Tanach · Rishonim on Tanach · Ibn Ezra · Torah
Ibn Ezra on Exodus 1:13/אבן עזרא על שמות א׳:י״ג
אויעבידו. רעות רבות חדש עליהם, בראשונה לעשות מלאכתו, וכאשר ראה שלא חסר רבותם נתן רשות למצרים ולשריהם להעבידם יותר מחק העבדים, וזהו בפרך והוא כדברי המתרגם ארמית ולומר בפיוט פרוכים איננו נכון כלל, וכאשר ראה שלא יועיל זה, אז קרא למילדות שהן שרות על כל המילדות וצוה להרוג כל הזכרים הילודים:
1TO SERVE. Pharaoh devised many evils with which to afflict the Israelites. First he ordered them to do his work.122 When he saw that this did not diminish their greatly increasing numbers he gave permission to the Egyptians and their princes to work them harder than slaves are normally worked. The latter is, as Onkelos explains, the meaning of the term be-farekh (with rigor). It is totally wrong to employ the form perukhim (broken) in liturgical poetry.123 (the root of perakh [rigor] is never found in this form in the Bible (Weiser). When Pharaoh saw that the above measures did not stop the Israelites from increasing, he called the midwives (v. 13), the ones who were in charge of all the other midwives, and commanded them to kill all the males that were born.