3
EXO 5:3
12
EXO 5:12
ק לקשׁשׁ : “to gather stubble for straw;” not “stubble for, in the sense of instead of straw,” for ל is not equivalent to תּחת but to gather the stubble left in the fields for the chopped straw required for the bricks.
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13
EXO 5:13
בּיומו יום דּבר , the quantity fixed for every day, “ just as when the straw was (there),” i.e., was given out for the work.
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The messengers founded their request upon the fact that the God of the Hebrews had met them ( נקרא , vid., Exodus 3:18), and referred to the punishment which the neglect of the sacrificial festival demanded by God might bring upon the nation. פּן־יפגּענוּ : “ lest He strike us (attack us) with pestilence or sword.” פּגע : to strike, hit against any one, either by accident or with a hostile intent; ordinarily construed with בּ , also with an accusative, 1 Samuel 10:5, and chosen here probably with reference to נקרא = נקרה . “ Pestilence or sword: ” these are mentioned as expressive of a violent death, and as the means employed by the deities, according to the ordinary belief of the nations, to punish the neglect of their worship. The expression “God of the Hebrews,” for “God of Israel” (Exodus 5:1), is not chosen as being “more intelligible to the king, because the Israelites were called Hebrews by foreigners, more especially by the Egyptians (Exodus 1:16; Exodus 2:6),” as Knobel supposes, but to convince Pharaoh of the necessity for their going into the desert to keep the festival demanded by their God. In Egypt they might sacrifice to the gods of Egypt, but not to the God of the Hebrews.
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