Exodus 5:11

11 You go, get straw for yourselves from whatever you find because not a thing is being reduced from your work.'"

Exodus 5:11 Meaning and Commentary

Exodus 5:11

Go ye, get ye straw, where you can find it
Before it was provided by the king, and brought to the brickkilns, but now they are bid to go and fetch it themselves, and get it where they could, whether in fields or barns; and if they were obliged to pay for it out of their labour; it was a greater oppression still:

yet not ought of your work shall be diminished;
they were to do the same work, and make the same number of bricks, as when straw was brought and given them; and no allowance made for waste of time in seeking, or expenses in procuring straw, which was very hard upon them.

Exodus 5:11 In-Context

9 Let the work be heavier on the men so that they will do it and not pay attention to words of deception."

10 And the slave drivers of the people and their foremen went out, and they spoke to the people, saying, "Thus says Pharaoh, 'I [am] not giving you straw.

11 You go, get straw for yourselves from whatever you find because not a thing is being reduced from your work.'"

12 And the people spread out in all the land of Egypt to gather stubble for the straw.

13 And the slave drivers [were] insisting, saying, "Finish your work {for each day} on its day, as {when there was straw}."