Moses speaks with Pharaoh
1 ① After this Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, “This is what Yahweh, the God of Israel says: ‘Let my people go, that they may hold a feast for me in the desert.” 2Pharaoh replied, “Who is Yahweh that I should listen to his voice and let Israel go? I do not know Yahweh and I will not let Israel go.” 3They then said, “The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Allow us to make a three days’ journey to the desert. There we shall offer sacrifices to Yahweh, our God, lest he punish us with the plague or the sword.” 4The king of Egypt said to them, “Moses and Aaron, why do you take people away from their work? Get back to your tasks. 5The people are now numerous and you are asking them to interrupt their work.”
6That same day Pharaoh gave the following order to the taskmasters of the people and to the Israelite foremen, 7“You will no longer supply the people with straw for making bricks. Let them go and find it themselves; 8but you will exact from them the same number of bricks as before, not one less. They are lazy and that is why they are crying out to go and sacrifice to their God. 9Make the work harder for the people and pay no attention to their lies.”
First difficulties
10The slave drivers and their Israelite foremen went out and said to the people, “Pharaoh will not give you any more straw. 11Go and get it yourselves wherever you can find it, but the amount of work done must be the same as before.”
12The people scattered throughout Egypt to gather stubble to use for straw. 13The taskmasters kept pressing them, saying, “Complete the work required of you each day, as you did when you had straw.” 14The taskmasters beat the Israelite foremen they had placed over the people saying, “Why haven’t your people completed the same amount of work as before?”
15The Israelite foremen complained to Pharaoh saying, “Why do you treat us like this? 16We are given no straw and yet we are told to make bricks. We are being beaten, but the fault is with your own people.” 17Pharaoh replied, “Lazy! You are lazy, and that is why you ask to go and sacrifice to Yahweh. 18Go back to work. You will not be given straw but you will produce the same number of bricks.”
19The Israelite foremen felt they were in great trouble. 20They met Moses and Aaron who were waiting for them 21and said to them, “May Yahweh look upon you and judge you, because you have made us hateful to Pharaoh and his ministers, and placed in his hand a sword to kill us.”
22Moses then turned to Yahweh and said, “O Lord! Why have you treated your people so badly? Why did you send me? 23From the time I spoke to Pharaoh in your name, he has brought trouble on this people and you have done nothing to rescue them!”
- Ex 5,1 The word of God is not as easily heard in the offices of the capital as in the desert. Pharaoh's responses and decisions seem to be the model which many contemporary directors and administrators imitate. Moses and Aaron receive a negative response and later face the mistrust of their companions. Throughout the history, we find the same op-position from those who did not want to take any initiative to liberate themselves, and did not trust in its success. They paid no attention to the leaders working for their good. Martin Luther King, shortly before his death, said with sadness that he was shocked by the indifference of the Blacks; he felt alone in struggling for the cause of his own people. God did not lack the means to advance his liberating work, provided that Moses would have faith and would persevere. Notice the embarrassment of those trusted Israelites who supervised people on behalf of the Egyptian authorities.
