19 And the midwives said to Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian; for they are strong, and they have borne before the midwife comes to them.
And the woman had taken and concealed the two men; and she said, Yes, the men did come unto me, but I knew not whence they were; and it came to pass when the gate had to be closed, at dark, that the men went out: I know not whither the men have gone. Pursue after them quickly; for ye shall overtake them. But she had taken them up to the roof, and secreted them under the stalks of flax, which she had laid out on the roof. And the men pursued after them the way to the Jordan, to the fords; and when they who pursued after them had gone out, they closed the gate. And before they had lain down, she went up to them upon the roof; and said to the men, I know that Jehovah has given you the land, and that the dread of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land faint because of you. For we have heard that Jehovah dried up the waters of the Red sea before you when ye came out of Egypt; and what ye did to the two kings of the Amorites that were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and to Og, whom ye utterly destroyed. We heard [of it], and our heart melted, and there remained no more spirit in any man because of you; for Jehovah your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath. And now, I pray you, swear to me by Jehovah, since I have dealt kindly with you, that ye will also deal kindly with my father's house, and give me a certain sign, that ye will let my father live, and my mother, and my brethren, and my sisters, and all that belong to them, and deliver our souls from death. And the men said to her, Our lives shall pay for yours, if ye do not make this our business known; and it shall be when Jehovah shall give us the land, that we will deal kindly and truly with thee. And she let them down by a cord through the window; for her house was upon the city-wall, and she dwelt upon the wall. And she said to them, Go to the mountain, that the pursuers may not meet with you; and hide yourselves there three days, until the pursuers have returned; and afterwards go your way. And the men said to her, We will be quit of this thine oath which thou hast made us swear. Behold, when we come into the land, thou shalt bind in the window this line of scarlet thread by which thou hast let us down; and thou shalt gather to thee in the house thy father, and thy mother, and thy brethren, and all thy father's household; and it shall be, that whoever shall go out of the doors of thy house into the street, -- his blood shall be upon his head, and we shall be innocent; but every one who shall be with thee in the house, his blood shall be upon our head, if any hand be upon him. And if thou make known this our business, we will be quit of thine oath which thou hast made us swear. And she said, According to your words, so be it. And she sent them away, and they departed. And she bound the scarlet line in the window. And they went, and came to the mountain, and remained there three days, until the pursuers had returned; and the pursuers sought them all the way, and found them not. And the two men returned and came down from the mountain, and went over and came to Joshua the son of Nun, and related to him everything that had happened to them. And they said to Joshua, Of a surety Jehovah has given the whole land into our hands, and even all the inhabitants of the land faint because of us.
And the woman took and spread the covering over the well's mouth, and spread ground corn on it; and the thing was not known. And Absalom's servants came to the woman to the house, and said, Where are Ahimaaz and Jonathan? And the woman said to them, They have gone over the brook of water. And they sought and could not find [them], and returned to Jerusalem.
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Commentary on Exodus 1 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
Increase in the Number of the Israelites Their Bondage in Egypt - Exodus 1
The promise which God gave to Jacob in his departure from Canaan (Genesis 46:3) was perfectly fulfilled. The children of Israel settled down in the most fruitful province of the fertile land of Egypt, and grew there into a great nation (Exodus 1:1-7). But the words which the Lord had spoken to Abram (Genesis 15:13) were also fulfilled in relation to his seed in Egypt. The children of Israel were oppressed in a strange land, were compelled to serve the Egyptians (Exodus 1:8-14), and were in great danger of being entirely crushed by them (Exodus 1:15-22).
To place the multiplication of the children of Israel into a strong nation in its true light, as the commencement of the realization of the promises of God, the number of the souls that went down with Jacob to Egypt is repeated from Genesis 46:27 (on the number 70, in which Jacob is included, see the notes on this passage); and the repetition of the names of the twelve sons of Jacob serves to give to the history which follows a character of completeness within itself. “ With Jacob they came, every one and his house, ” i.e., his sons, together with their families, their wives, and their children. The sons are arranged according to their mothers, as in Genesis 35:23-26, and the sons of the two maid-servants stand last. Joseph, indeed, is not placed in the list, but brought into special prominence by the words, “ for Joseph was in Egypt ” (Exodus 1:5), since he did not go down to Egypt along with the house of Jacob, and occupied an exalted position in relation to them there.
After the death of Joseph and his brethren and the whole of the family that had first immigrated, there occurred that miraculous increase in the number of the children of Israel, by which the blessings of creation and promise were fully realised. The words פּרוּ ישׁרצוּ ( swarmed ), and ירבּוּ point back to Genesis 1:28 and Genesis 8:17, and יעצמוּ to עצוּם גּוי in Genesis 18:18. “ The land was filled with them, ” i.e., the land of Egypt, particularly Goshen, where they were settled (Genesis 47:11). The extra-ordinary fruitfulness of Egypt in both men and cattle is attested not only by ancient writers, but by modern travellers also (vid., Aristotelis hist. animal. vii. 4, 5; Columella de re rust. iii. 8; Plin. hist. n. vii. 3; also Rosenmüller a. und n. Morgenland i. p. 252). This blessing of nature was heightened still further in the case of the Israelites by the grace of the promise, so that the increase became extraordinarily great (see the comm. on Exodus 12:37).
The promised blessing was manifested chiefly in the fact, that all the measures adopted by the cunning of Pharaoh to weaken and diminish the Israelites, instead of checking, served rather to promote their continuous increase.
Exodus 1:8-9
“ There arose a new king over Egypt, who knew not Joseph .” ויּקם signifies he came to the throne, קוּם denoting his appearance in history, as in Deuteronomy 34:10. A “new king” (lxx: βασιλεὺς ἕτερος ; the other ancient versions, rex novus ) is a king who follows different principles of government from his predecessors. Cf. חדשׁים אלהים , “new gods,” in distinction from the God that their fathers had worshipped, Judges 5:8; Deuteronomy 32:17. That this king belonged to a new dynasty, as the majority of commentators follow Josephus