Midrash sa Exodo 1:13: Shemot Rabbah, Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Sefer HaYashar (midrash) & Shir HaShirim Rabbah

“But the more they would afflict it, the more it would increase and the more it would proliferate; they were disgusted by the children of Israel” (Exodus 1:12).
“But the more they would afflict it, the more it would increase and the more it would proliferate.” “The more they increased and the more they proliferated is not stated, but rather, “it would increase and it would proliferate.” Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish said: The Divine Spirit is heralding to them: Each of them “will increase and will proliferate.”²⁵It is written in future tense and in the singular and not in past tense plural.
“They were disgusted [vayakutzu] by the children of Israel,” teaching that Israel was like thorns [kotzim] in their eyes.
“The Egyptians enslaved the children of Israel ruthlessly [befarekh]” (Exodus 1:13).
Rabbi Elazar said: With gentle persuasion [befeh rakh]. Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥman says: With crushing cruelty [bifrikha]. This is what they did to each person of Israel: They imposed a decree upon them that each and every day they should produce the equivalent of the number of bricks that they produced on the first day.
“They embittered their lives with hard labor, with mortar and with bricks, and with all kinds of work in the fields; all the work with which they worked them ruthlessly” (Exodus 1:14).
“They embittered their lives with hard labor, etc.” – initially, “with mortar and with bricks,” and later “with all kinds of work in the field,” and ultimately, “all the work.” What is: “All the work with which they worked them ruthlessly”? Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥman said that Rabbi Yonatan [said]: It teaches that they would exchange the labor of men for women and the labor of women for men. Rabbi Avya said: Rabbi Elazar concedes that this is [work imposed] with crushing cruelty.²⁶Although Rabbi Elazar interpreted the word befarekh in verse 13 to mean with gentle persuasion, he concedes that the word befarekh at the end of verse 14 means with crushing cruelty. Thus, the beginning of the servitude was conducted with gentle persuasion, but eventually it was with crushing cruelty.

The sea has no heart, and He gave it a heart. A terebinth has no heart, and He gave it a heart, viz. (II Samuel 18:4) "He (Avshalom) was yet alive in the heart of the terebinth." The heavens have no heart, and He gave them a heart, viz. (Devarim 4:11) "And the mountain (Sinai) burned with fire until the heart of heaven." Let the sea come, which had no heart and was given a heart, and exact payment of the Egyptians, who had a heart and subjugated Israel with all kinds of ("heartless") torments, viz. (Exodus 1:13) "And Egypt subjected the children of Israel to grueling toil." Let the terebinth come, which had no heart and was given a heart and exact punishment of Avshalom, who had a heart and "stole" three hearts — the heart of his father, the heart of beth-din, and the heart of Israel, viz. (II Samuel 15:6) ("And Avshalom did this) … and Avshalom stole the heart of the men of Israel." Let the heavens come, which have no heart and were given a heart, and drop manna like dew upon Israel, who had a heart and accepted the Torah and served the L–rd with all their hearts and all their souls, viz. (Devarim 6:3) "And you shall love the L–rd your G–d with all of your heart and all of your soul, etc."

and in the eighty-ninth year died Naphtali, one hundred and thirty two years old, and he was ‎put into a coffin and given into the hands of his children. And in the ninety-third year Levi, the ‎son of Jacob, died in Egypt, he was one hundred and thirty-seven years old when he died, and ‎they put him into a coffin and they gave him into the hands of his children. And it came to pass ‎after Levi’s death, when the Egyptians saw that all the sons of Jacob, Joseph’s brothers, had ‎died, the Egyptians began to afflict the children of Israel, and to embitter their lives from that ‎day on even unto the day of their going out of Egypt; and they took away from their ‎possession all the vine yards which Joseph had given unto them, and all the fine houses in ‎which the children of Israel were dwelling, and all the fat of Egypt, everything the Egyptians ‎took away from the children of Israel in those days. And the land of Egypt grew heavy upon ‎the children of Israel in those days, and the Egyptians mistreated them until the children of ‎Israel were wearied of their lives on account of the Egyptians. And in those days, in the one ‎hundred and second year of the Israelites’ going down to Egypt, Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, ‎died, and his son Melol reigned in his stead, and all the valiant men of Egypt, and all the ‎generation that knew Joseph and his brethren died in those days. And there rose up another ‎generation which had not known the sons of Jacob, and all the good which they had done unto ‎them, and how much they had added to the strength of Egypt. Therefore all Egypt began to ‎embitter the lives of the children of Jacob from that day on, and to afflict them with hard labor, ‎for they knew not their ancestors who had saved them in the days of the famine. And it was ‎from the Lord that this should befall the children of Israel in order to be benefited at the end, ‎and that all the children of Israel might know the Lord their God, and in order that they might ‎know the signs and fearful wonders which the Lord enacted in Egypt on account of Israel his ‎people, and in order that the children of Israel might fear the Lord, the God of their ‎forefathers, and that they might walk in all his ways, they and their seed after them forever. ‎