Exodus 5:11

5:11 You ¹  go get straw for yourselves wherever you can ²  find it, because there will be no reduction at all in your workload.’”

Exodus 21:10

21:10 If he takes another wife, ³  he must not diminish the first one’s food, ⁴  her clothing, or her marital rights. ⁵ 

Exodus 5:19

5:19 The Israelite foremen saw ⁶  that they ⁷  were in trouble when they were told, ⁸  “You must not reduce the daily quota of your bricks.”

Exodus 5:8

5:8 But you must require ⁹  of them the same quota of bricks that they were making before. ¹⁰  Do not reduce it, for they are slackers. ¹¹  That is why they are crying, ‘Let us go sacrifice to our God.’

[5:11]  ¹ tn The independent personal pronoun emphasizes that the people were to get their own straw, and it heightens the contrast with the king. “You – go get.”

[5:11]  ² tn The tense in this section could be translated as having the nuance of possibility: “wherever you may find it,” or the nuance of potential imperfect: “wherever you are able to find any.”

[21:10]  ³ tn “wife” has been supplied.

[21:10]  ⁴ tn The translation of “food” does not quite do justice to the Hebrew word. It is “flesh.” The issue here is that the family she was to marry into is wealthy, they ate meat. She was not just to be given the basic food the ordinary people ate, but the fine foods that this family ate.

[21:10]  ⁵ sn See S. Paul, “Exodus 21:10, A Threefold Maintenance Clause,” JNES 28 (1969): 48-53. Paul suggests that the third element listed is not marital rights but ointments since Sumerian and Akkadian texts list food, clothing, and oil as the necessities of life. The translation of “marital rights” is far from certain, since the word occurs only here. The point is that the woman was to be cared for with all that was required for a woman in that situation.

[5:19]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ 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]  ⁷ 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.

[5:8]  ⁷ tn The verb is the Qal imperfect of שִׂים (sim, “place, put”). The form could be an imperfect of instruction: “You will place upon them the quota.” Or, as here, it may be an obligatory imperfect: “You must place.”

[5:8]  ⁸ tn Heb “yesterday and three days ago” or “yesterday and before that” is idiomatic for “previously” or “in the past.”

[5:8]  ⁹ tn Or “loafers.” The form נִרְפִּים (nirpim) is derived from the verb רָפָה (rafah), meaning “to be weak, to let oneself go.” They had been letting the work go, Pharaoh reasoned, and being idle is why they had time to think about going to worship.