Charles Ellicott Commentary Exodus 1:22

"And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river, and every daughter ye shall save alive." — Exodus 1:22 (ASV)

Every son that is born. —The Septuagint adds “to the Hebrews,” but without any necessity, since the context shows that only Hebrew children are meant.

Ye shall cast into the river. —Infanticide, so shocking to Christians, has prevailed widely at different times and places, and been regarded as a trivial matter. In Sparta, the State decided which children should live and which should die. At Athens a law of Solon left the decision to the parent. At Rome, the rule was that infants were killed, unless the father intervened and declared his wish that a particular child should be brought up.

The Syrians offered unwelcome children in sacrifice to Moloch; the Carthaginians to Melkarth. In China infanticide is said to be a common practice even today. Heathen nations do not generally regard human life as sacred. On the contrary, they hold that considerations of expediency justify the elimination of any life that inconveniences the State. Hence infanticide is introduced by Plato into his model republic (Rep. v. 9).

Almost all ancient nations viewed the massacre of prisoners taken in war as allowable. The Spartan crypteia was a system of licensed murder. The condemnation to death of all male Hebrew children by Pharaoh is thus in no way improbable.

On the other hand, the method of death presents difficulties. For, first, the Nile was viewed as a god, and filling it with corpses would, one might suppose, have been regarded as a pollution. Secondly, the Nile water was the only water drunk, and sanitary concerns might therefore have been expected to prevent the edict. Perhaps, however, the children were viewed as offerings to the Nile, or to Savak, the crocodile-headed god, of whom each crocodile was an emblem. In any case, as the Nile swarmed with crocodiles throughout its whole course, the bodies were reasonably sure to be devoured before they became putrescent.