“afflict.” The Hebrew is anah (#06031 עָנָה), and it means to make someone busy with something, afflict, to be bowed down or put down, made low, made humble, depressed, downcast. Thus the NLT has “to wear them down.” Pharaoh was worldly wise. The slave drivers did not just give the Israelites work to do, they wore them down and worked to break their spirits. No wonder Egypt was called “the iron furnace” (Deut. 4:20; Jer. 11:4) and the “house of bondage.”