Holly Bible - KJV with Concise Commentaries by Z Selam - HTML preview
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be tolerated, that they may have some pretence for the barbarous treatment they design them, Ezr 4:12,Es 3:8. Observe, The thing they feared was lest they should get them up out of the land, probably having heard them speak of the promise made to their fathers that they should settle in Canaan.
Note, The policies of the church's enemies aim to defeat the promises of the church's God, but in vain; God's counsels shall stand.
3. It is therefore proposed that a course be taken to prevent their increase: Come on, let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply. Note,
(1.) The growth of Israel is the grief of Egypt, and that against which the powers and policies of hell are levelled.
(2.) When men deal wickedly, it is common for them to imagine that they deal wisely; but the folly of sin will, at last, be manifested before all men.
11 Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with
their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses.
12 But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and
grew. And they were grieved because of the children of Israel.
The wonderful increase of the Israelites, notwithstanding the oppressions they groaned under (Ex 1:12): The more they afflicted them the more they multiplied, sorely to the grief and vexation of the Egyptians. Note,
1. Times of affliction have often been the church's growing times, Sub pondere crescit--Being pressed, it grows. Christianity spread most when it was persecuted: the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church.
2. Those that take counsel against the Lord and his Israel do but imagine a vain thing (Ps 2:1), and create so much the greater vexation to themselves: hell and earth cannot diminish those whom Heaven will increase.
13 And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigor: