Ester 7:3

7:3 Queen Esther replied, “If I have met with your approval, ¹  O king, and if the king is so inclined, grant me my life as my request, and my people as my petition.

Keluaran 33:13

33:13 Now if I have found favor in your sight, show me ²  your way, that I may know you, ³  that I may continue to find ⁴  favor in your sight. And see ⁵  that this nation is your people.”

Keluaran 33:16

33:16 For how will it be known then that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not by your going with us, so that we will be distinguished, I and your people, from all the people who are on the face of the earth?” ⁶ 

Keluaran 33:1

33:1 The Lord said to Moses, “Go up ⁷  from here, you and the people whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, to the land I promised on oath ⁸  to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ ⁹ 

1 Samuel 20:29

20:29 He said, ‘Permit me to go, ¹⁰  for we are having a family sacrifice in the city, and my brother urged ¹¹  me to be there. So now, if I have found favor with you, let me go ¹²  to see my brothers.’ For that reason he has not come to the king’s table.”

[7:3]  ¹ tn Heb “If I have found grace in your eyes” (so also in 8:5); TEV “If it please Your Majesty.”

[33:13]  ² tn The prayer uses the Hiphil imperative of the verb “to know.” “Cause me to know” is “show me, reveal to me, teach or inform me.” Moses wanted to know more of God’s dealings with people, especially after all that has happened in the preceding chapter.

[33:13]  ³ tn The imperfect tense of the verb “to know” with the vav follows the imperative of this root, and so this indicates the purpose clause (final imperfect): “in order that I may know you.” S. R. Driver summarizes it this way: that I may understand what your nature and character is, and shape my petitions accordingly, so that I may find grace in your sight, and my future prayers may be answered (Exodus, 361).

[33:13]  ⁴ tn The purpose clause simply uses the imperfect, “that I may find.” But since he already has found favor in God’s eyes, he is clearly praying that it be so in the future as well as now.

[33:13]  ⁵ tn The verb “see” (an imperative) is a request for God to acknowledge Israel as his people by providing the divine leadership needed. So his main appeal will be for the people and not himself. To underscore this, he repeats “see” the way the section opened.

[33:16]  ⁶ sn See W. Brueggemann, “The Crisis and Promise of Presence in Israel,” HBT 1 (1979): 47-86; and N. M. Waldman, “God’s Ways – A Comparative Note,” JQR 70 (1979): 67-70.

[33:1]  ⁷ tn The two imperatives underscore the immediacy of the demand: “go, go up,” meaning “get going up” or “be on your way.”

[33:1]  ⁸ tn Or “the land which I swore.”

[33:1]  ⁹ tn Heb “seed.”

[20:29]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “send me.”

[20:29]  ¹¹ tn Heb “commanded.”

[20:29]  ¹² tn Heb “be released [from duty].”