Our ancestors went down to Egypt, and we lived there a long time, and we and our ancestors were brutally mistreated by the Egyptians.
Parallel translations
- WEB how our fathers went down into Egypt, and we lived in Egypt a long time. The Egyptians mistreated us and our fathers.
- KJV How our fathers went down into Egypt, and we have dwelt in Egypt a long time; and the Egyptians vexed us, and our fathers:
- BSB how our fathers went down to Egypt, where we lived many years. The Egyptians mistreated us and our fathers,
- NKJV how our fathers went down to Egypt, and we dwelt in Egypt a long time, and the Egyptians afflicted us and our fathers.
- NASB that our fathers went down to Egypt, and we stayed in Egypt a long time, and the Egyptians treated us and our fathers badly.
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
The message recalled how Israel's fathers went to Egypt, lived there long, and were mistreated. It rehearsed their suffering to gain Edom's sympathy.
Overview
Moses summarizes the descent into Egypt and the bondage that followed, the shared backdrop of their family history. The retelling frames Israel as a people delivered from oppression, seeking only safe passage. It sets up the contrast between the Lord's faithfulness and Edom's hardness.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 12
- Exod 12:40Now the time that the children of Israel lived in Egypt was four hundred thirty years.
- Deut 26:6The Egyptians mistreated us, afflicted us, and imposed hard labor on us.
- Gen 46:6They took their livestock, and their goods, which they had gotten in the land of Canaan, and came into Egypt — Jacob, and all his offspring with him,
- Acts 7:15Jacob went down into Egypt, and he died, himself and our fathers,
- 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 1:16and he said, “When you perform the duty of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birth stool; if it is a son, then you shall kill him; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live.”
- Exod 1:11–14Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens. They built storage cities for Pharaoh: Pithom and Raamses.
- Num 11:5We remember the fish, which we ate in Egypt for nothing; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic;
- Acts 7:19The same took advantage of our race, and mistreated our fathers, and forced them to throw out their babies, so that they wouldn’t stay alive.
- Exod 1:22Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, “You shall cast every son who is born into the river, and every daughter you shall save alive.”
- Exod 5:14The officers of the children of Israel, whom Pharaoh’s taskmasters had set over them, were beaten, and demanded, “Why haven’t you fulfilled your quota both yesterday and today, in making brick as before?”
- Num 16:13Is it a small thing that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey, to kill us in the wilderness, but you must also make yourself a prince over us?
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Christ at the center
In the wilderness Christ is the water from the rock, the bronze serpent lifted up that the dying might look and live (John 3:14), and the star and scepter that Balaam saw rising out of Jacob.
How Numbers 20:15 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
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.