Keluaran 3:10

3:10 So now go, and I will send you ¹  to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.”

Keluaran 7:24

7:24 All the Egyptians dug around the Nile for water to drink, ²  because they could not drink the water of the Nile.

Keluaran 28:40

28:40 “For Aaron’s sons you are to make tunics, sashes, and headbands ³  for glory and for beauty.

Keluaran 36:13

36:13 He made fifty gold clasps and joined the curtains together to one another with the clasps, so that the tabernacle was a unit. ⁴ 

Keluaran 39:30

39:30 They made a plate, the holy diadem, of pure gold and wrote on it an inscription, as on the engravings of a seal, “Holiness to the Lord.”

¹ tn The verse has a sequence of volitives. The first form is the imperative לְכָה (lÿkha, “go”). Then comes the cohortative/imperfect form with the vav (ו), “and I will send you” or more likely “that I may send you” (וְאֶשְׁלָחֲךָ, vÿ’eshlakhakha), which is followed by the imperative with the vav, “and bring out” or “that you may bring out” (וְהוֹצֵא, vÿhotse’). The series of actions begins with Moses going. When he goes, it will be the Lord who sends him, and if the Lord sends him, it will be with the purpose of leading Israel out of Egypt.

sn These instructions for Moses are based on the preceding revelation made to him. The deliverance of Israel was to be God’s work – hence, “I will send you.” When God commissioned people, often using the verb “to send,” it indicated that they went with his backing, his power, and his authority. Moses could not have brought Israel out without this. To name this incident a commissioning, then, means that the authority came from God to do the work (compare John 3:2).

² sn The text stresses that the water in the Nile, and Nile water that had been diverted or collected for use, was polluted and undrinkable. Water underground also was from the Nile, but it had not been contaminated, certainly not with dead fish, and so would be drinkable.

³ sn This refers to a band of linen wrapped around the head, forming something like a brimless convex cap, resembling something like a half egg. It refers to the headgear of ordinary priests only (see S. R. Driver, Exodus, 310-11).

⁴ tn Heb “one.”