And he said unto his people, Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we:
Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we. Let the Hebrews have multiplied at ever so rapid a rate of increase, it cannot be supposed that, within so brief a period as a century, they would have been capable of matching, much less of overpowering, the whole military forces of Egypt; and therefore, since they are represented as 'more and mightier than the native population,' it must be borne in mind, that the kingdom within which their settlement lay was confined to the narrow limits of the Delta. Assuming the correctness of the third opinion mentioned above, namely, that Rameses II was the "new king," it may be stated briefly, that the kingdom of Lower Egypt had, in the course of time, become greatly reduced and weakened by internal disorders, arising from the establishment of various foreign races within its territories, who, differing in manners and customs, above all in religion, refused to amalgamate with the aborigines, and were exceeding them in population. Among these the chief were the Moabites and Israelites. The latter were not only spread, with their immense flocks, over the rich verdant plains, but vast multitudes of them were scattered through the great cities as artisans, or tradesmen, and by their energy, wealth, and extensive influence, wielded almost the whole powers of the country.
They were, however, aliens in the eyes of the native inhabitants, the more especially as they had frequently shown strong sympathies with their clansmen, the Ammonites and Moabites, in the border wars which these waged with Egypt, just as the Bedouins in Egypt have in all ages made common cause with the foreign invaders of that country. In these circumstances, the monarch of the distracted kingdom solicited the aid of his powerful neighbour, the sovereign of Upper Egypt, Rameses II (called in Lower Egypt, and by the Greek historians) Sesostris, who-in pursuance of the traditional policy of his ancestors, to unite all parts of the country under one government-immediately assumed the protectorate of the kingdom: city after city was placed under his care, with the exception of twelve cities which belonged to the Moabites. For many years he vainly tried to gain these into his possession. At last, by a secret treaty, artfully negociated with that people, to whom he doubtless gave an equivalent, and among other bribes flattered them by the adoption of their gods, those cities were also ceded to him, and a close alliance was formed between him and that people by the bond of a common idolatry. Further, the king of Lower Egypt dying, left an infant son, between whom and his own daughter, already grown, Rameses contracted a marriage; so that he acquired the supremacy over all Egypt; and thus the Hebrews, who in vast numbers were interspersed throughout all the cities, fell under the power of the ambitious despot. But Rameses, who was a man of deep political wisdom, was too astute and wary to create disaffection to his government by instituting rash and severe measures against so numerous a class of his new subjects; and while he deemed expulsion or extermination both equally inexpedient, he resolved on the secret and unsuspected policy of slowly reducing their numbers, or at least of crushing their spirits by forced labours on his public works (see Osburn's 'Monumental History,' 2:, pp. 502, 503, 521, 527-533).