Exodus 1:7

The children of Israel were fruitful.

The rapid growth of Israel into. nation is the fact of this paragraph. It is expressed, as usual, in Hebrew by. climax of verbs: were fruitful is taken from the vegetable world in which the increase varies from. simple multiple to several hundredfold; increased (spawned, swarmed) is borrowed from the finny tribes, in which the rate of increase rises to many myriads; multiplied is. general word referring to number; and waxed exceedingly mighty is. similar phrase alluding to the strength which numbers confer, composed of. verb and an adverb repeated, and therefore well adapted to complete the climax. Then follows the result, the land was filled with them. -- Murphy. Egypt was always celebrated for its fruitfulness, and in no province does the population increase so rapidly as in that occupied by the Israelites. At present it has more flocks and herds than any province in Egypt, and more fishermen, though many villages are deserted; it is calculated that another million might be sustained in it.-- Canon Cook.

The land was filled with them.

That is, the district allotted to them, extending probably from the eastern branch of the Nile to the borders of the desert. It appears from other passages (see 3:22) that they did not occupy this land exclusively, but were intermingled with the native Egyptians.-- Canon Cook.

Increased abundantly.

Some have held that Israel could not have increased to the numbers at the Exodus, but it must be remembered, 1. That the seventy souls include only the family of Jacob, not all the tribe who went into Egypt. All these tribesmen were doubtless incorporated. 2. The period usually assigned for the residence in Egypt is probably too short. R. Payne Smith says: "The genealogies generally give only four generations in Egypt. Thus, Levi, Kohath, Amram, Moses. Exodus 6:16-20. So again, Judah, Zerah, Zabdi, Carmi, whose son, Achan, in Joshua's time, stole some of the spoil of Jericho. Joshua 7:1. But these genealogies are merely compendiums in which, apparently, as. rule, one name is given for. century. They were legal documents, showing who was the representative of each branch of the families of the high chiefs of pure blood. Fortunately we have one full genealogy of no less. person than Joshua, and we find (1 Chronicles 7:23-27) that this great prince of Ephraim was the twelfth in descent from Joseph. One such genealogy settles the question. For we can account for the shorter forms, but not for the longer one. In fact, no one who studies the family histories given at the beginning of Chronicles can doubt that they are legal and technical formulæ, representing rank and property, and not necessarily relationship.