BURDENS, forced labors — the specific word for Egypt's imposed toil. It runs through the opening of Exodus like a drumbeat: taskmasters set over Israel 'to afflict them with their SIVLOT' (1:11), Pharaoh's 'get to your burdens!' (5:4), and then, in the great promise, 'I will bring you out from under the BURDENS of the Egyptians' (6:6-7) — the very word of the oppression turned around in the mouth of the redeemer. What God undoes is named with the word that named the wound. → first discussed at Exod 6:6