Keluaran 3:5

3:5 God ¹  said, “Do not approach any closer! ²  Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ³  ground.” ⁴ 

Keluaran 3:11

3:11 Moses said ⁵  to God, ⁶  “Who am I, that I should go ⁷  to Pharaoh, or that I should bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

Keluaran 8:13

8:13 The Lord did as Moses asked ⁸  – the ⁹  frogs died out of the houses, the villages, and the fields.

Keluaran 8:18

8:18 When ¹⁰  the magicians attempted ¹¹  to bring forth gnats by their secret arts, they could not. So there were gnats on people and on animals.

Keluaran 12:7

12:7 They will take some of the blood and put it on the two side posts and top of the doorframe of the houses where they will eat it.

Keluaran 23:13

23:13 “Pay attention to do ¹²  everything I have told you, and do not even mention ¹³  the names of other gods – do not let them be heard on your lips. ¹⁴ 

Keluaran 33:21

33:21 The Lord said, “Here ¹⁵  is a place by me; you will station yourself ¹⁶  on a rock.

[3:5]  ¹ tn Heb “And he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[3:5]  ² sn Even though the Lord was drawing near to Moses, Moses could not casually approach him. There still was a barrier between God and human, and God had to remind Moses of this with instructions. The removal of sandals was, and still is in the East, a sign of humility and reverence in the presence of the Holy One. It was a way of excluding the dust and dirt of the world. But it also took away personal comfort and convenience and brought the person more closely in contact with the earth.

[3:5]  ³ sn The word קֹדֶשׁ (qodesh, “holy”) indicates “set apart, distinct, unique.” What made a mountain or other place holy was the fact that God chose that place to reveal himself or to reside among his people. Because God was in this place, the ground was different – it was holy.

[3:5]  ⁴ tn The causal clause includes within it a typical relative clause, which is made up of the relative pronoun, then the independent personal pronoun with the participle, and then the preposition with the resumptive pronoun. It would literally be “which you are standing on it,” but the relative pronoun and the resumptive pronoun are combined and rendered, “on which you are standing.”

[3:11]  ⁵ tn Heb “And Moses said.”

[3:11]  ⁶ sn When he was younger, Moses was confident and impulsive, but now that he is older the greatness of the task makes him unsure. The remainder of this chapter and the next chapter record the four difficulties of Moses and how the Lord answers them (11-12, 13-22; then 4:1-9; and finally 4:10-17).

[3:11]  ⁷ tn The imperfect tense אֵלֵךְ (’elekh) carries the modal nuance of obligatory imperfect, i.e., “that I should go.” Moses at this point is overwhelmed with the task of representing God, and with his personal insufficiency, and so in honest humility questions the choice.

[8:13]  ⁸ tn Heb “according to the word of Moses” (so KJV, NASB). Just as Moses had told Pharaoh “according to your word” (v. 10), now the Lord does “according to the word” of Moses.

[8:13]  ⁹ tn Heb “and the frogs died.”

[8:18]  ¹⁰ tn The preterite with vav (ו) consecutive is here subordinated to the main clause as a temporal clause.

[8:18]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and the magicians did so.”

[8:18]  sn The report of what the magicians did (or as it turns out, tried to do) begins with the same words as the report about the actions of Moses and Aaron – “and they did so” (vv. 17 and 18). The magicians copy the actions of Moses and Aaron, leading readers to think momentarily that the magicians are again successful, but at the end of the verse comes the news that “they could not.” Compared with the first two plagues, this third plague has an important new feature, the failure of the magicians and their recognition of the source of the plague.

[23:13]  ¹² tn The phrase “to do” is added; in Hebrew word order the line says, “In all that I have said to you you will watch yourselves.” The verb for paying attention is a Niphal imperfect with an imperatival force.

[23:13]  ¹³ tn Or “honor,” Hiphil of זָכַר (zakhar). See also Exod 20:25; Josh 23:7; Isa 26:13.

[23:13]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “mouth.”

[23:13]  sn See also Ps 16:4, where David affirms his loyalty to God with this expression.

[33:21]  ¹⁵ tn The deictic particle is used here simply to call attention to a place of God’s knowing and choosing.

[33:21]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “and you will,” or interpretively, “where you will.”