And it came to pass in process of time, that the king of Egypt died: and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage.
The king of Egypt died: and the children of Israel sighed. The language seems to imply that the Israelites had experienced a partial relaxation, probably through the influence of Moses' royal patroness; but in the reign of her father's successor the persecution was renewed with increased severity. Although a single king is spoken of as the oppressor of the Israelites, we are not hindered from considering the expression to denote the powers ruling in Egypt at that period collectively; or supposing that the bondage extended, with increased severity over several reigns, Rameses II began the oppression, and though it was somewhat mitigated during the mild and liberal policy of Si-Ptha and Thuoris-the royal patroness of Moses-yet the public works begun by her father, Rameses II, were necessarily carried on, and the most harassing burdens laid upon the Israelites, who were levied to labour for certain specified periods of service, as the Canaanites were afterward under Solomon (1 Kings 9:15-23).
On the refusal of Moses to accept the honours intended for him, Thuoris withdrew, in deep disappointment, to Upper Egypt, where she exercised the government as guardian of her infant nephew, Sethos, whom she now constituted her heir. Upon her death seven years after, Sethos ascended the throne of Upper Egypt, and on the demise of Si-phtha several years later-the king of Egypt that died "in process of time" (Exodus 2:23) - he succeeded to the sovereign power in Lower Egypt also. He was a grovelling, dissolute profligate, and at the same time a merciless tyrant, who, on finding in his new dominions the alien race of Israel, whom his grandfather had tried in vain to crush, increased in numbers, and swarming everywhere, resolved to revive the grinding policy of his great ancestor. The most grievous labours were imposed, and their servitude was harder than ever, their wages being principally paid by the bastinado.
The children of Israel ... cried; and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage. Since the same system of forced labour by bands of peasantry, and the same infliction for shortcoming in what is beyond the powers of human strength and endurance, is still pursued in modern Egypt, some idea of the suppressed indignation and cherished hatred of their oppressive taskmasters, which boiled in the breasts of the ancient Israelites, may be gathered from the complaints of the oppressed Fellaheen, etc.
Stanley gives specimens of their popular songs the burden of which is against the chiefs of their own village:-`The chief of the village, the chief of the village, may the dogs tear him, tear him, tear him!' It is said that in the gangs of boys and girls set to work along the Nile is to be heard the strophe and antistrophe of a melancholy chorus:-`They starve us, they starve us,' 'They beat us, they beat us;' to which both alike reply, 'But there's Someone above, there's Someone above, who will punish them well, who will punish them well.' This, with very slight changes, mast have been the cry which went up from the afflicted Israelites, "by reason of the bondage" (Stanley's 'Jewish Church,' p. 84).