And they departed from Rameses,.... A city in Egypt, where the children of Israel, a little before their departure, seem to have been gathered together in a body, in order to march out all together, as they did. This place the Targum of Jonathan calls Pelusium. Dr. Shaw (a) thinks it might be Cairo, from whence they set forward; see Exo 12:37 and it was

in the first month; in the month Nisan, as the same Targum, or Abib, which was appointed the first month on this account, and answers to part of our March and April:

on the fifteenth of the first month, on the morrow after the passover; that was kept on the fourteenth, when the Lord passed over the houses of the Israelites, and slew all the firstborn in Egypt, which made way for their departure the next morning; the Egyptians being urgent upon them to be gone:

the children of Israel went out with an high hand in the sight of all the Egyptians; openly and publicly, with great courage and boldness, without any fear of their enemies; who seeing them march out, had no power to stop them, or to move their lips at them, nay, were willing to be rid of them; see Exo 11:7.

(a) Travels, p. 307. Ed. 2.

Rameses--generally identified with Heroopoils, now the modern Abu-Keisheid (see on Exo 12:37), which was probably the capital of Goshen, and, by direction of Moses, the place of general rendezvous previous to their departure.