Keluaran 19:12

19:12 You must set boundaries ¹  for the people all around, saying, ‘Take heed ²  to yourselves not to go up on the mountain nor touch its edge. Whoever touches the mountain will surely be put to death!

Keluaran 20:19

20:19 They said to Moses, “You speak ³  to us and we will listen, but do not let God speak with us, lest we die.”

Keluaran 24:8

24:8 So Moses took the blood and splashed it on ⁴  the people and said, “This is the blood of the covenant ⁵  that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.”

Keluaran 25:20

25:20 The cherubim are to be spreading their wings upward, overshadowing ⁶  the atonement lid with their wings, and the cherubim are to face each other, ⁷  looking ⁸  toward the atonement lid.

Keluaran 29:36

29:36 Every day you are to prepare a bull for a purification offering ⁹  for atonement. ¹⁰  You are to purge ¹¹  the altar by making atonement ¹²  for it, and you are to anoint it to set it apart as holy.

Keluaran 32:6

32:6 So they got up early on the next day and offered up burnt offerings and brought peace offerings, and the people sat down to eat and drink, ¹³  and they rose up to play. ¹⁴ 

Keluaran 32:15

32:15 Moses turned and went down from the mountain with ¹⁵  the two tablets of the testimony in his hands. The tablets were written on both sides – they were written on the front and on the back.

Keluaran 33:8

33:8 And when Moses went out ¹⁶  to the tent, all the people would get up ¹⁷  and stand at the entrance to their tents ¹⁸  and watch ¹⁹  Moses until he entered the tent. ²⁰ 

Keluaran 34:4

34:4 So Moses ²¹  cut out two tablets of stone like the first; ²²  early in the morning he went up ²³  to Mount Sinai, just as the Lord had commanded him, and he took in his hand the two tablets of stone.

[19:12]  ¹ tn The verb is a Hiphil perfect (“make borders”) with vav (ו) consecutive, following the sequence of instructions.

[19:12]  ² tn The Niphal imperative (“guard yourselves, take heed to yourselves”) is followed by two infinitives construct that provide the description of what is to be avoided – going up or touching the mountain.

[20:19]  ³ tn The verb is a Piel imperative. In this context it has more of the sense of a request than a command. The independent personal pronoun “you” emphasizes the subject and forms the contrast with God’s speaking.

[24:8]  ⁴ tn Given the size of the congregation, the preposition might be rendered here “toward the people” rather than on them (all).

[24:8]  ⁵ sn The construct relationship “the blood of the covenant” means “the blood by which the covenant is ratified” (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 254). The parallel with the inauguration of the new covenant in the blood of Christ is striking (see, e.g., Matt 26:28, 1 Cor 11:25). When Jesus was inaugurating the new covenant, he was bringing to an end the old.

[25:20]  ⁶ tn The verb means “overshadowing, screening” in the sense of guarding (see 1 Kgs 8:7; 1 Chr 28:18; see also the account in Gen 3:24). The cherubim then signify two things here: by their outstretched wings they form the throne of God who sits above the ark (with the Law under his feet), and by their overshadowing and guarding they signify this as the place of atonement where people must find propitiation to commune with God. Until then they are barred from his presence. See U. Cassuto, Exodus, 330-35.

[25:20]  ⁷ tn Heb “their faces a man to his brother.”

[25:20]  ⁸ tn Heb “the faces of the cherubim will be” (“the cherubim” was moved to the preceding clause for smoother English).

[29:36]  ⁹ tn The construction uses a genitive: “a bull of the sin offering,” which means, a bull that is designated for a sin (or better, purification) offering.

[29:36]  ¹⁰ sn It is difficult to understand how this verse is to be harmonized with the other passages. The ceremony in the earlier passages deals with atonement made for the priests, for people. But here it is the altar that is being sanctified. The “sin [purification] offering” seems to be for purification of the sanctuary and altar to receive people in their worship.

[29:36]  ¹¹ tn The verb is וְחִטֵּאתָ (vÿhitte’ta), a Piel perfect of the word usually translated “to sin.” Here it may be interpreted as a privative Piel (as in Ps 51:7 [9]), with the sense of “un-sin” or “remove sin.” It could also be interpreted as related to the word for “sin offering,” and so be a denominative verb. It means “to purify, cleanse.” The Hebrews understood that sin and contamination could corrupt and pollute even things, and so they had to be purged.

[29:36]  ¹² tn The construction is a Piel infinitive construct in an adverbial clause. The preposition bet (ב) that begins the clause could be taken as a temporal preposition, but in this context it seems to express the means by which the altar was purged of contamination – “in your making atonement” is “by [your] making atonement.”

[32:6]  ¹³ tn The second infinitive is an infinitive absolute. The first is an infinitive construct with a lamed (ל) preposition, expressing the purpose of their sitting down. The infinitive absolute that follows cannot take the preposition, but with the conjunction follows the force of the form before it (see GKC 340 §113.e).

[32:6]  ¹⁴ tn The form is לְצַחֵק (lÿtsakheq), a Piel infinitive construct, giving the purpose of their rising up after the festal meal. On the surface it would seem that with the festival there would be singing and dancing, so that the people were celebrating even though they did not know the reason. W. C. Kaiser says the word means “drunken immoral orgies and sexual play” (“Exodus,” EBC 2:478). That is quite an assumption for this word, but is reflected in some recent English versions (e.g., NCV “got up and sinned sexually”; TEV “an orgy of drinking and sex”). The word means “to play, trifle.” It can have other meanings, depending on its contexts. It is used of Lot when he warned his sons-in-law and appeared as one who “mocked” them; it is also used of Ishmael “playing” with Isaac, which Paul interprets as mocking; it is used of Isaac “playing” with his wife in a manner that revealed to Abimelech that they were not brother and sister, and it is used by Potiphar’s wife to say that her husband brought this slave Joseph in to “mock” them. The most that can be gathered from these is that it is playful teasing, serious mocking, or playful caresses. It might fit with wild orgies, but there is no indication of that in this passage, and the word does not mean it. The fact that they were festive and playing before an idol was sufficient.

[32:15]  ¹⁵ tn The disjunctive vav (ו) serves here as a circumstantial clause indicator.

[33:8]  ¹⁶ tn The clause is introduced again with “and it was.” The perfect tense here with the vav (ו) is used to continue the sequence of actions that were done repeatedly in the past (see GKC 331-32 §112.e). The temporal clause is then formed with the infinitive construct of יָצָא (yatsa’), with “Moses” as the subjective genitive: “and it was according to the going out of Moses.”

[33:8]  ¹⁷ tn Or “rise up.”

[33:8]  ¹⁸ tn The subject of this verb is specified with the individualizing use of “man”: “and all Israel would station themselves, each person (man) at the entrance to his tent.”

[33:8]  ¹⁹ tn The perfect tense with the vav (ו) continues the sequence of the customary imperfect. The people “would gaze” (after) Moses until he entered the tent.

[33:8]  ²⁰ tn This is a temporal clause using an infinitive construct with a suffixed subject.

[34:4]  ²¹ tn Heb “he”; the referent has been specified here and the name “Moses,” which occurs later in this verse, has been replaced with the pronoun (“he”), both for stylistic reasons.

[34:4]  ²² sn Deuteronomy says that Moses was also to make an ark of acacia wood before the tablets, apparently to put the tablets in until the sanctuary was built. But this ark may not have been the ark built later; or, it might be the wood box, but Bezalel still had to do all the golden work with it.

[34:4]  ²³ tn The line reads “and Moses got up early in the morning and went up.” These verbs likely form a verbal hendiadys, the first one with its prepositional phrase serving in an adverbial sense.