[Translation and commentary by EF/Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses. Additional elected commentary from RA/Robert Alter, and Pentateuch and Haftorahs, ed. Dr. J.H.Hertz, and REF/Richard Elliott Friedman, Commentary on the Torah.]
[REF]The book of Exodus tells the story of the birth of a nation in slavery and ends with the nation’s establishment of its own center, leaders, and symbols in freedom. Genesis involves a continuing narrowing of attention from the universe to the earth to humanity to a particular family; Exodus begins to broaden the circumference of attention again as the family grows into a nation—and comes into conflict with another nation. Whereas Genesis sets the rest of the books of the Bible in context, Exodus does not set them in context so much as introduce fundamental components that will function centrally in almost all the coming books of the Bible. Exodus introduces the nation of Israel. It introduces prophecy. It introduces law. Arguably most important of all, it introduces the theme of YHWH’s becoming known to the world.
[EF] Prologue in Egypt (1): Rather than being presented as a totally separate story the book of Exodus opens as a continuation of the Genesis saga. This is true both specifically and generally: the first five verses echo and compress the information about the descent of Yaakov’s family into Egypt that was given in Gen. 46:8-27, while “Now these are the names” (v. 1) recalls the oft-repeated formula “Now these were the beginnings,” which forms the structural background of Genesis. At the same time one might note that the main subject matter of our chapter life and death (or, threatened continuity) is central to the thematic content of Genesis.
Pharaoh’s paranoid fears about Israel’s growth—What for God was a sign of blessing is for Pharaoh a sign of disaster, a feeling of being overwhelmed by what is alien. The birth of the Israelite nation is thus placed in a vivid context, completely physical in its description. And because birth, and not the economic aspects of slavery is central, the actual description of the oppression of the Hebrews has been reduced to a bare minimum here. . . . It is the experience of being a stranger in Egypt that the Bible has chosen to focus on, rather than on the horrors of slave labor.
In Exodus, the Egyptians cannot stand having aliens among them. . . they dread their presence and fear their increase. A natural plan of attack, to stem the human tide, is genocide. Ironically, because of his fear of war Pharaoh concentrates his worries around the males, ignoring the true source of fecundity.
[EF] children of Israel: Or “sons,” though it should be noted that the Hebrew b’nei can denote members of a group in general, not just family. In this verse, “children” has been printed with a lowercase “c”; v. 7 the whole expression comes to mean a nation, and so a capital “C” has been utilized (Hebrew writing does not make this distinction).
2 Re’uven, Shim’on, Levi and Yehuda, 3 Yissakhar, Zevulun and Binyamin, 4 Dan and Naftali, Gad and Asher.
5 So all the persons, those issuing from Yaakov’s loins, were seventy persons,
[REF] seventy. Septuagint and Qumran texts read “seventy-five.” The difference of five reflects Joseph’s sons Ephraim and Manasseh plus Manasseh’s son and Ephraim’s two sons. These are named in Gen. 46:20 in the Septuagint but not in the Masoretic Text. The problem is that the children of Israel are identified here in v. 1 as those “who came to Egypt,” which would exclude Joseph’s chidlren and grandchildren because they do not come to Egypt; they are born there. But the people are identified in v. 5 as “all the persons coming out from Jacob’s thigh,” which would include Joseph’s offspring no matter where they were born. It appears that each scribe used the number that fit what he understood to be the logic of the text.
(Small differences of a few letters in the text such as this occur throughout the Torah. They show that schemes that count the letters of the Bible to uncover hidden “codes” are nonsense. Such codes became popular recently but were carried out by persons who were unqualified to do this serious study of the text of the Torah in all its versions. Examination of their misuse of statistical analysis further undermined their claims, which unfortunately misled sincere people. Let us hope that the repudiation of such popular schemes will serve to remind people anew that what is great in the Torah is in what it says, not in secret patterns in its letters.)
6 Now Yosef died, and all his brothers, and all that generation. 7 Yet the Children of Israel bore fruit, they swarmed, they became many, they grew mighty (in number)-exceedingly, yes, exceedingly; the land filled up with them.
[EF] Yet: Despite the disappearance of the political influential generation of Yosef, the Israelites’ success continues (Cassuto). swarmed: This verb is usuall applied to animals (See Gen. 1:20). Here the term is positive, as part of God’s plan; shortly, it will carry a negative connotation for Pharaoh. grew mighty in number: This reflects the promise of God to Avraham in Gen. 18:18 (to become “a mighty nation”) (Keil and Deslitzsch).
[RA] the sons of Israel. Though the phrase is identical with the one used at the beginning of verse 1, historical time has been telescoped and so the meaning of the phrase has shifted; now it signifies not the actual sons of Israel/Jacob but Israelites, the members of the nation to which the first Israel gave his name. In subsequent occurrences this translation will use “Israelites.”
8 Now a new king arose over Egypt, who had not known Yosef.
[EF] a new king: His name is not given, even though later biblical books do refer to foreign rulers by name. this is perhaps another example of the biblical text’s playing down history in favor of stressing teh story and its lesson. who had not known Yosef: Just as his successor will say “I do not know YHWH” )5:2), and will continue the oppression begun here.
[REF[ a new king. There are five PHaraohs in the Torah: the Pharaoh who thought Sarah was Abraham’s sister, the Pharaoh who knew Joseph, the Pharaoh who did not know Joseph, the Pharaoh who sought to kill Moses (who may or may not be the same Pharaoh who did not know Joseph), and the Pharaoh of the exodus. Why are none of their names given? Names of Pharaohs (Shishak, Neco) are given in later books. Their absence in the Torah gives the narrative a nonhistorical quality, which is contrary to the manifest aim of the Torah to present history. One might argue that this is evidence that the stories are not true, that they were made up by writers who could not name these kings because they had no idea of the names of ancient Pharaohs. In the case of the two Pharaohs in Genesis, we have hardly any evidence to argue for or against this. But in the case of the Exodus Pharaohs, I think that there is sufficient likelihood that the oppression and exodus are historical, so there must be some other reason why the Pharaohs are not named. My friend Jonathan Saville suggests that perhaps the reason, consciously or not, is to downgrade the Pharaoh, as when people sometimes avoid saying the name of someone toward whom they feel hostile. Or perhaps the names of the Pharaohs were no longer preserved in the tradition by the time the stories came to be written.
[EF] his people . . . (this) people: Pharaoh states the case as the conflict between one national entity and another.
[RA] the people of the sons of Israel. This oddly redundant phrase—it should be either “sons of Israel” or “people of Israel”—is explained by Pharaoh’s alarmed recognition that the sons, the lineal descendants, of Israel have swelled to a people.
[EF] use-our-wits: Others, “We must be prudent,” “Let us deal shrewdly.”
[REF[ will be added. The Hebrew is punningt on the name of Joseph, meaning “may He add.” The Pharaoh does not know Joseph, but when he is pictured as worrying that the people “will be added” this summons Joseph back to mind. This pun is not merely wordplay for its own sake. The notation that this is a Pharaoh who does not know Joseph makes a strong break at the beginning of Exodus from what has come before this in Genesis. The reminder of Joseph’s presence reconnects this phase of the story to everything that has come before it. Even stronger connections are coming.
Centuries later, King Solomon imposes missim on Israel, requiring, in addition to monetary taxes, a period of labor on national projects. This so infuriates the Israelites that they stone to death the king’s minister of missim (1 Kings 5:27-28;12:18). Israelites will bear taxation, but the requirement of forced labor implies control over people’s bodies by the government. This is appalling to a people whose recollection of having been slaves is a central doctrine to their understanding of themselves and their history.
[RA] as they abused them, so did they multiply. Like a force of nature (compare v. 7), the Israelites respond to oppression by redoubling their procreative surge.
and they came to loathe the Israelites. William H.C. Propp has made the ingenious suggestion that the loathing is a response to the reptilian “swarming” of reproductive activity exhibited by the Israelites.
[EF] crushing-labor: A rare Hebrew word, here translated according to early rabbinic tradition, perekh is used rhetorically three times in Lev. 25 (vv.45,46, and 53), where the Israelites are given laws about how to deal with their impoverished countrymen (v. 43, “you are not to oppress him with crushing-labor”).
[RA] at crushing labor. The Hebrew is an adverbial form derived from a root that means “to break into pieces,” “to pulverize.”
[RA] work. . . work . . . work. Following a prevalent stylistic practice of Hebrew narrative, the writer underscores his main topic, the harshness of slavery, by repeating a central thematic keyword. Indeed, the Hebrew literally says, “their crushing work that they worked,” but in English that cognate accusative form sounds awkward for a limited number of idioms (e.g. “sing a song”).
[EF] midwives of the Hebrews: The ambiguity of this phrase raises an ancient question: were they Hebrew or Egyptian? The names seem Semitic (and hence unEgyptian); then, too, the use of “Hebrew” in the Bible usually occurs when a foreigner is talking about Israelites. Yet the owmen’s answer in v. 19 suggests that they are in fact Egyptians. Abravanel notes that Hebrew women would not be likely to kill Hebrew babies.
[RA] Shiphrah . . . Puah. The first name suggests “beauty,” the second name, as the Ugaritic texts indicate, might originally have meant “fragrant blossom” and hence “girl.” But since the root pa’ah can also mean “to murmur” or “to gurgle,” Rahsi inventively suggests it is the sound a nurturing woman makes to soothe an infant. In any case, the introduction of just two heroic midwives reflects the way this entire narrative, in contrast to Genesis, has been stylized and simplified. Abraham ibn Ezra appears to grasp this principle of schematization when he proposes that Shiphrah and Puah in fact would have had to be supervisors of whole battalions of midwives.
[REF] Hebrew midwives. The Hebrew may be read as “Hebrew midwives,” meaning that these two women were Israelites; or it may be “midwives of the Hebrews,” in which case one cannot know whether or not they themselves are Israelites. “Hebrew midwives” is more likely because the Israelites are never referred to as “the Hebrews” by the narrator of the Torah. It is a term used in quotation when speaking to foreigners (Gen 40:15; Exod 5:3) or as an adjective in the fixed phrase “Hebrew slave”. Here, too, it may be such an adjectival usage. this is supported by the fact that these names are much more likely to be Semitic than Egyptian, implying that the midwives are Israelites.
[REF] the two stones. This is often understood to mean some sort of birthing stool made of two stones, but the more natural understanding here in the context of identifying boys is that the two stones refers to the testicles.
18 The king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them:
19 The midwives said to Pharaoh:
(in number).
21 It was, since the midwives held God in awe, that he made them households.
[RA] He made households for them. Although some have seen Pharaoh as the antecedent of “he,” God seems considerably most likely. The sense would then be that they were rewarded for their virtue with social standing, establishing their own families, or something of the sort.
[EF] Nile. Heb. ye’or, Egyptian itrw, “the great river.”
[RA] Pharaoh charged his whole people. Despairing of cooperation from the Hebrew midwives in his genocidal project, Pharaoh now enlists the entire Egyptian population in a search-and-destroy operation.
Every boy . . . you shall fling into the Nile, and every girl you shall let live. The schematic—as against historical even historylike—character of the narrative is evident int his folktale antithetical symmetry. The idea is presumably that the people would be eradicated by cutting off all male progeny while the girls could be raised for sexual exploitation and domestic service of the Egyptians, by whom they would of course be rapidly assimilated. Pharaoh’s scheme will again be frustrated, as the future liberator of the Hebrews will be placed (not flung) in the Nile and emerge eventually to cause grief to Egypt. There is also an echo here of Abram’s words to Sarai when they come down to Egypt, adumbrating the destiny of their descendants, during a famine: “they will kill me while you they will let live” (Genesis 12:12).