Exodus 5

In obedience Moses goes to Pharaoh and tells him that the Lord wants him to let the Israelites go so that they can worship Him in the wilderness.

Not surprisingly Pharaoh is unimpressed. Moses says who God is, but Pharaoh still refuses and tells the people to get back to their work. We should not be surprised when godless people pay no heed to the word of God.

Pharaoh then commands his slave drivers to make the people make bricks without straw. Straw was used as a binder to make the bricks stronger. Pharaoh was a bit of an idiot as it was hardly to his advantage to have the Israelites make second rate bricks, or to make it harder for them to make bricks, but people will do stupid things. It is a mistake to always expect people to act rationally. Indeed people will sometimes be motivated by hatred against God's people, as we see here, and most horrifically saw in Nazi Germany.

The people had to work all the harder to make the same number of bricks, and were beaten by the slave drivers when they did not manage it.

The Israelites went to Pharaoh to complain about this, and when he refused to yield, they turned their anger against Moses. So Moses' attempts to free the people have so far resulted only in more suffering for them. Not surprisingly Moses asks God what is going on, and why He hasn't rescued His people.

We need to realise that there is a power struggle to set people free. We can be frustrated because sometimes we will act from the best motives, and act in a godly way, yet things only seem to get worse for the people we are trying to help.