Come on, let us deal wisely with them; lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that, when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us, and [so] get them up out of the land.
Ver. 10. Come on, let us deal wisely.] So as the world's wizards use to do: but God taketh - δρασσομενος - these foxes in their own craft. 1Co 3:19 Your labouring men have the most and lustiest children. Every "oppressor" is a fool. Pro 28:16
Lest, when there falleth out any war.] It may seem - by 1 Chronicles 7:21,22, compared with Psalms 77:9 - that the Ephraimites, weary of the Egyptian bondage, and too hasty to enjoy the Promised Land, invaded the Philistines and plundered them; but were pursued and slain by the men of Gath, to the great grief of their father Ephraim, and to the further exasperating of the Egyptians against all the children of Israel; which might occasion also this cruel edict and proceeding against them. It is a singular skill to bear bondage or any other burden wisely and moderately. They that break prison before God's time, get nothing but more irons laid upon them.