Exodus 5

Moses and Aaron ask Pharaoh if the Israelites may go the wilderness to offer sacrifices to God so that He won't "strike [them] with plagues or with the sword" (verse 3). I don't know if this was pretense, or if Moses and Aaron really did fear that God would start smiting them instead of the Egyptians. It's probably a bit of both--after all, as you remember from the last chapter, God was about to kill Moses until his wife prudently circumcised their son on the spot. God does seem more wrathful in the Old Testament than He does in the New. Were people really that much worse back then? Or maybe we are worse today--after all, back then, many people fell amenably in line after God swung death's proverbial scythe back and forth a few times. With the increased value on independent, even maverick thinking nowadays--which is an undeniably beneficial quality in most cases--I wonder if God knows that performing such spectacular acts in such skeptical times will turn more people away. Of course, this all just me typing out of my posterior, which is par for the course for me. (And yes, I'm mixing metaphors, but I'm too indolent to change them.)

Pharaoh not only refuses the request, but he also makes the Israelites' work even more onerous by making them fetch their own straw to put into the bricks they're making--while not reducing the quota by one iota. Straw, as the handy NIV Study Bible notes, serves as a binder in the bricks, helping to hold the clay together. Presumably, someone (who?) gathered the straw beforehand, but now the Israelites have to traipse all over creation to look for the straw.

Pharaoh keeps throwing the word "lazy" around. To which our good friend Inigo Montoya would say this:

As mentioned in Exodus 1, Pharaoh is treating the Israelites like bath tissue because he fears them--either because they'll revolt, or because they'll leave. However, once the Israelites do leave, Egypt apparently does quite well economically for a while longer. Sometimes, we fear situations that we think will make our lives more difficult, but we still survive.

The Israelite overseers, looking for anyone to blame but themselves, incriminate Moses and Aaron for making them "obnoxious to Pharaoh and his officials," even going so far as say that God will judge the two brothers (verse 21). Such are the perils of leadership; although I've never held a position of too much power, I have been in situations in which I just wish I could tell some miffed people why I was acting like I was, but because of discretion, I couldn't. Of course, I've also acted lamentably in situations in which it was completely my fault.

And in the cliffhanger that closes this chapter, Moses definitely seems to be heading in that direction, rebuking God for not rescuing His people on Moses's timetable. And how does God respond? Tune in next week next time for the thrilling conclusion to this rip-roaring conversation!