Keluaran 1:8

1:8 Then a new king, ¹  who did not know about ²  Joseph, came to power ³  over Egypt.

Keluaran 5:11

5:11 You ⁴  go get straw for yourselves wherever you can ⁵  find it, because there will be no reduction at all in your workload.’”

Keluaran 17:15

17:15 Moses built an altar, and he called it “The Lord is my Banner,” ⁶ 

Keluaran 21:23

21:23 But if there is serious injury, then you will give a life for a life,

Keluaran 22:20

22:20 “Whoever sacrifices to a god other than the Lord ⁷  alone must be utterly destroyed. ⁸ 

Keluaran 25:8

25:8 Let them make ⁹  for me a sanctuary, ¹⁰  so that I may live among them.

Keluaran 25:40

25:40 Now be sure to make ¹¹  them according to the pattern you were shown ¹²  on the mountain. ¹³ 

Keluaran 30:1

The Altar of Incense

30:1 ¹⁴ “You are to make an altar for burning incense; ¹⁵  you are to make it of ¹⁶  acacia wood. ¹⁷ 

Keluaran 36:22

36:22 with ¹⁸  two projections per frame parallel one to another. ¹⁹  He made all the frames of the tabernacle in this way.

Keluaran 37:2

37:2 He overlaid it with pure gold, inside and out, and he made a surrounding border ²⁰  of gold for it.

[1:8]  ¹ sn It would be difficult to identify who this “new king” might be, since the chronology of ancient Israel and Egypt is continually debated. Scholars who take the numbers in the Bible more or less at face value would place the time of Jacob’s going down to Egypt in about 1876 b.c. This would put Joseph’s experience in the period prior to the Hyksos control of Egypt (1720-1570’s), and everything in the narrative about Joseph points to a native Egyptian setting and not a Hyksos one. Joseph’s death, then, would have been around 1806 b.c., just a few years prior to the end of the 12th Dynasty of Egypt. This marked the end of the mighty Middle Kingdom of Egypt. The relationship between the Hyksos (also Semites) and the Israelites may have been amicable, and the Hyksos then might very well be the enemies that the Egyptians feared in Exodus 1:10. It makes good sense to see the new king who did not know Joseph as either the founder (Amosis, 1570-1546) or an early king of the powerful 18th Dynasty (like Thutmose I). Egypt under this new leadership drove out the Hyksos and reestablished Egyptian sovereignty. The new rulers certainly would have been concerned about an increasing Semite population in their territory (see E. H. Merrill, Kingdom of Priests, 49-55).

[1:8]  ² tn The relative clause comes last in the verse in Hebrew. It simply clarifies that the new king had no knowledge about Joseph. It also introduces a major theme in the early portion of Exodus, as a later Pharaoh will claim not to know who Yahweh is. The Lord, however, will work to make sure that Pharaoh and all Egypt will know that he is the true God.

[1:8]  ³ tn Heb “arose.”

[5:11]  ⁴ tn The independent personal pronoun emphasizes that the people were to get their own straw, and it heightens the contrast with the king. “You – go get.”

[5:11]  ⁵ tn The tense in this section could be translated as having the nuance of possibility: “wherever you may find it,” or the nuance of potential imperfect: “wherever you are able to find any.”

[17:15]  ⁶ sn Heb “Yahweh-nissi” (so NAB), which means “Yahweh is my banner.” Note that when Israel murmured and failed God, the name commemorated the incident or the outcome of their failure. When they were blessed with success, the naming praised God. Here the holding up of the staff of God was preserved in the name for the altar – God gave them the victory.

[22:20]  ⁷ tn Heb “not to Yahweh.”

[22:20]  ⁸ tn The verb חָרַם (kharam) means “to be devoted” to God or “to be banned.” The idea is that it would be God’s to do with as he liked. What was put under the ban was for God alone, either for his service or for his judgment. But it was out of human control. Here the verb is saying that the person will be utterly destroyed.

[25:8]  ⁹ tn The verb is a perfect with vav (ו) consecutive; it follows in the sequence initiated by the imperative in v. 2 and continues with the force of a command.

[25:8]  ¹⁰ tn The word here is מִקְדּשׁ (miqdash), “a sanctuary” or “holy place”; cf. NLT “sacred residence.” The purpose of building it is to enable Yahweh to reside (וְשָׁכַנְתִּי, vÿshakhanti) in their midst. U. Cassuto reminds the reader that God did not need a place to dwell, but the Israelites needed a dwelling place for him, so that they would look to it and be reminded that he was in their midst (Exodus, 327).

[25:40]  ¹¹ tn The text uses two imperatives: “see and make.” This can be interpreted as a verbal hendiadys, calling for Moses and Israel to see to it that they make these things correctly.

[25:40]  ¹² tn The participle is passive, “caused to see,” or, “shown.”

[25:40]  ¹³ sn The message of this section surely concerns access to God. To expound this correctly, though, since it is an instruction section for building the lampstand, the message would be: God requires that his people ensure that light will guide the way of access to God. The breakdown for exposition could be the instructions for preparation for light (one lamp, several branches), then instructions for the purpose and maintenance of the lamps, and then the last verse telling the divine source for the instructions. Naturally, the metaphorical value of light will come up in the study, especially from the NT. So in the NT there is the warning that if churches are unfaithful God will remove their lampstand, their ministry (Rev 2-3).

[30:1]  ¹⁴ sn Why this section has been held until now is a mystery. One would have expected to find it with the instructions for the other furnishings. The widespread contemporary view that it was composed later does not answer the question, it merely moves the issue to the work of an editor rather than the author. N. M. Sarna notes concerning the items in chapter 30 that “all the materials for these final items were anticipated in the list of invited donations in 25:3-6” and that they were not needed for installing Aaron and his sons (Exodus [JPSTC], 193). Verses 1-10 can be divided into three sections: the instructions for building the incense altar (1-5), its placement (6), and its proper use (7-10).

[30:1]  ¹⁵ tn The expression is מִזְבֵּחַ מִקְטַר קְטֹרֶת (mizbeakh miqtar qÿtoret), either “an altar, namely an altar of incense,” or “an altar, [for] burning incense.” The second noun is “altar of incense,” although some suggest it is an active noun meaning “burning.” If the former, then it is in apposition to the word for “altar” (which is not in construct). The last noun is “incense” or “sweet smoke.” It either qualifies the “altar of incense” or serves as the object of the active noun. B. Jacob says that in order to designate that this altar be used only for incense, the Torah prepared the second word for this passage alone. It specifies the kind of altar this is (Exodus, 828).

[30:1]  ¹⁶ tn This is an adverbial accusative explaining the material used in building the altar.

[30:1]  ¹⁷ sn See M. Haran, “The Uses of Incense in Ancient Israel Ritual,” VT 10 (1960): 113-15; N. Glueck, “Incense Altars,” Translating and Understanding the Old Testament, 325-29.

[36:22]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “two hands to the one frame.”

[36:22]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “joined one to one.”

[37:2]  ²⁰ tn Or “molding.”