Keluaran 3:16

3:16 “Go and bring together ¹  the elders of Israel and tell them, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, ²  appeared ³  to me – the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – saying, “I have attended carefully ⁴  to you and to what has been done ⁵  to you in Egypt,

Keluaran 7:17

7:17 Thus says the Lord: “By this you will know that I am the Lord: I am going to strike ⁶  the water of the Nile with the staff that is in my hand, and it will be turned into blood. ⁷ 

Keluaran 34:10

34:10 He said, “See, I am going to make ⁸  a covenant before all your people. I will do wonders such as have not been done ⁹  in all the earth, nor in any nation. All the people among whom you live will see the work of the Lord, for it is a fearful thing that I am doing with you. ¹⁰ 

Keluaran 36:1

36:1 So Bezalel and Oholiab and every skilled person ¹¹  in whom the Lord has put skill ¹²  and ability ¹³  to know how ¹⁴  to do all the work for the service ¹⁵  of the sanctuary are to do the work ¹⁶  according to all that the Lord has commanded.”

[3:16]  ¹ tn The form is the perfect tense with the sequential vav (ו) linking the nuance to the imperative that precedes it. Since the imperative calls for immediate action, this form either carries the same emphasis, or instructs action that immediately follows it. This applies likewise to “say,” which follows.

[3:16]  ² sn “The God of your fathers” is in simple apposition to the name “the Lord” (Heb “Yahweh”) as a recognizable identification. If the holy name were a new one to the Israelites, an explanation would have been needed. Meanwhile, the title “God of my/your/our father(s)” was widely used in the ancient Near East and also in Genesis (26:24; 28:13; 31:5, 29; 46:1, 3; N. M. Sarna, Exodus [JPSTC], 268).

[3:16]  ³ tn The form is the Niphal perfect of the verb “to see.” See the note on “appeared” in 3:2.

[3:16]  ⁴ tn The verb פָּקַד (paqad) has traditionally been rendered “to visit.” This only partially communicates the point of the word. When God “visited” someone, it meant that he intervened in their lives to change their circumstances or their destiny. When he visited the Amalekites, he destroyed them (1 Sam 15:2). When he visited Sarah, he provided the long awaited child (Gen 21:1). It refers to God’s active involvement in human affairs for blessing or for cursing. Here it would mean that God had begun to act to deliver the Israelites from bondage and give them the blessings of the covenant. The form is joined here with the infinitive absolute to underscore the certainty – “I have indeed visited you.” Some translate it “remember”; others say “watch over.” These do not capture the idea of intervention to bless, and often with the idea of vengeance or judgment on the oppressors. If God were to visit what the Egyptians did, he would stop the oppression and also bring retribution for it. The nuance of the perfect tense could be a perfect of resolve (“I have decided to visit”), or an instantaneous perfect ( “I hereby visit”), or a prophetic perfect (“I have visited” = “I will visit”). The infinitive absolute reinforces the statement (so “carefully”), the rendering “attended to” attempts to convey the ideas of personal presence, mental awareness, and action, as when a nurse or physician “attends” a patient.

[3:16]  sn The same word was used in the same kind of construction at the end of Genesis (50:24) when Joseph promised, “God will surely visit you” (but there the imperfect tense with the infinitive absolute). Here is another link to the patriarchal narratives. This work of Moses would be interpreted as a fulfillment of Joseph’s prophecy.

[3:16]  ⁵ tn The second object for the verb is the passive participle הֶעָשׂוּי (he’asuy). To say that God has visited the oppression (or “attended to” it) affirms that God has decided to judge the oppressing people as he blesses Israel.

[7:17]  ⁶ tn The construction using הִנֵּה (hinneh) before the participle (here the Hiphil participle מַכֶּה, makkeh) introduces a futur instans use of the participle, expressing imminent future, that he is about to do something.

[7:17]  ⁷ sn W. C. Kaiser summarizes a view that has been adopted by many scholars, including a good number of conservatives, that the plagues overlap with natural phenomena in Egypt. Accordingly, the “blood” would not be literal blood, but a reddish contamination in the water. If there was an unusually high inundation of the Nile, the water flowed sluggishly through swamps and was joined with the water from the mountains that washed out the reddish soil. If the flood were high, the water would have a deeper red color. In addition to this discoloration, there is said to be a type of algae which produce a stench and a deadly fluctuation of the oxygen level of the river that is fatal to fish (see W. C. Kaiser, Jr., “Exodus,” EBC 2:350; he cites Greta Hort, “The Plagues of Egypt,” ZAW 69 [1957]: 84-103; same title, ZAW 70 [1958]: 48-59). While most scholars would agree that the water did not actually become blood (any more than the moon will be turned to literal blood [Joel 2:31]), many are not satisfied with this kind of explanation. If the event was a fairly common feature of the Nile, it would not have been any kind of sign to Pharaoh – and it should still be observable. The features that would have to be safeguarded are that it was understood to be done by the staff of God, that it was unexpected and not a mere coincidence, and that the magnitude of the contamination, color, stench, and death, was unparalleled. God does use natural features in miracles, but to be miraculous signs they cannot simply coincide with natural phenomena.

[34:10]  ⁸ tn Here again is a use of the futur instans participle; the deictic particle plus the pronoun precedes the participle, showing what is about to happen.

[34:10]  ⁹ tn The verb here is בָּרָא (bara’, “to create”). The choice of this verb is to stress that these wonders would be supernaturally performed, for the verb is used only with God as the subject.

[34:10]  ¹⁰ sn The idea is that God will be doing awesome things in dealing with them, i.e., to fulfill his program.

[36:1]  ¹¹ tn Heb “wise of [in] heart.”

[36:1]  ¹² tn Heb “wisdom.”

[36:1]  ¹³ tn Heb “understanding, discernment.”

[36:1]  ¹⁴ tn The relative clause includes this infinitive clause that expresses either the purpose or the result of God’s giving wisdom and understanding to these folk.

[36:1]  ¹⁵ tn This noun is usually given an interpretive translation. B. Jacob renders the bound relationship as “the holy task” or “the sacred task” (Exodus, 1019). The NIV makes it “constructing,” so read “the work of constructing the sanctuary.”

[36:1]  ¹⁶ tn The first word of the verse is a perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive; it is singular because it agrees with the first of the compound subject. The sentence is a little cumbersome because of the extended relative clause in the middle.