Exodus 1:22

And Pharaoh charged all his people ,.... Finding he could not carry his point with the midwives, he gave a general order to all his people everywhere:

saying, every son that is born ye shall cast into the river ; the river Nile; not every son born in his kingdom, for this would have ruined it in time; but that was born to the Jews, as the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan; and it is added in the Septuagint version, to the Hebrews:

and every daughter ye shall save alive ; for the reasons given See Gill on Exodus 1:16 .