Exodus 1-2
New Catholic Bible
The Children of Israel in Egypt[a]
Oppression of the Israelites[b]
Chapter 1
1 [c]These are the names of the children of Israel who entered Egypt with Joseph, each of them arriving with his family: 2 [d]Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, 3 Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin, 4 Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher. 5 The total number of those born to Jacob was seventy.[e] Joseph was already in Egypt.
6 [f]Now Joseph died and then all his brothers and all that generation. 7 The children of Israel multiplied and grew numerous and very powerful and filled the land.
Harsh Condition of the Children of Israel.[g] 8 Then a new king arose in Egypt who had not known Joseph. 9 He said to his people, “Behold, the children of Israel are very numerous and more powerful than we are. 10 Let us deal wisely with them lest they continue to multiply. Otherwise, if there were a war, they would join our enemies and battle against us and then escape from the land.”
11 So taskmasters were set over the children of Israel to wear them down with forced labor. They built the supply cities[h] of Pithom and Raameses for Pharaoh. 12 But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and grew beyond measure. The Egyptians began to dread the presence of the children of Israel 13 and therefore put them to work, treating them harshly. 14 They made their lives difficult and forced them to make clay bricks and to do all kinds of work in the fields. They forced them to do every type of harsh work.
15 Command to the Midwives. The king of Egypt said to the midwives of the Hebrews, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other named Puah, 16 “When you assist the Hebrew women who are in labor, look at the child while it is still on the birthing stool. If it is a boy, kill it. If it is a girl, you can let it live.” 17 But the midwives feared God. They did not do what the king of Egypt had ordered them to do. They let the babies live.
18 The king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this and let the babies live?” 19 The midwives answered Pharaoh, “The Hebrew women are not like the Egyptians. They are full of life. Before the midwife arrives, they have already given birth.”
20 God blessed the midwives. The people grew and became very numerous. 21 God gave the midwives numerous families because they had feared God. 22 Pharaoh therefore gave this command to all of his people: “Every male son who is born to the Hebrews is to be thrown into the Nile, but let the girl babies live.”
The Liberator Raised Up by God
Chapter 2
Moses Is Saved.[i] 1 There was a certain man from the tribe of Levi who took a daughter of the tribe of Levi as his wife. 2 The woman conceived and bore a son. She saw that he was handsome and she hid him for three months. 3 But, not being able to hide him any longer, she took a basket made of papyrus, caulked it with bitumen and pitch, and placed the baby in it and lay it among the reeds growing on the riverbank of the Nile. 4 The baby’s sister[j] hid herself so that she could watch what would happen from a distance.
5 Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe while her attendants walked along the riverbank. They saw the basket among the reeds and sent a slave to fetch it. 6 They opened it and saw the baby. It was a small baby boy who was crying. They had compassion on it and said, “This is a Hebrew baby.”
7 The sister of the baby said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go to call a wet nurse from among the Hebrew women to feed the child for you?”
8 “Go,” said Pharaoh’s daughter. The girl went and called the baby’s mother. 9 Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this baby with you and feed it for me. I will pay you.” The woman took the baby and fed it. 10 When the baby was grown, she brought it to Pharaoh’s daughter. He became a son to her and she named him Moses, saying, “I have saved him from the water.”[k]
11 Moses Flees to Midian.[l] One day Moses, having grown up,[m] went out to his brethren and saw how they were oppressed. He noticed an Egyptian strike a Hebrew, one of his brethren. 12 Looking around, he did not see anyone, so he struck and killed the Egyptian and buried him in the sand. 13 The next day he went out again and, seeing two Hebrews fighting, said to the one who was in the wrong, “Why did you hit your brother?” 14 He answered, “Who has made you head and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me like you killed the Egyptian?” Moses was afraid and thought, “Certainly this thing is known.” 15 Pharaoh heard about it and sought to put Moses to death. Moses fled from Pharaoh and traveled to the land of Midian[n] where he sat down by a well.
16 A priest of Midian had seven daughters. They came to draw water to fill the trough and give water to their father’s flocks. 17 But some shepherds arrived and chased them away. Moses got up and defended them and gave their animals something to drink. 18 They returned to their father Reuel[o] who said to them, “Why are you back so soon today?” 19 They answered, “An Egyptian delivered us out of the hands of the shepherds. He drew water for us and gave water to the flock to drink.” 20 He said to his daughters, “Where is he? Why did you leave him there? Invite him to eat with us.” 21 Moses agreed to live with that man, who gave him his daughter Zipporah as a wife. 22 She bore him a son and he named his son Gershom for he said, “I am a stranger in a strange land.”[p]
23 God Does Not Forget the Covenant.[q] And it came to pass that the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned because of their slavery, and they cried out. The cry of their bondage rose up to God. 24 God heard their cry and remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. 25 God took note of the children of Israel and acknowledged their need.
Footnotes
- Exodus 1:1 In this section, the Bible counterposes two peoples—the people of Pharaoh, who are cruel and oppressive, and the children of Israel, who are sorely oppressed. However, the more the latter are oppressed, the stronger they become. In their struggle to leave Egypt, the children of Israel will slowly become aware that they are a people chosen by God and set free to carry out an important task.
In carefully planning and preparing the salvation of the whole human race, the God of supreme love, by a special dispensation, chose for himself a people to whom he might entrust his promises. First, he entered into a Covenant with Abraham (see Gen 15:18) and, through Moses, with the people of Israel (see Ex 24:8). To this people that he acquired for himself, he so manifested himself through words and deeds as the one true and living God that Israel came to know by experience the ways of God with human beings, and with God himself speaking to them through the mouth of the Prophets, Israel daily gained a deeper and clearer understanding of his ways and made them more widely known among the nations (see Pss 22:28-29; 96:1-3; Isa 2:1-4; Jer 3:17). - Exodus 1:1 Scholars calculate that about three centuries separated the death of Joseph, with which Genesis ends, and the Exodus of the Hebrew people. From this lengthy period the Bible singles out only two facts that are important for linking the past with the coming religious history of Israel.
- Exodus 1:1 The children of Israel flourish in Egypt, fulfilling the promise God had made to the Patriarchs (Gen 12; 17; etc.). They lived in Egypt 430 years (see Ex 12:40). We pass from the story of the great ancestors to that of a people.
- Exodus 1:2 The sons of Jacob are given here according to their respective mothers (see Gen 29:31; 30:20; 35:16-26).
- Exodus 1:5 Seventy: Gen 46:27; Deut 10:22 have the same number. The Greek translation, however, and a manuscript from Qumran have “seventy-five,” as does Acts 7:14. The extra five persons are the descendants of Ephraim and Manasseh; they are mentioned in the Greek translation of Gen 46:27.
- Exodus 1:6 Scholars estimate that it was more than 200 years from the death of Joseph to the advent of the new king.
- Exodus 1:8 The Pharaoh, probably Rameses II (1298–1232 B.C.), becomes worried when he sees the proliferation of the Hebrews and takes various measures to exterminate this race and doubtless other Asiatic populations. The children of Israel who left Egypt are said to number 600,000, “not including children” (Ex 12:37). Works of the kind that the Hebrews are compelled to do are illustrated in Egyptian paintings of that period, even if these do not picture actual groups of the Patriarchs’ descendants.
- Exodus 1:11 Supply cities is a military term (see 1 Ki 9:19). Pithom and Rameses are in the eastern part of the Nile Delta; Rameses is identified with either Tanis or El Qantara. Pharaoh: a royal title rather than a personal name.
- Exodus 2:1 In an account filled with charm, the narrator is pleased to show that God toys with obstacles and makes them serve his plan of salvation. The education in letters that Moses receives from the Egyptian court will be a great help in his mission.
- Exodus 2:4 The baby’s sister: i.e., Miriam (see Ex 15:21).
- Exodus 2:10 Assonance links Mosheh, the Hebrew form of Moses, and the verb mashah, “to draw out.”
- Exodus 2:11 Endangered by his defense of the children of his race, Moses is fearful and flees to the wilderness east of the Gulf of Aqaba. This episode prepares him for the difficulties to come (see Ex 18).
- Exodus 2:11 Moses, having grown up: according to Acts 7:23, almost forty years had now passed (see Ex 7:7).
- Exodus 2:15 Midian, which was south of Edom and east of the Gulf of Aqaba or Gulf of Elana, was inhabited by nomadic tribes.
- Exodus 2:18 It was perhaps different traditions that gave Moses’ father-in-law different names: Reuel (here and in Num 10:29); Jethro (Ex 3:1; 4:18; 18:1). Hobab seems to be rather Moses’ brother-in-law (Num 10:29; Jdg 4:11). The Hebrew terms for degrees of kinship do not have a very precise meaning.
- Exodus 2:22 Some Greek and Latin MSS add here a passage apparently from Ex 18:4: “and the other [son] named Eliezer, for he had said, ‘The God of my father has come to my assistance and has freed me from the sword of Pharaoh.’ ”
- Exodus 2:23 God remembers his Covenant. Such will also be the case in all the moments when Israel will find itself in distress. Covenant with Abraham: see Gen 15:17-18; 17:7. With Isaac: see Gen 17:19; 26:24. With Jacob: see Gen 35:11-12.
