Exodus 5:8

8 And make them produce the same number of bricks - no reduction in their daily quotas! They're getting lazy. They're going around saying, 'Give us time off so we can worship our God.'

Exodus 5:8 Meaning and Commentary

Exodus 5:8

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.

Exodus 5:8 In-Context

6 Pharaoh took immediate action. He sent down orders to the slave-drivers and their underlings:

7 "Don't provide straw for the people for making bricks as you have been doing. Make them get their own straw.

8 And make them produce the same number of bricks - no reduction in their daily quotas! They're getting lazy. They're going around saying, 'Give us time off so we can worship our God.'

9 Crack down on them. That'll cure them of their whining, their god-fantasies."

10 The slave-drivers and their underlings went out to the people with their new instructions. "Pharaoh's orders: No more straw provided.