How did Egypt — the center of commerce and culture — become a tyranny? Pharaoh recognized a threat: a local ethnic group which outperformed, and therefore threatened, his people. Pharaoh knew that his people felt the same way. Indeed, Egyptians had long hated the Jews before they moved to Egypt. (See Bereishis 43:26 and 46:34.) Pharaoh’s solution was to kill all of the Jewish boys.
However, Pharaoh could not exterminate them, at least not yet. His own people would not stomach any violence against an innocent people. Pharaoh needed to weaken his people’s objections to persecution. He needed one tool for this: complicity. Pharaoh would begin his campaign under the guise of the law. He would begin his campaign by taxing the Jews (Ramban, Shemos 1:10).
Can’t any government levy a tax? Perhaps this tax was discriminatory, true, but it was, after all, just a tax. The Egyptian people could stomach this soft persecution. Pharaoh knew that against tyranny, the law is nothing but a barrier of papyrus. It is the prudence of a people which can stop the tyrant. And so, the Egyptians supported the tax — a perfectly legal and legitimate instrument. Once complicit in persecution, the Egyptians began their descent.
However, Pharaoh could still not exterminate them, at least not yet. His own people — even complicit in this soft persecution — would not stomach open violence against an innocent people. Pharaoh needed to weaken his people’s objection to violence. He needed one tool for this: self-swindling. Pharaoh sensed that his people could tolerate the murder of Jewish babies if they could pretend they did not know what was going on. And so Pharaoh instructed the midwives to kill Jewish baby boys quietly, and everyone else pretended not to notice. Don’t babies die during birth? Perhaps the Jewish boys were dying at an unusually high rate, true, but birthing, after all, is a dangerous process. Pharaoh knew cruelty is not an acquired taste, but a repressed taste. The Egyptians simply needed to hide their cruelty from themselves.
Once complicit in murder, the Egyptian society had descended. They had succumbed. They were ready. Pharaoh instructed all Egyptians to kill Jewish boys on sight (Ramban, ibid.). The Egyptians gladly complied. After all, aren’t the Jews threatening us? After all, don’t we hate them? After all, isn’t this what we, the Egpytian people, desire?