Afterward Moses and Aaron went and said to Pharaoh, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.’” But Pharaoh said, “Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the LORD, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.” Then they said, “The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please let us go a three days’ journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God, lest he fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword.” But the king of Egypt said to them, “Moses and Aaron, why do you take the people away from their work? Get back to your burdens.” And Pharaoh said, “Behold, the people of the land are now many, and you make them rest from their burdens!” The same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people and their foremen, “You shall no longer give the people straw to make bricks, as in the past; let them go and gather straw for themselves. But the number of bricks that they made in the past you shall impose on them, you shall by no means reduce it, for they are idle. Therefore they cry, ‘Let us go and offer sacrifice to our God.’ Let heavier work be laid on the men that they may labor at it and pay no regard to lying words.“
Comment: It didn’t take long for Moses and Aaron to get an audience with the Pharaoh, but I guess there must have some sort of rigmarole that they had to work their way through! Pharaoh’s response was as we might have expected. I don’t know where Moses found the answer to give Pharaoh but he hinted that God might remove the slaves by disease and the sword if they were not allowed to go. That only led to the declaration of the first ‘rough patch’. Now not only did the slaves have the same quota of building bricks to make but they had to collect the straw for themselves. A devishly cunning plan. I wonder how the Hebrew leaders will like that, will they turn against the two brothers? And what about the magic miraculous events – I wonder when we will see the staff thrown down?
Prayer: Help me to learn by failure and opposition – not to wilter and slink away.
As I read it! 