Exodus 1:14

Verse Exodus 1:14. They made their lives bitter] So that they became weary of life, through the severity of their servitude.

With hard bondage] בעבדה קשה baabodah kashah, with grievous servitude. This was the general character of their life in Egypt; it was a life of the most painful servitude, oppressive enough in itself, but made much more so by the cruel manner of their treatment while performing their tasks.

In mortar, and in brick] First, in digging the clay, kneading, and preparing it, and secondly, forming it into bricks, drying them in the sun, c.

Service in the field] Carrying these materials to the places where they were to be formed into buildings, and serving the builders while employed in those public works. Josephus says "The Egyptians contrived a variety of ways to afflict the Israelites for they enjoined them to cut a great number of channels for the river, and to build walls for their cities and ramparts, that they might restrain the river, and hinder its waters from stagnating upon its overrunning its own banks; they set them also to build pyramids, (πυραμιδας τε ανοικοδομουντες,) and wore them out, and forced them to learn all sorts of mechanic arts, and to accustom themselves to hard labour." - Antiq., lib. ii., cap. ix., sec. 1. Philo bears nearly the same testimony, p. 86, Edit. Mangey.