Exodus 5:15-16

15, 16. The Hebrew scribes come to Pharaoh and complain that they are beaten for not performing an impossible task . The monuments also give us pictures of labourers working under the stick, showing that it was customary for the superintendents to stimulate by blows . There is a papyrus, translated by M . Chabas, which relates the punishment of twelve labourers who failed to make up the required “tale of bricks . ” The Egyptians had much confidence in the virtue of corporeal punishment .