_A.M. 2513. B.C. 1491._ Moses and Aaron apply to Pharaoh to get leave of him to go to worship in the wilderness. (1,) _ They demand leave in the name of God, Exodus 5:1, and he answers their demand with a defiance of God, Exodus 5:2._ (2,) They beg leave in the name of Israel, Exodus 5:3, and he a... [ Continue Reading ]
_Thus saith the Lord God of Israel_ Moses, in treating with the _elders of Israel_, is directed to call God the _God of their fathers;_ but in treating with Pharaoh, he and Aaron call him the _God of Israel_, and it is the first time we find him called so in Scripture. He is called the God of Israel... [ Continue Reading ]
_Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice?_ I am the sovereign lord of Egypt, and I own no superior here. The Hebrew name _Jehovah_ ought to have been retained in this and the preceding verse, and not to have been translated _Lord. Thus saith Jehovah who is Jehovah I know not Jehovah._ The Egyp... [ Continue Reading ]
_Three days' journey into the desert_ And that on a good errand, and unexceptionable: we will _sacrifice to the Lord our God_ As other people do to theirs; lest if we quite cast off his worship, _he fall upon us_ With one judgment or other, and then Pharaoh will lose his vassals. Though it was the... [ Continue Reading ]
_Get you to your burdens_ These words were not addressed to Moses and Aaron, but to the Israelites, the elders of whom went with Moses, several others also probably following him, when he went in unto Pharaoh, impatient to see what the end would be.... [ Continue Reading ]
_The people are many_ Therefore your injury to me is greater, in attempting to make them rest from their labours. _The task- masters_ Were Egyptians; _the officers_ Were Israelites employed under them, who, as appears from Exodus 5:14, were some of the heads of the people, obliged, under the penalty... [ Continue Reading ]
_Straw_ To mix with the clay. Shaw tells us in his _Travels_, (p. 136,) that “the composition of bricks in Egypt was only a mixture of clay, mud, and straw, slightly blended and kneaded together, and afterward baked in the sun. _Paleis cohærent lateres_, says Philo in his _Life of Moses._ The straw... [ Continue Reading ]
_They are idle_ The cities they built for Pharaoh were witnesses for them that they were not idle; yet he thus basely misrepresents them, that he might have a pretence to _increase their burdens._... [ Continue Reading ]
_Vain words_ Those of Moses and Aaron, which he said were vain, or false; that is, that they falsely pretended that their God had commanded them to go and worship, when it was only a crafty design of their own to advance themselves by raising sedition.... [ Continue Reading ]
_The fault is in thine own people_ That is, in the Egyptian task- masters; who, by sending us abroad to gather straw, hinder us from doing the work which they require; and so are both unjust and unreasonable. For if they had given us straw we should have fulfilled our tasks.... [ Continue Reading ]
_The Lord look upon you and judge_ They should have humbled themselves before God, but instead of that they fly in the face of their best friends. Those that are called to public service for God and their generation, must expect to be tried not only by the threats of proud enemies, but by the unjust... [ Continue Reading ]
_Moses returned unto the Lord_ And expostulated with him. He knew not how to reconcile the providence with the promise, and the commission he had received. Is this God's coming down to deliver _Israel?_ Must I, who hoped to be a blessing to them, become a scourge to them? By this attempt to get them... [ Continue Reading ]