Egypt's slave policy produces the opposite of its intended effect — the more the Israelites were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread. The Hebrew verb for 'spread' (yiphrots) carries a sense of bursting through a boundary, and it visibly disturbs the Egyptians, who come to dread the Israelites. This verse is a turning point in the narrative's irony: Pharaoh's strategy to contain God's blessing becomes the mechanism of its acceleration. The pattern appears elsewhere in Scripture — Joseph's pit, Daniel's lion's den, the early church's persecution in Acts 8:1–4 scattering believers across the known world and spreading the gospel. Oppression designed to diminish often becomes the pruning that multiplies. The practical implication for the reader is not passivity in suffering but trust that God's purposes are not blocked by human schemes — they are often advanced by them.

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