Exodus 1:13 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

With rigour בפרךְ bepareck, with cruelty, or tyranny; with hard words and cruel usage, without mercy or mitigation. This God permitted for wise and just reasons: 1st, As a punishment of the idolatry into which, it appears, many of them had fallen: 2d, To wean them from the land of Egypt, which was a plentiful, and, in many respects, a desirable land, and to quicken their desires after Canaan: 3d, To prepare the way for God's glorious works, and Israel's deliverance.