The Children of Israel Are Put To Hard Service (Exodus 1:13-14).
a The Egyptians make the children of Israel serve with rigour (Exodus 1:13).
b They make their lives bitter with hard service (Exodus 1:14 a).
b In mortar and brick and all manner of service (Exodus 1:14 b).
a In all their service in which they make them serve with rigour (Exodus 1:15).
Note the use of hard rigour in ‘a' and its parallel, and the idea of service and its effects in ‘b' and its parallel. But the fact that they ‘served' (slaved) is stressed all the way through.
‘And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigour, and they made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and in brick and in all manner of service in the countryside, all their service in which they made them serve with rigour.'
Note the stress on their ‘service' or slavery. The result was that their pleasant lives had been turned upside down. ‘In mortar and in brick.' Contemporary Egyptian texts speak of the Egyptians employing the ‘Apiru in dragging the huge stones required for the construction of temples in different parts of Egypt. These would then be set in place under the supervision of Egyptian experts. These ‘Apiru probably included the children of Israel, the ‘Hebrews' (1:15-16; 2:11-13), whom Egyptians would see as ‘Apiru (see article, " "). We should note that the term ‘Hebrew' is only ever used of Israel when seen in terms of their being foreigners (thus Genesis 14:13; Genesis 39:14; Genesis 39:17).
“To serve with rigour, and they made their lives bitter with hard service.” Emphasis is laid on the hardness of their lives and the bitterness with which they looked back on better times. But their service was not limited to building, for others of them were forced to work in the countryside. This would have included the gathering of straw and stubble to make bricks and the digging of canals and irrigation channels, and the construction and use of different methods of transporting irrigation water. They had become an even more enslaved people than the Egyptians, seen as suitable for degraded work. Brickmaking by foreigners under the eye of Egyptian taskmasters is readily witnessed to in inscriptions.