Keluaran 10:22

10:22 So Moses extended his hand toward heaven, and there was absolute darkness ¹  throughout the land of Egypt for three days. ² 

Keluaran 12:38

12:38 A mixed multitude ³  also went up with them, and flocks and herds – a very large number of cattle. ⁴ 

Keluaran 14:7

14:7 He took six hundred select ⁵  chariots, and all the rest of the chariots of Egypt, ⁶  and officers ⁷  on all of them.

Keluaran 17:10

17:10 So Joshua fought against Amalek just as Moses had instructed him; ⁸ and Moses and Aaron and Hur went up to the top of the hill.

[10:22]  ¹ tn The construction is a variation of the superlative genitive: a substantive in the construct state is connected to a noun with the same meaning (see GKC 431 §133.i).

[10:22]  ² sn S. R. Driver says, “The darkness was no doubt occasioned really by a sand-storm, produced by the hot electrical wind…which blows in intermittently…” (Exodus, 82, 83). This is another application of the antisupernatural approach to these texts. The text, however, is probably describing something that was not a seasonal wind, or Pharaoh would not have been intimidated. If it coincided with that season, then what is described here is so different and so powerful that the Egyptians would have known the difference easily. Pharaoh here would have had to have been impressed that this was something very abnormal, and that his god was powerless. Besides, there was light in all the dwellings of the Israelites.

[12:38]  ³ tn The “mixed multitude” (עֵרֶב רַב, ’erev rav) refers to a great “swarm” (see a possible cognate in 8:21[17]) of folk who joined the Israelites, people who were impressed by the defeat of Egypt, who came to faith, or who just wanted to escape Egypt (maybe slaves or descendants of the Hyksos). The expression prepares for later references to riffraff who came along.

[12:38]  ⁴ tn Heb “and very much cattle.”

[14:7]  ⁵ tn The passive participle of the verb “to choose” means that these were “choice” or superb chariots.

[14:7]  ⁶ tn Heb “every chariot of Egypt.” After the mention of the best chariots, the meaning of this description is “all the other chariots.”

[14:7]  ⁷ tn The word שָׁלִשִׁם (shalishim) means “officers” or some special kind of military personnel. At one time it was taken to mean a “three man chariot,” but the pictures of Egyptian chariots only show two in a chariot. It may mean officers near the king, “men of the third rank” (B. Jacob, Exodus, 394). So the chariots and the crew represented the elite. See the old view by A. E. Cowley that linked it to a Hittite word (“A Hittite Word in Hebrew,” JTS 21 [1920]: 326), and the more recent work by P. C. Craigie connecting it to Egyptian “commander” (“An Egyptian Expression in the Song of the Sea: Exodus XV.4,” VT 20 [1970]: 85).

[17:10]  ⁸ tn The line in Hebrew reads literally: And Joshua did as Moses had said to him, to fight with Amalek. The infinitive construct is epexegetical, explaining what Joshua did that was in compliance with Moses’ words.