Keluaran 7:16-17

7:16 Tell him, ‘The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has sent me to you to say, ¹  “Release my people, that they may serve me ²  in the desert!” But until now ³  you have not listened. ⁴  7:17 Thus says the Lord: “By this you will know that I am the Lord: I am going to strike ⁵  the water of the Nile with the staff that is in my hand, and it will be turned into blood. ⁶ 

Keluaran 15:25

15:25 He cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him ⁷  a tree. ⁸  When Moses ⁹  threw it into the water, the water became safe to drink. There the Lord ¹⁰  made for them ¹¹  a binding ordinance, ¹²  and there he tested ¹³  them.

Keluaran 16:32

16:32 Moses said, “This is what ¹⁴  the Lord has commanded: ‘Fill an omer with it to be kept ¹⁵  for generations to come, ¹⁶  so that they may see ¹⁷  the food I fed you in the desert when I brought you out from the land of Egypt.’”

Keluaran 33:5

33:5 For ¹⁸  the Lord had said to Moses, “Tell the Israelites, ‘You are a stiff-necked people. If I went up among you for a moment, ¹⁹  I might destroy you. Now take off your ornaments, ²⁰  that I may know ²¹  what I should do to you.’” ²² 

[7:16]  ¹ tn The form לֵאמֹר (le’mor) is the Qal infinitive construct with the lamed (ל) preposition. It is used so often epexegetically that it has achieved idiomatic status – “saying” (if translated at all). But here it would make better sense to take it as a purpose infinitive. God sent him to say these words.

[7:16]  ² tn The imperfect tense with the vav (וְיַעַבְדֻנִי, vÿya’avduni) following the imperative is in volitive sequence, showing the purpose – “that they may serve me.” The word “serve” (עָבַד, ’avad) is a general term to include religious observance and obedience.

[7:16]  ³ tn The final עַד־כֹּה (’ad-koh, “until now”) narrows the use of the perfect tense to the present perfect: “you have not listened.” That verb, however, involves more than than mere audition. It has the idea of responding to, hearkening, and in some places obeying; here “you have not complied” might catch the point of what Moses is saying, while “listen” helps to maintain the connection with other uses of the verb.

[7:16]  ⁴ tn Or “complied” (שָׁמַעְתָּ, shama’ta).

[7:17]  ⁵ tn The construction using הִנֵּה (hinneh) before the participle (here the Hiphil participle מַכֶּה, makkeh) introduces a futur instans use of the participle, expressing imminent future, that he is about to do something.

[7:17]  ⁶ sn W. C. Kaiser summarizes a view that has been adopted by many scholars, including a good number of conservatives, that the plagues overlap with natural phenomena in Egypt. Accordingly, the “blood” would not be literal blood, but a reddish contamination in the water. If there was an unusually high inundation of the Nile, the water flowed sluggishly through swamps and was joined with the water from the mountains that washed out the reddish soil. If the flood were high, the water would have a deeper red color. In addition to this discoloration, there is said to be a type of algae which produce a stench and a deadly fluctuation of the oxygen level of the river that is fatal to fish (see W. C. Kaiser, Jr., “Exodus,” EBC 2:350; he cites Greta Hort, “The Plagues of Egypt,” ZAW 69 [1957]: 84-103; same title, ZAW 70 [1958]: 48-59). While most scholars would agree that the water did not actually become blood (any more than the moon will be turned to literal blood [Joel 2:31]), many are not satisfied with this kind of explanation. If the event was a fairly common feature of the Nile, it would not have been any kind of sign to Pharaoh – and it should still be observable. The features that would have to be safeguarded are that it was understood to be done by the staff of God, that it was unexpected and not a mere coincidence, and that the magnitude of the contamination, color, stench, and death, was unparalleled. God does use natural features in miracles, but to be miraculous signs they cannot simply coincide with natural phenomena.

[15:25]  ⁷ tn The verb is וַיּוֹרֵהוּ (vayyorehu, “and he showed him”). It is the Hiphil preterite from יָרָה (yarah), which has a basic meaning of “to point, show, direct.” It then came to mean “to teach”; it is the verb behind the noun “Law” (תּוֹרָה, torah).

[15:25]  sn U. Cassuto notes that here is the clue to the direction of the narrative: Israel needed God’s instruction, the Law, if they were going to enjoy his provisions (Exodus, 184).

[15:25]  ⁸ tn Or “a [piece of] wood” (cf. NAB, NIV, NRSV, TEV, CEV); NLT “a branch.”

[15:25]  sn S. R. Driver (Exodus, 143) follows some local legends in identifying this tree as one that is supposed to have – even to this day – the properties necessary for making bitter water sweet. B. Jacob (Exodus, 436) reports that no such tree has ever been found, but then he adds that this does not mean there was not such a bush in the earlier days. He believes that here God used a natural means (“showed, instructed”) to sweeten the water. He quotes Ben Sira as saying God had created these things with healing properties in them.

[15:25]  ⁹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Moses) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[15:25]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “there he”; the referent (the Lord) is supplied for clarity.

[15:25]  ¹¹ tn Heb “for him” (referring to Israel as a whole).

[15:25]  ¹² tn This translation interprets the two nouns as a hendiadys: “a statute and an ordinance” becomes “a binding ordinance.”

[15:25]  ¹³ tn The verb נִסָּהוּ (nissahu, “and he tested him [them]”) is from the root נָסָה (nasah). The use of this word in the Bible indicates that there is question, doubt, or uncertainty about the object being tested.

[15:25]  sn The whole episode was a test from God. He led them there through Moses and let them go hungry and thirsty. He wanted to see how great their faith was.

[16:32]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “This is the thing that.”

[16:32]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “for keeping.”

[16:32]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “according to your generations” (see Exod 12:14).

[16:32]  ¹⁷ tn In this construction after the particle expressing purpose or result, the imperfect tense has the nuance of final imperfect, equal to a subjunctive in the classical languages.

[33:5]  ¹⁸ tn The verse simply begins “And Yahweh said.” But it is clearly meant to be explanatory for the preceding action of the people.

[33:5]  ¹⁹ tn The construction is formed with a simple imperfect in the first half and a perfect tense with vav (ו) in the second half. Heb “[in] one moment I will go up in your midst and I will destroy you.” The verse is certainly not intended to say that God was about to destroy them. That, plus the fact that he has announced he will not go in their midst, leads most commentators to take this as a conditional clause: “If I were to do such and such, then….”

[33:5]  ²⁰ tn The Hebrew text also has “from on you.”

[33:5]  ²¹ tn The form is the cohortative with a vav (ו) following the imperative; it therefore expresses the purpose or result: “strip off…that I may know.” The call to remove the ornaments must have been perceived as a call to show true repentance for what had happened. If they repented, then God would know how to deal with them.

[33:5]  ²² tn This last clause begins with the interrogative “what,” but it is used here as an indirect interrogative. It introduces a noun clause, the object of the verb “know.”