1 And afterward Moses and Aaron went in, and told Pharaoh, “This what the I AM of Israel says, ‘Let My people go, that they may hold a feast unto Me in the wilderness.’ “
2 And Pharaoh said, “Who is the LORD, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I know not the LORD, neither will I let Israel go.”
What the King James Bible renders “LORD” is the word Yehovah which means “The Existing One;” In other words, “The I AM.” (“Lord,” without being all capitals, is from a different Hebrew word.)
Pharaoh was not familiar with this particular God. If he was Neferhotep I of the 13th dynasty, he was brought up the son of a priest. He would have known about all the gods of the Egyptians. This was not one of them.
3 And they said, “The God of the Hebrews has met with us: let us go, we pray thee, three days' journey into the desert, and sacrifice unto the LORD our God; lest He fall upon us with pestilence, or with the sword.”
4 And the king of Egypt said unto them, “Why do ye, Moses and Aaron, let the people [quit] from their work? Get you unto your burdens.”
Pharaoh felt no threat from the God of a bunch of slaves. He probably thought that if their God was powerful enough to cause him harm, they wouldn’t be slaves in the first place.
5 And Pharaoh said, “Behold, the people of the land now are many, and ye make them rest from their burdens.”
“Ahhh, you all just want a vacation.”
6 And Pharaoh commanded the same day the supervisors of the people, and their foremen, saying,
7 “Ye shall no not give the people straw to make brick, as before: let them go and gather straw for themselves.
He is punishing Israel for asking for a vacation.
8 “And the total amount of bricks, which they did make before, ye shall still require from them; ye shall not reduce anything: for they be lazy; therefore they cry, saying, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to our God.’
His logic is that if they were working hard enough they wouldn’t have time to dream up such ideas as vacations and other gods than the ones he worshiped.
9 “Let there more work be laid on the men, that they may labor in it; and let them not listen to empty words.”
10 And the supervisors of the people went out, and their foremen, and they spake to the people, saying, “This is what Pharaoh says, I will not give you straw.
11 “Go ye, get you straw where ye can find it: yet none of your work shall be lessened.”
Israel was being used to make bricks.
Archeologists have discovered a town in the Egyptian delta named Kahun that was inhabited by semantic slaves. This town was by the great building projects of the 12th dynasty, including the last of the great pyramids (which was built of bricks, not stone).
Scarabs found in the town tell us it was occupied until sometime in the reign of Neferhotep I, when it was abandoned suddenly (lots of furniture and tools left behind as if the people didn’t have time to pack.) There are boxes with baby boy bones in them under the floorboards of most of these houses, sometimes several skeletons, all about 1-3 months old.
(The Traditional Timeline places the Exodus in the 19th dynasty, but that is increasingly being questioned because of the lack of evidence.)
12 So the people were scattered abroad throughout all the land of Egypt to gather stubble instead of straw.
In most of the world throughout history bricks were made with just mud and then baked to make them stronger. However, in a country- like Egypt- with no trees, this would have been too costly to fuel.
Instead, archeologists tell us the Egyptians made bricks with a mixture of straw and mud. The straw gave substance for the mud to hold to, but more importantly, the acid produced by the decaying straw “baked” the bricks, making them much stronger with much less fuel than baking them in a kiln.
13 And the taskmasters hurried them, saying, “Fulfill your works, your daily tasks, as when there was straw.”
The Israelites had a certain quota they had to fulfill which was not lessened even though they were no longer provided with the materials they needed to make bricks with. (Archeologists have found records in Egypt keeping a tally of bricks required and produced by slaves during various times throughout history.)
14 And the foremen of the children of Israel, which Pharaoh's supervisors had set over them, were beaten, and demanded, “Why haven't ye fulfilled your task in making brick both yesterday and today, as before?”
15 Then the foremen of the children of Israel came and cried unto Pharaoh, saying, “Why do thou treat thy servants like this?
16 “There is no straw given unto thy servants, and they say to us, ‘Make brick:’ and, behold, thy servants are beaten; but the fault is in thine own people.”
17 But he said, “Ye are lazy, ye are lazy. That's why ye say, ‘Let us go and do sacrifice to the I AM.’
18 “Go therefore now, and work; for there shall no straw be given you, yet shall ye deliver the tale of bricks.”
19 And the foremen of the children of Israel did see that they were in bad trouble, after it was said, “Ye shall not diminish anything from your bricks of your daily task.”
20 And they met Moses and Aaron, who stood in the way, as they came out from Pharaoh:
21 And they said unto them, “The I AM look on you, and judge; because ye have made our (scent) to be abhorred in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of his servants, to put a sword in their hand to slay us.”
The Israelites were upset. They wanted Moses to deliver them from slavery, not make more work and a cause for beating!
Yet God knew their slavery was not harsh enough yet to keep them from returning when things get hard in the wilderness, so He is making sure it gets uncomfortable enough they won’t want to come back.
22 And Moses returned unto the I AM, and said, “I AM, why have Thou treated Thy people so evilly? Why is it that Thou have sent me?
23 For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Thy name, he has done evil to this people; neither have Thou delivered Thy people at all.”
Moses is confused. He evidently expected God to cause Pharaoh to just release them, even though God already told him when he was still in the desert that it wouldn’t happen that way.
Sometimes we all get impatient for God to act even when He has told us His timing was different.