Shemot 5:18

18 Go therefore now, and work; for there shall no straw be given you, yet shall ye deliver the tokhen (full measure) of bricks.

Shemot 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)

Shemot 5:18 In-Context

16 There is no straw given unto thy avadim, and they say to us, Make brick. And, hinei, thy avadim are beaten; but the fault is in thine own people.

17 But he said, Ye are idle, ye are idle: therefore ye say, Let us go and do sacrifice to Hashem.

18 Go therefore now, and work; for there shall no straw be given you, yet shall ye deliver the tokhen (full measure) of bricks.

19 And the foremen of the Bnei Yisroel did see that they were in rah (trouble), after it was said, Ye shall not reduce ought from your bricks of your daily task.

20 And they went to meet Moshe and Aharon, who stood waiting to meet them, as they came forth from Pharaoh: