Keluaran 12:17

12:17 So you will keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread, because on this very ¹  day I brought your regiments ²  out from the land of Egypt, and so you must keep this day perpetually as a lasting ordinance. ³ 

Keluaran 14:13

14:13 Moses said to the people, “Do not fear! ⁴  Stand firm ⁵  and see ⁶  the salvation ⁷  of the Lord that he will provide ⁸  for you today; for the Egyptians that you see today you will never, ever see again. ⁹ 

Keluaran 15:17

15:17 You will bring them in ¹⁰  and plant them in the mountain ¹¹  of your inheritance,

in the place you made ¹²  for your residence, O Lord,

the sanctuary, O Lord, that your hands have established.

Keluaran 17:12

17:12 When ¹³  the hands of Moses became heavy, ¹⁴  they took a stone and put it under him, and Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side and one on the other, ¹⁵  and so his hands were steady ¹⁶  until the sun went down.

[12:17]  ¹ tn Heb “on the bone of this day.” The expression means “the substance of the day,” the day itself, the very day (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 95).

[12:17]  ² tn The word is “armies” or “divisions” (see Exod 6:26 and the note there; cf. also 7:4). The narrative will continue to portray Israel as a mighty army, marching forth in its divisions.

[12:17]  ³ tn See Exod 12:14.

[14:13]  ⁴ tn The use of אַל (’al) with the jussive has the force of “stop fearing.” It is a more immediate negative command than לֹא (lo’) with the imperfect (as in the Decalogue).

[14:13]  ⁵ tn The force of this verb in the Hitpael is “to station oneself” or “stand firm” without fleeing.

[14:13]  ⁶ tn The form is an imperative with a vav (ו). It could also be rendered “stand firm and you will see” meaning the result, or “stand firm that you may see” meaning the purpose.

[14:13]  ⁷ tn Or “victory” (NAB) or “deliverance” (NIV, NRSV).

[14:13]  ⁸ tn Heb “do,” i.e., perform or accomplish.

[14:13]  ⁹ tn The construction uses a verbal hendiadys consisting of a Hiphil imperfect (“you will not add”) and a Qal infinitive construct with a suffix (“to see them”) – “you will no longer see them.” Then the clause adds “again, for ever.”

[14:13]  sn U. Cassuto (Exodus, 164) notes that the antithetical parallelism between seeing salvation and seeing the Egyptians, as well as the threefold repetition of the word “see” cannot be accidental; so too the alliteration of the last three words beginning with ayin (ע).

[15:17]  ¹⁰ tn The verb is imperfect.

[15:17]  ¹¹ sn The “mountain” and the “place” would be wherever Yahweh met with his people. It here refers to Canaan, the land promised to the patriarchs.

[15:17]  ¹² tn The verb is perfect tense, referring to Yahweh’s previous choice of the holy place.

[17:12]  ¹³ tn Literally “now the hands of Moses,” the disjunctive vav (ו) introduces a circumstantial clause here – of time.

[17:12]  ¹⁴ tn The term used here is the adjective כְּבֵדִים (kÿvedim). It means “heavy,” but in this context the idea is more that of being tired. This is the important word that was used in the plague stories: when the heart of Pharaoh was hard, then the Israelites did not gain their freedom or victory. Likewise here, when the staff was lowered because Moses’ hands were “heavy,” Israel started to lose.

[17:12]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “from this, one, and from this, one.”

[17:12]  ¹⁶ tn The word “steady” is אֱמוּנָה (’emuna) from the root אָמַן (’aman). The word usually means “faithfulness.” Here is a good illustration of the basic idea of the word – firm, steady, reliable, dependable. There may be a double entendre here; on the one hand it simply says that his hands were stayed so that Israel might win, but on the other hand it is portraying Moses as steady, firm, reliable, faithful. The point is that whatever God commissioned as the means or agency of power – to Moses a staff, to the Christians the Spirit – the people of God had to know that the victory came from God alone.