2:18. His name, and the detailed notices in Exodus 18, prove that he was a priest s(ometimes used of a prince, ruler, and governor) of the one true God who was known to the patriarchs especially under the name El.

¹⁷ And the shepherds came and drove them away; but Moses stood up and helped them, and watered their flock. — the shepherds came; those of the neighbourhood;

— the rule of the desert is that those who come to a well take their turns in the use of the water in the order of their arrival. But these rude shepherds declined to wait for their turn.

¹⁸ And when they came to Reuel their father, he said, “How is it that ye have come so soon today?” — strictly, and then he is the same who elsewhere is called Jethro, Exodus 3:1;

¹⁹ And they said, “An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds, and also drew water enough for us and watered the flock.” — an Egyptian; so they concluded from his dress and appearance, perhaps even from his speech.

²⁰ And he said unto his daughters, “And where is he? Why is it that ye have left the man? Call him, that he may eat bread.” — that he may eat bread; Arabian hospitality was offended that the stranger had not been invited into the tent to partake of the evening meal. The feeling of the modern Bedouin would be the same.

²¹ And Moses was content to dwell with the man; and he gave Moses Zipporah his daughter. — the Targum says it was at the end of ten years; and indeed forty years after this a son of his seems to have been young, having not till then been circumcised, Exodus 4:22.

²² And she bore him a son, and he called his name Gershom [that is, A stranger there]; for he said, “I have been a stranger in a strange land.” — Gershom; that is, a stranger there. Now this settlement of Moses in Midian was designed by Providence to shelter him for the present; God will find hiding-places for his people in the day of their distress.

²³ And it came to pass in process of time that the king of Egypt died. And the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried; and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage. — in those many days;

— as Moses was now eighty years old (Exodus 7:7), and only forty when he quitted Egypt, the Pharaoh from whom he fled must have reigned above forty years.

²⁴ And God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. — and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob; that he would bring their seed out of a land not theirs, in which they were strangers, and were afflicted, into the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession.

²⁵ And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God took heed of them. — and God looked upon the children of Israel; with an eye of pity and compassion, and saw all the hardships they laboured under, and all the injuries that were done unto them.

~ by Joel on October 27, 2023.

Posted in Books of Moses