18 Go therefore now, and work, for no straw shall be given to you, yet you shall deliver the same number of bricks!"
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Go therefore now, and work,.... Go about your business, attend to your work, even you officers, as well as your people; work yourselves, as well as see that your people do theirs, and do not trouble me with such impertinent applications:
for there shall no straw be given you, yet shall ye deliver the tale of bricks; the usual number of bricks, as the Vulgate Latin version has it; though in Exodus 5:8, it is rendered in that version the measure of bricks, and so another word is translated by them, Exodus 5:14, and perhaps both may be intended, both number and measure; that is, that it was expected and insisted on that they delivered the full number of bricks they used to make, and these of full measure; for bricks were made of different measures, as Vitruvius (p) observes; some among the bricks were of two hands' breadth, others of four, and a third sort of five. See Gill on Exodus 5:7.
(p) Ut supra. (Vide Vitruvium de Architectura, l. 2. c. 3. p. 46)
*More commentary available at chapter level.