Keluaran 1:17

1:17 But ¹  the midwives feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them; they let the boys live. ² 

Keluaran 33:20

33:20 But he added, “You cannot see my face, for no one can ³  see me and live.” ⁴ 

[1:17]  ¹ tn Heb “and they [fem. pl.] feared”; the referent (the midwives) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:17]  ² tn The verb is the Piel preterite of חָיָה (khaya, “to live”). The Piel often indicates a factitive nuance with stative verbs, showing the cause of the action. Here it means “let live, cause to live.” The verb is the exact opposite of Pharaoh’s command for them to kill the boys.

[33:20]  ³ tn In view of the use of the verb “can, be able to” in the first clause, this imperfect tense is given a potential nuance.

[33:20]  ⁴ tn Gesenius notes that sometimes a negative statement takes the place of a conditional clause; here it is equal to “if a man sees me he does not live” (GKC 498 §159.gg). The other passages that teach this are Gen 32:30; Deut 4:33, 5:24, 26; Judg 6:22, 13:22, and Isa 6:5.