Exodus 5:11. Go ye, get you straw where ye can find it: yet not aught of your work shall be diminished.
M. Chabas, a French Egyptologist, discovered some years since a papyrus the writing on which, when deciphered, proved to be the report of a scribe, to the effect that twelve workingmen who had been employed at brick-making had failed in their tasks, and had therefore been appointed to harder work as a punishment. There is no evidence that these workmen were Hebrews, but the fact shows that the cruelty inflicted on the Hebrews by their task-masters was in accordance with the customs of the country. See Bibliotheca Sacra, vol. 23, p. 685.