Exodus 1:14

World English Bible

Contextual Overview

⁸ Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who didn't know Joseph. ⁹ He said to his people, "Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we. ¹⁰ Come, let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply, and it happen that when any war breaks out, they also join themselves to our enemies, and fight against us, and escape out of the land." ¹¹ Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens. They built storage cities for Pharaoh: Pithom and Raamses. ¹² But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and the more they spread out. They were grieved because of the children of Israel. ¹³ The Egyptians ruthlessly made the children of Israel serve, ¹⁴ and they made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field, all their service, in which they ruthlessly made them serve.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

their lives: Exodus 2:23, Exodus 6:9, Genesis 15:13, Numbers 20:15, Deuteronomy 4:20, Deuteronomy 26:6, Ruth 1:20, Acts 7:19, Acts 7:34

in mortar: Psalms 68:13, Psalms 81:6, Nahum 3:14

was with rigour: Exodus 1:13, Exodus 5:7-21, Exodus 20:2, Leviticus 25:43, Leviticus 25:46, Leviticus 25:53, Isaiah 14:6, Isaiah 51:23, Isaiah 52:5, Isaiah 58:6, Jeremiah 50:33, Jeremiah 50:34, Micah 3:3

Reciprocal: Genesis 11:3 - brick Exodus 3:9 - and I have Exodus 12:8 - with bitter Leviticus 25:39 - compel him to serve as 2 Samuel 7:10 - as beforetime 1 Kings 12:11 - I will add 1 Chronicles 17:9 - as at the 1 Chronicles 20:3 - with saws 2 Chronicles 10:4 - grievous 2 Chronicles 10:11 - I will put Job 24:12 - groan Psalms 107:39 - oppression Proverbs 28:15 - so Ecclesiastes 4:1 - and considered Isaiah 30:6 - into the land Jeremiah 43:9 - in the brickkiln Ezekiel 34:4 - but with John 8:33 - and were Revelation 11:8 - Egypt

Cross-References

Genesis 1:1
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Genesis 1:2
Now the earth was formless and empty. Darkness was on the surface of the deep. God's Spirit was hovering over the surface of the waters.

Genesis 1:3
God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.

Genesis 1:4
God saw the light, and saw that it was good. God divided the light from the darkness.

Genesis 1:6
God said, "Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters."

Genesis 1:7
God made the expanse, and divided the waters which were under the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse, and it was so.

Genesis 1:8
God called the expanse sky. There was evening and there was morning, a second day.

Genesis 1:9
God said, "Let the waters under the sky be gathered together to one place, and let the dry land appear," and it was so.

Genesis 1:12
The earth brought forth grass, herbs yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit, with its seed in it, after their kind: and God saw that it was good.

Genesis 1:14
God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of sky to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years;

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage,.... So that they had no ease of body nor peace of mind; they had no comfort of life, their lives and mercies were embittered to them:

in mortar and in brick, and in all manner of service of the field; if Pelusium was one of the cities they built, that had its name from clay, the soil about it being clayish, and where the Israelites might be employed in making brick for the building of that and other cities: Josephus d says, they were ordered to part the river (Nile) into many canals, to build walls about cities, and raise up mounds, lest the water overflowing the banks should stagnate; and to build pyramids, obliging them to learn various arts, and inure themselves to labour: so Philo the Jew says e, some worked in the clay, forming it into bricks, and others in carrying straw: some were appointed to build private houses, others the walls of cities, and to cut ditches and canals in the river, and obliged day and night to carry burdens, so that they had no rest, nor were they suffered to refresh themselves with sleep; and some say that they were not only employed in the fields in ploughing and sowing and the like, but in carrying of dung thither, and all manner of uncleanness: of their being employed in building of pyramids and canals, :-

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 and barbarous manner, abusing them with their tongues, and beating them with their hands: Philo in the above place says, the king not only compelled them to servile works, but commanded them heavier things than they could bear, heaping labours one upon another; and if any, through weakness, withdrew himself, it was judged a capital crime, and the most merciless and cruel were set over them as taskmasters.

d Antiqu. l. 2. c. 9. sect. 1. e De Vita Mosis, l. 1. p. 608.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The use of brick, at all times common in Egypt, was especially so under the 18th Dynasty. An exact representation of the whole process of brickmaking is given in a small temple at Thebes, erected by Tothmosis III, the fourth in descent from Amosis. Immense masses of brick are found at Belbeis, the modern capital of Sharkiya, i. e. Goshen, and in the adjoining district.

All manner of service in the field - Not merely agricultural labor, but probably the digging of canals and processes of irrigation which are peculiarly onerous and unhealthy.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Exodus 1:14. They made their lives bitter — So that they became weary of life, through the severity of their servitude.

With hard bondage — בעבדה קשה baabodah kashah, with grievous servitude. This was the general character of their life in Egypt; it was a life of the most painful servitude, oppressive enough in itself, but made much more so by the cruel manner of their treatment while performing their tasks.

In mortar, and in brick — First, in digging the clay, kneading, and preparing it, and secondly, forming it into bricks, drying them in the sun, c.

Service in the field — Carrying these materials to the places where they were to be formed into buildings, and serving the builders while employed in those public works. Josephus says "The Egyptians contrived a variety of ways to afflict the Israelites for they enjoined them to cut a great number of channels for the river, and to build walls for their cities and ramparts, that they might restrain the river, and hinder its waters from stagnating upon its overrunning its own banks; they set them also to build pyramids, (πυραμιδας τε ανοικοδομουντες,) and wore them out, and forced them to learn all sorts of mechanic arts, and to accustom themselves to hard labour." - Antiq., lib. ii., cap. ix., sec. 1. Philo bears nearly the same testimony, p. 86, Edit. Mangey.