Exodus5chapter 5

Exodus 5:1

The demand is freedom for a purpose, and the purpose travels with it. Let my people go occurs nine times in Exodus and seven of those carry the clause that they may serve me, at 4:23, 7:16, 8:1, 8:20, 9:1, 9:13 and 10:3. Here it is a feast in the wilderness, so the first thing Pharaoh is asked to release is worship.

Exodus 5:2

Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice: Pharaoh's question is the one the rest of the book answers. God's stated aim in the plagues uses the same vocabulary back at him, that the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, at 7:5, 14:4 and 14:18, and at 12:31 Pharaoh himself tells Moses to go and serve the LORD and then asks to be blessed. Adam Clarke reads the question as the ordinary assumption that every nation had its own god rather than as a denial that any god exists.

Exodus 5:3

The three day march into the desert repeats the wording Moses was given at the bush. God gave him these words at Exodus 3:18, including the title the God of the Hebrews and the length of the march, so Moses delivers the errand as it was framed for him. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the partial request as a way of testing the king before the whole intention was disclosed, and the text itself reports only the words.

Exodus 5:4-5

Pharaoh answers a request about worship with a sentence about work, and his word for it is burdens, the same word that carried the oppression at 1:11 and the scene Moses walked into at 2:11. His reason in verse 5 repeats the fear that started the bondage, that the people of the land now are many, which is what the new king said at 1:9. The reply deals with labour and numbers alone.

Exodus 5:6-7

Two ranks stand between Pharaoh and the brickfield, the taskmasters who are Egyptians and the officers who are Israelites set over their own countrymen. Verse 14 shows the arrangement working, since it is the Hebrew officers who are beaten when the count falls short. The straw was chopped and mixed into the clay, and Egyptian sun dried brick has been recovered with the straw still in it.

Exodus 5:8-9

Tale here means the count, so the quota stands while the material is withdrawn. Pharaoh gives his reason twice, that they be idle, and he calls the message brought to him vain words. A request to be released for the service of God is answered by increasing the service owed to Pharaoh, and the Hebrew root behind both kinds of service is the same one.

Exodus 5:10-11

Thus saith Pharaoh stands in the same chapter as Thus saith the LORD at verse 1, and the two formulas are carried by two sets of messengers to the same people. A word from God is answered by a word from the throne in the same form. Verse 11 leaves the people to find straw wherever they can and keeps the daily count exactly where it was.

Exodus 5:12-13

A nation settled together in Goshen is spread through all the land of Egypt hunting stubble. Albert Barnes places the search after the barley and wheat harvest, which puts it in the weeks when the hot wind blows across Egypt. The taskmasters hold the daily tasks at the rate that was set when the straw was still being delivered.

Exodus 5:14

The blows land on the Israelite officers rather than on the Egyptians who issued the order. Adam Clarke describes the punishment as the bastinado, laid on the soles of the feet, which was the ordinary Egyptian penalty for a minor offence and left a man unable to walk for weeks. A tomb painting found at Thebes shows brickmakers working under overseers with sticks, which is the scene these verses describe.

Exodus 5:15-16

Israel cried at 2:23 and the cry came up unto God, who heard and remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Here the officers cry to the man who signed the order they are appealing against, and they leave with nothing. They tell him that the fault is in thine own people, which is as near an accusation as a slave may carry to a king.

Exodus 5:17-18

Pharaoh repeats the charge instead of answering the complaint. Albert Barnes notes that Egyptian religious texts count idleness among the sins weighed at the final judgment, so the king is reaching for a word his own court would take seriously against men who work in a brickfield. Verse 18 closes the interview by restating the terms, no straw and the same tale of bricks.

Exodus 5:19-20

The officers now understand that the order came from the throne and that no appeal is left anywhere. Adam Clarke reads their position as one where they could expect neither justice nor mercy. They place themselves in the way as Moses and Aaron come out, so the meeting in the next verse is arranged rather than accidental.

Exodus 5:21

The Lord look upon you, and judge: This is the first time Israel turns on Moses, and the same shape returns at the sea in 14:11, at Marah in 15:24, in the wilderness of Sin at 16:2 and at Rephidim in 17:2. The word murmured does not occur until 15:24, so what stands here is the pattern of the complaint rather than the term Exodus later uses for it. John Wesley observes that men called to public service are tried by the censure of friends as well as by the threats of enemies.

Exodus 5:22-23

Moses brings the charge to God directly, that God has dealt evil with this people and has not delivered them at all. The text records no rebuke, and the answer at 6:1 is a promise rather than a correction, now shalt thou see what I will do to Pharaoh. Habakkuk 1:2 and Jeremiah 20:7 press the same kind of question, and Scripture keeps the protests of its own prophets on the record.