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Exodus 1

1These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob; each came with his household: 2Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah; 3Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin; 4Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher. 5All the persons who came from Jacob's loins numbered seventy; Joseph was already in Egypt. 6Joseph died, and all his brothers and that whole generation. 7But the sons of Israel were fruitful and swarmed and multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them.

8A new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph. 9He said to his people, “Look, the people of the sons of Israel are more numerous and stronger than we are. 10Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will multiply, and if war breaks out, they too will join our enemies, fight against us, and go up out of the land.” 11So they placed forced-labor overseers over them to afflict them with their burdens. They built storage cities for Pharaoh: Pithom and Rameses. 12But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and spread, and the Egyptians came to dread the sons of Israel. 13The Egyptians ruthlessly made the sons of Israel serve as slaves. 14They made their lives bitter with hard labor in mortar and bricks and every kind of labor in the field—all the labor they ruthlessly imposed on them.

15The king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, one named Shiphrah and the other Puah. 16He said, “When you help the Hebrew women give birth and look at the birthstool, if it is a son, kill him; if it is a daughter, let her live.” 17But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt told them; they let the boys live. 18The king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this and let the boys live?” 19The midwives said to Pharaoh, “The Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women. They are vigorous; before the midwife comes to them, they have given birth.” 20God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and grew very strong. 21Because the midwives feared God, he gave them households. 22Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every son who is born you must throw into the Nile, but every daughter you must let live.”

Translation notes 6

1:1, 7 — Sons of Israel. The opening list names Jacob's actual sons. Elsewhere this expression names the people descended from Israel, including women and children; it does not limit the narrative to men.

1:5 — Loins; seventy. The Hebrew says “those coming out of Jacob's thigh,” a bodily expression for descent. The Hebrew base and the Samaritan Hebrew text compared have seventy. The ancient Greek translation and early Hebrew fragments preserve evidence for seventy-five. Seventy is retained provisionally; agreement with another biblical passage does not settle which reading is earlier.

1:7 — Swarmed. This unusually vivid verb is also used for teeming living creatures. The accumulation of growth words is deliberate.

1:16 — Birthstool. Literally “the two stones.” The expression is usually understood as the support or seat used in childbirth; the precise arrangement is uncertain.

1:21 — Households. Literally “houses,” meaning established families rather than simply buildings. The text connects God's action with the midwives' fear of him.

1:22 — Every son. Pharaoh's command does not repeat “Hebrew,” though the preceding narrative identifies the target. The draft leaves the command as broadly phrased as the Hebrew.