Exodus 5:5

5 Look, there are many of your people in the land, and you are stopping them from their work.”

Exodus 5:5 Meaning and Commentary

Exodus 5:5

And Pharaoh said, behold, the people of the land now are many,
&c.] So that if some were taken off, as suggested, there were enough of them to do business and so he cared not; but if allowed to go, they might mutiny and rebel, and give a great deal of trouble to quell them; or it may be, the sense is, they were very numerous, and too numerous already, and if they were took off of their work, and allowed to go a feasting, they would be more so, which agrees with the next clause:

and you make them rest from their burdens;
which was the way to make them more numerous still, and to frustrate the design of laying burdens upon them, which was originally intended to hinder the multiplication of them, ( Exodus 1:9-14 ) .

Exodus 5:5 In-Context

3 But Aaron and Moses persisted. “The God of the Hebrews has met with us,” they declared. “So let us take a three-day journey into the wilderness so we can offer sacrifices to the LORD our God. If we don’t, he will kill us with a plague or with the sword.”

4 Pharaoh replied, “Moses and Aaron, why are you distracting the people from their tasks? Get back to work!

5 Look, there are many of your people in the land, and you are stopping them from their work.”

6 That same day Pharaoh sent this order to the Egyptian slave drivers and the Israelite foremen:

7 “Do not supply any more straw for making bricks. Make the people get it themselves!