Or HaChaim on Exodus 1:9/אור החיים על שמות א׳:ט׳

1 ויאמר אל עמו הנה עם בני ישראל, He said to his people: "here we have the nation of the children of Israel, etc." The expression הנה in this verse may be understood once we remember the interpretation of Genesis 34,30 where Jacob censured his sons saying עכרתם אותי, "you have made my image clouded" (as opposed to clearly transparent). Bereshit Rabbah 80,12 states that Jacob and the Canaanites had a long standing tradition that the Jews would overpower the Canaanites. This was supposed to take place after the Jews numbered at least 600.000. Now that Shimon and Levi had jumped the gun by destroying the inhabitants of Shechem, Jacob was afraid that such a premature action would backfire. Pharaoh, king of Egypt referred to this ancient prediction that the Jewish people would display such military strength, when he observed how the Jews constantly gained in numbers and vigour. הנה, i.e. the time has arrived of which the prophecy foretold.

2הבה נתחכמה לו פן ירבה, "let us outsmart them before they become more numerous, etc." If we do not put a stop to their population explosion they will do exactly what the prophecy had forecast, namely ועלה מן הארץ, "they will move back to the land of Canaan and destroy our Canaanite brothers." Egypt's first decree against such a possibility had been a ban on Jews leaving the country.

3The word הנה may also be understood as follows: הנה עם, "this here nation," i.e. they are a people different from any other. Every other nation is an amalgamation of a number of different peoples. Not so the Jewish people. They are monolithic, like a single block. When Pharaoh added the words רב ועצום, he explained that the strength of the Jewish nation lay in its singlemindedness and unity of purpose. Because of this they represented a danger totally disproportionate to their actual numbers. Most military commanders are familiar with the phenomenon of a small, elite, but highly motivated force.

4There is another aspect of the words רב ועצום. They are רב, i.e. they multiply at an unnatural rate; ועצום, although it is well known that multiple births usually result in the children being below average weight, physique, etc., in the case of the Jewish people this was not so. Not only did they multiply at a phenomenal rate, but they were all physically healthy specimens. In fact each individual Jew, though in most instances the product of a multiple birth, was ועצום ממנו, physically stronger than any of us Egyptians. As a result, the only way to counter their physical predominance was to outsmart them. The word ממנו would then refer only to the word עצום, and not to the word רב.

5Yet another way of understanding the sequence רב ועצום ממנו, is that the king stated that the fact that the Jews had developed as they did was by taking something that should have belonged to the Egyptians, ממנו, "from us." He wanted to forestall any argument by his countrymen who would protest the injustice of suddenly declaring part of their citizenry as inferior, as slaves. To that end he told his people that the Jews were actually owned by the Egyptians who had fed them during the years of famine and enabled them to not only survive but to thrive. Only 70 Jews immigrated. If they now were a numerous and strong people they owed it all to the Egyptians. It was quite in order for the Egyptians to legislate measures that would ensure their own supremacy. The way to do that was to outsmart them.

6It is customary for the kings and leaders of highly developed countries to point with pride to the intelligentsia of their nation which alone is responsible for the prominence and the high regard in which their country is held. Wherever Jews were exiled, the host country developed out of all proportion due to the Jewish contribution to their host country (compare Lamentations 1,5) "its oppressors developed into being the head." In the case of Egypt, the elite were the Jews. Allowing the elite to depart was equivalent to what is called a "brain drain" in contemporary society. Pharaoh told his countrymen that unless they took measures to prevent such a brain drain, i.e. forbid the Jews to leave, they would eventually also lose their position in the world as a leading civilisation. The reason the Jews might decide to leave Egypt was that they admired brainpower not military power. If Egypt were to be involved in warfare, the Jews might prefer to migrate elsewhere.