The language of ivrit ( עברית ) Exodus 1, Post #2
Welcome to my Hebrew reading & language series.
Exodus 1:11-17
Our passage for today is the second one we are reading in the book of Exodus where, because of their fear of the multitude of the Hebrew people, Pharaoh decides to force the people of Israel to work.
The text says that they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens. They were to build the cities of Pithom and Raamses. We find out that the more they oppressed them the more children they had, so the Mitsraim of Mitsraim (the Egyptians of Egypt) dreaded the people of Israel.
Last week we saw a conversation about the possibility of Israel coming against them in the future due to their sheer size. Now we have them being forced to work. Some may call that "slavery" and many bibles do put that word on it but you would be hard pressed to find "slavery" in the Hebrew texts. Here is how "service" appears in today's text...
The Egyptians made the people of Israel serve ruthlessly and they made bitter the lives of them - with service - hard in mortar and bricks and all kinds of service in the field..." The highlighted words above are pronounced cha-yay-HEM ba-ah-bo-DAH ka-SHA and the all caps are the accented parts of the words when spoken. The other places in this passage that speak of work, labor, serve, or service implement other forms of the same noun/verb - ah-bo-DAH. This is the same word used when speaking, for example, of the servants of Abraham or even Jacob. I am not sure if I have ever seen a word in the scriptures for "slavery" in all my reading.
Next, the king of Egypt told the midwives, one called Shiphrah and the other Puah, to kill male children as soon as they are born but let them female babies live. Now since those midwives feared God, they did not obey.
A lack of compliance when the orders are immoral is a good thing!
Today's reading
English
Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens. They built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Raamses. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel. So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves and made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work in the field. In all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves.
Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, "When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live." But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live.
Hebrew
The story continues next week with excuses...
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