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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Exodus 5:10 - 5:19
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The People Complain to Pharaoh
v. 10. And the taskmasters of the people went out and their officers, the Egyptian overseers and their Hebrew subordinates, and they spake to the people, saying, Thus saith Pharaoh, I will not give you straw. The royal decree was to be carried out to the letter not a single straw was to be furnished. The Jewish scribes, or officers, had by this time become willing tools in the hands of the despots.
v. 11. Go ye, get you straw where ye can find it; yet not aught of your work shall be diminished. There is an emphasis on the pronoun: Ye yourselves go, not others, as heretofore.
v. 12. So the people were scattered abroad throughout all the land of Egypt to gather stubble instead of straw. They did not even have access to straw-stacks, but were obliged to go out into the harvested fields and collect the stubble.
v. 13. And the taskmasters hasted them, urged them forward vehemently, saying, Fulfil your works, your daily tasks, the amount of labor which had been allotted them day by day, for each day, as when there was straw, when the necessary material for binding the clay was furnished.
v. 14. And the officers of the children of Israel which Pharaoh's taskmasters had set over them, as their own subordinates, were beaten, and demanded, Wherefore have ye not fulfilled your task in making brick both yesterday and today, as heretofore? When the number of bricks allotted to any company of the Israelites was not forthcoming, because it was a physical impossibility both to provide the straw and to make the bricks, the Jewish officers were held responsible and were punished.
v. 15. Then the officers of the children of Israel came and cried unto Pharaoh, saying, Wherefore dealest thou thus with thy servants? It was an attempt to protest against the tyrannical injustice of the measure.
v. 16. There is no straw given unto thy servants, and they say to us, Make brick; and, behold, thy servants are beaten; but the fault is in thine own people, the sin is that of thy people. Their cry was an indirect complaint against the king himself, whom they did not dare to reproach outright.
v. 17. But he said, Ye are idle, ye are idle; therefore ye say, Let us go and do sacrifice to the Lord. He emphatically repeated his baseless charge, v. 8.
v. 18. Go, therefore, now, and work; for there shall no straw be given you, yet shall ye deliver the tale of bricks. The unjust order was not only not remanded, but repeated by Pharaoh's own mouth, So that there could be no mistake about it.
v. 19. And the officers of the children of Israel did see that they were in evil case, literally, they were in bad, their position was now worse than it was before, after it was said, Ye shall not minish aught from your bricks of your daily task. The fact that the oppression of the children of Israel was increased in this manner was a last severe trial for them. God wanted to test their faith in the certainty of His promise regarding the deliverance which was near.