Keluaran 1:13

1:13 and they ¹  made the Israelites serve rigorously. ² 

Keluaran 5:10

5:10 So the slave masters of the people and their foremen went to the Israelites and said, ³  “Thus says Pharaoh: ‘I am not giving ⁴  you straw.

Keluaran 5:21

5:21 and they said to them, “May the Lord look on you and judge, ⁵  because you have made us stink ⁶  in the opinion of ⁷  Pharaoh and his servants, ⁸  so that you have given them an excuse to kill us!” ⁹ 

Yesaya 5:30

5:30 At that time ¹⁰  they will growl over their prey, ¹¹ 

it will sound like sea waves crashing against rocks. ¹² 

One will look out over the land and see the darkness of disaster,

clouds will turn the light into darkness. ¹³ 

Yesaya 8:22

8:22 When one looks out over the land, he sees ¹⁴  distress and darkness, gloom ¹⁵  and anxiety, darkness and people forced from the land. ¹⁶ 

Yeremia 11:4

11:4 Those are the terms that I charged your ancestors ¹⁷  to keep ¹⁸  when I brought them out of Egypt, that place which was like an iron-smelting furnace. ¹⁹  I said at that time, ²⁰  “Obey me and carry out the terms of the agreement ²¹  exactly as I commanded you. If you do, ²²  you will be my people and I will be your God. ²³ 

[1:13]  ¹ tn Heb “the Egyptians.” For stylistic reasons this has been replaced by the pronoun “they” in the translation.

[1:13]  ² tn Heb “with rigor, oppression.”

[5:10]  ³ tn Heb “went out and spoke to the people saying.” Here “the people” has been specified as “the Israelites” for clarity.

[5:10]  ⁴ tn The construction uses the negative particle combined with a subject suffix before the participle: אֵינֶנִּי נֹתֵן (’enenni noten, “there is not I – giving”).

[5:21]  ⁵ tn The foremen vented their anger on Moses and Aaron. The two jussives express their desire that the evil these two have caused be dealt with. “May Yahweh look on you and may he judge” could mean only that God should decide if Moses and Aaron are at fault, but given the rest of the comments it is clear the foremen want more. The second jussive could be subordinated to the first – “so that he may judge [you].”

[5:21]  ⁶ tn Heb “you have made our aroma stink.”

[5:21]  ⁷ tn Heb “in the eyes of.”

[5:21]  ⁸ tn Heb “in the eyes of his servants.” This phrase is not repeated in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[5:21]  ⁹ tn Heb “to put a sword in their hand to kill us.” The infinitive construct with the lamed (לָתֶת, latet) signifies the result (“so that”) of making the people stink. Their reputation is now so bad that Pharaoh might gladly put them to death. The next infinitive could also be understood as expressing result: “put a sword in their hand so that they can kill us.”

[5:30]  ¹⁰ tn Or “in that day” (KJV).

[5:30]  ¹¹ tn Heb “over it”; the referent (the prey) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[5:30]  ¹² tn Heb “like the growling of the sea.”

[5:30]  ¹³ tn Heb “and one will gaze toward the land, and look, darkness of distress, and light will grow dark by its [the land’s?] clouds.”

[5:30]  sn The motif of light turning to darkness is ironic when compared to v. 20. There the sinners turn light (= moral/ethical good) to darkness (= moral/ethical evil). Now ironically the Lord will turn light (= the sinners’ sphere of existence and life) into darkness (= the judgment and death).

[8:22]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and behold” (so KJV, ASV, NASB).

[8:22]  ¹⁵ tn The precise meaning of מְעוּף (mÿ’uf) is uncertain; the word occurs only here. See BDB 734 s.v. מָעוּף.

[8:22]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “ and darkness, pushed.” The word מְנֻדָּח (mÿnudakh) appears to be a Pual participle from נדח (“push”), but the Piel is unattested for this verb and the Pual occurs only here.

[11:4]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 5, 7, 10).

[11:4]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “does not listen…this covenant which I commanded your fathers.” The sentence is broken up this way in conformity with contemporary English style.

[11:4]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “out of the land of Egypt, out of the iron-smelting furnace.”

[11:4]  ²⁰ tn In place of the words “I said at that time” the Hebrew text has “saying.” The sentence is again being restructured in English to avoid the long, confusing style of the Hebrew original.

[11:4]  ²¹ tn Heb “Obey me and carry them out.” The “them” refers back to the terms of the covenant which they were charged to keep according to the preceding. The referent is made specific to avoid ambiguity.

[11:4]  ²² tn The words, “If you do” are not in the text. They have been supplied in the translation to break up a long sentence consisting of an imperative followed by a consequential sentence.

[11:4]  ²³ sn Obey me and carry out the terms of the agreement…and I will be your God. This refers to the Mosaic law which was instituted at Sinai and renewed on the Plains of Moab before Israel entered into the land. The words “the terms of the covenant” are explicitly used for the Ten Commandments in Exod 34:28 and for the additional legislation given in Deut 28:69; 29:8. The formulation here is reminiscent of Deut 29:9-14 (29:10-15 HT). The book of Deuteronomy is similar in its structure and function to an ancient Near Eastern treaty. In these the great king reminded his vassal of past benefits that he had given to him, charged him with obligations (the terms or stipulations of the covenant) chief among which was absolute loyalty and sole allegiance, promised him future benefits for obeying the stipulations (the blessings), and placed him under a curse for disobeying them. Any disobedience was met with stern warnings of punishment in the form of destruction and exile. Those who had witnessed the covenant were called in to confirm the continuing goodness of the great king and the disloyalty of the vassal. The vassal was then charged with a list of particular infringements of the stipulations and warned to change his actions or suffer the consequences. This is the background for Jer 11:1-9. Jeremiah is here functioning as a messenger from the Lord, Israel’s great king, and charging both the fathers and the children with breach of covenant.