What Does Exodus 5:19 Mean?
And the officers of the children of Israel saw that they were in harm, after it was said, You shall not cut any from the bricks of your daily tasks.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And the officers of the children of Israel did see that they were in evil case, after it was said, Ye shall not minish ought from your bricks of your daily task.THE KEY
The command to keep the quota unchanged is the moment its cruelty becomes visible.
THE MEANING
The officers see the people’s harmful condition once the daily quota is declared nonnegotiable. The verse lets you see the burden for what it is: not a neutral number, but a demand enforced without relief. Its fixedness is part of the injury.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
An unchanged quota is fair because no one has formally reduced it.
THE ROOT
תִגְרְעוּ
tigreʿu
GROWS FROM
גרע
to diminish, withdraw, or take away
“cut any” in this verse is tigreʿu. English makes “minish” sound like a small adjustment to a number, but this root also describes being held back or kept from something. The officers recognize that refusing any reduction is itself part of the harm.
ALSO GROWS
niggaraʿ: be held back; be kept from
נִגָּרַע
In Numbers 9:7, the same root describes people asking why they should be kept from offering the LORD’s offering; it can name what is withheld from people as well as what is reduced.
tigreʿu: diminish; subtract
תִגְרְעוּ
Deuteronomy 4:2 uses this same form for diminishing from God’s instruction, revealing the root’s sense of subtraction.
דְּבַר־יוֹם בְּיוֹמוֹ
devar-yom beyomo
GROWS FROM
דבר
to speak; word, matter, or thing
The quota is called the day’s “matter,” binding a concrete amount of work to each day. The same root links that matter to speech, so the daily task is also a spoken charge repeated day by day.
ALSO GROWS
davar: word; matter; thing
דָּבָר
The quota is the day’s assigned matter, not an abstract measure.
dibber: spoke; declared
דִּבֶּר
The shared root links the day’s work to the spoken instruction that fixes it.
THE PATTERN
When power fixes a burden and refuses relief, the burden itself exposes the injustice.
Your father made our yoke hard. So now, lighten the hard service of your father, and his heavy yoke that he set upon us, and we will serve you.Can the throne of ruin that shapes toil by statute be joined with you?And he said, Woe to you also, experts in the instruction! For you load people with burdens too heavy to carry, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with a single finger.THE THREAD
You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor shave anything away from it, that you may guard the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.The same root translated “minish” here appears in Deuteronomy’s “neither shall ye diminish ought from it.” In Exodus, Pharaoh forbids reducing the imposed work; in Deuteronomy, the root names subtraction from instruction, making the shared question one of who controls what can be taken away.
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