Exodus 5

Ex 5:1-23.

FIRST

INTERVIEW WITH

PHARAOH.

1. Moses and Aaron went in--As representatives of the Hebrews,

they were entitled to ask an audience of the king, and their thorough

Egyptian training taught them how and when to seek it.

and told Pharaoh--When introduced, they delivered a message in

the name of the God of Israel. This is the first time He is mentioned

(Ex 4:2)

and designed to put honor on the Hebrews in their depressed condition

(Heb 11:16).

2. And Pharaoh said, Who is the Lord--rather "Jehovah." Lord was

a common name applied to objects of worship; but Jehovah was a name he

had never heard of. Pharaoh estimated the character and power of this

God by the abject and miserable condition of the worshippers and

concluded that He held as low a rank among the gods as His people did

in the nation. To demonstrate the supremacy of the true God over all

the gods of Egypt, was the design of the plagues.

I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go--As his honor

and interest were both involved he determined to crush this attempt,

and in a tone of insolence, or perhaps profanity, rejected the request

for the release of the Hebrew slaves.

3. The God of the Hebrews hath met with us--Instead of being

provoked into reproaches or threats, they mildly assured him that it

was not a proposal originating among themselves, but a duty enjoined on

them by their God. They had for a long series of years been debarred

from the privilege of religious worship, and as there was reason to

fear that a continued neglect of divine ordinances would draw down upon

them the judgments of offended heaven, they begged permission to go

three days' journey into the desert--a place of seclusion--where their

sacrificial observances would neither suffer interruption nor give

umbrage to the Egyptians. In saying this, they concealed their ultimate

design of abandoning the kingdom, and by making this partial request at

first, they probably wished to try the king's temper before they

disclosed their intentions any farther. But they said only what God had

put in their mouths

(Ex 3:12, 18),

and this "legalizes the specific act, while it gives no sanction to the

general habit of dissimulation" [CHALMERS].

4. Wherefore do ye, Moses and Aaron, let the people from their

works? &c.--Without taking any notice of what they had said, he

treated them as ambitious demagogues, who were appealing to the

superstitious feelings of the people, to stir up sedition and diffuse a

spirit of discontent, which spreading through so vast a body of slaves,

might endanger the peace of the country.

6. Pharaoh commanded--It was a natural consequence of the high

displeasure created by this interview that he should put additional

burdens on the oppressed Israelites.

taskmasters--Egyptian overseers, appointed to exact labor of the

Israelites.

officers--Hebrews placed over their brethren, under the

taskmasters, precisely analogous to the Arab officers set over the Arab

Fellahs, the poor laborers in modern Egypt.

7. Ye shall no more give the people straw to make brick--The

making of bricks appears to have been a government monopoly as the

ancient bricks are nearly all stamped with the name of a king, and they

were formed, as they are still in Lower Egypt, of clay mixed with

chopped straw and dried or hardened in the sun. The Israelites were

employed in this drudgery; and though they still dwelt in Goshen and

held property in flocks and herds, they were compelled in rotation to

serve in the brick quarries, pressed in alternating groups, just as the

fellaheen, or peasants, are marched by press gangs in the same

country still.

let them go and gather straw for themselves--The enraged despot

did not issue orders to do an impracticable thing. The Egyptian reapers

in the corn harvest were accustomed merely to cut off the ears and

leave the stalk standing.

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.

12. So the people were scattered--It was an immense grievance to

the laborers individually, but there would be no hindrance from the

husbandmen whose fields they entered, as almost all the lands of Egypt

were in the possession of the crown

(Ge 47:20).

13-19. And the taskmasters hasted them . . . officers

. . . beaten--As the nearest fields were bared and the

people had to go farther for stubble, it was impossible for them to

meet the demand by the usual tale of bricks. "The beating of the

officers is just what might have been expected from an Eastern tyrant,

especially in the valley of the Nile, as it appears from the monuments,

that ancient Egypt, like modern China, was principally governed by the

stick" [TAYLOR]. "The mode of beating was by the

offender being laid flat on the ground and generally held by the hands

and feet while the chastisement was administered"

[WILKINSON].

(De 25:2).

A picture representing the Hebrews on a brick field, exactly as

described in this chapter, was found in an Egyptian tomb at Thebes.

20, 21. they met Moses . . . The Lord look upon you, and

judge--Thus the deliverer of Israel found that this patriotic

interference did, in the first instance, only aggravate the evil he

wished to remove, and that instead of receiving the gratitude, he was

loaded with the reproaches of his countrymen. But as the greatest

darkness is immediately before the dawn, so the people of God are often

plunged into the deepest affliction when on the eve of their

deliverance; and so it was in this case.