Exodus 5:8

5:1-9 God will own his people, though poor and despised, and will find a time to plead their cause. Pharaoh treated all he had heard with contempt. He had no knowledge of Jehovah, no fear of him, no love to him, and therefore refused to obey him. Thus Pharaoh's pride, ambition, covetousness, and political knowledge, hardened him to his own destruction. What Moses and Aaron ask is very reasonable, only to go three days' journey into the desert, and that on a good errand. We will sacrifice unto the Lord our God. Pharaoh was very unreasonable, in saying that the people were idle, and therefore talked of going to sacrifice. He thus misrepresents them, that he might have a pretence to add to their burdens. To this day we find many who are more disposed to find fault with their neighbours, for spending in the service of God a few hours spared from their wordly business, than to blame others, who give twice the time to sinful pleasures. Pharaoh's command was barbarous. Moses and Aaron themselves must get to the burdens. Persecutors take pleasure in putting contempt and hardship upon ministers. The usual tale of bricks must be made, without the usual allowance of straw to mix with the clay. Thus more work was to be laid upon the men, which, if they performed, they would be broken with labour; and if not, they would be punished.

And the tale of the bricks, which they did make heretofore, you shall lay upon them,.... Oblige them to make and bring in the same number of bricks they used to do, when straw was brought to them and given them; by which it appears, that their daily task was such a number of bricks: you shall not diminish ought thereof; not make any abatement of the number of bricks, in consideration of their loss of time and their labour in going to fetch straw from other places: for they be idle; and want to be indulged in a lazy disposition, which ought by no means to be connived at: therefore they cry, let us go and sacrifice to our God; suggesting, that this request and cry of theirs did not proceed from a religious principle, or the great veneration they had for their God, but from the sloth and idleness they were addicted to.

Verse 8. - The tale of the bricks - i.e. , the number of the bricks. Exactly as many were to be required of each batch of workmen under the new regulation as previously. The demand was one with which, as the king well know, it would be impossible to comply. For they be idle . There was so much ground for the charge as this - that hitherto, their forced labours had not occupied the whole of their time. They had been able, apparently, to cultivate their own plots of ground ( Deuteronomy 11:10 ), to raise crops of cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic ( Numbers 11:5 ), to catch fish ( ibid .), and attend public meetings ( Exodus 4:30, 31 ). They had, in fact, had time which they could call their own. Now this was to be so no more. The Pharaoh, however, misrepresents and exaggerates, speaking as if their forced labours had been a mere nothing, and mere want of occupation had led them to raise the cry - "Let us go and sacrifice." It would have been far nearer the truth to say, that the severity and continuousness of their labours had made the notion of festival time, during which they would cease from their toils, generally popular. Exodus 5:8

Some of the most ancient buildings in Egypt were constructed of bricks not burned, but dried in the sun; they were made of clay, or more commonly of mud, mixed with straw chopped into small pieces. An immense quantity of straw must have been wanted for the works on which the Israelites were engaged, and their labors must have been more than doubled by this requisition.

8 . tale ] that which is told or counted: an archaism for ‘number’ (= Germ. Zahl ). So v. 18, 1 Samuel 18:27 , 1 Chronicles 9:28 . Cf. Milton, L’Allegro , 67 f., ‘And every shepherd tells [i.e. counts : Psalm 48:12 ; Psalm 147:4 ] his tale [viz. of sheep] Under the hawthorn in the dale.’ The Heb. here means properly a rightly regulated amount . therefore they cry , &c.] Their request to be allowed to make a pilgrimage to their God is merely a pretext for idleness.

In J, on the contrary, Moses one (without Aaron) is told to go in before the Pharaoh, and he addresses the Pharaoh himself (in agreement with Exodus 4:10-16 , where Aaron is appointed to be Moses’ spokesman not with Pharaoh, as in P, but with the people ), Exodus 7:14-16 , Exodus 8:1 ; Exodus 8:9-10 ; Exodus 8:20 ; Exodus 8:26 ; Exodus 8:29 , Exodus 9:1 ; Exodus 9:13 ; Exodus 9:29 , Exodus 10:1 ; Exodus 10:9 ; Exodus 10:25 , Exodus 11:4-10 [116]; a formal demand is regularly made, Let my people go, that they may serve me , Exodus 7:16 , Exodus 8:1 ; Exodus 8:20 , Exodus 9:1 ; Exodus 9:13 , Exodus 10:3 (comp. before, Exodus 4:23 ); the interview with the Pharaoh is prolonged, and described in some detail; Jehovah Himself brings the plague, after it has been announced by Moses,—usually on the morrow, Exodus 8:23 , Exodus 9:5 f., 18, Exodus 10:4 ,—without any mention of Aaron or his rod; sometimes the king sends for Moses and Aaron to crave their intercession, Exodus 8:8 ; Exodus 8:25 , Exodus 9:27 , Exodus 10:16 ; the plague is removed, as it is brought, without any human intervention; the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart is expressed by kâbçd, hikbîd ( was heavy, made heavy ), Exodus 7:14 , Exodus 8:15 ; Exodus 8:32 , Exodus 9:7 ; Exodus 9:34 , Exodus 10:1 ; and there is no closing formula: J also, unlike both P and E, represents the Israelites as living apart from the Egyptians, in the land of Goshen,

As Pharaoh possessed neither fear of God (εὐσέβεια) nor fear of the gods, but, in the proud security of his might, determined to keep the Israelites as slaves, and to use them as tools for the glorifying of his kingdom by the erection of magnificent buildings, he suspected that their wish to go into the desert was nothing but an excuse invented by idlers, and prompted by a thirst for freedom, which might become dangerous to his kingdom, on account of the numerical strength of the people. He therefore thought that he could best extinguish such desires and attempts by increasing the oppression and adding to their labours. For this reason he instructed his bailiffs to abstain from delivering straw to the Israelites who were engaged in making bricks, and to let them gather it for themselves; but yet not to make the least abatement in the number (מתכּנת) to be delivered every day. בּעם הנּגשׂים, "those who urged the people on," were the bailiffs selected from the Egyptians and placed over the Israelitish workmen, the general managers of the work. Under them there were the שׁטרים (lit., writers, γραμματεῖς lxx, from שׁטר to write), who were chosen from the Israelites (vid., Exodus 5:14 ), and had to distribute the work among the people, and hand it over, when finished, to the royal officers. לבנים לבן: to make bricks, not to burn them; for the bricks in the ancient monuments of Egypt, and in many of the pyramids, are not burnt but dried in the sun (Herod. ii. 136; Hengst.

Egypt and Books of Moses, pp. 2 and 79ff.). קשׁשׁ: a denom. verb from קשׁ, to gather stubble, then to stubble, to gather ( Numbers 15:32-33 ). תּבן, of uncertain etymology, is chopped straw; here, the stubble that was left standing when the corn was reaped, or the straw that lay upon the ground. This they chopped up and mixed with the clay, to give greater durability to the bricks, as may be seen in bricks found in the oldest monuments (cf. Hgst. p. 79).