IEksodus 1:11

Izhibhalo Ezingcwele

11 Bamisa ke phezu kwabo abathetheli bokubafaka uviko, ukuze babacinezele ngemithwalo yabo. Bamakhela ke uFaro imizi enoovimba, iPitom neRameses.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

to afflict: Exodus 3:7, Exodus 5:15, Genesis 15:13, Numbers 20:15, Deuteronomy 26:6

burdens: Exodus 2:11, Exodus 5:4, Exodus 5:5, Psalms 68:13, Psalms 81:6, Psalms 105:13

Raamses: Genesis 47:11, Proverbs 27:4

Reciprocal: Genesis 48:4 - Behold I Exodus 3:9 - and I have Exodus 5:6 - taskmasters Exodus 5:10 - taskmasters Exodus 12:37 - Rameses Numbers 16:13 - out of a Numbers 33:3 - they departed 1 Kings 9:19 - the cities of store 1 Chronicles 27:25 - the storehouses Psalms 105:25 - to hate Lamentations 5:13 - fell Ezekiel 16:4 - for

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Therefore they did set taskmasters over them, to afflict them with their burdens,.... This was the first scheme proposed and agreed on, and was carried into execution, to appoint taskmasters over them; or "princes", or "masters of tribute" r, commissioners of taxes, who had power to lay heavy taxes upon them, and oblige them to pay them, which were very burdensome, and so afflictive to their minds, and tended to diminish their wealth and riches, and obliged them to harder labour in order to pay them, and so every way contributed to distress them:

and they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses; these might be built with the money they collected from them by way of tribute, and so said to be built by them, since it was chiefly in husbandry, and in keeping flocks and herds, that the Israelites were employed; or they might be concerned in building these cities, some of them understanding architecture, or however the poorer or meaner sort might be made use of in the more laborious and servile part of the work; those two cities are, in the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem, called Tanis and Pelusium; but Tanis was the same with Zoan, and that was built but seven years after Hebron, an ancient city, in being long before this time, see Numbers 13:22. Pelusium indeed may be one of them, but then it is not that which is here called Raamses, but Pithom, as Sir John Marsham s and others think: Pithom is by Junius thought to be the same with the Pathumus of Herodotus t, a town in Arabia Petraes, upon the borders of Egypt, where a ditch was dug from the Nile to the Red sea, and supposed to be the work of the Israelites: Raamses is a place different from Ramesses, Genesis 47:11 and had its name from the then reigning Pharaoh, Ramesses Miamun, as Pithom is thought by some to be so called from his queen: Pliny u makes mention of some people called Ramisi and Patami, who probably were the inhabitants of these cities, whom he joins to the Arabians as bordering on Egypt: the Septuagint version adds a third city, "On", which is Hellopolls: and a learned writer w is of opinion that Raamses and Heliopolis are the same, and observes, that Raamses, in the Egyptian tongue, signifies the field of the sun, being consecrated to it, as Heliopolis is the city of the sun, the same with Bethshemesh, the house of the sun, Jeremiah 43:13 and he thinks these cities were not properly built by the Israelites, but repaired, ornamented, and fortified, being by them banked up against the force of the Nile, that the granaries might be safe from it, as Strabo x writes, particularly of Heliopolis; and the Septuagint version here calls them fortified cities; and with this agrees what Benjamin of Tudela says y, that he came to the fountain of "Al-shemesh", or the sun, which is Raamses; and there are remains of the building of our fathers (the Jew says) even towers built of bricks, and Fium, he says z, (which was in Goshen, Jeremiah 43:13- :) is the same with Pithom; and there, he says, are to be seen some of the buildings of our fathers. Here these cities are said to be built for treasure cities, either to lay up the riches of the kings of Egypt in, or as granaries and storehouses for corn, or magazines for warlike stores, or for all of these: some think the "pyramids" were built by the Israelites, and there is a passage in Herodotus a which seems to favour it; he says, the kings that built them, the Egyptians, through hatred, name them not, but call them the pyramids of the shepherd Philitis, who at that time kept sheep in those parts; which seems to point at the Israelites, the beloved people of God, who were shepherds.

r שרי מסים "principes tributorum", Pagninus, Montanus, Fagius, Drusius, Cartwright; so Tigurine version. s Ut supra. (Canon Chron. Sec. 8. p. 107.) t Euterpe, sive, l. 2. c. 158. u Nat. Hist. l. 6. c. 28. w Jablonski de Terra Goshen, dissert. 4. sect. 8. x Geograph. l. 17. p. 553. y Itinerar. p. 120. z Ib. p. 114. a Ut supra, (t) c. 128.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Taskmasters - The Egyptian “Chiefs of tributes.” They were men of rank, superintendents of the public works, such as are often represented on Egyptian monuments, and carefully distinguished from the subordinate overseers. The Israelites were employed in forced labor, probably in detachments, but they were not reduced to slavery, properly speaking, nor treated as captives of war. Amosis had special need of such laborers, as proved by the inscriptions.

Treasure cities - “Magazines,” depots of ammunition and provisions 1 Kings 9:19; 2 Chronicles 8:4; 2 Chronicles 32:28.

Pithom and Raamses - Both cities were situated on the canal which was dug or enlarged in the 12th Dynasty. The former is known to have existed under the 18th Dynasty. Both were in existence at the beginning of the reign of Rameses II, by whom they were fortified and enlarged. The name “Pithom” means “House or temple of Tum,” the Sun God of Heliopolis (see Exodus 13:20). The name of Raamses, or Rameses, is generally assumed to have been derived from Rameses II, the Sesostris of the Greeks, but it was previously known as the name of the district. See Genesis 45:10; Genesis 47:11.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Exodus 1:11. Set over them task-masters — שרי מסים sarey missim, chiefs or princes of burdens, works, or tribute; επιστατας των εργων, Sept. overseers of the works. The persons who appointed them their work, and exacted the performance of it. The work itself being oppressive, and the manner in which it was exacted still more so, there is some room to think that they not only worked them unmercifully, but also obliged them to pay an exorbitant tribute at the same time.

Treasure cities — ערי מסכנות arey miscenoth, store cities - public granaries. Calmet supposes this to be the name of a city, and translates the verse thus: "They built cities, viz., Miscenoth, Pithom, and Rameses." Pithom is supposed to be that which Herodotus calls Patumos. Raamses, or rather Rameses, (for it is the same Hebrew word as in Genesis 47:11, and should be written the same way here as there,) is supposed to have been the capital of the land of Goshen, mentioned in the book of Genesis by anticipation; for it was probably not erected till after the days of Joseph, when the Israelites were brought under that severe oppression described in the book of Exodus. The Septuagint add here, και Ων, ἡ εστιν Ἡλιουπολις· and ON, which is Heliopolis; i.e., the city of the Sun. The same reading is found also in the Coptic version.

Some writers suppose that beside these cities the Israelites built the pyramids. If this conjecture be well founded, perhaps they are intended in the word מסכנות miscenoth, which, from סכן sachan, to lay up in store, might be intended to signify places where Pharaoh laid up his treasures; and from their structure they appear to have been designed for something of this kind. If the history of the pyramids be not found in the book of Exodus, it is nowhere else extant; their origin, if not alluded to here, being lost in their very remote antiquity. Diodorus Siculus, who has given the best traditions he could find relative to them, says that there was no agreement either among the inhabitants or the historians concerning the building of the pyramids. - Bib. Hist., lib. 1., cap. lxiv.

Josephus expressly says that one part of the oppression suffered by the Israelites in Egypt was occasioned by building pyramids. Exodus 1:14.

In the book of Genesis, and in this book, the word Pharaoh frequently occurs, which, though many suppose it to be a proper name peculiar to one person, and by this supposition confound the acts of several Egyptian kings, yet is to be understood only as a name of office.

It may be necessary to observe that all the Egyptian kings, whatever their own name was, took the surname of Pharaoh when they came to the throne; a name which, in its general acceptation, signified the same as king or monarch, but in its literal meaning, as Bochart has amply proved, it signifies a crocodile, which being a sacred animal among the Egyptians, the word might be added to their kings in order to procure them the greater reverence and respect.