Straw
Archimandrite Nikifor’s Biblical Encyclopedia
(Gen. 24:25; Exod. 5:7-18)—dried stalks remaining after grain harvest, used for animal bedding, fodder, fuel, and brickmaking. Chopped straw mixed with mud helps bind and strengthen sun-dried bricks. Pharaoh’s order forced the Israelites to gather their own straw while maintaining the same brick quota, intensifying their oppression. The labor failed not because every brick without straw immediately broke, as the source suggests, but because the withheld material made the required production far more difficult.