The Israelites Cry Out for Help (Exod 2.23)
The Israelites groaned under their slavery, and cried out. Out of the slavery their cry for help rose up to God. God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God looked upon the Israelites, and God took notice of them.
Exodus 2.23
Background
The first prayer in the book of Exodus is a brief mention, but it is filled with pathos. It is the story of a deep cry to God—a cry that does not come in the form of a structured petition or with traditional phrases and invocations. It is a cry that flows out of pain and suffering. It is the cry of a dying child in the night, the sobbing of a prisoner in a cell, the wail of a woman who has lost her husband. It is not the cry of one person; it is the cry of an entire people. Think of Jews in Nazi Germany, those remaining in a medieval town after the Black Plague, or the suffering families in Dufar in the early twenty-first century.
Though the Israelites began as guests of Pharaoh at the time of Joseph, four hundred years have passed, and their situation has changed. The Pharaohs of Egypt no longer “recognize” the Israelites as a special people—they are just foreigners. (There is some historical evidence that the Pharaoh at the time of Joseph may have been from a group of non-Egyptians who had taken over Egypt. When the Egyptians reconquered the land, the Israelites, being foreigners, were treated as unwelcome aliens). These new Pharaohs engaged in massive building projects of temples, pyramids, statues, palaces, and even entire cities. It took a lot of money, and much of it, at first, came from taxing the citizens. When that was not enough, each citizen was required to work for the Pharaoh for one month a year in return for food and board. Finally, when more labor was needed, the Pharaohs enslaved vulnerable groups such as resident aliens. The Israelites were just such a group. They were conscripted as slaves to help build two massive storehouse cities: Pithom (modern Tell el-Rataba) and Rameses (modern Tell ed-Dab’a).
The suffering of slaves under the hot sun and the heavy labor led the foremen to go to the Egyptian overlords and ask for better conditions. The response was to make things even more difficult.
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