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Exodus 5-6 - Pharaoh Resists and God Reaffirms the Covenant

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Moses and Aaron have gathered the elders, and Israel has bowed in worship. Their first audience with Pharaoh brings a harsher work order instead of freedom. These chapters belong together: Moses’ complaint in Exodus 5:22-23 receives God’s answer in 6:1-8. Between the king’s refusal and the Lord’s renewed promise, the people are exhausted and Moses doubts that anyone will listen. The study follows that whole crisis, including the genealogy that identifies the families through whom God will continue His work.

Pharaoh refuses the call to worship (Exodus 5:1-5; Greek/Brenton 5:1-5)

A note on numbering. This study follows NKJV chapter and verse numbering and prints Brenton’s English Septuagint with its own verse labels. The numbered passage units here correspond in the two editions, although their wording can differ.

1: And after this went in Moses and Aaron to Pharao, and they said to him, These things says the Lord God of Israel, Send my people away, that they may keep a feast to me in the wilderness. 2: And Pharao said, Who is he that I should hearken to his voice, so that I should send away the children of Israel? I do not know the Lord, and I will not let Israel go. 3: And they say to him, The God of the Hebrews has called us to him: we will go therefore a three days’ journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God, lest at any time death or slaughter happen to us. 4: And the king of Egypt said to them, Why do ye, Moses and Aaron, turn the people from their works? depart each of you to your works. 5: And Pharao said, Behold now, the people is very numerous; let us not then give them rest from their work.

The request begins with God’s purpose for His people: they are to keep a feast to Him. Pharaoh responds, “I do not know the Lord, and I will not let Israel go.” His lack of acknowledgment becomes an act of domination. The earlier king “knew not Joseph” (Exodus 1:8); now the king refuses to recognize the God whose people he holds. Forgetting the one through whom Egypt was preserved has opened into defiance of the One who preserves Israel.

The plague narrative will answer this refusal. In Exodus 7:5 the Egyptians will know that God is the Lord, and in 14:4 that knowledge comes through judgment upon Pharaoh and his army. Knowing the Lord here means encountering His authority in history, not simply hearing an unfamiliar religious name. Pharaoh already controls the work and therefore assumes he can control the worship.

The “three days’ journey” in verse 3 is the stated request to go into the wilderness and sacrifice. Pharaoh hears an interruption to production. Moses and Aaron speak of obligation to God, but he orders them back to work. His command to withhold rest reveals the competing claim: Israel’s time and bodies belong to his quotas. God calls the same people to a feast. Freedom will mean recovering their life before God, not merely changing employers.

Gems from the Fathers: Pharaoh refuses the call to worship

Origen’s treatment of Pharaoh in On First Principles III.1.7-10 helps us face this refusal without making either God’s judgment or human responsibility unreal. He rejects the idea that Pharaoh belonged to an inherently ruined class of human beings who could never respond. Within that argument he asks: “what further need was there for his heart to be hardened, and this not once, but several times, unless indeed because it was possible for him to yield to persuasion?”1 Pharaoh meets warnings and signs as someone answerable for his response, not as a lifeless instrument. Romans 9:17-18 also keeps God’s purpose before us: even Pharaoh’s resistance cannot prevent the Lord from making His power known.

Bricks without straw (Exodus 5:6-14; Greek/Brenton 5:6-14)

6: And Pharao gave orders to the task-masters of the people and the accountants, saying, 7: Ye shall no longer give straw to the people for brick-making as yesterday and the third day; but let them go themselves, and collect straw for themselves. 8: And thou shalt impose on them daily the rate of brick-making which they perform: thou shalt not abate anything, for they are idle; therefore have they cried, saying, Let us arise and do sacrifice to our God. 9: Let the works of these men be made grievous, and let them care for these things, and not care for vain words. 10: And the taskmasters and the accountants hastened them, and they spoke to the people, saying, Thus says Pharao, I will give you straw no longer. 11: Go ye, yourselves, get for yourselves straw whencesoever ye can find it, for nothing is diminished from your rate. 12: So the people were dispersed in all the land of Egypt, to gather stubble for straw. 13: And the taskmasters hastened them, saying, Fulfil your regular daily tasks, even as when straw was given you. 14: And the accountants of the race of the children of Israel, who were set over them by the masters of Pharao, were scourged, [and questioned,] men saying, Why have ye not fulfilled your rates of brick-work as yesterday and the third day, to-day also?

Pharaoh removes the supplied straw while keeping the daily quota unchanged. The people must now find material as well as make bricks, and their Israelite overseers, called “accountants” in Brenton, are beaten when production fails. The new burden is deliberate. It gives exhausted people less time to think about freedom and makes Moses’ promise seem dangerous.

Pharaoh calls the desire to sacrifice idleness and God’s word “vain words.” He attacks the credibility of hope by arranging circumstances that appear to disprove it. His claim is that only work under his command is real; worship is an excuse. The people’s scattering across Egypt to gather stubble shows the bodily cost of that lie.

The passage also warns leaders not to imitate Pharaoh in religious clothing. Churches, ministries, and families can become places of bricks without straw when leaders demand constant output without prayer, rest, mercy, or practical support. The God of Exodus is not honored by Pharaoh’s management style. A ministry’s holy purpose cannot make exhausting and humiliating its workers holy.

This account can help us recognize coercive demands in other settings, but it must never be used to tell a person enduring abuse to remain in danger while waiting for deliverance. Practical help, protection, and trustworthy counsel belong to the care of the suffering. We oppose Pharaoh’s logic by supporting the people beneath the burden, not by praising their capacity to bear more.

The wounded turn against the messenger (Exodus 5:15-21; Greek/Brenton 5:15-21)

15: And the accountants of the children of Israel went in and cried to Pharao, saying, Why dost thou act thus to thy servants? 16: Straw is not given to thy servants, and they tell us to make brick; and behold thy servants have been scourged: thou wilt therefore injure thy people. 17: And he said to them, Ye are idle, ye are idlers: therefore ye say, Let us go and do sacrifice to our God. 18: Now then go and work, for straw shall not be given to you, yet ye shall return the rate of bricks. 19: And the accountants of the children of Israel saw themselves in an evil plight, men saying, Ye shall not fail to deliver the daily rate of the brick-making. 20: And they met Moses and Aaron coming forth to meet them, as they came forth from Pharao. 21: And they said to them, The Lord look upon you and judge you, for ye have made our savour abominable before Pharao, and before his servants, to put a sword into his hands to slay us.

The Israelite overseers appeal to Pharaoh as his servants. They name both the missing straw and the scourging, but the king repeats his accusation: “Ye are idle, ye are idlers.” Their appeal obtains no mercy. They come away knowing they remain responsible for an impossible demand.

Meeting Moses and Aaron, they say, “ye have made our savour abominable.” Brenton’s image is of becoming offensive before Pharaoh and his servants; their next words, about a sword placed in his hands, explain the feared result. The men who announced rescue now appear to have made the people easier to kill. Their accusation arises from fresh injuries, even though it mistakes the messenger for the author of the oppression.

A servant who brings a difficult word may meet resentment before gratitude. That does not make every criticism a persecution, nor does it make wounded people faithless. Moses must listen to the suffering he did not intend and bring the crisis to God. Defending his reputation would not supply straw or heal the men who were beaten.

Moses brings the complaint to God (Exodus 5:22-23; Greek/Brenton 5:22-23)

22: And Moses turned to the Lord, and said, I pray, Lord, why hast thou afflicted this people? and wherefore hast thou sent me? 23: For from the time that I went to Pharao to speak in thy name, he has afflicted this people, and thou hast not delivered thy people.

Moses “turned to the Lord.” That direction matters. He asks why God has afflicted the people and why he was sent, because everything since his obedience appears to contradict the promised rescue. His prayer speaks plainly about the people rather than hiding behind the success of his mission.

The accusation is sharp: “thou hast not delivered thy people.” Scripture preserves it without making it the final verdict on God. Lament can bring an apparent contradiction into the presence of the One whose promise we still need. Moses has neither understood the delay nor abandoned the Lord. The next chapter answers him at this very point; reading these chapters separately would weaken the connection between his complaint and God’s promise.

The Lord manifests His Name in covenant deliverance (Exodus 6:1-8; Greek/Brenton 6:1-8)

1: And the Lord said to Moses, Now thou shalt see what I will do to Pharao; for he shall send them forth with a mighty hand, and with a high arm shall he cast them out of his land. 2: And God spoke to Moses and said to him, I am the Lord. 3: And I appeared to Abraam and Isaac and Jacob, being their God, but I did not manifest to them my name Lord. 4: And I established my covenant with them, to give them the land of the Chananites, the land wherein they sojourned, in which also they dwelt as strangers. 5: And I hearkened to the groaning of the children of Israel (the affliction with which the Egyptians enslave them) and I remembered the covenant with you. 6: Go, speak to the children of Israel, saying, I am the Lord; and I will lead you forth from the tyranny of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from bondage, and I will ransom you with a high arm, and great judgment. 7: And I will take you to me a people for myself, and will be your God; and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from the tyranny of the Egyptians. 8: And I will bring you into the land concerning which I stretched out my hand to give it to Abraam and Isaac and Jacob, and I will give it you for an inheritance: I am the Lord.

God begins, “Now thou shalt see what I will do to Pharao.” Moses’ report of what Pharaoh has done will be answered by what the Lord will do. The king’s force will not prevail; he will be driven to send the people away. The repeated first-person promises place the burden of deliverance on God’s faithfulness rather than Moses’ ability to produce an immediate result.

Verse 3 is difficult: “I did not manifest to them my name Lord.” Yet Abraham calls on the name of the Lord in Genesis 12:8 and 13:4, and Genesis 15:7 records God’s declaration to him, “I am God that brought thee out of the land of the Chaldeans.” We should not solve the difficulty by claiming that the patriarchs never heard or used the divine Name. The immediate context distinguishes promise from its coming fulfillment: God appeared to the patriarchs, established the covenant, has heard their descendants’ groaning, and will now bring them out. On that contextual reading, the Name is being manifested through an act of deliverance the patriarchs had not yet experienced. This explains the force of the passage without pretending that its historical and textual questions disappear.

The same sequence protects us from imagining that God “remembered” because He had previously forgotten. His remembered covenant becomes active rescue: leading out, delivering, ransoming, receiving a people, and bringing them to their inheritance. The words “I will ransom you” in verse 6 describe liberation accomplished by God’s “high arm” and judgment. Exodus does not here describe a payment to Pharaoh. We need not call this the first biblical statement of divine redemption to receive its weight.

Luke 1:68 joins visitation and redemption in the coming of Christ. The disciples’ hope that Jesus would redeem Israel is brought through the suffering and resurrection of the Messiah in Luke 24:21-27. Titus 2:14 names the deeper bondage from which He redeems us: lawlessness, so that He may purify a people for Himself. First Peter 1:18-19 places the cost of that rescue in His precious blood. Christ fulfills deliverance by bringing us out of sin and into His life, not by making Pharaoh’s demand legitimate through payment.

“I will take you to me a people for myself, and will be your God” is the heart of the promise. Jeremiah 31:33 (Septuagint Jeremiah 38:33) carries this relationship into the promise of the law written on the heart. Second Corinthians 6:16 applies God’s dwelling with His people to the Church, and Revelation 21:3 shows its consummation when God dwells with humanity. The goal is communion. Being freed from the tyrant and belonging to God are one gift.

A promise the exhausted cannot yet hear (Exodus 6:9-13; Greek/Brenton 6:9-13)

9: And Moses spoke thus to the sons of Israel, and they hearkened not to Moses for faint-heartedness, and for their hard tasks. 10: And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 11: Go in, speak to Pharao king of Egypt, that he send forth the children of Israel out of his land. 12: And Moses spoke before the Lord, saying, Behold, the children of Israel hearkened not to me, and how shall Pharao hearken to me? and I am not eloquent. 13: And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, and gave them a charge to Pharao king of Egypt, that he should send forth the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt.

The renewed promise does not immediately restore the people’s hearing. Brenton names “faint-heartedness” and “hard tasks.” “Faint-heartedness” names their loss of courage; the “hard tasks” show the burden under which that courage has failed. Pharaoh has attacked both their bodies and their capacity to hope.

God nevertheless charges Moses and Aaron to continue. He does not make the covenant conditional on the wounded people recovering enthusiasm first. A servant should take that order seriously without using it to despise the weary. Practical relief and patient presence can help a person hear a promise that argument alone cannot make audible.

Moses reasons that if Israel has not listened, Pharaoh certainly will not. His “I am not eloquent” returns us to chapter 4. Brenton makes speech ability the explicit difficulty here, just as “I am not able in speech” will do in verse 30. Hebrew-based versions speak of “uncircumcised lips,” which creates a verbal connection with the circumcision episode. That metaphor is not in the Scripture displayed here. The connection we can follow directly in Brenton is Moses’ recurring fear that his speech cannot carry the mission.

The Church’s Voice in Worship: A promise the exhausted cannot yet hear

On Wednesday of the Third Week of the Great Fast, the Matins prophecies include the continuous reading Exodus 4:19-6:13.2 The Church hears Moses’ return, the burdens increased by Pharaoh, and God’s covenant answer in one sequence. Repentance can uncover how firmly old habits hold us, and exhaustion can make even a true promise difficult to receive. The reading puts that struggle before the Lord who continues to act for His people. It strengthens perseverance while also teaching servants to be merciful to those who cannot yet hear hope.

The families entrusted with covenant service (Exodus 6:14-25; Greek/Brenton 6:14-25)

14: And these are the heads of the houses of their families: the sons of Ruben the first-born of Israel; Enoch and Phallus, Asron, and Charmi, this is the kindred of Ruben. 15: And the sons of Symeon, Jemuel and Jamin, and Aod, and Jachin and Saar, and Saul the son of a Phœnician woman, these are the families of the sons of Symeon. 16: And these are the names of the sons of Levi according to their kindreds, Gedson, Caath, and Merari; and the years of the life of Levi were a hundred and thirty-seven. 17: And these are the sons of Gedson, Lobeni and Semei, the houses of their family. And the sons of Caath, 18: Ambram and Issaar, Chebron, and Oziel; and the years of the life of Caath were a hundred and thirty-three years. 19: And the sons of Merari, Moöli, and Omusi, these are the houses of the families of Levi, according to their kindreds. 20: And Ambram took to wife Jochabed the daughter of his father’s brother, and she bore to him both Aaron and Moses, and Mariam their sister: and the years of the life of Ambram were a hundred and thirty-two years. 21: And the sons of Issaar, Core, and Naphec, and Zechri. 22: And the sons of Oziel, Misael, and Elisaphan, and Segri. 23: And Aaron took to himself to wife Elisabeth daughter of Aminadab sister of Naasson, and she bore to him both Nadab and Abiud, and Eleazar and Ithamar. 24: And the sons of Core, Asir, and Elkana, and Abiasar, these are the generations of Core. 25: And Eleazar the son of Aaron took to himself for a wife one of the daughters of Phutiel, and she bore to him Phinees. These are the heads of the family of the Levites, according to their generations.

The genealogy starts with Ruben and Symeon before concentrating on Levi. These are the first three sons named in Genesis 49:3-7. The list is selective rather than a survey of all twelve tribes: it brings us to Aaron and Moses, then traces Aaron’s descendants. Deliverance enters particular families, and the priestly service that will follow it is rooted in that history.

Aaron’s marriage to Elisabeth joins his household to Aminadab and Naasson. Numbers 1:7 identifies Naasson son of Aminadab with Judah, while Ruth 4:20 and Matthew 1:4 place that family in the line leading to David and Christ. The marriage therefore connects the future priestly household with Judah’s family. It is a real genealogical relationship, not proof that priesthood and kingship are already one office.

The Greek-form name Elisabeth also recalls Luke 1:5, where Elizabeth, the Baptist’s mother, is “of the daughters of Aaron.” The later Gospel explicitly returns to Aaron’s household at the threshold of Christ’s coming. A shared name alone would not establish an intentional allusion; the named priestly ancestry supplies the meaningful connection.

Core and Phinees also look forward. Core will challenge the appointed service in Numbers 16; Phinees will act with zeal in Numbers 25. A family list is not a list of uniformly holy people. Kinship places people within a history of responsibility in which obedience and rebellion both remain possible. Phinees’ later use of force must not be turned into permission for private violence by Christian readers.

The generations and lifespans should not be forced into a complete solution of the chronology of the sojourn. Here their purpose is to locate the servants and the continuing priestly household. The selective chart follows that purpose.

Selective family tree from Levi to Amram, Jochebed, Aaron, Miriam, Moses, Eleazar, and Ithamar. Source: Original schematic created from Exodus 6:16-25 and related passages. Selective biblical genealogy, not a complete family tree.

The same servants are sent again (Exodus 6:26-30; Greek/Brenton 6:26-30)

26: This is Aaron and Moses, whom God told to bring out the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt with their forces. 27: These are they that spoke with Pharao king of Egypt, and Aaron himself and Moses brought out the children of Israel from the land of Egypt, 28: in the day in which the Lord spoke to Moses in the land of Egypt; 29: then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, I am the Lord: speak to Pharao king of Egypt whatsoever I say to thee. 30: And Moses said before the Lord, Behold, I am not able in speech, and how shall Pharao hearken to me?

“This is Aaron and Moses” and “These are they” bring the genealogy back to the mission. God has not replaced the brothers because their first audience failed. The names belong to the very people commissioned to bring Israel out and speak before Pharaoh. Their identity comes from His charge, not the king’s response.

The final exchange returns to the Lord’s identity and Moses’ difficulty: “I am the Lord” stands opposite “I am not able in speech.” This is the unresolved tension with which the chapter closes. Moses is neither suddenly confident nor released from the mission. The continuation in Exodus 7 will show how God works through the two brothers despite that fear. Their genealogy makes them identifiable; God’s command makes them responsible; His faithfulness will make deliverance possible.

Spiritual Fruit

Bring the contradiction into prayer. Moses does not understand why obedience has increased the suffering, but he turns to the Lord. Name before God one situation in which you have done what was right and seen little improvement. Pray without pretending that the pain is small, and without making today’s visible result the measure of His covenant faithfulness.

Refuse Pharaoh’s way of leading. Examine one responsibility you assign to someone else. Have you supplied the time, training, rest, and help needed to carry it? In parish service as at home, remove an impossible demand rather than praising the worker for enduring it. Worship cannot be defended by treating people as instruments of output.

Stay near the person who cannot yet hear hope. Israel’s “hard tasks” and “faint-heartedness” make a promise difficult to receive. Offer concrete help before another speech. A meal, a shared burden, protection, or a patient visit may express the mercy your words announce.

Remember what redemption is for. God promises to take a people to Himself. Make room for prayer and the Church’s worship without treating them as rewards left over after every task is complete. Freedom is fulfilled in belonging to Christ, whose rescue turns us from lawlessness toward a life that bears good fruit.

Footnotes

  1. Origen, On First Principles, III.1.8, Latin version of Rufinus; translated by Frederick Crombie, ANF, volume 4. 🔗 Primary text. ↩

  2. Coptic Reader, Coptic Orthodox Metropolis of the Southern United States, Wednesday of the Third Week of the Great Fast, Matins, Prophecies, printed reference Exodus 4:19-6:13, including the complete text of chapter 5. Verified with March 4, 2026 (Meshir 25, 1742) selected. In the 🔗 official app, select that date, then Readings > Matins > Prophecies. The document URL is stateful and does not itself select the date. ↩

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