No straw is given to your servants, yet they say to us, ‘Make bricks!’ And behold, your servants are beaten; but the fault is in your own people.”
It was a great strait that the head-workmen were in, when they must either abuse those that were under them or be abused by those that were over them; yet, it should seem, rather than they would tyrannize, they would be tyrannized over; and they were so. In this evil case (Exo 5:19), observe, I. How justly they complained to Pharaoh: They came and cried unto Pharaoh, Exo 5:15.
Commenting on Exodus 5:15-23
There is no straw given unto thy servants,.... As used to be, which they supposed Pharaoh knew nothing of, and by which it appears that the order given by Pharaoh, Exo 5:6 was not given in the hearing of the officers, only to the taskmasters, and by them to be made known to the officers, though indeed both are there mentioned, and both represent this to the people, Exo 5:10.
The fault is in thine own people - חטאת chatath, the sin, is in thy own people. 1st. Because they require impossibilities; and 2dly, because they punish us for not doing what cannot be performed.