Keluaran 4:9

4:9 And if ¹  they do not believe even these two signs or listen to you, ²  then take ³  some water from the Nile and pour it out on the dry ground. The water you take out of the Nile will become blood on the dry ground.” ⁴ 

Keluaran 8:21

8:21 If you do not release ⁵  my people, then I am going to send ⁶  swarms of flies ⁷  on you and on your servants and on your people and in your houses. The houses of the Egyptians will be full of flies, and even the ground they stand on. ⁸ 

Keluaran 12:4

12:4 If any household is too small ⁹  for a lamb, ¹⁰  the man ¹¹  and his next-door neighbor ¹²  are to take ¹³  a lamb according to the number of people – you will make your count for the lamb according to how much each one can eat. ¹⁴ 

Keluaran 15:26

15:26 He said, “If you will diligently obey ¹⁵  the Lord your God, and do what is right ¹⁶  in his sight, and pay attention ¹⁷  to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, then all ¹⁸  the diseases ¹⁹  that I brought on the Egyptians I will not bring on you, for I, the Lord, am your healer.” ²⁰ 

Keluaran 16:4

16:4 Then the Lord said to Moses, “I am going to rain ²¹  bread from heaven for you, and the people will go out ²²  and gather the amount for each day, so that I may test them. ²³  Will they will walk in my law ²⁴  or not?

Keluaran 17:7

17:7 He called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the contending of the Israelites and because of their testing the Lord, ²⁵  saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

Keluaran 21:29

21:29 But if the ox had the habit of goring, and its owner was warned, ²⁶  and he did not take the necessary precautions, ²⁷  and then it killed a man or a woman, the ox must be stoned and the man must be put to death.

Keluaran 33:13

33:13 Now if I have found favor in your sight, show me ²⁸  your way, that I may know you, ²⁹  that I may continue to find ³⁰  favor in your sight. And see ³¹  that this nation is your people.”

Keluaran 34:9

34:9 and said, “If now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, let my Lord ³²  go among us, for we ³³  are a stiff-necked people; pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance.”

[4:9]  ¹ tn Heb “and it will be if.”

[4:9]  ² tn Heb “listen to your voice.”

[4:9]  ³ tn The verb form is the perfect tense with the vav (ו) consecutive; it functions then as the equivalent of the imperfect tense – here as an imperfect of instruction.

[4:9]  ⁴ sn This is a powerful sign, for the Nile was always known as the source of life in Egypt, but now it will become the evidence of death. So the three signs were alike, each consisting of life and death. They would clearly anticipate the struggle with Egypt through the plagues. The point is clear that in the face of the possibility that people might not believe, the servants of God must offer clear proof of the power of God as they deliver the message of God. The rest is up to God.

[8:21]  ⁵ tn The construction uses the predicator of nonexistence – אֵין (’en, “there is not”) – with a pronominal suffix prior to the Piel participle. The suffix becomes the subject of the clause. Heb “but if there is not you releasing.”

[8:21]  ⁶ tn Here again is the futur instans use of the participle, now Qal with the meaning “send”: הִנְנִי מַשְׁלִיחַ (hinni mashliakh, “here I am sending”).

[8:21]  ⁷ tn The word עָרֹב (’arov) means “a mix” or “swarm.” It seems that some irritating kind of flying insect is involved. Ps 78:45 says that the Egyptians were eaten or devoured by them. Various suggestions have been made over the years: (1) it could refer to beasts or reptiles; (2) the Greek took it as the dog-fly, a vicious blood-sucking gadfly, more common in the spring than in the fall; (3) the ordinary house fly, which is a symbol of Egypt in Isa 7:18 (Hebrew זְבוּב, zÿvuv); and (4) the beetle, which gnaws and bites plants, animals, and materials. The fly probably fits the details of this passage best; the plague would have greatly intensified a problem with flies that already existed.

[8:21]  ⁸ tn Or perhaps “the land where they are” (cf. NRSV “the land where they live”).

[12:4]  ⁹ sn Later Judaism ruled that “too small” meant fewer than ten (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 88).

[12:4]  ¹⁰ tn The clause uses the comparative min (מִן) construction: יִמְעַט הַבַּיִת מִהְיֹת מִשֶּׂה (yim’at habbayit mihyot miseh, “the house is small from being from a lamb,” or “too small for a lamb”). It clearly means that if there were not enough people in the household to have a lamb by themselves, they should join with another family. For the use of the comparative, see GKC 430 §133.c.

[12:4]  ¹¹ tn Heb “he and his neighbor”; the referent (the man) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[12:4]  ¹² tn Heb “who is near to his house.”

[12:4]  ¹³ tn The construction uses a perfect tense with a vav (ו) consecutive after a conditional clause: “if the household is too small…then he and his neighbor will take.”

[12:4]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “[every] man according to his eating.”

[12:4]  sn The reference is normally taken to mean whatever each person could eat. B. Jacob (Exodus, 299) suggests, however, that the reference may not be to each individual person’s appetite, but to each family. Each man who is the head of a household was to determine how much his family could eat, and this in turn would determine how many families shared the lamb.

[15:26]  ¹⁵ tn The construction uses the infinitive absolute and the imperfect tense of שָׁמַע (shama’). The meaning of the verb is idiomatic here because it is followed by “to the voice of Yahweh your God.” When this is present, the verb is translated “obey.” The construction is in a causal clause. It reads, “If you will diligently obey.” Gesenius points out that the infinitive absolute in a conditional clause also emphasizes the importance of the condition on which the consequence depends (GKC 342-43 §113.o).

[15:26]  ¹⁶ tn The word order is reversed in the text: “and the right in his eyes you do,” or, “[if] you do what is right in his eyes.” The conditional idea in the first clause is continued in this clause.

[15:26]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “give ear.” This verb and the next are both perfect tenses with the vav (ו) consecutive; they continue the sequence of the original conditional clause.

[15:26]  ¹⁸ tn The substantive כָּל־ (kol, “all of”) in a negative clause can be translated “none of.”

[15:26]  ¹⁹ sn The reference is no doubt to the plagues that Yahweh has just put on them. These will not come on God’s true people. But the interesting thing about a conditional clause like this is that the opposite is also true – “if you do not obey, then I will bring these diseases.”

[15:26]  ²⁰ tn The form is רֹפְאֶךָ (rofÿ’ekha), a participle with a pronominal suffix. The word is the predicate after the pronoun “I”: “I [am] your healer.” The suffix is an objective genitive – the Lord heals them.

[15:26]  sn The name I Yahweh am your healer comes as a bit of a surprise. One might expect, “I am Yahweh who heals your water,” but it was the people he came to heal because their faith was weak. God lets Israel know here that he can control the elements of nature to bring about a spiritual response in Israel (see Deut 8).

[16:4]  ²¹ tn The particle הִנְנִי (hinni) before the active participle indicates the imminent future action: “I am about to rain.”

[16:4]  ²² tn This verb and the next are the Qal perfect tenses with vav (ו) consecutives; they follow the sequence of the participle, and so are future in orientation. The force here is instruction – “they will go out” or “they are to go out.”

[16:4]  ²³ tn The verb in the purpose/result clause is the Piel imperfect of נָסָה (nasah), אֲנַסֶּנוּ (’anassenu) – “in order that I may prove them [him].” The giving of the manna will be a test of their obedience to the detailed instructions of God as well as being a test of their faith in him (if they believe him they will not gather too much). In chap. 17 the people will test God, showing that they do not trust him.

[16:4]  ²⁴ sn The word “law” here properly means “direction” at this point (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 146), but their obedience here would indicate also whether or not they would be willing to obey when the Law was given at Sinai.

[17:7]  ²⁵ sn The name Massah (מַסָּה, massah) means “Proving”; it is derived from the verb “test, prove, try.” And the name Meribah (מְרִיבָה, mÿrivah) means “Strife”; it is related to the verb “to strive, quarrel, contend.” The choice of these names for the place would serve to remind Israel for all time of this failure with God. God wanted this and all subsequent generations to know how unbelief challenges God. And yet, he gave them water. So in spite of their failure, he remained faithful to his promises. The incident became proverbial, for it is the warning in Ps 95:7-8, which is quoted in Heb 3:15: “Oh, that today you would listen as he speaks! Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of testing in the wilderness. There your fathers tested me and tried me, and they saw my works for forty years.” The lesson is clear enough: to persist in this kind of unbelief could only result in the loss of divine blessing. Or, to put it another way, if they refused to believe in the power of God, they would wander powerless in the wilderness. They had every reason to believe, but they did not. (Note that this does not mean they are unbelievers, only that they would not take God at his word.)

[21:29]  ²⁶ tn The Hophal perfect has the idea of “attested, testified against.”

[21:29]  ²⁷ tn Heb “he was not keeping it” or perhaps guarding or watching it (referring to the ox).

[33:13]  ²⁸ tn The prayer uses the Hiphil imperative of the verb “to know.” “Cause me to know” is “show me, reveal to me, teach or inform me.” Moses wanted to know more of God’s dealings with people, especially after all that has happened in the preceding chapter.

[33:13]  ²⁹ tn The imperfect tense of the verb “to know” with the vav follows the imperative of this root, and so this indicates the purpose clause (final imperfect): “in order that I may know you.” S. R. Driver summarizes it this way: that I may understand what your nature and character is, and shape my petitions accordingly, so that I may find grace in your sight, and my future prayers may be answered (Exodus, 361).

[33:13]  ³⁰ tn The purpose clause simply uses the imperfect, “that I may find.” But since he already has found favor in God’s eyes, he is clearly praying that it be so in the future as well as now.

[33:13]  ³¹ tn The verb “see” (an imperative) is a request for God to acknowledge Israel as his people by providing the divine leadership needed. So his main appeal will be for the people and not himself. To underscore this, he repeats “see” the way the section opened.

[34:9]  ³² tn The Hebrew term translated “Lord” two times here is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

[34:9]  ³³ tn Heb “it is.” Hebrew uses the third person masculine singular pronoun here in agreement with the noun “people.”