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the district of Goshen, and as the Israelites assembled in Rameses before the Exodus (xii. 37; Num. xxxiii. 3, 5), we must most probably seek them in that province. However this may be, the situation of Pithom and Raamses cannot, in general, be doubtful; they must have formed a part of Lower Egypt, in the east of the Nile, most apparently in the valley Vadi Tumilat, which is formed by the Nile and that chain of mountains which accompanies the Nile from the south to the north, and near the place where the canal began which combined the Nile with the gulf of Suez (Herod. ii. 158). This part of the country, which probably formed the most southern region of Goshen, was, on the eastern frontier, naturally exposed to the invasions from Arabia, and was, therefore, the chief quarter of the warrior-caste. Fortresses, used at the same time for corn-magazines, were thus, in these parts, not only advisable but indispensable (see 2 Chron. viii. 3-6, where the store cities are called "fenced cities, with walls, gates, and bars;" Heeren, ii. page 609; Ritter, Geogr. p. 829).

12. And spread. The increasing number of Israelites were not confined to the comparatively limited district of Goshen, but they were used for the royal or public works almost throughout the whole of Pharaoh's dominions (see our note to ver. 7).

13. Ebn Ezra sees in this verse a certain progress in the relation of the miseries of the Hebrews; first they had to build vast edifices and fortified towns for Pharaoh (ver. 11); but when he saw that even not this slavish and exhausting occupation impeded their miraculous increase (ver. 12), he allowed all his subjects to use them as slaves, and to treat them with every possible cruelty (ver. 13); and when he perceived, to his amazement, that this measure also had

not the desired effect, he called the midwives, and gave them his barbarous and nefarious instructions (ver. 15).

14. In the latter part of this verse our translation varies from the English version, which renders "all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigour;" but this would be little more than a mere repetition of the preceding verse, and would, besides, imply a grammatical difficulty in the original text.-Bricks, or burnt tiles, made of white and chalky clay, when dried in the open air, assume an extraordinary hardness, and, according to Herodotus (ii. 136), even a pyramid (which probably still exists near Faioum, in the erection of which most likely the Israelites were employed, and a drawing of which is given in the Déscription de l'Egypte) was built of such bricks. "There is a hill near Cairo formed entirely of broken tiles and pottery. Popular tradition refers its origin to the Israelites, and names it Tel Youdeh, or Hill of the Jews,'" (Wilson). See Rosellini, (I Monumenti dell' Egitto e della Nubia, II. ii. p. 249, etc.), where is also given a highly interesting drawing, copied from the walls of a tomb near Thebes, and generally believed to represent the oppressed Israelites making bricks under the severe superintendence of the Egyptian taskmasters. Modern travellers (see Wilkinson, ii 97) observe, that the bricks were, in Egypt, manufactured for the king or certain privileged persons. A vast number of strangers was always occupied in the brick-fields of Thebes, and other parts of Egypt. Josephus (Antiq, II. ix. 1) describes the labours of the Israelites as consisting in cutting canals, fortifying the cities with walls, raising dykes, and erecting pyramids. "Things are much the same now in the same country. Mehemet Ali, the Pasha of Egypt, obliged 150,000 men, chiefly Arabs from Upper Egypt, to work

appear to be of Semitic, not of Egyptian origin (, splendour, beauty, from 5, Arabic, and ¡y1Ð, Arabic ¿ð); but as, according to our supposition, the king was one of the Arabic Hyksos, this circumstance offers no difficulty. But there is another objection, which has been urged with more appa rent justice, and this concerns the number of midwives, two of whom could not possibly have sufficed for such a numerous people, which, about eighty years later, counted 600,000 men fit to bear arms (Exod. xii. 37), and 22,000 Levites (Num. iii. 39), and which, at the lowest estimate, must have consisted of 2,500,000 souls (see note to ver. 7). Ebn Ezra observes, therefore, "These two were the superintendents of all midwives; for there is no doubt that there were more than 500, and the former had to pay to the king a tax from their income." Abarbanel questions this opinion, and offers the hypothesis, that Shiphrah and Puah are not proper, but appellative nouns, denoting the two chief operations necessary or customary at every childbirth, so that, in each of such cases, two midwives were employed, one of either of these two classes, and that an indefinite number of midwives might, therefore, have been in activity. However, the opinion of Ebn Ezra seems to be more conformable to our text, as there is no objection to suppose that the king gave his orders personally to two chiefs, or overseers, of the midwives.

16. You shall look upon the basin. The Hebrew word which we have translated with basin (avnajim) offers difficulties, and has called forth many different interpretations, which we have reviewed in the larger edition of this work. But we believe, that the most probable opinion is that of Gesenius, who

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observes, " "avnajim is a washing-vessel of stone, in which the Orientals used to wash new-born infants"; they appear to have resembled hand-mills, in being made of stones, the lower of which was hollowed, the upper serving as a lid. But the whole question is, in our opinion, completely set at rest by the remark of Thevenot (Travels, ii. p. 98): "The Persian kings order the new-born male infants of their relatives to be killed in the stone basins, in which the children, immediately after their birth, used to be washed, lest these offsprings, if allowed to live, become dangerous to their government." What is here limited to the relatives of the kings, Pharaoh naturally extended to the whole Hebrew race. the face of such evidence, we can attach but little importance to an observation in a memoir of M. Larrey, quoted by Cahen, who describes avnajim as a sort of stool (fauteuil). We add, merely for the sake of completeness, some other suppositions of modern critics, without being able to sympathise with them. Ewald translates, on both wheels, i. e. speedily, whilst Lee, Benary and Lengerke render "you shall be attentive to the two-fold possibility, whether the new-born child be a boy or a girl." Commentators raise the objection, why the cruel command of the king was not extended to the new-born girls also (and Abarbanel urges, that his plans required the extirpation of the latter still more imperatively), which objection they answer in different ways. Rashi writes (adopting the words of Tanchuma): "he felt uneasiness at the boys only because his astrologers had foretold him, that a boy would be born fated to rescue the Israelites." Abarbanel is of opinion that Pharaoh spared the women, in order to secure for himself, by their marriage with

Egyptians, numerous soldiers and workmen; and Rosenmüller observes (on ver. 22) "the daughters could intermarry with other families." (See our note to ver. 11).

17. The midwives feared rather the punishment of God than the anger of Pharaoh. It proves the rule of a sacred Providence," that tyrants are not always served faithfully" (Salom.). It will not be surprising, that the midwives, who were Egyptians (see note to ver. 15), are described as fearing God; this expression signifies merely piety and righteousness, and is applied even with reference to heathens (see Genes. xx. ii; Ps. ii. 2). Justly, therefore, remarks Hengstenberg, "It cannot be the intention of the author to express here the general notion of fear of God; for this was not the feeling, which guided the Egyptian midwives."

19. Indeed () the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women. The particle might introduce here, as in many passages (and frequently in Greek örı), the direct speech, and would, therefore, require no translation in English. But sometimes it stands elliptically instead of "by my life," or a similar protestation, and is then to be translated by indeed, verily (for instance Isa. xv. 1). And such emphasis appears appropriate in our passage, in which the midwives have to refute the criminal charge of disobedience to the royal command.-For they are vigorous. Rashi explains: "experienced like midwives;" similarly Targum Onkelos and others. The Talmud (Sotah 12) explains, "they resemble the animals of the field, which require no midwives," and it is added,

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Lively.

that the Jews are not unfrequently compared with animals (as Judah is a lion's whelp), etc. The most plausible explanation seems to be that of Ebn Ezra, "they have an extraordinary vitality, are exceedingly strong and vigorous." This explanation has been adopted by many interpreters. The rendering of the English version (for they are lively) does not meet the sense. Before the midwife comes unto them they are delivered; therefore, said the midwives, we cannot kill the new-born children, as we were commanded to do this secretly at their birth (See Mendels.). About the facility with which the women are delivered in the East, we read in Chardin's manuscript notes: "There are, in Asia, large districts in which no midwives are to be found, and even if some live there they are little known, for mothers assist their daughters, and often female relatives or neighbours fill the place of the former. In Karman, I saw a woman who was delivered without any assistance in the open field, three hours from a village, and, to my great surprise, she arrived not much later in the town where I was. The people there smiled at my astonishment, remarking that similar cases were very frequent in their country.". "Oriental women suffer little from parturition; for those of better condition are frequently on foot the day after delivery, and out of all confinement on the third day. They seldom call midwives, and when they do, they are sometimes delivered before they come to their assistance; the poorer sort, while they are labouring or planting, go aside, deliver themselves, wash the child, lay it in a

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clout, and return to work again" (Dr. Paxton's Illustrations of Scripture, i. p. 462). Clarke extends this facility of parturition to all parts of the globe, where the women labour hard, and especially in the open air.

20. "The first part of this verse is a real summary, which finds its explanation in the following verse" (Glaire).

21. That He made them houses. The pronoun them refers to the midwives, although the Hebrew text has here a masculine form, according to an idiom explained in the larger work. Another uncertainty is the meaning of houses. The Talmud (and Rashi accordingly), which, as we have observed, on ver. 15, believes Jochebed and Miriam to have been the midwives, explains: God determined to make them the mothers of priests, Levites, and kings. But we have proved that we are, from internal reasons, compelled to consider the midwives as Egyptians, and we are, therefore, of opinion, with Rosenmüller, Philippson and others, that house is used here, as frequently in other passages, in the sense of family (for instance ii. 1), and the meaning would be, God increased and strengthened the families of the midwives as a reward for their piety. The sense will, however, be still more distinct and powerful, if we take house, as is usual in oriental phraseology, as a symbol of well-established prosperity, firmly rooted happiness; so that the words of our text would imply the meaning: God blessed the midwives with every felicity. This explanation receives the fullest corroboration from 2 Sam. vii. 27, 29, where the promise "I will build thee a house" is explained and qualified by the words "to bless the house of thy servant, that may continue for ever before thee."

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22. Every son that is born. Targum Onkelos renders "Every son that will be born to the Hebrews;" and similarly Targum Jonathan; the Sept. adds also τοῖς Εβραίοις ; but not so the rabbinical tradition, according to which all children, both of the Egyptians and Hebrews, were to be thrown into the Nile, as the astrologers of Pharaoh had predicted that the deliverer of the Israelites was about to be born, without being able to inform him whether he would be an Egyptian or a Hebrew. The probability is, however, undoubtedly on the side of the Targumim; see our introductory note to ver. 11. It is remarkable, that Pharaoh ordered the Nile to be infested with so many human corpses, as that river was, on the one hand, devoutly worshiped as a superior deity (see on vii. 15) and, on the other hand, its tasteful floods (the more acceptable as they were the only drinkable water in Egypt) were the delight and the pride of the Egyptians (see on vii. 18). Clarke and Osburn conjecture, but with little plausibility, "that Pharaoh intended the young Hebrews as an offering to his god, the Nile."

If we glance once more at the different means which Pharaoh devised for the oppression and diminution of the Hebrews, we find that they imply the following climax of severity and cruelty: he first endeavoured to break their energy by labour and hardship (ver. 11—14), then to effect their diminution by killing the new-born male children through the midwives (ver. 15, 16); and when neither of these plans had the desired result-the former in consequence of the unusual robustness of the Hebrew women, the latter owing to the piety and compassion of the midwives-he tried to execute his design by drowning the young children