Exodus 1:11

(11) Task-masters. —Heb., chiefs of tributes. The Egyptian system of forced labour, which it was now resolved to extend to the Israelites, involved the appointment of two sets of officers—a lower class, who personally overlooked the labourers, and forced them to perform their tasks, and a higher class of superintendents, who directed the distribution of the labour, and assigned to all the tasks which they were to execute. The “task-masters” of the present passage are these high officials. To afflict them.—This was the object of the whole proceeding. It was hoped that severe labour under the lash would produce so much suffering that the number of the Israelites would be thinned, and their multiplication stopped. Humanly speaking, the scheme was a “wise” one—i.e., one likely to be successful. They built for Pharaoh treasure-cities.—By “treasure-cities” we are to understand “magazines”—i.e., strongholds, where munitions of war could be laid up for use in case of an invasion. (In 1Kings 9:19, and 2Chronicles 8:4, the same expression is translated “cities of store.”) The Pharaohs of the nineteenth dynasty gave great attention to the guarding of the north-eastern frontier in this way. Pithom.—This city is reasonably identified with the “Patumus” of Herodotus (ii. 158), which was in Lower Egypt, not far from Bubastis (Tel Basta). It is mentioned in the inscriptions of the nineteenth dynasty under the name of Pi-Tum (Brugsch, History of Egypt, vol. ii. p. 128).

It was, as the name implies, a city of the sun-god, and was probably not very far from Heliopolis, the main seat of the sun-god’s worship. Raamses.—Pi-Ramesu, the city of Rameses, was the ordinary seat of the Court during the earlier part of the nineteenth dynasty. It appears to have been a new name for Tanis, or for a suburb of Tanis, which overshadowed the old city. Rameses II. claims to have built the greater part of it; but it was probably commenced by his father, Seti, who made the defence of the north-eastern frontier one of his main cares. The name must be considered as a mere variant rendering of the Egyptian Ramessu or Ramesu. The site is marked by the mounds at San.

Taskmasters, Heb. masters of tribute , who were to exact from them the tribute required, which was both money and labour; that their purses might be exhausted by the one, their strength by the other, and their spirits by both. To afflict, or, oppress, or humble ; to spend their strength by excessive labours, and so disenable them for the procreation of children. Treasure cities, where they laid the king’s money or corn, which is reckoned among treasures, 2 Chronicles 17:12 32:27 , and wherein a great part of the riches of Egypt consisted; for they had corn enough, not only for themselves, but to sell to other countries; so that Egypt was accounted the granary of the Roman empire. Or, defenced cities, in which garrisons were to be placed, which seems best to agree with the place and use of them. For they were in the borders of the land, and among the Israelites, which appears concerning the one from Genesis 47:11 , (where the land in which they were placed is called Ramases , which in Hebrew consists of the same letters with this Raamses, and seems to be so called then by anticipation from the city of that name now built in it,) and may be reasonably presumed concerning the other; and therefore it is most probable that they were built to keep the Israelites in subjection, and to hinder them from going out of the land.

Verse 11. - They did set over them taskmasters . Literally, "lords of tribute," or "lords of service." The term used, sarey massim , is the Egyptian official title for over-lookers of forced labour. It occurs in this sense on the monument representing brick-making, which has been supposed by some to be a picture of the Hebrews at work. (See Cook, in the 'Speaker's Commentary,' vol. 1. pt. 1. p. 253, and compare Brugsch, 'History of Egypt,' vol. 1. p. 376.) To afflict them with their burdens . Among the tasks set the labourers in the representation above alluded to are the carrying of huge lumps of clay and of water-jars on one shoulder, and also the conveyance of bricks from place to place by means of a yoke . They built for Pharaoh treasure-cities , Pithom and Raamses . By "treasure-cities" we are to understand "store-cities," or "cities of store," as the same word is translated in 1 Kings 9:19 and 2 Chronicles 8:4 . Such cities contained depots of provisions and magazines of arms. They were generally to be found on all assailable frontiers in ancient as in modern times. (Compare 2 Chronicles 11:5, 12 ; 2 Chronicles 33:28, etc.) Of the cities here mentioned, which the Israelites are said to have "built," or helped to build, Pithom is in all probability the Patumes of Herodotus (2:158), which was not far from Bubastis, now Tel-Basta.

Its exact site is uncertain, but if identical with the Thou, or Thoum, of the ' Itinerary of An-tonine,' it must have lain north of the Canal of Necho, not south, where most maps place it. The word means "abode of the sun," or rather "of the setting sun," called by the Egyptians Tam, or Atum. Names formed on the model were very common under the nineteenth dynasty, Rameses II. having built a Pa-Ra, a Pa-Ammon, and a Pa-Phthah in Nubia (Brugsch, 'History of Egypt,' vol. it. p. 90). Pa-Tum itself has not been found among the cities of this period ( ib. p. 99), but appears in the records of the twentieth dynasty as a place where the Setting-Sun god had a treasury ('Records of the Past,' vol. 6. p. 54). The name Rameses is probably put for Pa-Rameses (as Thoum for Pa-Tum), a city frequently mentioned in the inscriptions of the nineteenth dynasty, and particularly favoured by Rameses II., whose city it was especially called ('Records of the Past,' vol. it. p. 77; vol. 6. p. 13), and by whom it was greatly enlarged, if not wholly built. We incline to believe that the building was commenced by Seti, who named the place, as he did his great temple, the Rameseum, after his father. The city was, according to Brugsch, a sort of suburb of Tanis ('History of Egypt,' vol. 2 p. 94). It was a magnificent place, and under Rameses II. and his son Menephthah was the ordinary residence of the court.

11 . They were consequently brought into a condition of virtual slavery and compelled to do forced labour. The corvée was an institution common in the despotisms of antiquity, and resorted to whenever an Oriental monarch had stone to be quarried, palaces or temples to be built, &c. Aristotle ( Pol. viii. (v.) 11, p. 1313 b 18 ff., cited by Knob.) mentions it as a measure adopted by tyrants to curb the spirit of their subjects, and cites as an example the Egyptian pyramids. Solomon introduced it into Judah for the purpose of carrying out his great buildings ( 1 Kings 5:13-14 ; 1 Kings 9:15 ): how unpopular it was, may be judged from the fact that Adoniram, the superintendent of the corvée , was stoned to death by the people ( 1 Kings 12:18 ). gang - masters ] Lit. captains (i.e. overseers ) of labour-gangs ,—the word mas being the technical term for a body of men employed on forced labour: cf. 1 Kings 5:13-14 ; 1 Kings 9:15 (where it is rendered ‘levy’). burdens ] The word regularly used of heavy burdens, carried under compulsion: see Exodus 2:11 , Exodus 5:4-5 , Exodus 6:6-7 ; and cf. cognate words in 1Ki Exo 5:15; 1 Kings 11:28 (RVm.), Psalm 81:6 . Pharaoh ] The official, not the personal, designation of the Egyptian king.

The word is the Egyptian Per-‘o , which means properly the Great House , and in inscriptions of the ‘Old Kingdom’ (1–11 dynasties) denotes simply the royal house or estate; but afterwards (somewhat in the manner of the expression, ‘Sublime Porte’) it gradually became a title of the monarch himself, and finally (in the 22nd and following dynasties) it was prefixed to the king’s personal name (see F. LI. Griffith’s luminous art. Pharaoh in DB. ). store cities ] For provisions, materials for war, &c., perhaps also as trade emporia: cf. 1 Kings 9:19 (= 2 Chronicles 8:6 ); 2 Chronicles 8:4 ; 2 Chronicles 16:4 ; 2 Chronicles 17:12 . Pithom ] the ΙΙάτουμος of Hdt. ii. 158, described by him as being on the canal made partially by Necho (b.c. 610–594) for the purpose of connecting the Nile with the Red Sea[96]. The site was discovered in 1883 by M. Naville. Excavating at a spot about 60 miles NE. of Cairo, called, from a red granite monolith of Rameses II, seated between the gods Ra and Etôm, which has long existed there, Tell el-Maskhuṭa, the ‘Mound of the statue,’ M. Naville soon met with inscriptions shewing that the ancient name of the place was P-etôm , the ‘Abode of Etôm’ (the sun-god of Heliopolis).