Exodus 5:12 - Exposition

The people were mattered abroad throughout all the land of Egypt . The expression used is hyperbolical, and not to be understood literally. A tolerably wide dispersion over the central and eastern portions of the Delta is probably intended. Stubble instead of straw . Rather, "stubble for the straw." Teben , the word translated straw, seems to he properly "chopped straw" ( stramenta minutim concisa , Cook). The Israelites, who had been accustomed to have this provided for them, gathered now long stalks of stubble in the fields, which they had subsequently to make into teben by chopping it into short bits.