Keluaran 1:17

1:17 But ¹  the midwives feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them; they let the boys live. ² 

Keluaran 7:18

7:18 Fish ³  in the Nile will die, the Nile will stink, and the Egyptians will be unable ⁴  to drink water from the Nile.”’”

Keluaran 9:15

9:15 For by now I could have stretched out ⁵  my hand and struck you and your people with plague, and you would have been destroyed ⁶  from the earth.

Keluaran 11:9

11:9 The Lord said to Moses, “Pharaoh will not listen to you, so that my wonders ⁷  may be multiplied in the land of Egypt.”

Keluaran 16:27

16:27 On the seventh day some of the people went out to gather it, but they found nothing.

Keluaran 17:4

17:4 Then Moses cried out to the Lord, “What will I do with ⁸  this people? – a little more ⁹  and they will stone me!” ¹⁰ 

Keluaran 22:17

22:17 If her father refuses to give her to him, he must pay money for the bride price of virgins.

Keluaran 31:10

31:10 the woven garments, the holy garments for Aaron the priest and the garments for his sons, to minister as priests,

Keluaran 32:2

32:2 So Aaron said to them, “Break off the gold earrings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” ¹¹ 

Keluaran 34:14

34:14 For you must not worship ¹²  any other god, ¹³  for the Lord, whose name ¹⁴  is Jealous, is a jealous God.

Keluaran 34:23

34:23 At three times ¹⁵  in the year all your men ¹⁶  must appear before the Lord God, ¹⁷  the God of Israel.

[1:17]  ¹ tn Heb “and they [fem. pl.] feared”; the referent (the midwives) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:17]  ² tn The verb is the Piel preterite of חָיָה (khaya, “to live”). The Piel often indicates a factitive nuance with stative verbs, showing the cause of the action. Here it means “let live, cause to live.” The verb is the exact opposite of Pharaoh’s command for them to kill the boys.

[7:18]  ³ tn The definite article here has the generic use, indicating the class – “fish” (R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 19, §92).

[7:18]  ⁴ tn The verb לָאָה (la’a), here in the Niphal perfect with a vav consecutive, means “be weary, impatient.” The Niphal meaning is “make oneself weary” in doing something, or “weary (strenuously exert) oneself.” It seems always to indicate exhausted patience (see BDB 521 s.v.). The term seems to imply that the Egyptians were not able to drink the red, contaminated water, and so would expend all their energy looking for water to drink – in frustration of course.

[9:15]  ⁵ tn The verb is the Qal perfect שָׁלַחְתִּי (shalakhti), but a past tense, or completed action translation does not fit the context at all. Gesenius lists this reference as an example of the use of the perfect to express actions and facts, whose accomplishment is to be represented not as actual but only as possible. He offers this for Exod 9:15: “I had almost put forth” (GKC 313 §106.p). Also possible is “I should have stretched out my hand.” Others read the potential nuance instead, and render it as “I could have…” as in the present translation.

[9:15]  ⁶ tn The verb כָּחַד (kakhad) means “to hide, efface,” and in the Niphal it has the idea of “be effaced, ruined, destroyed.” Here it will carry the nuance of the result of the preceding verbs: “I could have stretched out my hand…and struck you…and (as a result) you would have been destroyed.”

[11:9]  ⁷ sn The thought is essentially the same as in Exod 7:3-4, but the wonders, or portents, here refer to what is yet to be done in Egypt.

[17:4]  ⁸ tn The preposition lamed (ל) is here specification, meaning “with respect to” (see R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 49, §273).

[17:4]  ⁹ tn Or “they are almost ready to stone me.”

[17:4]  ¹⁰ tn The perfect tense with the vav (ו) consecutive almost develops an independent force; this is true in sentences where it follows an expression of time, as here (see GKC 334 §112.x).

[32:2]  ¹¹ sn B. Jacob (Exodus, 937-38) argues that Aaron simply did not have the resolution that Moses did, and wanting to keep peace he gave in to the crowd. He also tries to explain that Aaron was wanting to show their folly through the deed. U. Cassuto also says that Aaron’s request for the gold was a form of procrastination, but that the people quickly did it and so he had no alternative but to go through with it (Exodus, 412). These may be right, since Aaron fully understood what was wrong with this, and what the program was all about. The text gives no strong indication to support these ideas, but there are enough hints from the way Aaron does things to warrant such a conclusion.

[34:14]  ¹² tn Heb “bow down.”

[34:14]  ¹³ sn In Exod 20:3 it was “gods.”

[34:14]  ¹⁴ sn Here, too, the emphasis on God’s being a jealous God is repeated (see Exod 20:5). The use of “name” here is to stress that this is his nature, his character.

[34:23]  ¹⁵ tn “Three times” is an adverbial accusative.

[34:23]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “all your males.”

[34:23]  ¹⁷ tn Here the divine name reads in Hebrew הָאָדֹן יְהוָה (ha’adon yÿhvah), which if rendered according to the traditional scheme of “Lord” for “Yahweh” would result in “Lord Lord.” A number of English versions therefore render this phrase “Lord God,” and that convention has been followed here.

[34:23]  sn The title “Lord” is included here before the divine name (translated “God” here; see Exod 23:17), perhaps to form a contrast with Baal (which means “lord” as well) and to show the sovereignty of Yahweh. But the distinct designation “the God of Israel” is certainly the point of the renewed covenant relationship.