“And it was told the king of Egypt that the people fled: and the heart of Pharaoh and of his servants was turned against the people, and they said, Why have we done this, that we have let Israel go from serving us?”
When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, Pharaoh and his officials changed their minds about them and said: what have we done? We have let the Israelites go and have lost their services! The same pattern that ended every plague — relief followed by renewed hardness — operates now at the national level. Egypt without its labor force has lost its economic engine. The question what have we done? is the question of men who measure people by their productive value. The Israelites were not people to Pharaoh; they were services, labor, economic output. Their liberation is framed as a loss of property. The language of Exodus 1:11 — who built Pharaoh's supply cities — comes back here: what was built by slaves is now ungoverned because the slaves have walked away. The economic logic that drove the oppression drives the pursuit.
COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS
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