49 Preface وَإِذ نَجَّيناكُم مِن آلِ فِرعَونَ يَسومونَكُم سوءَ العَذابِ يُذَبِّحونَ أَبناءَكُم وَيَستَحيونَ نِساءَكُم ۚ وَفي ذٰلِكُم بَلاءٌ مِن رَبِّكُم عَظيمٌYusuf AliAnd remember, We delivered you from the people of Pharaoh: They set you hard tasks and punishments, slaughtered your sons and let your women-folk live1; therein was a tremendous trial from your Lord. The bondage of Egypt was indeed a tremendous trial. Even the Egyptians’ wish to spare the lives of Israel’s females when the males were slaughtered, added to the bitterness of Israel. Their hatred was cruel, but their “love” was still more cruel. (Cf. 14:6). About the hard tasks, see Exod. 1:14: “They made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field: all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigour.” Pharaoh’s taskmasters gave no straw, yet ordered the Israelites to make bricks without straw: Exod. 5:5-19. Pharaoh’s decree was: “Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river, and every daughter ye shall save alive”: Exod. 1:22. It was in consequence of this decree that Moses was hidden three months after he was born, and when he could be hidden no longer, he was put into an ark of bulrushes and cast into the Nile, where he was found by Pharaoh’s daughter and wife (28:9), and adopted into the family: Exod. 2:2-10. (Cf. 20:37-40). Thus Moses was brought up by the enemies of his people. He was chosen by God to deliver his people, and God’s wisdom made the learning and experience and even cruelties of the Egyptian enemies themselves to contribute to the salvation of his people.