Keluaran 6:20

6:20 Amram married ¹  his father’s sister Jochebed, and she bore him Aaron and Moses. (The length of Amram’s life was 137 years.)

Keluaran 10:10

10:10 He said to them, “The Lord will need to be with you ²  if I release you and your dependents! ³  Watch out! ⁴  Trouble is right in front of you! ⁵ 

Keluaran 12:21

12:21 Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel, and told them, “Go and select ⁶  for yourselves a lamb or young goat ⁷  for your families, and kill the Passover animals. ⁸ 

Keluaran 21:4

21:4 If his master gave ⁹  him a wife, and she bore sons or daughters, the wife and the children will belong to her master, and he will go out by himself.

[6:20]  ¹ tn Heb “took for a wife” (also in vv. 23, 25).

[10:10]  ² sn Pharaoh is by no means offering a blessing on them in the name of Yahweh. The meaning of his “wish” is connected to the next clause – as he is releasing them, may God help them. S. R. Driver says that in Pharaoh’s scornful challenge Yahweh is as likely to protect them as Pharaoh is likely to let them go – not at all (Exodus, 80). He is planning to keep the women and children as hostages to force the men to return. U. Cassuto (Exodus, 125) paraphrases it this way: “May the help of your God be as far from you as I am from giving you permission to go forth with your little ones.” The real irony, Cassuto observes, is that in the final analysis he will let them go, and Yahweh will be with them.

[10:10]  ³ tn The context of Moses’ list of young and old, sons and daughters, and the contrast with the word for strong “men” in v. 11 indicates that טַפְּכֶם (tappÿkhem), often translated “little ones” or “children,” refers to dependent people, noncombatants in general.

[10:10]  ⁴ tn Heb “see.”

[10:10]  ⁵ tn Heb “before your face.”

[10:10]  sn The “trouble” or “evil” that is before them could refer to the evil that they are devising – the attempt to escape from Egypt. But that does not make much sense in the sentence – why would he tell them to take heed or look out about that? U. Cassuto (Exodus, 126) makes a better suggestion. He argues that Pharaoh is saying, “Don’t push me too far.” The evil, then, would be what Pharaoh was going to do if these men kept making demands on him. This fits the fact that he had them driven out of his court immediately. There could also be here an allusion to Pharaoh’s god Re’, the sun-deity and head of the pantheon; he would be saying that the power of his god would confront them.

[12:21]  ⁶ tn Heb “draw out and take.” The verb has in view the need “to draw out” a lamb or goat selected from among the rest of the flock.

[12:21]  ⁷ tn The Hebrew noun is singular and can refer to either a lamb or a goat. Since English has no common word for both, the phrase “a lamb or young goat” is used in the translation.

[12:21]  ⁸ tn The word “animals” is added to avoid giving the impression in English that the Passover festival itself is the object of “kill.”

[21:4]  ⁹ sn The slave would not have the right or the means to acquire a wife. Thus, the idea of the master’s “giving” him a wife is clear – the master would have to pay the bride price and make the provision. In this case, the wife and the children are actually the possession of the master unless the slave were to pay the bride price – but he is a slave because he got into debt. The law assumes that the master was better able to provide for this woman than the freed slave and that it was most important to keep the children with the mother.