Keluaran 4:7

4:7 He said, “Put your hand back into your robe.” So he put his hand back into his robe, and when he brought it out from his robe – there it was, ¹  restored ²  like the rest of his skin! ³ 

Keluaran 5:16

5:16 No straw is given to your servants, but we are told, ⁴  ‘Make bricks!’ Your servants are even ⁵  being beaten, but the fault ⁶  is with your people.”

Keluaran 6:12

6:12 But Moses replied to ⁷  the Lord, “If the Israelites did not listen to me, then ⁸  how will Pharaoh listen to me, since ⁹  I speak with difficulty?” ¹⁰ 

Keluaran 10:17

10:17 So now, forgive my sin this time only, and pray to the Lord your God that he would only ¹¹  take this death ¹²  away from me.”

Keluaran 12:3

12:3 Tell the whole community of Israel, ‘In the tenth day of this month they each ¹³  must take a lamb ¹⁴  for themselves according to their families ¹⁵  – a lamb for each household. ¹⁶ 

Keluaran 19:8

19:8 and all the people answered together, “All that the Lord has commanded we will do!” ¹⁷  So Moses brought the words of the people back to the Lord.

Keluaran 26:9

26:9 You are to join five curtains by themselves and six curtains by themselves. You are to double over ¹⁸  the sixth curtain at the front of the tent.

Keluaran 30:23

30:23 “Take ¹⁹  choice spices: ²⁰  twelve and a half pounds ²¹  of free-flowing myrrh, ²²  half that – about six and a quarter pounds – of sweet-smelling cinnamon, six and a quarter pounds of sweet-smelling cane,

Keluaran 31:13

31:13 “Tell the Israelites, ‘Surely you must keep my Sabbaths, ²³  for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you. ²⁴ 

Keluaran 32:6

32:6 So they got up early on the next day and offered up burnt offerings and brought peace offerings, and the people sat down to eat and drink, ²⁵  and they rose up to play. ²⁶ 

Keluaran 36:3

36:3 and they received from Moses all the offerings the Israelites had brought to do ²⁷  the work for the service of the sanctuary, and they still continued to bring him a freewill offering each morning. ²⁸ 

Keluaran 39:8

The Breastpiece of Decision

39:8 He made the breastpiece, the work of an artistic designer, in the same fashion as the ephod, of gold, blue, purple, and scarlet, and fine twisted linen.

[4:7]  ¹ tn The particle הִנֵּה (hinneh) points out the startling or amazing sight as if the reader were catching first glimpse of it with Moses.

[4:7]  ² tn Heb “it returned.”

[4:7]  ³ tn Heb “like his flesh.”

[5:16]  ⁴ tn Heb “[they] are saying to us,” the line can be rendered as a passive since there is no expressed subject for the participle.

[5:16]  ⁵ tn הִנֵּה (hinneh) draws attention to the action reflected in the passive participle מֻכִּים (mukkim): “look, your servants are being beaten.”

[5:16]  ⁶ tn The word rendered “fault” is the basic OT verb for “sin” – וְחָטָאת (vÿkhata’t). The problem is that it is pointed as a perfect tense, feminine singular verb. Some other form of the verb would be expected, or a noun. But the basic word-group means “to err, sin, miss the mark, way, goal.” The word in this context seems to indicate that the people of Pharaoh – the slave masters – have failed to provide the straw. Hence: “fault” or “they failed.” But, as indicated, the line has difficult grammar, for it would literally translate: “and you [fem.] sin your people.” Many commentators (so GKC 206 §74.g) wish to emend the text to read with the Greek and the Syriac, thus: “you sin against your own people” (meaning the Israelites are his loyal subjects).

[6:12]  ⁷ tn Heb “And Moses spoke before.”

[6:12]  ⁸ sn This analogy is an example of a qal wahomer comparison. It is an argument by inference from the light (qal) to the heavy (homer), from the simple to the more difficult. If the Israelites, who are Yahwists, would not listen to him, it is highly unlikely Pharaoh would.

[6:12]  ⁹ tn The final clause begins with a disjunctive vav (ו), a vav on a nonverb form – here a pronoun. It introduces a circumstantial causal clause.

[6:12]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and [since] I am of uncircumcised lips.” The “lips” represent his speech (metonymy of cause). The term “uncircumcised” makes a comparison between his speech and that which Israel perceived as unacceptable, unprepared, foreign, and of no use to God. The heart is described this way when it is impervious to good impressions (Lev 26:41; Jer 9:26) and the ear when it hears imperfectly (Jer 6:10). Moses has here returned to his earlier claim – he does not speak well enough to be doing this.

[10:17]  ¹¹ sn Pharaoh’s double emphasis on “only” uses two different words and was meant to deceive. He was trying to give Moses the impression that he had finally come to his senses, and that he would let the people go. But he had no intention of letting them out.

[10:17]  ¹² sn “Death” is a metonymy that names the effect for the cause. If the locusts are left in the land it will be death to everything that grows.

[12:3]  ¹³ tn Heb “and they will take for them a man a lamb.” This is clearly a distributive, or individualizing, use of “man.”

[12:3]  ¹⁴ tn The שֶּׂה (seh) is a single head from the flock, or smaller cattle, which would include both sheep and goats.

[12:3]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “according to the house of their fathers.” The expression “house of the father” is a common expression for a family.

[12:3]  sn The Passover was to be a domestic institution. Each lamb was to be shared by family members.

[12:3]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “house” (also at the beginning of the following verse).

[19:8]  ¹⁷ tn The verb is an imperfect. The people are not being presumptuous in stating their compliance – there are several options open for the interpretation of this tense. It may be classified as having a desiderative nuance: “we are willing to do” or, “we will do.”

[26:9]  ¹⁸ sn The text seems to describe this part as being in front of the tabernacle, hanging down to form a valence at the entrance (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 284).

[30:23]  ¹⁹ tn The construction uses the imperative “take,” but before it is the independent pronoun to add emphasis to it. After the imperative is the ethical dative (lit. “to you”) to stress the task to Moses as a personal responsibility: “and you, take to yourself.”

[30:23]  ²⁰ tn Heb “spices head.” This must mean the chief spices, or perhaps the top spice, meaning fine spices or choice spices. See Song 4:14; Ezek 27:22.

[30:23]  ²¹ tn Or “500 shekels.” Verse 24 specifies that the sanctuary shekel was the unit for weighing the spices. The total of 1500 shekels for the four spices is estimated at between 77 and 100 pounds, or 17 to 22 kilograms, depending on how much a shekel weighed (C. Houtman, Exodus, 3:576).

[30:23]  ²² sn Myrrh is an aromatic substance that flows from the bark of certain trees in Arabia and Africa and then hardens. “The hardened globules of the gum appear also to have been ground into a powder that would have been easy to store and would have been poured from a container” (J. Durham, Exodus [WBC], 3:406).

[31:13]  ²³ sn The instruction for the Sabbath at this point seems rather abrupt, but it follows logically the extended plans of building the sanctuary. B. Jacob, following some of the earlier treatments, suggests that these are specific rules given for the duration of the building of the sanctuary (Exodus, 844). The Sabbath day is a day of complete cessation; no labor or work could be done. The point here is that God’s covenant people must faithfully keep the sign of the covenant as a living commemoration of the finished work of Yahweh, and as an active part in their sanctification. See also H. Routtenberg, “The Laws of Sabbath: Biblical Sources,” Dor le Dor 6 (1977): 41-43, 99-101, 153-55, 204-6; G. Robinson, “The Idea of Rest in the OT and the Search for the Basic Character of Sabbath,” ZAW 92 (1980): 32-42; M. Tsevat, “The Basic Meaning of the Biblical Sabbath, ZAW 84 (1972): 447-59; M. T. Willshaw, “A Joyous Sign,” ExpTim 89 (1978): 179-80.

[31:13]  ²⁴ tn Or “your sanctifier.”

[32:6]  ²⁵ tn The second infinitive is an infinitive absolute. The first is an infinitive construct with a lamed (ל) preposition, expressing the purpose of their sitting down. The infinitive absolute that follows cannot take the preposition, but with the conjunction follows the force of the form before it (see GKC 340 §113.e).

[32:6]  ²⁶ tn The form is לְצַחֵק (lÿtsakheq), a Piel infinitive construct, giving the purpose of their rising up after the festal meal. On the surface it would seem that with the festival there would be singing and dancing, so that the people were celebrating even though they did not know the reason. W. C. Kaiser says the word means “drunken immoral orgies and sexual play” (“Exodus,” EBC 2:478). That is quite an assumption for this word, but is reflected in some recent English versions (e.g., NCV “got up and sinned sexually”; TEV “an orgy of drinking and sex”). The word means “to play, trifle.” It can have other meanings, depending on its contexts. It is used of Lot when he warned his sons-in-law and appeared as one who “mocked” them; it is also used of Ishmael “playing” with Isaac, which Paul interprets as mocking; it is used of Isaac “playing” with his wife in a manner that revealed to Abimelech that they were not brother and sister, and it is used by Potiphar’s wife to say that her husband brought this slave Joseph in to “mock” them. The most that can be gathered from these is that it is playful teasing, serious mocking, or playful caresses. It might fit with wild orgies, but there is no indication of that in this passage, and the word does not mean it. The fact that they were festive and playing before an idol was sufficient.

[36:3]  ²⁷ tn In the Hebrew text the infinitive “to do it” comes after “sanctuary”; it makes a smoother rendering in English to move it forward, rather than reading “brought for the work.”

[36:3]  ²⁸ tn Heb “in the morning, in the morning.”