Exodus 5:11

Summary

Pharaoh's officials command the Israelites to go find their own straw for brick-making, since no reduction will be made to their required labor quota. The verse combines two imperatives with a causal clause explaining why the workers must fend for themselves.

Key words

• 'atem ("you", H0859D) — independent personal pronoun placed before the verbs, creating emphasis: "you (and no one else) go."
• lechu ("go", H1980G) and kechu ("acquire", H3947G) — both qal imperatives, masculine plural, stacked without a conjunction, giving the command an abrupt, urgent tone.
• tim'tze'u ("you will find", H4672) — qal imperfect, indicating an open-ended, future/ongoing action: the search itself is left unspecified in method or location.
• 'ein ("not", H0369) — construct-state negative existential noun, here paired with a participle to form a negated verbal clause ("there is none being diminished").
• nigra' ("[is] diminished", H1639) — niphal participle, passive in sense: the subject (the workload) undergoes reduction, but here that reduction is denied.

What the text says

The verse opens with the independent pronoun 'atem ("you", H0859D) placed emphatically before two consecutive imperatives, lechu ("go", H1980G) and kechu ("acquire", H3947G). This word order intensifies the directive, throwing weight onto the addressees themselves rather than the action. The object of the second imperative, teven ("straw", H8401), is followed by a relative clause introduced by me'asher ("from where", H9006+H0834C) and the imperfect verb tim'tze'u ("you will find", H4672), which leaves the location and method of finding straw entirely open — the imperfect aspect signals a repeatable, not-yet-completed action rather than a single event.

The second half of the verse is introduced by ki ("for", H3588A), a causal particle explaining the rationale behind the command. The core of this clause is built on 'ein ("not", H0369), a negative existential noun in construct form, combined with the niphal participle nigra' ("[is] diminished", H1639). This construction functions as a negated verbal sentence: literally "there is no diminishing," meaning nothing will be reduced. The construct noun 'avodat ("labor of", H5656I) plus the suffix -khem ("your", H9026) specifies whose labor is meant, and the final noun davar ("anything", H1697I) generalizes the negation to cover every possible item of the workload, not merely straw.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate renders the passive participle construction as a future indicative, "nec minuetur quidquam" ("nothing will be diminished"), shifting the Hebrew's participial, generalizing nuance into a straightforward future prediction. The LXX uses συντάξεως ("assignment/task") for 'avodat ("labor", H5656I), a term emphasizing an imposed order or quota rather than the broader sense of "labor" or "service" carried by the Hebrew noun.