John Calvin Commentary Exodus 1:11

"Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh store-cities, Pithom and Raamses." — Exodus 1:11 (ASV)

Therefore they did set over them. The Egyptians devised this plan to gradually diminish the children of Israel. Since the Israelites were subjects, the Egyptians thought they could afflict them with burdens to oppress them, and this slavery would weaken and reduce them.

However, their power over them as subjects should not have been extended so far as to impose these new tributes on inoffensive people, to whom they had granted free permission to live among them. They should first have considered the conditions under which the Israelites had been admitted.

The demand, then, by which Pharaoh broke faith with them, was in itself unjust. But the crime to which he proceeded was even greater, because he did not simply seek financial gain but desired to afflict the miserable people with the heaviness of their burdens.

For the Israelites were not only compelled to pay tribute but were also put to slave labor, as Moses immediately adds. Regarding the two cities, it is doubtful in what sense they were called miscenoth¹⁵. This word is sometimes understood to mean cellars and granaries, or storehouses for all necessary provisions.

But, since it sometimes signifies "fortresses," it would not be an unsuitable interpretation that they were commanded to build with their own hands the prisons that would prevent them from leaving. For it is clear from many passages (Genesis 47:11; Exodus 12:37; Numbers 33:3) that Rameses was situated in that part of the country, and we will soon see that the children of Israel departed from Rameses.

¹⁵ מסכנות, miscenoth The LXX. alone gives some countenance to C.’s last interpretation of this word, by rendering it πόλεις ὀχυρὰς. — W