To Deny CHRIST: Part 10 Making Bricks Without Straw

Exodus 5:9-11

“Let the work be heavy (press heavily) upon the people, and they shall make with it (i.e., stick to their work), and not look at lying words.” By “lying words” the king meant the words of Moses, that the God of Israel had appeared to him, and demanded a sacrificial festival from His people. In Exo_5:11 special emphasis is laid upon אַתֶּם “ye:” “Go, ye yourselves, fetch your straw,” not others for you as heretofore; “for nothing is taken (diminished) from your work.” The word כִּי for has been correctly explained by Kimchi as supposing a parenthetical thought, et quidem alacriter vobis eundum est.

Exodus 5:14-18

As the Israelites could not do the work appointed them, their overlookers were beaten by the Egyptian bailiffs; and when they complained to the king of this treatment, they were repulsed with harshness, and told “Ye are idle, idle; therefore ye say, Let us go and sacrifice to Jehovah.” עַמֶּךְ וְחָטָאת: “and thy people sin;” i.e., not “thy people (the Israelites) must be sinners,” which might be the meaning of חָטָא according to Gen_43:9, but “thy (Egyptian) people sin.” “Thy people” must be understood as applying to the Egyptians, on account of the antithesis to “thy servants,” which not only refers to the Israelitish overlookers, but includes all the Israelites, especially in the first clause. חָטָאת is an unusual feminine form, for חָטְאָה (vid., Gen_33:11); and עַם is construed as a feminine, as in Jdg_18:7 and Jer_8:5.