Exodus 1:14

Summary

Exodus 1:14 describes how the Egyptians made the lives of the Israelites bitter through hard labor, listing specific tasks — mortar, bricks, and all field work — and characterizing the totality of this forced labor as carried out "with harshness."

Key words

yemareru ("they made bitter", H4843) — Piel stem, giving intensive/causative force: not merely "were bitter" but "caused to be bitter." The verb opens the verse and governs the entire list that follows.

chayyei ("lives", H2416E) — construct plural, "lives of," bound to the suffix hem ("their," H9028), forming "their lives" as the direct object marked by 'et (H0853).

avodah qashah ("labor" H5656G + "hard" H7186) — feminine singular noun with feminine singular adjective, naming the general category of forced labor before the text specifies its forms (mortar, bricks, field work).

asher ("which", H0834A) — relative particle introducing a subordinate clause that qualifies "all their labor" (kol-avodatam), specifying that this labor is "which they labored" (avedu, H5647G, Qal perfect).

be-farekh ("with harshness", H6531) — preposition be + noun, placed at the very end of the verse, functioning as the final qualifier of how all this labor was carried out.

What the text says

The verse opens with the Piel verb yemareru ("they made bitter," H4843) taking as its direct object chayyeihem ("their lives"). The intensive/causative sense of the Piel stem signals that the subject actively produces bitterness in the object's life, rather than simply the object being in a bitter state. This verb governs a series of prepositional phrases introduced by be ("with/in"): "with hard labor," "with mortar," "with bricks," and "with all labor in the field." Each of these phrases specifies a domain or material of the forced labor rather than functioning as separate clauses — the Hebrew accumulates specifics under the umbrella of the initial verb.

The second half of the verse restates the object with 'et kol-avodatam ("all their labor"), now introduced by a second direct object marker ('et, H0853), and adds a relative clause: asher avdu bahem ("which they labored by/through them," using Qal perfect avedu, H5647G — a simple, completed-aspect verb, in contrast to the intensive Piel of the opening verb). This creates a summarizing restatement: after listing categories of labor, the text loops back to characterize "all their labor" as a totality performed under these conditions. The final phrase, be-farekh ("with harshness," H6531), stands alone at the end, modifying how this entire labor was carried out or imposed.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the Hebrew's twofold repetition of "labor" (avodah, appearing three times in the Hebrew as avodah qashah, avodah, and avodatam) with varied Greek terms (ζωὴν, ἔργοις, ἔργα), and translates be-farekh ("with harshness") as μετὰ βίας ("with force/violence"), while the Vulgate uses premebantur ("they were oppressed/pressed down") to convey the final clause, shifting from a prepositional phrase describing manner to a passive verb describing the workers' condition.