Keluaran 2:14

2:14 The man ¹  replied, “Who made you a ruler ²  and a judge over us? Are you planning ³  to kill me like you killed that ⁴  Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid, thinking, ⁵  “Surely what I did ⁶  has become known.”

Keluaran 8:24

8:24 The Lord did so; a ⁷  thick ⁸  swarm of flies came into ⁹  Pharaoh’s house and into the houses ¹⁰  of his servants, and throughout the whole land of Egypt the land was ruined ¹¹  because of the swarms of flies.

Keluaran 22:1

Laws about Property

22:1 ¹² (21:37) ¹³  “If a man steals an ox or a sheep and kills it or sells it, he must pay back ¹⁴  five head of cattle for the ox, and four sheep for the one sheep. ¹⁵ 

[2:14]  ¹ tn Heb “And he”; the referent (the man) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[2:14]  ² tn Heb “Who placed you for a man, a ruler and a judge over us?” The pleonasm does not need to be translated. For similar constructions see Lev 21:9; Judg 6:8; 2 Sam 1:13; Esth 7:6.

[2:14]  ³ tn The line reads “[is it] to kill me you are planning?” The form אֹמֵר (’omer) is the active participle used verbally; it would literally be “[are you] saying,” but in this context it conveys the meaning of “thinking, planning.” The Qal infinitive then serves as the object of this verbal form – are you planning to kill me?

[2:14]  ⁴ tn Heb “the Egyptian.” Here the Hebrew article functions in an anaphoric sense, referring back to the individual Moses killed.

[2:14]  ⁵ tn The verb form is “and he said.” But the intent of the form is that he said this within himself, and so it means “he thought, realized, said to himself.” The form, having the vav consecutive, is subordinated to the main idea of the verse, that he was afraid.

[2:14]  ⁶ tn The term הַדָּבָר (haddavar, “the word [thing, matter, incident]”) functions here like a pronoun to refer in brief to what Moses had done. For clarity this has been specified in the translation with the phrase “what I did.”

[8:24]  ⁷ tn Heb “and there came a….”

[8:24]  ⁸ tn Heb “heavy,” or “severe.”

[8:24]  ⁹ tn Here, and in the next phrase, the word “house” has to be taken as an adverbial accusative of termination.

[8:24]  ¹⁰ tn The Hebrew text has the singular here.

[8:24]  ¹¹ tc Concerning the connection of “the land was ruined” with the preceding, S. R. Driver (Exodus, 68) suggests reading with the LXX, Smr, and Peshitta; this would call for adding a conjunction before the last clause to make it read, “into the house of Pharaoh, and into his servants’ houses, and into all the land of Egypt; and the land was…”

[8:24]  tn The Hebrew word תִּשָּׁחֵת (tishakhet) is a strong word; it is the Niphal imperfect of שָׁחַת (shakhat) and is translated “ruined.” If the classification as imperfect stands, then it would have to be something like a progressive imperfect (the land was being ruined); otherwise, it may simply be a preterite without the vav (ו) consecutive. The verb describes utter devastation. This is the verb that is used in Gen 13:10 to describe how Yahweh destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. Swarms of flies would disrupt life, contaminate everything, and bring disease.

[22:1]  ¹² sn The next section of laws concerns property rights. These laws protected property from thieves and oppressors, but also set limits to retribution. The message could be: God’s laws demand that the guilty make restitution for their crimes against property and that the innocent be exonerated.

[22:1]  ¹³ sn Beginning with 22:1, the verse numbers through 22:31 in the English Bible differ from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text (BHS), with 22:1 ET = 21:37 HT, 22:2 ET = 22:1 HT, etc., through 22:31 ET = 22:30 HT. Thus in the English Bible ch. 22 has 31 verses, while in the Hebrew Bible it has 30 verses, with the one extra verse attached to ch. 21 in the Hebrew Bible.

[22:1]  ¹⁴ tn The imperfect tense here has the nuance of obligatory imperfect – he must pay back.

[22:1]  ¹⁵ tn בָּקַר (baqar) and צֹאן (tso’n) are the categories to which the ox and the sheep belonged, so that the criminal had some latitude in paying back animals.