Exodus 5:14

The officers... were beaten. — This is the usual practice in the East. When any requisition is made on a town or a village, or any body of persons, the procuring of it is left to the “head men,” who are alone responsible to the Government, and are punished in case they fail to exact the full amount.

And demanded. — Rather, and asked, or (as Kalisch renders it) “with the words.”