Exodus 5:10

5:10 So the slave masters of the people and their foremen went to the Israelites and said, ¹  “Thus says Pharaoh: ‘I am not giving ²  you straw.

Exodus 5:19

5:19 The Israelite foremen saw ³  that they ⁴  were in trouble when they were told, ⁵  “You must not reduce the daily quota of your bricks.”

[5:10]  ¹ tn Heb “went out and spoke to the people saying.” Here “the people” has been specified as “the Israelites” for clarity.

[5:10]  ² tn The construction uses the negative particle combined with a subject suffix before the participle: אֵינֶנִּי נֹתֵן (’enenni noten, “there is not I – giving”).

[5:19]  ³ tn The common Hebrew verb translated “saw,” like the common English verb for seeing, is also used to refer to mental perception and understanding, as in the question “See what I mean?” The foremen understood how difficult things would be under this ruling.

[5:19]  ⁴ tn The text has the sign of the accusative with a suffix and then a prepositional phrase: אֹתָם בְּרָע (’otam bÿra’), meaning something like “[they saw] them in trouble” or “themselves in trouble.” Gesenius shows a few examples where the accusative of the reflexive pronoun is represented by the sign of the accusative with a suffix, and these with marked emphasis (GKC 439 §135.k).

[5:19]  ⁵ tn The clause “when they were told” translates לֵאמֹר (le’mor), which usually simply means “saying.” The thing that was said was clearly the decree that was given to them.