As we’ve seen, the benevolent Pharaoh in the times of Joseph had treated Joseph like an adopted son. Ever since then, vestiges of that relationship had lingered. To some extent, the Egyptian throne continued to look upon Israel as its child, but that relationship had decayed. It was as if the loving surrogate father had become an evil and abusive caricature of his former self. He demanded the loyalty of his child, but extended none of the love a father would give one of his own. The Egyptian throne abused and and enslaved its child, and brutally inured itself to the child’s cries for mercy.
