Exodus 1:14Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Yet, even in such dire circumstances, if they reminisced about Egypt and their oppressive servitude, expressing a desire to return to that bondage, would they have felt the need to leave a foreign land had they not suffered at the hands of their captors? Thus, for our own benefit, to prevent us from becoming too engrossed in the present and neglecting the promise of the future, God has designed our existence to be burdensome. Let us not become overly enamored with this present life. What true advantage does such an attachment hold for us?

Let us earnestly pursue that which is spiritual, turning away from the temporal, and engage in heavenly celebrations. We must guard against greed and liberate ourselves from pointless toil, similar to what the Israelites experienced in Egypt. Those of us who seek riches are not unlike those who labored to mold bricks, accrued straw, and endured torment. The adversary now urges us to labor for wealth, just as Pharaoh commanded bricks to be made. What is gold, after all, but a form of burdensome shaving? And silver, nothing more than mere straw? Like straw, it fuels the flames of desire, and gold, akin to clay, sullies the soul of its possessor. Therefore, the Lord did not dispatch Moses from Egypt’s wilderness to save us, but instead sent His Son from the heavens. Hence, if you remain bound to Egypt after His arrival, you will suffer the same fate as the Egyptians; however, should you choose to depart Egypt and journey with spiritual Israel, you will witness myriad wonders.

However, in more remote and elevated areas untouched by the Nile's inundations, agriculture presented significant challenges. Due to the scarcity of rainfall in Egypt, these fields required artificial irrigation, demanding that water be lifted and distributed like that of a garden or orchard (Deuteronomy XI:10). Such were the agricultural burdens imposed upon the Hebrews by the Egyptians. If the Hebrews had labored for their own benefit, the weight of their toil might have been eased by the knowledge that they would reap the rewards of their efforts. Instead, they toiled solely for the Egyptians, much like the Helots served the Spartans or, more recently, enslaved people labored for American plantation owners. In summary, the Egyptians exploited every facet of Hebrew life through enforced labor, reducing them to the status of slaves or beasts of burden. Josephus Flavius noted that, in addition to these tasks, the Hebrews also constructed pyramids, excavated extensive canals, altered the course of the Nile, and built walls and high embankments around cities to manage the overflow of the river.

This relief, found in the tomb of an architect, illustrates workers under the oversight of Sarai and other foremen carrying clay in containers, shaping the bricks, releasing them from molds, arranging them neatly, and transporting the dried bricks. The harsh treatment of the laborers is documented in various monuments, as noted in Brugsh's work. The term ‘field labor’ encompasses the cultivation of crops as well as the work of those who dug canals in low-lying and unhealthy areas. Agricultural efforts were vital for tending to Pharaoh's lands and likely also for the numerous priestly estates that had fallen into neglect during the worship of Sutekh by the Hyksos. Although the lands irrigated by the Nile produced plentiful crops, the tasks of repairing canals and watering the fields required immense, relentless, and continuous work to manage the water flow and provide irrigation during dry spells. The Israelites likely undertook the construction of new canals to drain marshlands, or perhaps the restoration of old irrigation systems that had been neglected under Hyksos rule. They were systematically assigned to the most challenging and unhealthy jobs in an effort to weaken them through illness.