They oppressed him: The Torah says, vayaseemu alav, that they placed task masters “over him” and not over them. Pharaoh went out into the fields with the Israelites and worked very hard so the Israelites would join in the tasks assigned by the task masters. Seeing this, Pharaoh then told the Israelites that they had to produce this same amount of bricks every day. B’fareh: They assigned rigorous work to the Israelites – they not only had to do the kings work, but the task masters made them do their work as well. And they also switched men's work with women‟s work so that the work was demoralizing.