Commentaire sur L’Exode 5:19

ויראו שטרי בני ישראל The meaning is: AND THE BAILIFFS OF THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL DID SEE [THEM] i. e. their fellow-lsraelites who were ruled by them,

ויראו שוטרי בני ישראל אותם ברע לאמור, “The foremen of the Israelites saw themselves in an untenable position, saying:” Ibn Ezra understands the word אותם here not as referring to someone else but as referring to themselves, as if the Torah had written: עצמם. He quotes a couple of other verses where the word is used in similar fashion, one being in Deut. 34,6 ויקבור אותו בגיא, “He buried himself in the valley.” [Moses entombing himself. Ed]

ויראו שוטרי בני ישראל אותם ברע.” The Hebrew supervisors of the labourers of the Children of Israel saw that they were in an untenable situation;” we read earlier that their Egyptian superiors had pressured them to change the routine by both withholding straw and insisting on the daily number of bricks remaining the same, thus making their brethren’s lives even more intolerable; they therefore rather absorbed physical punishment themselves than becoming partners to Pharaoh’s overseers through pressuring the Israelites. Pharaoh had told them that no straw would be given to them to distribute to their brethren.

ברע — they saw them in the misfortune and trouble that befell them, because they had to make the labour hard upon them. לאמר לא תגרעו וגו׳ BY SAYING, YE SHALL NOT DIMINISH etc.

אותם themselves, as in (Leviticus 22:16) And they will burden אותם with iniquity of trespass”.