Keluaran 12:30-36

12:30 Pharaoh got up ¹  in the night, ²  along with all his servants and all Egypt, and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was no house ³  in which there was not someone dead. 12:31 Pharaoh ⁴  summoned Moses and Aaron in the night and said, “Get up, get out ⁵  from among my people, both you and the Israelites! Go, serve the Lord as you have requested! ⁶  12:32 Also, take your flocks and your herds, just as you have requested, and leave. But bless me also.” ⁷ 

12:33 The Egyptians were urging ⁸  the people on, in order to send them out of the land quickly, ⁹  for they were saying, “We are all dead!” 12:34 So the people took their dough before the yeast was added, ¹⁰  with their kneading troughs bound up in their clothing on their shoulders. 12:35 Now the Israelites had done ¹¹  as Moses told them – they had requested from the Egyptians ¹²  silver and gold items and clothing. 12:36 The Lord ¹³  gave the people favor ¹⁴  in the sight of the Egyptians, and they gave them whatever they wanted, ¹⁵  and so they plundered Egypt. ¹⁶ 

[12:30]  ¹ 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]  ² tn The noun is an adverbial accusative of time – “in the night” or “at night.”

[12:30]  ³ 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.

[12:31]  ⁴ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Pharaoh) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[12:31]  ⁵ tn The urgency in Pharaoh’s words is caught by the abrupt use of the imperatives – “get up, go” (קוּמוּ צְּאוּ, qumu tsÿ’u), and “go, serve” (וּלְכוּ עִבְדוּ, ulÿkhu ’ivdu) and “take” and “leave/go” (וָלֵכוּ…קְחוּ, qÿkhu...valekhu).

[12:31]  ⁶ tn Heb “as you have said.” The same phrase also occurs in the following verse.

[12:31]  sn It appears from this clause that Pharaoh has given up attempting to impose restrictions as he had earlier. With the severe judgment on him for his previous refusals he should now know that these people are no longer his subjects, and he is no longer sovereign. As Moses had insisted, all the Israelites would leave, and with all their possessions, to worship Yahweh.

[12:32]  ⁷ tn The form is the Piel perfect with a vav (ו) consecutive (וּבֵרַכְתֶּם, uverakhtem); coming in the sequence of imperatives this perfect tense would be volitional – probably a request rather than a command.

[12:32]  sn Pharaoh probably meant that they should bless him also when they were sacrificing to Yahweh in their religious festival – after all, he might reason, he did let them go (after divine judgment). To bless him would mean to invoke good gifts from God for him.

[12:33]  ⁸ tn The verb used here (חָזַק, khazaq) is the same verb used for Pharaoh’s heart being hardened. It conveys the idea of their being resolved or insistent in this – they were not going to change.

[12:33]  ⁹ tn The phrase uses two construct infinitives in a hendiadys, the first infinitive becoming the modifier.

[12:34]  ¹⁰ tn The imperfect tense after the adverb טֶרֶם (terem) is to be treated as a preterite: “before it was leavened,” or “before the yeast was added.” See GKC 314-15 §107.c.

[12:35]  ¹¹ tn The verbs “had done” and then “had asked” were accomplished prior to the present narrative (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 99). The verse begins with disjunctive word order to introduce the reminder of earlier background information.

[12:35]  ¹² tn Heb “from Egypt.” Here the Hebrew text uses the name of the country to represent the inhabitants (a figure known as metonymy).

[12:36]  ¹³ tn The holy name (“Yahweh,” represented as “the Lord” in the translation) has the vav disjunctive with it. It may have the force: “Now it was Yahweh who gave the people favor….”

[12:36]  ¹⁴ sn God was destroying the tyrant and his nobles and the land’s economy because of their stubborn refusal. But God established friendly, peaceful relations between his people and the Egyptians. The phrase is used outside Exod only in Gen 39:21, referring to Joseph.

[12:36]  ¹⁵ tn The verb וַיַּשְׁאִלוּם (vayyash’ilum) is a Hiphil form that has the root שָׁאַל (sha’al), used earlier in Qal with the meaning “requested” (12:35). The verb here is frequently translated “and they lent them,” but lending does not fit the point. What they gave the Israelites were farewell gifts sought by demanding or asking for them. This may exemplify a “permissive” use of the Hiphil stem, in which “the Hiphil designates an action that is agreeable to the object and allowed by the subject” (B. T. Arnold and J. H. Choi, A Guide to Biblical Hebrew Syntax, 52).

[12:36]  ¹⁶ sn See B. Jacob, “The Gifts of the Egyptians; A Critical Commentary,” Journal of Reformed Judaism 27 (1980): 59-69.