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 1 Kings 9:19, and 2 Chronicles 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.