Exodus 5:4

4 The king of Egypt said to them, "Moses and Aaron, why are you causing the people to neglect their work? Get to your labors!"

Exodus 5:4 Meaning and Commentary

Exodus 5:4

And the king of Egypt said to them
For he was not struck dumb, as Artapanus ^F7, afore cited writer, says:

wherefore do ye, Moses and Aaron, let the people from their works?
as they did when they gathered them together, and wrought signs before them; which Pharaoh it seems had heard of, and had got their names very readily:

get you unto your burdens;
meaning not Moses and Aaron, ordering them to go about their private and family business, but the people they represented, and on whose account they came; and it is highly probable the elders of the people, at least some of them, were with them, to whom these words might be more particularly directed. See ( Exodus 3:18 ) .

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FOOTNOTES:

F7 Ut supra. (Apud Euseb. Praepar. Evangel. l. 9. c. 27. p. 434.)

Exodus 5:4 In-Context

2 But Pharaoh responded, "Who is the Lord that I should obey Him by letting Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and what's more, I will not let Israel go."

3 Then they answered, "The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please let us go on a three-day trip into the wilderness so that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God, or else He may strike us with plague or sword."

4 The king of Egypt said to them, "Moses and Aaron, why are you causing the people to neglect their work? Get to your labors!"

5 Pharaoh also said, "Look, the people of the land are so numerous, and you would stop them from working."

6 That day Pharaoh commanded the overseers of the people as well as their foremen: