Exodus 5:3

World English Bible

Contextual Overview

³ They said, "The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please let us go three days' journey into the wilderness, and sacrifice to Yahweh, our God, lest he fall on us with pestilence, or with the sword." ⁴ The king of Egypt said to them, "Why do you, Moses and Aaron, take the people from their work? Get back to your burdens!" ⁵ Pharaoh said, "Behold, the people of the land are now many, and you make them rest from their burdens." ⁶ The same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people, and their officers, saying, ⁷ "You shall no longer give the people straw to make brick, as before. Let them go and gather straw for themselves. ⁸ The number of the bricks, which they made before, you require from them. You shall not diminish anything of it, for they are idle; therefore they cry, saying, 'Let us go and sacrifice to our God.' ⁹ Let heavier work be laid on the men, that they may labor therein; and don't let them pay any attention to lying words."

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

The God: Exodus 3:18

lest he: Deuteronomy 28:21, 2 Kings 17:25, 2 Chronicles 30:8, Ezra 7:23, Ezekiel 6:11, Zechariah 14:16-19

Reciprocal: Genesis 22:4 - third Exodus 7:16 - The Lord Exodus 9:3 - murrain Exodus 10:9 - a feast Numbers 14:12 - smite 1 Kings 13:8 - If Job 15:25 - strengtheneth 2 Corinthians 11:22 - Hebrews

Cross-References

Genesis 4:25
Adam knew his wife again. She gave birth to a son, and named him Seth. For, she said, "God has appointed me another child instead of Abel, for Cain killed him."

Genesis 5:2
He created them male and female, and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.

Genesis 5:3
Adam lived one hundred thirty years, and became the father of a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.

Genesis 5:14
and all the days of Kenan were nine hundred ten years, then he died.

Genesis 5:16
Mahalalel lived after he became the father of Jared eight hundred thirty years, and became the father of sons and daughters.

Job 14:4
Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one.

Job 25:4
How then can man be just with God? Or how can he who is born of a woman be clean?

Psalms 51:5
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity. In sin did my mother conceive me.

Luke 1:35
The angel answered her, "The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore also the holy one which is born from you will be called the Son of God.

John 3:6
That which is born of the flesh is flesh. That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And they said, the God of the Hebrews hath met with us,.... Perceiving that the name Jehovah was unknown to him, and treated by him in a scornful manner, they leave it out, and only say, "the God of the Hebrews": a people that dwelt in his country, he well knew by this name, and could not be ignorant that their God was different from his; and it was he that had met Moses and Aaron; they did not seek to him to be sent on this errand, but he appeared to them as he did to Moses at Horeb, and to Aaron in Egypt. Some render it, "the God of the Hebrews is called upon us" f; his name was called upon them, or they were called by his name; they were his servants and worshippers, and therefore under obligation to attend to what he enjoined them:

let us go, we pray thee, three days' journey into the desert: a request which was made in a very humble and modest manner, and not at all extravagant, nor anything dangerous and disadvantageous to him; for now they speak as of themselves, and therefore humbly entreat him; they do not ask to be wholly and for ever set free, only to go for three days; they do not propose to meet and have their rendezvous in any part of his country, much less in his metropolis, where he night fear they would rise in a body, and seize upon his person and treasure, only to go into the wilderness, to Mount Sinai there. And hence it appears, that the distance between Egypt and Mount Sinai was three days' journey, to go the straightest way, as Aben Ezra observes:

and sacrifice unto the Lord our God: which is what was meant by keeping a feast; some sacrifices the people, as well as the priests, feasted on; this was not a civil, but a religious concern:

lest he fall upon us with pestilence, or with the sword: this they urge as a reason to have their request granted, taken from the danger they should be exposed unto, should they not be allowed to go and offer sacrifice to God; though by this they might suggest both loss and danger to Pharaoh, in order to stir him up the more to listen to their request; for should they be smitten with pestilence, or the sword, he would lose the benefit of their bond service, which would be a considerable decline in his revenues; and besides, if God would be so displeased with the Israelites for not going, and not sacrificing, when they were detained, how much more displeased would he be with Pharaoh and the Egyptians for hindering them?

f נקרא עלינו "est invocatus super nos", Montanus. So some in Vatablus, Drusius.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Three days’ journey - See the Exodus 3:18 note.

With pestilence, or with the sword - This shows that the plague was well known to the ancient Egyptians. The reference to the sword is equally natural, since the Israelites occupied the eastern district, which was frequently disturbed by the neighboring Shasous.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Exodus 5:3. Three days' journey — The distance from Goshen to Sinai; see Exodus 3:18.

And sacrifice unto the Lord — Great stress is laid on this circumstance. God required sacrifice; no religious acts which they performed could be acceptable to him without this. He had now showed them that it was their indispensable duty thus to worship him, and that if they did not they might expect him to send the pestilence - some plague or death proceeding immediately from himself, or the sword - extermination by the hands of an enemy. The original word דבר deber, from בדר dabar, to drive off, draw under, c., which we translate pestilence from the Latin pestis, the plague, signifies any kind of disease by which an extraordinary mortality is occasioned, and which appears from the circumstances of the case to come immediately from God. The Israelites could not sacrifice in the land of Egypt, because the animals they were to offer to God were held sacred by the Egyptians and they could not omit this duty, because it was essential to religion even before the giving of the law. Thus we find that Divine justice required the life of the animal for the life of the transgressor, and the people were conscious, if this were not done, that God would consume them with the pestilence or the sword. From the foundation of the world the true religion required sacrifice. Before, under, and after the law, this was deemed essential to salvation. Under the Christian dispensation Jesus is the lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world; and being still the Lamb newly slain before the throne, no man cometh unto the Father but by him.

"In this first application to Pharaoh, we observe," says Dr. Dodd, "that proper respectful submission which is due from subjects to their sovereign. They represent to him the danger they should be in by disobeying their God, but do not so much as hint at any punishment that would follow to Pharaoh."