The oppression intensifies from organized labor to something described in unmistakably brutal terms: the Egyptians worked the Israelites ruthlessly. The Hebrew word here (perekh) appears only a handful of times in Scripture, and always in contexts of crushing, violent exploitation — Leviticus 25:43 would later use the same word to prohibit Israelites from ruling over their own servants this way. Moses is not writing abstractly; he is naming the violation for what it is. This is also the context into which the laws of the Torah will speak most directly: a people who know what ruthless oppression feels like are commanded to structure their society as its explicit opposite. The ethics of Exodus flow directly from its narrative. Isaiah 58:6 later defines true worship partly as loosening the bonds of oppression — the memory of Egypt is meant to shape how Israel treats the vulnerable.

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