And Pharach charged all his people] The Midwives being as kind to the male children, as Pharaoh to the females, (vers. 16. &22.) he giveth the charge more generally, and (that no doubt) with commination of crueltie on those who could not find in their hearts to be so cruell, as he would have them: which tooke such effect (at least for a time) that the parents of Moses could not long conceale him, Chap. 2. vrs. 3. yet this violence did not continue all the time of the Israelites continuance in Egypt, because there were many young Hebrewes, under twenty yeares old, when they went out of Egypt: and it is like, this bloudy decree died with the death of the Tyrant that made it; and that he died the sooner, because he was so cruell, according to the prophecie of the Psalmist, Psalme 55. 23. cast into the river] In the Hebrew there is no mention of the River: but that is the meaning whereby it might be knowne, whether the Midwives obeyed the Kings command or no: wherein is observable the practise of Tyrants, which is to make up their bloudy plots, sometimes with Fox-like subtiltie, and sometimes with Lion-like crueltie: so (according to the Proverbe) the Lions skin pieceth up the Foxes, as well as the Foxes doth the Lions, as they see occasion to make use of either. and every daughter] When the charge was given to the Midwives to murder the Males, it was with caution, and exception, to save the Females alive, 5: 16. and now it is enlarged to all the people, to be slaughtermen to the sonnes of the Hebrewes, the Tyrant still continueth his reservation of the daughters, that they might be spared, and kept alive; but this was not out of pitie towards them, but because he had no such feare of them, as of the other sexe: and it is like, the daughters of God were more pleasing to these sonnes of men, (as the daughters of men were to the sonnes of God, Gen. 6. 5: 2.) then their owne native Countrey-women: and so they would keepe them, either for their lust, or to raise a fairer and more beautifull breed then their owne: For some such reason was it, that Abraham feared the beauty of his wife, would be a snare to his life among the Egyptians, and that (according to his feare) it came to passe, that the Princes of Pharaoh commended her, and thereupon she was taken into his house, Genesis 12:14-15. This was another Pharaoh, much ancienter, then the Pharaoh mentioned in this story. See Annot. in Genesis 12:15.