Exodus 5:18

18 Now get to work. We won't give you any straw. But you still have to make the same number of bricks."

Exodus 5:18 Meaning and Commentary

Exodus 5:18

Go therefore now, and work
Go about your business, attend to your work, even you officers, as well as your people; work yourselves, as well as see that your people do theirs, and do not trouble me with such impertinent applications:

for there shall no straw be given you, yet shall ye deliver the tale of
bricks;
the usual number of bricks, as the Vulgate Latin version has it; though in ( Exodus 5:8 ) , it is rendered in that version the measure of bricks, and so another word is translated by them, ( Exodus 5:14 ) , and perhaps both may be intended, both number and measure; that is, that it was expected and insisted on that they delivered the full number of bricks they used to make, and these of full measure; for bricks were made of different measures, as Vitruvius ^F16 observes; some among the bricks were of two hands' breadth, others of four, and a third sort of five. (See Gill on Exodus 5:7).

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FOOTNOTES:

F16 Ut supra. (Vide Vitruvium de Architectura, l. 2. c. 3. p. 46)

Exodus 5:18 In-Context

16 You didn't give us any straw. But you told us, 'Make bricks!' We are being whipped. But it's the fault of your own people."

17 Pharaoh said, "You just don't want to work! That's why you keep saying, 'Let us go. We want to offer sacrifices to the Lord.'

18 Now get to work. We won't give you any straw. But you still have to make the same number of bricks."

19 The Israelites who were in charge of the people realized they were in trouble. They knew it when they were told, "Don't lower the number of bricks you are required to make each day."

20 When they left Pharaoh, they found Moses and Aaron waiting to meet them.