10 Come on, let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply, and it come to pass that, if war occur, they take side with our enemies and fight against us, and go up out of the land.
*He* dealt subtilly with our race, and evil entreated the fathers, casting out their infants that they might not live.
They take crafty counsel against thy people, and consult against thy hidden ones: They say, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation, and let the name of Israel be mentioned no more.
And now come, I pray thee, curse me this people; for they are mightier than I: perhaps I may be able to smite them, and drive them out of the land; for I know that he whom thou blessest is blessed, and he whom thou cursest is cursed.
He taketh the wise in their own craftiness; and the counsel of the wily is carried headlong:
If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk secretly for the innocent without cause;
There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof is the ways of death.
And when it was day, the Jews, having banded together, put themselves under a curse, saying that they would neither eat nor drink till they should kill Paul.
Let no one deceive himself: if any one thinks himself to be wise among you in this world, let him become foolish, that he may be wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God; for it is written, He who takes the wise in their craftiness. And again, [The] Lord knows the reasonings of the wise that they are vain.
This is not the wisdom which comes down from above, but earthly, natural, devilish. For where emulation and strife [are], there [is] disorder and every evil thing. But the wisdom from above first is pure, then peaceful, gentle, yielding, full of mercy and good fruits, unquestioning, unfeigned. But [the] fruit of righteousness in peace is sown for them that make peace.
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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