And the son of an Israelitish woman, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the children of Israel: and this son of the Israelitish woman and a man of Israel strove together in the camp;
The son of an Israelitish woman ... This passage narrates the enactment of a new law, with a detail of the circumstances which gave rise to it. The "mixed multitude" (cf. Nehemiah 13:3) that accompanied the Israelites in their exodus from Egypt, creates a presumption that marriage connections of the kind described were not infrequent (cf. 1 Chronicles 4:18). And it was most natural, in the relative circumstances of the two people, that the father should be an Egyptian and the mother an Israelite.