Keluaran 8:7

8:7 The magicians did the same ¹  with their secret arts and brought up frogs on the land of Egypt too. ² 

Keluaran 14:7

14:7 He took six hundred select ³  chariots, and all the rest of the chariots of Egypt, ⁴  and officers ⁵  on all of them.

Keluaran 19:3

19:3 Moses ⁶  went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain, “Thus you will tell the house of Jacob, and declare to the people ⁷  of Israel:

[8:7]  ¹ tn Heb “thus, so.”

[8:7]  ² sn In these first two plagues the fact that the Egyptians could and did duplicate them is ironic. By duplicating the experience, they added to the misery of Egypt. One wonders why they did not use their skills to rid the land of the pests instead, and the implication of course is that they could not.

[14:7]  ³ tn The passive participle of the verb “to choose” means that these were “choice” or superb chariots.

[14:7]  ⁴ tn Heb “every chariot of Egypt.” After the mention of the best chariots, the meaning of this description is “all the other chariots.”

[14:7]  ⁵ tn The word שָׁלִשִׁם (shalishim) means “officers” or some special kind of military personnel. At one time it was taken to mean a “three man chariot,” but the pictures of Egyptian chariots only show two in a chariot. It may mean officers near the king, “men of the third rank” (B. Jacob, Exodus, 394). So the chariots and the crew represented the elite. See the old view by A. E. Cowley that linked it to a Hittite word (“A Hittite Word in Hebrew,” JTS 21 [1920]: 326), and the more recent work by P. C. Craigie connecting it to Egyptian “commander” (“An Egyptian Expression in the Song of the Sea: Exodus XV.4,” VT 20 [1970]: 85).

[19:3]  ⁶ tn Heb “and Moses went up.”

[19:3]  ⁷ tn This expression is normally translated as “Israelites” in this translation, but because in this place it is parallel to “the house of Jacob” it seemed better to offer a fuller rendering.