Charles Ellicott Commentary Exodus 5:21

"and they said unto them, Jehovah look upon you, and judge: because ye have made our savor to be abhorred in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of his servants, to put a sword in their hand to slay us." — Exodus 5:21 (ASV)

You have made our savour to be abhorred. — In Hebrew, this means to stink; it is an idiom common to the Hebrews and the Egyptians (1 Samuel 13:4; 2 Samuel 10:6, and others, with Papyrus Anastasi 1:27, 7) and is very expressive. The English idiom, “to be in bad odour with a person,” is similar but lacks the force of the Hebrew phrase.

In the eyes. — Mixed metaphors occur in all languages and can generally be explained by the literal meaning of a familiar expression being forgotten. In Hebrew, terms like liphney (“in the face of”) and be’eyney (“in the eyes of”) were merely prepositions with the force of “before,” “with,” or “in regard to.”

A sword ... to slay us. — This was not, perhaps, mere Eastern hyperbole. The officers may have feared that their inability to enforce the Pharaoh’s impracticable demands would ultimately lead to their execution.