Study Desk

But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and the more they spread out, so that they were in dread of the sons of Israel.

and they made their lives bitter with hard slave labor in mortar and bricks and in all kinds of slave labor in the field, all their slave labor which they brutally compelled them to do.

Then the midwives said to Pharaoh, "Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife can come to them."

Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters; and they came and drew water and filled the troughs to give water to their father's flock to drink.

Then they came to Reuel their father, and he said, "Why have you come back so soon today?"

So they said, "An Egyptian delivered us from the hand of the shepherds, and he actually even drew the water for us and gave water to the flock to drink."

Now it happened in the course of those many days that the king of Egypt died. And the sons of Israel sighed because of the slavery, and they cried out; and their cry for help because of their slavery rose up to God.

Then Moses said to God, "Behold, I am about to come to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you.' And they will say to me, ‘What is His name?' What shall I say to them?"

And they will listen to your voice; and you with the elders of Israel will come to the king of Egypt, and you all will say to him, ‘Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. So now, please, let us go a three days' journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to Yahweh our God.'

Then Moses answered and said, "What if they will not believe me and will not listen to my voice? For they may say, ‘Yahweh has not appeared to you.'"

"that they may believe that Yahweh, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you."

"And so it will be, if they will not believe you or listen to the witness of the first sign, they may believe the witness of this last sign.

But if it will be that they will not believe even these two signs and that they will not listen to your voice, then you shall take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry land; and the water which you take from the Nile will become blood on the dry land."

Then Moses went and returned to Jethro his father-in-law and said to him, "Please, let me go, that I may return to my brothers who are in Egypt and see if they are still alive." And Jethro said to Moses, "Go in peace."

So the people believed; and they heard that Yahweh cared about the sons of Israel and that He had seen their affliction. So they bowed low and worshiped.

And afterward Moses and Aaron came and said to Pharaoh, "Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, ‘Let My people go that they may celebrate a feast to Me in the wilderness.'"

But the quota of bricks which they were making previously, you shall set upon them; you are not to reduce any of it. Because they are lazy, therefore they are crying out, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to our God.'

Let their slavery be hard on the men, and let them work at it so that they will have no regard for false words."

There is no straw given to your slaves, yet they keep saying to us, ‘Make bricks!' And behold, your slaves are being beaten; but it is the sin of your own people."

When they left Pharaoh's presence, they confronted Moses and Aaron, standing there to meet them.