Keluaran 12:29-30

The Deliverance from Egypt

12:29 ¹ It happened ²  at midnight – the Lord attacked all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the prison, and all the firstborn of the cattle. 12:30 Pharaoh got up ³  in the night, ⁴  along with all his servants and all Egypt, and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was no house ⁵  in which there was not someone dead.

Keluaran 12:2

12:2 “This month is to be your beginning of months; it will be your first month of the year. ⁶ 

1 Samuel 24:16

24:16 When David finished speaking these words to Saul, Saul said, “Is that your voice, my son David?” Then Saul wept loudly. ⁷ 

1 Samuel 24:1

David Spares Saul’s Life

24:1 (24:2) When Saul returned from pursuing the Philistines, they told him, “Look, David is in the desert of En Gedi.”

1 Samuel 21:12

21:12 David thought about what they said ⁸  and was very afraid of King Achish of Gath.

1 Samuel 21:1-2

21:1 (21:2) David went to Ahimelech the priest in Nob. Ahimelech was shaking with fear when he met ⁹  David, and said to him, “Why are you by yourself with no one accompanying you?” 21:2 David replied to Ahimelech the priest, “The king instructed me to do something, but he said to me, ‘Don’t let anyone know the reason I am sending you or the instructions I have given you.’ ¹⁰  I have told my soldiers ¹¹  to wait at a certain place. ¹² 

1 Samuel 1:21-22

Hannah Dedicates Samuel to the Lord

1:21 This man Elkanah went up with all his family to make the yearly sacrifice to the Lord and to keep his vow, 1:22 but Hannah did not go up with them. ¹³  Instead she told her husband, “Once the boy is weaned, I will bring him and appear before the Lord, and he will remain there from then on.”

Mazmur 35:5-6

35:5 May they be ¹⁴  like wind-driven chaff,

as the Lord’s angel ¹⁵  attacks them! ¹⁶ 

35:6 May their path be ¹⁷  dark and slippery,

as the Lord’s angel chases them!

Kisah Para Rasul 12:23

12:23 Immediately an angel of the Lord ¹⁸  struck ¹⁹  Herod ²⁰  down because he did not give the glory to God, and he was eaten by worms and died. ²¹ 

[12:29]  ¹ sn The next section records the deliverance of Israel from Egypt, and so becomes the turning point of the book. Verses 28 and 29 could be included in the exposition of the previous section as the culmination of that part. The message might highlight God’s requirement for deliverance from bondage through the application of the blood of the sacrifice, God’s instruction for the memorial of deliverance through the purging of corruption, and the compliance of those who believed the message. But these verses also form the beginning of this next section (and so could be used transitionally). This unit includes the judgment on Egypt (29-30), the exodus from Egypt (31-39) and the historical summation and report (40-42).

[12:29]  ² tn The verse begins with the temporal indicator וַיְהִי (vayÿhi), often translated “and it came to pass.” Here it could be left untranslated: “In the middle of the night Yahweh attacked.” The word order of the next and main clause furthers the emphasis by means of the vav disjunctive on the divine name preceding the verb. The combination of these initial and disjunctive elements helps to convey the suddenness of the attack, while its thoroughness is stressed by the repetition of “firstborn” in the rest of the verse, the merism (“from the firstborn of Pharaoh…to the firstborn of the captive”), and the mention of cattle.

[12:30]  ³ tn Heb “arose,” the verb קוּם (qum) in this context certainly must describe a less ceremonial act. The entire country woke up in terror because of the deaths.

[12:30]  ⁴ tn The noun is an adverbial accusative of time – “in the night” or “at night.”

[12:30]  ⁵ sn Or so it seemed. One need not push this description to complete literalness. The reference would be limited to houses that actually had firstborn people or animals. In a society in which households might include more than one generation of humans and animals, however, the presence of a firstborn human or animal would be the rule rather than the exception.

[12:2]  ⁶ sn B. Jacob (Exodus, 294-95) shows that the intent of the passage was not to make this month in the spring the New Year – that was in the autumn. Rather, when counting months this was supposed to be remembered first, for it was the great festival of freedom from Egypt. He observes how some scholars have unnecessarily tried to date one New Year earlier than the other.

[24:16]  ⁷ tn Heb “lifted his voice and wept.”

[21:12]  ⁸ tn Heb “placed these matters in his heart.”

[21:1]  ⁹ tn Heb “trembled to meet.”

[21:2]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “let not a man know anything about the matter [for] which I am sending you and [about] which I commanded you.”

[21:2]  ¹¹ tn Heb “servants.”

[21:2]  ¹² tn The Hebrew expression here refers to a particular, but unnamed, place. It occurs in the OT only here, in 2 Kgs 6:8, and in Ruth 4:1, where Boaz uses it to refer to Naomi’s unnamed kinsman-redeemer. A contracted form of the expression appears in Dan 8:13.

[1:22]  ¹³ tn The disjunctive clause is contrastive here. The words “with them” have been supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[35:5]  ¹⁴ tn The prefixed verbal form is taken as a jussive. See v. 4.

[35:5]  ¹⁵ sn See the mention of the Lord’s angel in Ps 34:7.

[35:5]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “as the Lord’s angel pushes [them].”

[35:6]  ¹⁷ tn The prefixed verbal form is distinctly jussive, indicating this is a prayer.

[12:23]  ¹⁸ tn Or “the angel of the Lord.” See the note on the word “Lord” in 5:19.

[12:23]  ¹⁹ sn On being struck…down by an angel, see Acts 23:3; 1 Sam 25:28; 2 Sam 12:15; 2 Kgs 19:35; 2 Chr 13:20; 2 Macc 9:5.

[12:23]  ²⁰ tn Grk “him”; the referent (Herod) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[12:23]  ²¹ sn He was eaten by worms and died. Josephus, Ant. 19.8.2 (19.343-352), states that Herod Agrippa I died at Caesarea in a.d. 44. The account by Josephus, while not identical to Luke’s account, is similar in many respects: On the second day of a festival, Herod Agrippa appeared in the theater with a robe made of silver. When it sparkled in the sun, the people cried out flatteries and declared him to be a god. The king, carried away by the flattery, saw an owl (an omen of death) sitting on a nearby rope, and immediately was struck with severe stomach pains. He was carried off to his house and died five days later. The two accounts can be reconciled without difficulty, since while Luke states that Herod was immediately struck down by an angel, his death could have come several days later. The mention of worms with death adds a humiliating note to the scene. The formerly powerful ruler had been thoroughly reduced to nothing (cf. Jdt 16:17; 2 Macc 9:9; cf. also Josephus, Ant. 17.6.5 [17.168-170], which details the sickness which led to Herod the Great’s death).