Study Desk

Then a new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt.

"Look," he said to his people, "the Israelites have become much too numerous for us.

Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country."

So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh.

But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites

and worked them ruthlessly.

They made their lives bitter with hard labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their hard labor the Egyptians used them ruthlessly.