Exodus 5:18

18 Go therefore and work: straw shall not be given you, and you shall deliver the accustomed 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).


FOOTNOTES:

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

Exodus 5:18 In-Context

16 Straw is not given us, and bricks are required of us as before; behold we, thy servants, are beaten with whips, and thy people is unjustly dealt withal.
17 And he said: You are idle, and therefore you say: Let us go and sacrifice to the Lord.
18 Go therefore and work: straw shall not be given you, and you shall deliver the accustomed number of bricks.
19 And the officers of the children of Israel saw that they were in evil case, because it was said to them: There shall not a whit be diminished of the bricks for every day.
20 And they met Moses and Aaron, who stood over against them as they came out from Pharao:
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