Commentary for Exodus 2:24

נאקתם means THEIR CRY. Similar is, (Job 24:12) “from out of the populous city men groan (ינאקו)”.

ויזכר אלוקים, which He had sworn to all three patriarchs, and the end of the period of the 400 years G’d had spoken of to Avraham in Genesis chapter 15 promising to give his descendants the land of Canaan was fast approaching.

וישמע אלוקים את נאקתם, a reference to the prayer of a few of them, [as Moses recalls in Numbers 20,16 ונצעק אל ה', i.e. the prayer by the righteous few. Seeing that Moses speaks in the plural and he had not been in Egypt at the time, he must have paraphrased why the few righteous people of the time had done at the time before G’d’s response came. Ed.]