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Exodus 1-2
New American Bible (Revised Edition)

I. Introduction: The Oppression of the Israelites in Egypt

Chapter 1

Jacob’s Descendants in Egypt. 1 These are the names of the sons of Israel[a] who, accompanied by their households, entered into Egypt with Jacob: 2 [b]Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah; 3 Issachar, Zebulun and Benjamin; 4 Dan and Naphtali; Gad and Asher. 5 The total number of Jacob’s direct descendants[c] was seventy.(A) Joseph was already in Egypt.

6 Now Joseph and all his brothers and that whole generation died.(B) 7 But the Israelites were fruitful and prolific. They multiplied and became so very numerous that the land was filled with them.[d]

The Oppression. 8 (C)Then a new king, who knew nothing of Joseph,[e] rose to power in Egypt. 9 He said to his people, “See! The Israelite people have multiplied and become more numerous than we are! 10 Come, let us deal shrewdly with them to stop their increase;[f] otherwise, in time of war they too may join our enemies to fight against us, and so leave the land.”

11 Accordingly, they set supervisors over the Israelites to oppress them with forced labor.(D) Thus they had to build for Pharaoh[g] the garrison cities of Pithom and Raamses. 12 Yet the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread, so that the Egyptians began to loathe the Israelites. 13 So the Egyptians reduced the Israelites to cruel slavery, 14 making life bitter for them with hard labor, at mortar[h] and brick and all kinds of field work—cruelly oppressed in all their labor.

Command to the Midwives. 15 The king of Egypt told the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was called Shiphrah and the other Puah, 16 “When you act as midwives for the Hebrew women, look on the birthstool:[i] if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she may live.” 17 The midwives, however, feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt had ordered them, but let the boys live. 18 So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this, allowing the boys to live?” 19 The midwives answered Pharaoh, “The Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women. They are robust and give birth before the midwife arrives.” 20 Therefore God dealt well with the midwives; and the people multiplied and grew very numerous. 21 And because the midwives feared God, God built up families for them. 22 Pharaoh then commanded all his people, “Throw into the Nile every boy that is born,(E) but you may let all the girls live.”

Chapter 2

Birth and Adoption of Moses. 1 Now a man[j] of the house of Levi married a Levite woman,(F) 2 and the woman conceived and bore a son. Seeing what a fine child he was, she hid him for three months.(G) 3 But when she could no longer hide him, she took a papyrus basket,[k] daubed it with bitumen and pitch, and putting the child in it, placed it among the reeds on the bank of the Nile. 4 His sister stationed herself at a distance to find out what would happen to him.

5 Then Pharaoh’s daughter came down to bathe at the Nile, while her attendants walked along the bank of the Nile. Noticing the basket among the reeds, she sent her handmaid to fetch it. 6 On opening it, she looked, and there was a baby boy crying! She was moved with pity for him and said, “It is one of the Hebrews’ children.” 7 Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and summon a Hebrew woman to nurse the child for you?” 8 Pharaoh’s daughter answered her, “Go.” So the young woman went and called the child’s own mother. 9 Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse him for me, and I will pay your wages.”[l] So the woman took the child and nursed him. 10 When the child grew,[m] she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son.(H) She named him Moses; for she said, “I drew him out of the water.”

Moses’ Flight to Midian. 11 (I)On one occasion, after Moses had grown up,[n] when he had gone out to his kinsmen and witnessed their forced labor, he saw an Egyptian striking a Hebrew, one of his own kinsmen. 12 Looking about and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. 13 The next day he went out again, and now two Hebrews were fighting! So he asked the culprit, “Why are you striking your companion?” 14 But he replied, “Who has appointed you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses became afraid and thought, “The affair must certainly be known.” 15 When Pharaoh heard of the affair, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to the land of Midian.[o](J) There he sat down by a well.

16 Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came to draw water and fill the troughs to water their father’s flock. 17 But shepherds came and drove them away. So Moses rose up in their defense and watered their flock. 18 When they returned to their father Reuel,[p] he said to them, “How is it you have returned so soon today?” 19 They answered, “An Egyptian[q] delivered us from the shepherds. He even drew water for us and watered the flock!” 20 “Where is he?” he asked his daughters. “Why did you leave the man there? Invite him to have something to eat.” 21 Moses agreed to stay with him, and the man gave Moses his daughter Zipporah in marriage. 22 She conceived and bore a son, whom he named Gershom;[r] for he said, “I am a stranger residing in a foreign land.”(K)

II. The Call and Commission of Moses

The Burning Bush. 23 A long time passed, during which the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned under their bondage and cried out, and from their bondage their cry for help went up to God.(L) 24 God heard their moaning and God was mindful of his covenant(M) with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. 25 God saw the Israelites, and God knew….[s]

Footnotes

  1. 1:1 Sons of Israel: here literally the first-generation sons of Jacob/Israel. Cf. v. 5. However, beginning with v. 7 the same Hebrew phrase refers to Jacob’s more remote descendants; hence, from there on, it is ordinarily rendered “the Israelites.” Households: the family in its fullest sense, including wives, children and servants.
  2. 1:2 Jacob’s sons are listed here according to their respective mothers. Cf. Gn 29:31; 30:20; 35:16–26.
  3. 1:5 Direct descendants: lit., “persons coming from Jacob’s loins”; hence, wives of Jacob’s sons and servants are not included. Cf. Gn 46:26. Seventy: Gn 46:26, along with the Septuagint for the verse, agrees on a total of sixty-six coming down to Egypt with Jacob, but in v. 27 the Hebrew text adds the two sons born to Joseph in Egypt and presupposes Jacob himself and Joseph for a total of seventy; the Septuagint adds “nine sons” born to Joseph to get a total of seventy-five. This is the figure the Septuagint and 4QExa have here in Ex 1:5.
  4. 1:7 Fruitful…multiplied…the land was filled with them: the language used here to indicate the fecundity of the Israelite population echoes the divine blessing bestowed upon humanity at creation (Gn 1:28) and after the flood (Gn 9:1) as well as suggesting fulfillment of the promises to the ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Gn 12:2; 13:16; 15:5; 28:14; passim).
  5. 1:8 Who knew nothing of Joseph: the nuance intended by the Hebrew verb “know” here goes beyond precise determination. The idea may be not simply that a new king came to power who had not heard of Joseph but that this king ignored the services that Joseph had rendered to Egypt, repudiating the special relationship that existed between Joseph and his predecessor on the throne.
  6. 1:10 Increase: Pharaoh’s actions thereby immediately pit him against God’s will for the Israelites to multiply; see note on v. 7 above.
  7. 1:11 Pharaoh: not a personal name, but a title common to all the kings of Egypt.
  8. 1:14 Mortar: either the wet clay with which the bricks were made, as in Na 3:14, or the cement used between the bricks in building, as in Gn 11:3.
  9. 1:16 Birthstool: apparently a pair of stones on which the mother is seated for childbirth opposite the midwife. The Hebrew word elsewhere is used to refer to the stones of a potter’s wheel.
  10. 2:1 Now a man: the chapter begins abruptly, without names for the man or woman (in contrast to the midwives of 1:15), who in 6:20 are identified as Amram and Jochebed.
  11. 2:3 Basket: the same Hebrew word is used in Gn 6:14 and throughout the flood narrative for Noah’s ark, but nowhere else in the Bible. Here, however, the “ark” or “chest” was made of papyrus stalks. Presumably the allusion to Genesis is intentional. Just as Noah and his family were preserved safe from the threatening waters of the flood in the ark he built, so now Moses is preserved from the threatening waters of the Nile in the ark prepared by his mother. Among the reeds: the Hebrew noun for “reed” is overwhelmingly used in the phrase “Reed Sea,” traditionally translated “Red Sea.”
  12. 2:9 And I will pay your wages: the idea that the child’s mother will be paid for nursing her child—and by Pharaoh’s own daughter—heightens the narrative’s irony.
  13. 2:10 When the child grew: while v. 9 implies that the boy’s mother cared for him as long as he needed to be nursed (presumably, between two and four years), the same verb appears in v. 11 to describe the attainment of adulthood. And he became her son: Pharaoh’s daughter adopts Moses, thus adding to the irony of the account. The king of Egypt had ordered the killing of all the sons of the Hebrews, and one now becomes the son of his own daughter! Moses: in Hebrew, mosheh. There is a play on words here: Hebrew mosheh echoes meshithihu (“I drew him out”). However, the name Moses actually has nothing to do with that Hebrew verb, but is probably derived from Egyptian “beloved” or “has been born,” preserved in such Pharaonic names as Thutmoses (meaning approximately “Beloved of the god Thoth” or “The god Thoth is born, has given birth to [the child]”). The original meaning of Moses’ name was no longer remembered (if it was Egyptian, it may have contained an Egyptian divine element as well, perhaps the name of the Nile god Hapi), and a secondary explanation was derived from this story (or gave rise to it, if the drawing from the water of the Nile was intended to foreshadow the Israelites’ escape from Egypt through the Red Sea).
  14. 2:11 After Moses had grown up: cf. 7:7, where Moses is said to be eighty years old at the time of his mission to Pharaoh. Striking: probably in the sense of “flogging”; in v. 12, however, the same verb is used in the sense of “killing.”
  15. 2:15 Land of Midian: the territory under the control of a confederation made up, according to Nm 31:8, of five Midianite tribes. According to Gn 25:1–2, Midian was a son of Abraham by Keturah. In view of the extreme hostility in later periods between Israel and Midian (cf. Nm 31; Jgs 6–8), the relationship is striking, as is the account here in Exodus of good relations between Moses and no less than a Midianite priest.
  16. 2:18 Reuel: also called Jethro. Cf. 3:1; 4:18; 18:1.
  17. 2:19 An Egyptian: Moses was probably wearing Egyptian dress, or spoke Egyptian to Reuel’s daughters.
  18. 2:22 Gershom: the name is explained unscientifically as if it came from the Hebrew word ger, “sojourner, resident alien,” and the Hebrew word sham, “there.” Stranger residing: Hebrew ger, one who seeks and finds shelter and a home away from his or her own people or land.
  19. 2:25 God knew: in response to the people’s cry, God, mindful of the covenant, looks on their plight and acknowledges firsthand the depth of their suffering (see 3:7). In vv. 23–25, traditionally attributed to the Priestly writer, God is mentioned five times, in contrast to the rest of chaps. 1–2, where God is rarely mentioned. These verses serve as a fitting transition to Moses’ call in chap. 3.
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Scripture texts, prefaces, introductions, footnotes and cross references used in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC All Rights Reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.