8 Then a new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt. 9 “Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become much too numerous for us. 10 Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.”

11So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. 12 But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites 13 and worked them ruthlessly. 14 They made their lives bitter with hard labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their hard labor the Egyptians used them ruthlessly.

How quickly the tides can turn, and the passage here makes it seem like it was overnight. The details are left out. I highly doubt that putting “slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor” was an easy accomplishment and that the Israelites were completely passive with the process.

I am under the opinion that this happened gradually over a few years, much like what happened during the lead-up to the Holocaust. After all, the tyrants of history were no less crafty than the tyrants of today.

A few hints point me in this direction:

• Fear -The whole rationale behind the slavery initiative is fear. You’ll find that fear is the main rationale, and the main weapon, behind most government actions. Pharaoh was afraid. And in verse 12, it seems Pharaoh is eventually successful in projecting his fear of the Israelites onto the rest of the population. It’s easy to enslave a minority when the rest of the population is behind you, but cultivating that fear takes time.
• And More Fear (Again, fear is government’s main export) - The rationale behind Pharaoh’s thinking is to prevent the possibility of the Israelites defecting in a time of war. But if Pharaoh had simply tried enslaved the Israelites overnight, there would have been bloodshed and internal war, immediately bringing about what the whole act was trying to prevent. (Ironically, this ends up happening anyway when Israel’s God and King, YHWH, ends up waging war against Egypt in the form of the Ten Plagues.)

What can we learn from this?

1. Government Values are Always Changing - The friends of today could be the enemies of tomorrow. The excuse for these changing values is always drenched in fear. Why have faith in something that will change at the drop of the hat, and that constantly acts like a frightened child, lashing out at nightmares?
2. Tyranny Can Happen Anytime, Anywhere if your faith is in the State - Due to the fickle nature of government, prosperity can easily turn into hardship and poverty, and being a ward of government is just a small step away from being a slave of the government. When Joseph’s leadership and counsel helped save Egypt from outright starvation all those years ago, the Pharaoh at the time rewarded him and his family, and this favor continued for many generations. In essence, they became willing wards of Egypt and Pharaoh. It is not surprising what happened next.

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