Keluaran 5:10-12

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. 5:11 You ³  go get straw for yourselves wherever you can ⁴  find it, because there will be no reduction at all in your workload.’” 5:12 So the people spread out ⁵  through all the land of Egypt to collect stubble for straw.

[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”).

[5:11]  ³ 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]  ⁴ 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.”

[5:12]  ⁵ tn The verb וַיָּפֶץ (vayyafets) is from the hollow root פּוּץ (puts) and means “scatter, spread abroad.”