Exodus 5:11

Go ye, get you straw where ye can find it: yet not ought of your work shall be diminished.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

5:10-23 The Egyptian task-masters were very severe. See what need we have to pray that we may be delivered from wicked men. The head-workmen justly complained to Pharaoh: but he taunted them. The malice of Satan has often represented the service and worship of God, as fit employment only for those who have nothing else to do, and the business only of the idle; whereas, it is the duty of those who are most busy in the world. Those who are diligent in doing sacrifice to the Lord, will, before God, escape the doom of the slothful servant, though with men they do not. The Israelites should have humbled themselves before God, and have taken to themselves the shame of their sin; but instead of that, they quarrel with those who were to be their deliverers. Moses returned to the Lord. He knew that what he had said and done, was by God's direction; and therefore appeals to him. When we find ourselves at any time perplexed in the way of our duty, we ought to go to God, and lay open our case before him by fervent prayer. Disappointments in our work must not drive us from our God, but still we must ponder why they are sent.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Some of the most ancient buildings in Egypt were constructed of bricks not burned, but dried in the sun; they were made of clay, or more commonly of mud, mixed with straw chopped into small pieces. An immense quantity of straw must have been wanted for the works on which the Israelites were engaged, and their labors must have been more than doubled by this requisition.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

8. tale—an appointed number of bricks. The materials of their labor were to be no longer supplied, and yet, as the same amount of produce was exacted daily, it is impossible to imagine more aggravated cruelty—a perfect specimen of Oriental despotism.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Go ye, get ye straw, where you can find it,.... Before it was provided by the king, and brought to the brickkilns, but now they are bid to go and fetch it themselves, and get it where they could, whether in fields or barns; and if they were obliged to pay for it out of their labour; it was a greater oppression still:

yet not ought of your work shall be diminished; they were to do the same work, and make the same number of bricks, as when straw was brought and given them; and no allowance made for waste of time in seeking, or expenses in procuring straw, which was very hard upon them.

Geneva Study Bible

Go ye, get you straw where ye can find it: yet not ought of your work shall be diminished.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 11. - Get you straw where ye can find it. Straw was not valued in Egypt. Reaping was effected either by gathering the ears, or by cutting the stalks of the corn at a short distance below the heads; and the straw was then left almost entirely upon the ground. Grass was so plentiful that it was not required for fodder, and there was no employment of it as litter in farmyards. Thus abundance of straw could be gathered in the cornfields after harvest; and as there were many harvests, some sort of straw was probably obtainable in the Delta at almost all seasons of the year. To collect it, however, and chop it small, as required in brickmaking, consumed much time, and left too little for the actual making of the bricks. Exodus 5:11

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

"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 Exodus 5:11 special emphasis is laid upon אתּם "ye:" "Go, ye yourselves, fetch your straw," not others for you as heretofore; "for nothing is taken (diminished) from your work." The word כּי for has been correctly explained by Kimchi as supposing a parenthetical thought, et quidem alacriter vobis eundum est.