The Fallible · Synthetic · Study Bible
The Israelites Multiply in Egypt
Exodus 1:1–7 — The Israelites Multiply in Egypt. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.
1These are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt with Jacob, each with his family:
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·’êl·leh šə·mō·wṯ bə·nê yiś·rā·’êl hab·bā·’îm miṣ·rā·yə·māh ’êṯ ya·‘ă·qōḇ ’îš bā·’ū ū·ḇê·ṯōw
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-these are the-names of-the-sons of-Israel, the-ones-coming to-Egypt-ward with Jacob — each-man and-his-house they-came.
Where the English smooths the original
Genesis ends naturally and Exodus begins at the point where the history of the individuals who founded the Israelite nation ceases and that of the nation itself is entered on. That history commences properly with Exodus 1:7 . Exodus 1:1-6 form the connecting link between the two books, and would not have been needed unless Exodus had been introduced as a distinct work, since they are little more than a recapitulation of what had been already stated and stated more fully in Genesis.Ellicott on why a recapitulation opens the book — the seam between Genesis and Exodus.
This list of names is here repeated, that by comparing this small root with the multitude of branches which arose from it, we may see and acknowledge the wonderful providence of God in the fulfilment of his promises. Every man and his household — That is, his children and grand-children.Benson’s root-and-branches image — the governing metaphor for the whole unit.
the repetition of the names of the twelve sons of Jacob serves to give to the history which follows a character of completeness within itself. "With Jacob they came, every one and his house," i.e., his sons, together with their families, their wives, and their children.
Literally, "And," indicating a close connection with the preceding narrative. In fact this chapter contains a fulfillment of the predictions recorded in Genesis 46:3 and in Genesis 15:13 .Barnes names the two predictions this chapter fulfils — the patriarchal promise and the prophecy to Abraham at the covenant of the pieces.
After Jacob by God's commandment in Ge 46:3 had brought his family into Egypt, where they remained for four hundred years, and from seventy people grew to an infinite number so that the king and the country endeavoured both by tyranny and cruel slavery to suppress them: the Lord according to his promise in Ge 15:14 had compassion on his Church, and delivered themThe Geneva Argument reads the whole book through one lens: seventy grown to an infinite number, then a promised deliverance (Genesis 15:14) — the Reformation frame for this opening roll-call.
2Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah;
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
rə·’ū·ḇên šim·‘ō·wn lê·wî wî·hū·ḏāh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and-Judah;
Where the English smooths the original
The sons are arranged according to their mothers, as in Genesis 35:23-26 , and the sons of the two maid-servants stand last.
The order is different from that observed in Genesis 46 , and seems intended to do honour to legitimate, as opposed to secondary, wedlock.On the deliberate re-ordering of the names by maternal rank.
3Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin;
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
yiś·śā·š·ḵār zə·ḇū·lun ū·ḇə·nə·yå̄·min
Literal — word-for-word from the original
Issachar, Zebulun, and-Benjamin;
Where the English smooths the original
The sons of the legitimate wives are placed first, then those of the concubines. Leah has precedence over Rachel; Bilhah over Zilpah. The children of each wife and concubine are given in order of seniority.
And Benjamin — Who , though youngest of all, is placed before Dan, Naphtali, &c., because they were the children of the hand-maidens.
Who, though the youngest of all, is placed before Dan, Naphtali, &c., because these were the sons of the handmaidens.Poole independently reaches the same reading as Benson — the ordering is by maternal rank, not age.
4Dan and Naphtali; Gad and Asher.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
dān wə·nap̄·tā·lî gāḏ wə·’ā·šêr
Literal — word-for-word from the original
Dan and-Naphtali, Gad and-Asher.
Where the English smooths the original
Dan, and Naphtali, Gad, and Asher. Who are last mentioned, being sons of the concubine wives.
only about seventy persons went down into Egypt. There, in about the same number of years, though under cruel bondage, they became a large nation. This wonderful increase was according to the promise long before made unto the fathers. Though the performance of God's promises is sometimes slow, it is always sure.Henry’s unit-summary, surfacing here on the last of the twelve: the small root, the great increase, the sure promise.
5The descendants of Jacob numbered seventy in all, including Joseph, who was already in Egypt.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ne·p̄eš ya·‘ă·qōḇ yō·ṣə·’ê ye·reḵ- way·hî šiḇ·‘îm kāl- nā·p̄eš wə·yō·w·sêp̄ hā·yāh ḇə·miṣ·rā·yim
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-it-was, every soul coming-out of-the-thigh-of Jacob — seventy soul(s); and-Joseph was in-Egypt.
Where the English smooths the original
The number is made up as follows:—Jacob himself, 1; his sons, 12; his daughter, Dinah, 1; his grandsons, 51; his grand-daughter Serah, 1; his great-grandsons, 4—Total, 70.Ellicott’s itemized count, with Jacob himself included — the reading that makes 70 by counting the patriarch among his own seed.
The number was traditional: cf. Deuteronomy 10:22 (where ‘with’ should be as). This passage shews that P interpreted the tradition in the sense of 70 souls without Jacob: other writers interpreted it in the sense of Deuteronomy 10:22 , and made the number 70 souls including JacobCambridge flags that the very count was variously reckoned — 70 with or without Jacob.
Seventy souls, including Jacob and Joseph, and his two sons. See Genesis 46:26 ,27 Deu 10:22 . Or if they were but sixty-nine, they are called seventy by a round number, of which we shall have many instances.Poole grants the figure may be a round number — a strikingly honest seventeenth-century note on the arithmetic.
This was just the number of the nations by which the earth was peopled, (Genesis 10.,) for when “God separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel,” Deuteronomy 32:8 .Benson’s seventy-nations typology, leaning on Deuteronomy 32:8 — offered, not asserted.
6Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died,
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
yō·w·sêp̄ wə·ḵāl ’e·ḥāw wə·ḵōl ha·hū had·dō·wr way·yā·māṯ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-died Joseph, and-all his-brothers, and-all that generation.
Where the English smooths the original
They all died, but not all at the same time. They went one by one, one by one, till, at the end, they were all gone.Maclaren on the threefold tolling of the verse — death coming individually, then complete.
as it is written on John Wesley’s monument in Westminster Abbey, ‘God buries the workmen and carries on the work.’The hinge of the unit: the instruments die; the purpose does not.
Perhaps all Jacob’s sons died much about the same time, for there was not past seven years’ difference in age between the eldest and the youngest of them, except Benjamin.
After the death of Joseph and his brethren and the whole of the family that had first immigrated, there occurred that miraculous increase in the number of the children of Israel, by which the blessings of creation and promise were fully realised.K&D bridges v. 6 to v. 7 — death is the soil out of which the promised growth springs.
7but the Israelites were fruitful and increased rapidly; they multiplied and became exceedingly numerous, so that the land was filled with them.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ū·ḇə·nê yiś·rā·’êl pā·rū way·yiš·rə·ṣū way·yir·bū bim·’ōḏ mə·’ōḏ way·ya·‘aṣ·mū hā·’ā·reṣ ’ō·ṯām wat·tim·mā·lê
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-the-sons of-Israel were-fruitful and-swarmed and-multiplied and-grew-mighty in-very, very(-much); and-was-filled the-land with-them.
Where the English smooths the original
The words פּרוּ ישׁרצוּ (swarmed), and ירבּוּ point back to Genesis 1:28 and Genesis 8:17 , and יעצמוּ to עצוּם גּוי in Genesis 18:18 .K&D names the exact creation- and promise-texts each verb echoes — the lexical spine of the threads below.
Atheistical wits cavil at this story, and pretend it impossible that out of seventy persons should come above six hundred thousand men within two hundred and fifteen years; wherein they betray no less ignorance than impiety.Poole takes up the demographic objection directly — and then works the arithmetic at length to answer it.
Like fishes or insects, as one of the words here used signifies, and being generally healthful and strong, they waxed exceeding mighty, so that the land was filled with themBenson hears the swarming force of שָׁרַץ — “like fishes or insects.”
They were living in a land where, according to the testimony of an ancient author, mothers produced three and four sometimes at a birth; and a modern writer declares "the females in Egypt, as well among the human race as among animals, surpass all others in fruitfulness." To this natural circumstance must be added the fulfilment of the promise made to Abraham.JFB holds the two causes together: Egypt’s proverbial fruitfulness and the covenant promise.
became like fruitful trees, as the word signifies: and increased abundantly; like creeping things, or rather like fishes, which increase very much, see Genesis 1:20 . and multiplied; became very numerous, whereby the promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were fulfilled: and waxed exceeding mighty; were hale, and strong, of good constitutions, able bodied men, and so more dreaded by the Egyptians: a heap of words is here used to express the vast increase of the people of Israel in EgyptGill walks the four verbs one by one — fruitful trees, creeping things, fishes — and names the rhetorical pile-up a "heap of words."
The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.
AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.
Exodus does not begin; it continues. The first word in the Hebrew is the conjunction wə- — “And these are the names” — and the whole opening is, as Ellicott says, “little more than a recapitulation of what had been already stated… more fully in Genesis,” a “connecting link between the two books.” The book’s very Hebrew title, Shemoth (“Names”), is taken from this verse: it opens by re-reading a roll-call. Why repeat what Genesis 46 already gave? Benson answers in the image that governs the whole unit: the list is set down “that by comparing this small root with the multitude of branches which arose from it, we may see and acknowledge the wonderful providence of God in the fulfilment of his promises.” The names are arranged not by Genesis 46’s order but by mother — Leah’s sons, then Rachel’s, then the maidservants’ — which the Pulpit Commentary reads as a deliberate move “to do honour to legitimate, as opposed to secondary, wedlock,” and Keil & Delitzsch confirm: “the sons are arranged according to their mothers… and the sons of the two maid-servants stand last.” The count then lands on a number — shib‘îm, seventy nephesh, “souls” — which the commentators themselves treat with disarming honesty. Poole: “if they were but sixty-nine, they are called seventy by a round number.” Cambridge notes the figure “was traditional,” reckoned by some with Jacob and by others without him. The text counts breath-by-breath, and even its arithmetic is held with care.
Then the stage is cleared. “And-died Joseph, and-all his-brothers, and-all that generation” — three falling clauses that Maclaren heard “like the threefold falls of earth on a coffin”: “they all died, but not all at the same time. They went one by one, one by one, till, at the end, they were all gone.” The protector is gone; the rivalrous brothers are gone; the whole dôwr, the whole turning of the age, is gone. And in the same breath the writer sets the opposite process beside it: “but the sons of Israel were-fruitful and swarmed and multiplied and grew-mighty.” Maclaren names the law of it from a tombstone: “God buries the workmen and carries on the work.” The Hebrew of v. 7 is a deliberate flood of verbs — Poole calls it “a heap of words… to express their incredible multiplication” — and the verbs are not random. Keil & Delitzsch show that pārū (“were fruitful”) and the rare way·yiš·rə·ṣū (“swarmed”) “point back to Genesis 1:28 and Genesis 8:17,” and way·ya·‘aṣ·mū (“grew mighty”) reaches to the ‘ātsûm gôy, the “mighty nation,” promised of Abraham in Genesis 18:18. Benson catches the teeming force of the swarming verb — Israel multiplied “like fishes or insects, as one of the words here used signifies.” This is creation-language and flood-language re-spoken over one family: the blessing first given to Adam and renewed to Noah is now visibly at work in the sons of Israel.
How did seventy become a nation? The old commentators refuse to choose between the natural and the supernatural. Jamieson, Fausset & Brown grant Egypt’s famed fertility and then add: “To this natural circumstance must be added the fulfilment of the promise made to Abraham.” Ellicott and Barnes describe Goshen as an unusually healthy, prolific land — and K&D close exactly there: “this blessing of nature was heightened still further… by the grace of the promise, so that the increase became extraordinarily great.” Maclaren puts the principle most sharply: “‘Natural processes’ are the implements of a supernatural will.” The land filling with Israel (the Niphal wat·tim·mā·lê, “was filled,” crediting the act to God) is at once a fact of Egyptian demography and the keeping of a four-hundred-year-old word. The unit’s quiet thesis: God’s providence does not bypass ordinary means; it works through them.
Read under the rule that Scripture alone is the final authority, three things in this little bridge-passage stand out — offered as a reading to be tested, not a verdict to be trusted.
God keeps slow promises. The whole unit is built to be measured against Genesis: the seventy of v. 5 against the swarming multitude of v. 7, the patriarchal pledge of Genesis 15 and 17 against its fulfillment in a foreign land. Henry’s verdict is the plain sense of the text: “Though the performance of God’s promises is sometimes slow, it is always sure.” Centuries pass in two verses; not one word of God falls to the ground.
The blessing of creation is the engine of redemption. The verbs of v. 7 are the verbs of Genesis 1 — be fruitful, swarm, multiply, fill. The God who made and blessed the world is the same God now building a people for Himself; redemption-history runs on the rails of creation-history. The deliverance that the rest of the book will narrate begins not with a miracle but with a birth-rate.
The workman dies; the work does not. Joseph’s coffin and Israel’s cradle sit in the same sentence. The covenant outlasts every instrument it uses. No man — not even the savior of Egypt — is indispensable; the Lord alone is.
Set against the text, these hold; but weigh them, and keep only what the Word supports.
Joseph’s coffin and Israel’s cradle lie in the same sentence — God buries the workman and keeps the promise.
AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.
The four verbs of v. 7 are not fresh coinage; they are the language of the first blessing. Keil & Delitzsch name the link directly: the verbs “point back to Genesis 1:28 and Genesis 8:17.” The Verifier confirms the shared roots pârâh (“be fruitful”) and râbâh (“multiply”), and the same mâlê’ (“fill”) — the land “was filled” as the earth was to be filled. Israel’s growth is the creation mandate at work inside one nation.
Exodus 1:7 · Genesis 1:28
basis: shared lexemes H6509 pârâh (in 28 vv), H7235 râbâh (in 211 vv), H4390 mâlêʼ (in 239 vv); a shared creation-blessing motif, no quotation claimed — none of these roots is rare enough to force a verbal link
The strongest verbal cord runs through one uncommon word. shārats, “to swarm, teem” (v. 7, way·yiš·rə·ṣū), occurs in only fourteen verses in all of Scripture — and it is the verb used of the water-creatures of creation, of the life that swarmed out of the ark after the flood (Genesis 8:17), and of Noah’s renewed mandate (Genesis 9:7). Benson heard it — Israel multiplied “like fishes or insects, as one of the words here used signifies.” That a verb this rare is deliberately re-used places Israel’s multiplication inside the lineage of creation and re-creation: a people teeming into being as life teemed at the world’s beginning and after the flood.
Exodus 1:7 · Genesis 8:17 · Genesis 9:7
basis: shared rare lexeme H8317 shârats (in only 14 vv) plus H6509 pârâh and H7235 râbâh; the low frequency of shârats makes this a confirmed verbal echo of the creation/flood blessing
The same rare verb reaches all the way back to the verb’s first occurrence: on the fifth day God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures” (Genesis 1:20). The Verifier confirms the single shared lexeme — shārats (H8317, 14 verses), the verb the writer reserves almost exclusively for fish, insects, and creeping things. By speaking it over Israel, the narrator quietly reclassifies a single family as a teeming abundance of life — the fifth-day blessing now poured out on a people. Gill caught the force: they “increased abundantly; like creeping things, or rather like fishes, which increase very much, see Genesis 1:20.” The link is verbal but rests on one word, so it is held as a single-lexeme echo, not a quotation.
Exodus 1:7 · Genesis 1:20
basis: single shared rare lexeme H8317 shârats (in only 14 vv); Genesis 1:20 is the verb’s first occurrence (the fifth-day swarming of the waters). The rarity warrants a verbal tier, but it rests on one word alone — a deliberate lexical echo, not a quotation; under-claimed accordingly
The psalmist, retelling this very history, reaches for the same three words: “He made his people very fruitful, and made them stronger than their adversaries” (Psalm 105:24). The Verifier finds the shared roots pârâh (“fruitful”), the rare ‘ātsam (“be mighty,” 20 verses), and the emphatic mə’ōḏ (“exceedingly”). Where Exodus narrates the growth as fact, the Psalm names its Author: God Himself made them fruitful and mighty — the canon’s own inspired commentary on Exodus 1:7. Held honestly: this is a poetic paraphrase, not a verbatim quotation; the verbal tier rests on the deliberate re-use of the uncommon root ‘ātsam, not on a citation formula.
Exodus 1:7 · Psalm 105:24
basis: shared lexemes H6105 ʻâtsam (in only 20 vv), H6509 pârâh (in 28 vv), H3966 mᵉʼôd; Psalm 105 is a poetic retelling that deliberately re-uses the rare root ʻâtsam — a verbal echo, not a quotation; tiered verbal on the rarity, not on any citation formula
The twelve names of vv. 2–4 are a fixed liturgical roll that recurs across the canon. Keil & Delitzsch note the order matches Genesis 35:23–26 — sons by mother, maidservants’ sons last. The Verifier confirms the shared tribal names (Rᵉ’ûwbên, Shimʻôwn, Lêvîy) running from Genesis 35 through Exodus 1 to the genealogies of 1 Chronicles 2. The same twelve, named the same way, hold the people together as one body across the books — a structural continuity, the names themselves doing the connecting.
Exodus 1:2 · Genesis 35:23 · 1 Chronicles 2:1
basis: shared proper-name lexemes H7205 Rᵉʼûwbên, H8095 Shimʻôwn, H3878 Lêvîy (and the full tribal set across vv. 2–4). The Verifier returns "verbal — confirmed" here on the rarity of Shimʻôwn (39 vv) and Lêvîy (57 vv); we deliberately under-claim and downgrade to structural, because a recurring roll of tribal proper names is genealogical continuity, not a literary quotation — the same twelve names will appear wherever Israel is listed
Exodus 1:5 counts shib‘îm nephesh, “seventy souls.” When Stephen retells the descent into Egypt in Acts 7:14 he says seventy-five souls — following the Septuagint of Genesis 46:27 and Exodus 1:5, which adds Joseph’s grandchildren. Cambridge already flags the underlying instability: the tradition was counted differently (with or without Jacob). Held honestly: this is a cross-Testament, Greek-to-Hebrew link, so it can share no Strong’s number with the Hebrew, and it sits on a real textual variant between the Masoretic and Greek traditions. The connection is genuine — Stephen is quoting this passage — but the number itself is disputed, so the thread is left flagged rather than asserted as a clean quotation.
Exodus 1:5 · Genesis 46:27 · Acts 7:14
basis: cross-Testament (Greek↔Hebrew): no shared original-language lexeme is possible; Stephen’s “75” follows the LXX against the Masoretic “70,” a documented textual variant — the provenance of the figure is contested, so the link is flagged, not tiered verbal
AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.
The book opens with a people on the edge of extinction — seventy souls in a foreign land — who instead swarm into a nation. Behind the multiplication stands the promise to Abraham of a seed “as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand… upon the sea-shore” (Genesis 22:17), the line through which “all nations” would be blessed. The whole point of preserving and multiplying Israel is that the Seed — singular, Christ (Galatians 3:16) — might come. The teeming life of Exodus 1:7 is, finally, in the service of one promised Offspring. Jamieson, Fausset & Brown keep the supernatural cause in view: “to this natural circumstance must be added the fulfilment of the promise made to Abraham.”
Exodus 1:7 · Genesis 22:17 · Galatians 3:16
“And Joseph died” (v. 6) — yet Genesis ends with Joseph’s bones held in trust against the day God would “surely visit” His people (Genesis 50:24–25), and Hebrews crowns his faith precisely at this dying command (Hebrews 11:22). The coffin in Egypt is a deposit on a promised exodus; the dead workman trusts a deliverance he will not see. It is a figure of the deeper exodus: the One who passes through death holding to the promise, so that those who lie in their graves might be carried up into the land. Maclaren presses the whole unit toward the living Christ — “God buries the workmen and carries on the work… Jesus lives, and therefore His people grow and multiply.” Held as a figure to test: the resurrection reading is the New Testament’s own trajectory for Joseph’s bones, but the link to Christ’s resurrection here is a typological extension, offered to be weighed.
Exodus 1:6 · Genesis 50:24-25 · Hebrews 11:22
The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.
Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:
The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). The named voices are quoted verbatim from public-domain works on BibleHub (Ellicott, Maclaren, Henry, Benson, Barnes, Jamieson-Fausset-Brown, Gill, Geneva, Cambridge, Pulpit, Keil & Delitzsch, Poole) and attributed in place. The Hebrew is the Masoretic tradition; transliterations, parsings, the literal renderings, and the “where the English smooths the Hebrew” notes are this tool’s own work (⚙) — careful but fallible; check them against a lexicon (BDB, HALOT) and a standard grammar.
Three honesty notes specific to this unit. (1) The number seventy. The text’s own arithmetic is genuinely disputed: 70 counted with Jacob or without him, and the Septuagint/Acts 7:14 tradition of 75. The commentators above (Poole, Cambridge, Ellicott) disagree among themselves, and we have not papered over it — see the flagged Acts 7:14 thread. (2) Cross-Testament links. The Acts 7:14 connection is Greek-to-Hebrew and therefore cannot rest on a shared Strong’s number; it is left flagged, on a real textual variant, rather than asserted as a clean quotation. (3) The creation echoes. The thread to Genesis 1:28 is real but tiered only structural/thematic, because its shared roots are common; the threads to Genesis 1:20 and Genesis 8:17 / 9:7 are tiered verbal only because the verb shârats is rare (14 verses) — and the Genesis 1:20 link rests on that single word, so we mark it a one-lexeme echo rather than a quotation. This is a distinction the Verifier draws and we have respected, rather than overclaiming every creation parallel as a quotation. The Psalm 105:24 thread is likewise tiered verbal on the rare root ‘ātsam, but it is a poetic retelling, not a citation. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)
✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)