Commentaria in Exodum
Chapter 1
A new Pharao, ignorant of Joseph and fearing the Hebrews so increasing, attempts to oppress them. First, by the imposition of burdens; but by this they increase the more. Secondly, verse 15, bidding the midwives kill the males; but they refuse the crime. Thirdly, verse 22, ordering them to be drowned.
1. These are the names of the children of Israel that entered into Egypt with Jacob: every man with their households went in: 2. Ruben, Simeon, Levi, Juda, 3. Issachar, Zabulon, and Benjamin, 4. Dan, and Nephthali, Gad, and Aser. 5. And all the souls that came out of the thigh of Jacob, were seventy: but Joseph was in Egypt. 6. Who being dead, and all his brethren, and all that generation, 7. The children of Israel increased, and sprang up into multitudes, and growing exceedingly strong, they filled the land. 8. In the mean time there arose a new king over Egypt, who knew not Joseph: 9. And he said to his people: Behold the people of the children of Israel are numerous and stronger than we. 10. Come let us wisely oppress them, lest they multiply: and if any war shall rise against us, they join with our enemies, and having overcome us, depart out of the land. 11. Therefore he set over them masters of the works, to afflict them with burdens: and they built for Pharao cities of tabernacles, Phithom and Ramesses. 12. But the more they oppressed them, the more they were multiplied and increased. 13. And the Egyptians hated the children of Israel, and afflicted them, and mocked them: 14. And they made their life bitter with hard works in clay and brick, and with all kind of service, wherewith they were overlaid in the works of the earth. 15. And the king of Egypt spoke to the midwives of the Hebrews, of whom one was called Sephora, the other Phua, 16. Commanding them: When you shall do the office of midwives to the Hebrew women, and the time of delivery is come: if it be a man child, kill it: if a woman, keep it alive. 17. But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt had commanded, but saved the men children. 18. And the king calling for them, said: What is it that you meant to do, to save the men children? 19. They answered: The Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women: for they themselves are skilful in the office of a midwife; and they are delivered before we come to them. 20. Therefore God dealt well with the midwives. And the people multiplied, and grew exceedingly strong. 21. And because the midwives feared God, he built them houses. 22. Pharao therefore charged all his people, saying: Whatsoever shall be born of the male sex, ye shall cast into the river: whatsoever of the female, ye shall save alive.
EVERY MAN WITH THEIR HOUSEHOLDS WENT IN.—“Households,” that is, sons and grandsons: for “house” among the Hebrews often signifies offspring, because it is as it were the father’s edifice: so the Lord promised David that he would give him a house, that is, a royal offspring, 2 Kings 7:11; and as for Achab, that he would overthrow his house, that is, his royal stock, 3 Kings 21:29. So Rachel and Lia built the house, that is, the lineage of Israel, Ruth 4:11. The Greeks, Latins, French, Flemings, Spaniards and Italians also take “house” in this sense. Hence the Poet: When the house of Assaracus shall lord it over conquered Argos. Note on the opening “And these are the names”: the Hebrew vau, “and,” seems to join this history of Exodus to the end of Genesis and to continue it. For formerly the Pentateuch was one continuous book, which later ages divided into five sections or books. Add that the Hebrew vau often stands redundantly by pleonasm and serves only for ornament, especially at the beginning of a speech or sentence. Whence Ezechiel also begins thus: “And it came to pass in the thirtieth year”; so the Hebrew “and” is often only a mark of the beginning of discourse and opens the speech.
‸Secondly, “house” is rightly taken by metonymy for the family, and for the whole household property contained in the house, as Aristotle generally takes “house,” book 1 of the Politics, chap. 1, when he says: “A house is an economic partnership, consisting of husband, wife, children, slaves, an ox and other animals.” Whence the Chaldee renders, “each entered with the men of his house,” that is, with sons and servants, and their goods and household property; for that it was really so done is clear from Gen. 46:8. So Procopius, Bede and St. Augustine here, in the locution on this place.
2, 3. RUBEN, SIMEON, etc., BENJAMIN.—This is not the order of birth: for so Benjamin, being the youngest, ought to be last; but it is the order of the marriage bed. For the first six are sons of Jacob’s first wife, namely Lia; the seventh, namely Benjamin, is the son of Jacob’s second wife, namely Rachel; the two following are sons of the third wife, namely the handmaid Bala; the last two are sons of the fourth, namely Zelpha.
5. AND ALL THE SOULS THAT CAME OUT OF THE THIGH OF JACOB WERE SEVENTY.—“Souls,” that is, men; it is a synecdoche. The Septuagint renders, “all the souls that came out of the thigh of Jacob were seventy.” Where it is clear that souls are taken for men. For it is certain that a man’s soul does not come out of the thigh, nor arise by traduction from the parents: which our Interpreter, to signify, renders plainly, “the souls of those who came out,” etc. The Hebrew may be rendered either way, but better the latter, with our version and the Chaldee.
Here the number of the Hebrews entering Egypt is reckoned, namely that they were seventy, so that the wonderful fruitfulness of multiplying seed, promised to their grandsire Abraham, Genes. 12:16 and Gen. 15:5, may be seen most truly fulfilled by God, when in the 215 years in which they lived in Egypt they were so increased in number that, besides the little ones and the wives, six hundred thousand footmen were counted at the going out, chap. 12, verse 37.
SEVENTY.—If you count Joseph with his two sons, as is plain from Genes. 46. Wherefore what Moses at once subjoins here, “but Joseph was in Egypt,” contains an exception not from what immediately precedes, but from what he had said a little before in verse 1: “These are the names of the children of Israel who entered into Egypt.” For the Hebrews do not always look to what immediately precedes, but often to things higher up and more remote. The sense is, as if Moses said: In verse 1, among the sons of Jacob entering into Egypt, I did not number Joseph, because Joseph had already been, and was, in Egypt.
6. WHO BEING DEAD, AND ALL THAT GENERATION.—“Generation,” that is, of the sons, both his own and his brethren’s, namely of his nephews by his brothers; which is the nearest and greatest kinship; as if to say: Joseph and his brethren being dead, and their sons, namely in the second generation of them, or in their grandsons. Whence the Hebrew for “generation” is dor, that is, generation or age, as if to say: That generation or age being dead, namely those seventy who had entered Egypt with Jacob, then at once the children of Israel, who were the sons and posterity of those first seventy, increased wonderfully and were multiplied.
7. AND SPRANG UP.—The Hebrew is _jisretsu_, that is, they swarmed like frogs and fishes, whose breeding and multiplication is wonderful, beyond birds and land animals; and this both on account of the abundance of moisture, as Pliny will have it, book 9, chap. 2, and because they generate in all seasons of the year, as Aristotle teaches, book 6 On Animals, chap. 17. Note here that our Interpreter sometimes uses other similes and metaphors than are in the Hebrew, when the matter is the same and the sense the same: especially if his own be more familiar or clearer to us than that which is in the Hebrew, as this of the sprout is than that of frogs and fishes. For this is permitted, nay becomes a faithful Interpreter. Moreover, “sprang up” signifies that they were multiplied like a sprout, and as the sons of the earth came forth from the earth in troops, and, as Aquila renders it, crept forth. Whence the Septuagint renders, “and the children of Israel increased, and were multiplied, and were poured forth”: they so increased that they were spread abroad through all that land, says Theodotion, in Greek “were poured out,” which Origen’s interpreter renders, “they were poured out in great multitude, and grew exceedingly strong, and the land multiplied them.” Aptly: for as from one grain of seed many stalks spring up, from one stalk many ears, from one ear many grains, so that from one grain three hundred and more are often born, so from one patriarch, namely Juda, many sons were born, from one son many grandsons, from one grandson many great-grandsons, etc., so that from one patriarch, within a hundred years, not a few hundreds but thousands of offspring were begotten, and a patriarch could from his sons and grandsons alone raise an army and lead it into the field against enemies.
GROWING EXCEEDINGLY STRONG.—increased in multitude, which is the great strength of an army or a people. Moses here uses anadiplosis, to signify the innumerable propagation of his nation.