Exodus 1:8-14
A new king who did not know Joseph
The family that Egypt once fed has become a nation Egypt fears. The response is supervisors, mortar, brick and a policy of making the work bitter.
People of the Bible
Pharaoh of the exodus
Never named, which for a man whose whole life was built on having his name last is the sharpest thing in the account.
The king of Egypt is the only major figure in the exodus who is never given a name. He is introduced as a new king who did not know Joseph, and his first policy is arithmetic: there are too many of them, work them harder. When that fails he orders the boys drowned. Against Moses he moves from contempt to bargaining to fury, giving ground after each sign and taking it back as soon as the pressure lifts. He lets them go at midnight after the firstborn die, and then sends six hundred chariots after them.
Scroll down to the story
The movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of Pharaoh of the exodus
- 01
- 02
Exodus 5:1-21
Bricks without straw
Asked to let them go, he doubles the load and lets them gather their own straw. The Israelite foremen come out and blame Moses, which is the point.
- 03
Exodus 8:25-32
The bargaining
Sacrifice here, not out there. Go, but not far. The men only. Leave the flocks. Each offer concedes a little and keeps the hold, and each is withdrawn when the frogs die or the hail stops.
- 04
Exodus 12:29-32
Rise up and go out
At midnight there is not a house without someone dead in it, including his own. He calls for Moses in the dark and tells them to take everything and go, and asks to be blessed.
- 05
Exodus 14:5-28
Six hundred chariots
Told the people have fled, he asks what he has done in letting them go and changes his mind one last time. The pursuit ends in water that had been standing open all night.
Why it matters
Egypt built enormous monuments so that names would survive, and Exodus withholds his. It gives us the names of the two midwives instead. The account also refuses to simplify what happens to him: sometimes he hardens his own heart, sometimes it is hardened for him, and the text lets both stand. He is the picture of a power that cannot be reasoned with and does not have to be defeated by the people it holds.
16 songs
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
