So the Egyptians made the Israelites their slaves. They appointed brutal slave drivers over them, hoping to wear them down with crushing labor. They forced them to build the cities of Pithom and Rameses as supply centers for the king.
Parallel translations
- WEB Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens. They built storage cities for Pharaoh: Pithom and Raamses.
- KJV Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses.
- BSB So the Egyptians appointed taskmasters over the Israelites to oppress them with forced labor. As a result, they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh.
- NKJV Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh supply cities, Pithom and Raamses.
- NASB So they appointed taskmasters over them to oppress them with hard labor. And they built for Pharaoh storage cities, Pithom and Raamses.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Egypt sets taskmasters over Israel and forces them to build store cities. The covenant people are reduced to state slaves.
Overview
Pithom and Rameses were real Egyptian supply centers, anchoring the account in history. The oppression is meant to break Israel's spirit and curb their growth. Yet this affliction fulfills God's earlier word to Abraham that his descendants would be enslaved before deliverance (Genesis 15:13), so even the bondage unfolds within God's announced plan.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 15
- Gen 15:13He said to Abram, “Know for sure that your offspring will live as foreigners in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them. They will afflict them four hundred years.
- Exod 3:7Yahweh said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows.
- Gen 47:11Joseph placed his father and his brothers, and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of Rameses, as Pharaoh had commanded.
- Exod 2:11In those days, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his brothers, and looked at their burdens. He saw an Egyptian striking a Hebrew, one of his brothers.
- Ps 81:6“I removed his shoulder from the burden. His hands were freed from the basket.
- Deut 26:6The Egyptians mistreated us, afflicted us, and imposed hard labor on us.
- 2 Chr 8:4He built Tadmor in the wilderness, and all the storage cities, which he built in Hamath.
- Num 20:15how our fathers went down into Egypt, and we lived in Egypt a long time. The Egyptians mistreated us and our fathers.
- 1 Kgs 9:19all the storage cities that Solomon had, the cities for his chariots, the cities for his horsemen, and that which Solomon desired to build for his pleasure in Jerusalem, and in Lebanon, and in all the land of his dominion.
- Exod 6:6–7Therefore tell the children of Israel, ‘I am Yahweh, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm, and with great judgments:
- Ps 68:13while you sleep among the camp fires, the wings of a dove sheathed with silver, her feathers with shining gold.
- Exod 5:15Then the officers of the children of Israel came and cried to Pharaoh, saying, “Why do you deal this way with your servants?
- Exod 5:4–6The king of Egypt said to them, “Why do you, Moses and Aaron, take the people from their work? Get back to your burdens!”
- Ps 105:13They went about from nation to nation, from one kingdom to another people.
- Prov 27:4Wrath is cruel, and anger is overwhelming; but who is able to stand before jealousy?
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Christ at the center
The Passover lamb whose blood turns away death, the exodus through the sea, the manna, the rock, and the tabernacle where God dwells with his people all foreshadow Jesus — our Passover, our redemption, the bread from heaven, and God-with-us in the flesh.
How Exodus 1:11 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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