Exodus 5:12

World English Bible

Contextual Overview

¹⁰ The taskmasters of the people went out, and their officers, and they spoke to the people, saying, This is what Pharaoh says: "I will not give you straw. ¹¹ Go yourselves, get straw where you can find it, for nothing of your work shall be diminished." ¹² So the people were scattered abroad throughout all the land of Egypt to gather stubble for straw. ¹³ The taskmasters were urgent saying, "Fulfill your work quota daily, as when there was straw!" ¹⁴ The officers of the children of Israel, whom Pharaoh's taskmasters had set over them, were beaten, and demanded, "Why haven't you fulfilled your quota both yesterday and today, in making brick as before?"

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

stubble: Exodus 15:7, Isaiah 5:24, Isaiah 47:14, Joel 2:5, Nahum 1:10, Obadiah 1:18, 1 Corinthians 3:12

Cross-References

Luke 3:37
the son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Mahalaleel, the son of Cainan,

Gill's Notes on the Bible

So the people were scattered abroad throughout all the land of Egypt,.... That part of it where they dwelt:

to gather stubble instead of straw; straw not being easy to come at, they were obliged to gather stubble that was left in the fields, after the corn was gathered in. Ben Melech observes, that the word signifies small straw, or small sticks of wood, and Kimchi m, and if so, this must be to burn the bricks with in the furnaces.

m Sepher Shorash, rad. קשש.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Stubble instead of straw - Rather, for the straw: i. e. to be prepared as straw. This marks the season of the year, namely, early spring, after the barley or wheat harvest, toward the end of April. Their suffering must have been severe: at that season the pestilential sand-wind blows over Egypt some 50 days, hence, its name - Chamsin. (compare Genesis 41:6 note).