Keluaran 5:8

5:8 But you must require ¹  of them the same quota of bricks that they were making before. ²  Do not reduce it, for they are slackers. ³  That is why they are crying, ‘Let us go sacrifice to our God.’

Keluaran 14:10

14:10 When ⁴  Pharaoh got closer, ⁵  the Israelites looked up, ⁶  and there were the Egyptians marching after them, ⁷  and they were terrified. ⁸  The Israelites cried out to the Lord, ⁹ 

Keluaran 14:20-21

14:20 It came between the Egyptian camp and the Israelite camp; it was a dark cloud ¹⁰  and it lit up the night so that one camp did not come near the other ¹¹  the whole night. ¹²  14:21 Moses stretched out his hand toward the sea, and the Lord drove the sea apart ¹³  by a strong east wind all that night, and he made the sea into dry land, and the water was divided.

Keluaran 14:28

14:28 The water returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen and all the army of Pharaoh that was coming after the Israelites into the sea ¹⁴  – not so much as one of them survived! ¹⁵ 

Keluaran 18:26

18:26 They judged the people under normal circumstances; the difficult cases they would bring ¹⁶  to Moses, but every small case they would judge themselves.

Keluaran 19:2

19:2 After they journeyed ¹⁷  from Rephidim, they came to the Desert of Sinai, and they camped in the desert; Israel camped there in front of the mountain. ¹⁸ 

Keluaran 23:5

23:5 If you see the donkey of someone who hates you fallen under its load, you must not ignore him, ¹⁹  but be sure to help ²⁰  him with it. ²¹ 

Keluaran 33:2

33:2 I will send an angel ²²  before you, and I will drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite. ²³ 

Keluaran 34:24

34:24 For I will drive out ²⁴  the nations before you and enlarge your borders; no one will covet ²⁵  your land when you go up ²⁶  to appear before the Lord your God three times ²⁷  in the year.

[5:8]  ¹ tn The verb is the Qal imperfect of שִׂים (sim, “place, put”). The form could be an imperfect of instruction: “You will place upon them the quota.” Or, as here, it may be an obligatory imperfect: “You must place.”

[5:8]  ² tn Heb “yesterday and three days ago” or “yesterday and before that” is idiomatic for “previously” or “in the past.”

[5:8]  ³ tn Or “loafers.” The form נִרְפִּים (nirpim) is derived from the verb רָפָה (rafah), meaning “to be weak, to let oneself go.” They had been letting the work go, Pharaoh reasoned, and being idle is why they had time to think about going to worship.

[14:10]  ⁴ tn The disjunctive vav introduces a circumstantial clause here.

[14:10]  ⁵ tn Heb “drew near.”

[14:10]  ⁶ tn Heb “lifted up their eyes,” an expression that indicates an intentional and careful looking – they looked up and fixed their sights on the distance.

[14:10]  ⁷ tn The construction uses הִנֵּה (hinneh) with the participle, traditionally rendered “and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them.” The deictic particle calls attention in a dramatic way to what was being seen. It captures the surprise and the sudden realization of the people.

[14:10]  ⁸ tn The verb “feared” is intensified by the adverb מְאֹד (mÿ’od): “they feared greatly” or “were terrified.” In one look their defiant boldness seems to have evaporated.

[14:10]  ⁹ sn Their cry to the Lord was proper and necessary. But their words to Moses were a rebuke and disloyal, showing a lack of faith and understanding. Their arrogance failed them in the crisis because it was built on the arm of flesh. Moses would have to get used to this murmuring, but here he takes it in stride and gives them the proper instructions. They had cried to the Lord, and now the Lord would deliver.

[14:20]  ¹⁰ tn The two nouns “cloud” and “darkness” form a nominal hendiadys: “and it was the cloud and the darkness” means “and it was the dark cloud.” Perhaps this is what the Egyptians saw, preventing them from observing Moses and the Israelites.

[14:20]  ¹¹ tn Heb “this to this”; for the use of the pronouns in this reciprocal sense of “the one to the other,” see GKC 448 §139.e, n. 3.

[14:20]  ¹² tc The LXX reads very differently at the end of this verse: “and there was darkness and blackness and the night passed.” B. S. Childs (Exodus [OTL], 218) summarizes three proposals: (1) One takes the MT as it stands and explains it along the lines of the Targum and Jewish exegesis, that there was one cloud that was dark to one group and light to the other. (2) Another tries to reconstruct a verb from the noun “darkness” or make some use of the Greek verb. (3) A third seeks a different meaning for the verb “lit,” “gave light” by comparative philology, but no consensus has been reached. Given that there is no easy solution apart from reconstructing the text, and given that the MT can be interpreted as it is, the present translation follows the MT.

[14:21]  ¹³ tn Or “drove the sea back” (NIV, NCV, NRSV, TEV). The verb is simply the Hiphil of הָלַךְ (halakh, “to walk, go”). The context requires that it be interpreted along the lines of “go back, go apart.”

[14:28]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “that was coming after them into the sea.” The referent of “them” (the Israelites) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[14:28]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “not was left among them as much as one.”

[18:26]  ¹⁶ tn This verb and the verb in the next clause are imperfect tenses. In the past tense narrative of the verse they must be customary, describing continuous action in past time.

[19:2]  ¹⁷ tn The form is a preterite with vav (ו) consecutive, “and they journeyed.” It is here subordinated to the next clause as a temporal clause. But since the action of this temporal clause preceded the actions recorded in v. 1, a translation of “after” will keep the sequence in order. Verse 2 adds details to the summary in v. 1.

[19:2]  ¹⁸ sn The mountain is Mount Sinai, the mountain of God, the place where God had met and called Moses and had promised that they would be here to worship him. If this mountain is Jebel Musa, the traditional site of Sinai, then the plain in front of it would be Er-Rahah, about a mile and a half long by half a mile wide, fronting the mountain on the NW side (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 169). The plain itself is about 5000 feet above sea level. A mountain on the west side of the Arabian Peninsula has also been suggested as a possible site.

[23:5]  ¹⁹ tn The line reads “you will cease to forsake him” – refrain from leaving your enemy without help.

[23:5]  ²⁰ tn The law is emphatic here as well, using the infinitive absolute and the imperfect of instruction (or possibly obligation). There is also a wordplay here: two words עָזַב (’azav) are used, one meaning “forsake” and the other possibly meaning “arrange” based on Arabic and Ugaritic evidence (see U. Cassuto, Exodus, 297-98).

[23:5]  ²¹ sn See H. B. Huffmon, “Exodus 23:4-5: A Comparative Study,” A Light Unto My Path, 271-78.

[33:2]  ²² sn This seems not to be the same as the Angel of the Presence introduced before.

[33:2]  ²³ sn See T. Ishida, “The Structure and Historical Implications of Lists of Pre-Israelite Nations,” Bib (1979): 461-90.

[34:24]  ²⁴ tn The verb is a Hiphil imperfect of יָרַשׁ (yarash), which means “to possess.” In the causative stem it can mean “dispossess” or “drive out.”

[34:24]  ²⁵ sn The verb “covet” means more than desire; it means that some action will be taken to try to acquire the land that is being coveted. It is one thing to envy someone for their land; it is another to be consumed by the desire that stops at nothing to get it (it, not something like it).

[34:24]  ²⁶ tn The construction uses the infinitive construct with a preposition and a suffixed subject to form the temporal clause.

[34:24]  ²⁷ tn The expression “three times” is an adverbial accusative of time.