Exodus 5:18

18 ite ergo et operamini paleae non dabuntur vobis et reddetis consuetum numerum laterum

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 paleae non dantur nobis et lateres similiter imperantur en famuli tui flagellis caedimur et iniuste agitur contra populum tuum

17 qui ait vacatis otio et idcirco dicitis eamus et sacrificemus Domino

18 ite ergo et operamini paleae non dabuntur vobis et reddetis consuetum numerum laterum

19 videbantque se praepositi filiorum Israhel in malo eo quod diceretur eis non minuetur quicquam de lateribus per singulos dies

20 occurreruntque Mosi et Aaron qui stabant ex adverso egredientes a Pharaone