Exodus 5:8

Summary

Pharaoh instructs his officials to impose on the Israelites the same quota (matkonet, H4971) of bricks (levenim, H3843) they were making before, without reduction, because he judges them "idle" (nirpim, H7503) — this being, in his view, the reason they demand to go sacrifice to their God.

Key words

• matKonet ("measurement/quota of", H4971) — feminine singular noun in construct state, linking directly to "the bricks"; denotes a fixed quantity or standard.
• nirPim ("idle ones", H7503) — Niphal participle, masculine plural, from a root related to slackening/relaxing; the Niphal (passive/reflexive) stem frames this as a state or condition attributed to them ("they are the ones who are slack") rather than an active verb.
• tigre'U ("you will diminish", H1639) — Qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine plural, preceded by lo' ("not", H3808), forming a direct prohibition against reducing the quota.
• tzo'aKim ("crying out", H6817) — Qal participle, masculine plural, describing a continuous or habitual action of crying out, not a single past event.
• nelekhah ("let us go", H1980G) and nizbechah ("let us sacrifice", H2076) — both are cohortative forms (1st person plural, expressing intention/proposal), embedded within the infinitive lemor ("saying", H0559) that introduces direct quoted speech.

What the text says

The verse opens with the direct object marker 'et (H0853) attached to matkonet ha-levenim ("the quota of the bricks"), marking this phrase as the object of the verb tasimu ("you will place/impose", H7760H) that follows later in the sentence — a construction where Hebrew places the object before its governing verb for emphasis. The relative clause asher hem 'osim ("which they were making", H0834A + H1992 + H6213H) uses the participle 'osim to describe an ongoing past practice, reinforced by the temporal expression temol shilshom ("yesterday, three days ago", H8543 + H8032), a fixed idiom indicating "as before" or "previously."

The second half of the verse gives Pharaoh's rationale: ki nirpim hem ("for they are idle," H3588A + H7503 + H1992) uses the Niphal participle nirpim to characterize the Israelites' condition as one of slackness, presented as a causal clause (ki) explaining the harsh quota. The phrase 'al ken ("therefore," H5921A + H3651C) introduces the consequence: hem tzo'akim ("they are crying out," H1992 + H6817), again with a participle indicating continuous action. The quoted speech itself, introduced by the infinitive lemor ("saying," H0559), contains two cohortative verb forms, nelekhah ("let us go") and nizbechah ("let us sacrifice"), expressing a proposal or request in the first-person plural.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders temol shilshom ("yesterday, three days ago") as kath' hekastēn hēmeran ("each day"), shifting the Hebrew's idiom for "previously/as before" into a phrase emphasizing daily recurrence. The Vulgate's prius faciebant ("they were doing before") stays closer to the Hebrew's sense of prior practice. Additionally, the LXX doubles the verb legontes ("saying") in the phrase kekragasin legontes legontes, which does not correspond to any doubling in the Hebrew text.