“They said: The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Let us go, please, three days’ journey into the wilderness, and sacrifice to the Lord our God, lest He afflict us with pestilence or with the sword” (Exodus 5:3). “They said: The God of the Hebrews has met with us” – Moses and Aaron said: If you say that we changed the language from the one which the Holy One blessed be He said to us, and we said to him: “So said the Lord, God of Israel,” and that is why [Pharaoh] questioned us; [therefore,] they then said: “The God of the Hebrews.”
“Lest he afflict us with pestilence or with the sword” – it should have said rather: Lest He afflict you. What is “lest he afflict us”? It is to teach you that they treated him with deference, to teach you that a person is obligated to accord deference to royalty.