אלה, the ones mentioned here were deserving to be mentioned with their names. The reason is that each one of them possessed sufficient individuality to give meaning to his name. They were all of them an inspiration to their children as not one of them abandoned his family tradition. However, after the death of that generation even the relatively righteous ones among them did not rate so highly in the eyes of G’d or man so that the Torah deemed it necessary to tell us their names.

וכל הדור ההוא, all of these 70 souls. None of the members of this group of migrants had assimilated to the Egyptian culture during their lifetime.

פרו וישרצו, after the last of the original 70 migrants had died, their whole lifestyle became more like that of creeping insects, creatures headed for destruction. This is why when ויקם מלך חדש על מצרים אשר לא ידע את יוסף, although there can be no question that in the annals of Egyptian history the 80 year reign of Joseph and his legislation saving Egypt from the famine was duly recorded, as well as how he legislated that the whole land would belong to Pharaoh and the farmers would become his tenants, it did not occur to anyone to associate the Hebrews of his time with the family of Joseph who had been so highly esteemed. The idea that the present day Hebrews deserved special consideration on account of their illustrious forbears did not occur to anyone observing the way these Hebrews behaved at that time.

A NEW KING AROSE OVER EGYPT, ETC. Even though there was certainly a recording of this in the royal chronicles, specifically with respect to the new legislation that he enacted, the possibility did not occur to the new king of his being from this people, or that it would be appropriate to accord recognition to his people on his account.

הבה נתחכמה לו, let us not confront them frontally but let us outflank them.

ועלה מן הארץ, of their own volition, without our having to expel them. If we do not have adequate reason to expel them we would become pariahs among our neighbours. If we were to do that, פן ירבה והיה כי תקראנה מלחמה, so that no additional problems would beset us, such as a war (compare Samuel II 13,39 ותכל דוד המלך, the king pined away), These words should be understood as a parenthesis.

ונוסף גם הוא על שונאינו, at such a time they may display their hatred of us seeing that they have remained culturally incompatible with us both in practicing circumcision of their males, language, and in such practices as the way they eat meat only after the blood has been removed, etc. (compare Genesis 43,32). Let us therefore induce them to leave our country before it comes to this. In order to achieve this end,

למען ענותו, so that as an alternative they will agree to emigrate from our land.

ויבן ערי מסכנות, they volunteered to accept as a form of taxation to build these storage cities for Pharaoh to prove their loyalty to Egypt.

ויעבידו, once the Egyptians observed how the Israelites debased themselves by performing menial labour they decided to enslave them. They did this by heaping sin upon sin, thereby defeating their plan and they went from bad to worse.

וימררו את חייהם, they ruined their own lives not only by improper deeds, but also by succumbing to alien philosophies. This is described in Ezekiel 20,8 “and they rebelled against Me and did not want to listen to Me. No Man!- the idols of their eyes they did not cast out and the idols of Egypt, they did not forsake.”

למילדות העבריות, to the midwives resident in the capital. It was obviously impossible for such a large number of people residing in so many different parts of Egypt, to all be serviced by only two midwives. However, after the midwives in the capital, though Egyptian, betrayed the instructions by their king and explained to their king why they had done so, the king did not bother to rely on midwives anywhere else either, and the scheme was abandoned.

מדוע עשיתם, “why did you betray my trust?” After all, when I gave you these instructions you did not refuse the task, making me believe that you would indeed cause the death of these boy babies. “My trust has been betrayed.”

ותחיינה את הילדים, not only did you not kill these babies, but you were actively involved in ensuring their survival!

כי חיות הנה, they themselves are expert in the art of midwifery. If we were to attempt to do anything contrary to accepted practice or even to speak to them in a suspicious manner they would notice this immediately and would not ask any of us again to assist when they were due to give birth. They argued that it is not worth the king’s while to have only a few babies killed.