Proverbs 20:16

20:16 Take a man’s ¹  garment ²  when he has given security for a stranger, ³ 

and when he gives surety for strangers, ⁴  hold him ⁵  in pledge.

Exodus 22:26-27

22:26 If you do take ⁶  the garment of your neighbor in pledge, you must return it to him by the time the sun goes down, ⁷  22:27 for it is his only covering – it is his garment for his body. ⁸  What else can he sleep in? ⁹  And ¹⁰  when he cries out to me, I will hear, for I am gracious.

Exodus 22:2

22:2 “If a thief is caught ¹¹  breaking in ¹²  and is struck so that he dies, there will be no blood guilt for him. ¹³ 

Exodus 4:1

The Source of Sufficiency

4:1 ¹⁴ Moses answered again, ¹⁵  “And if ¹⁶  they do not believe me or pay attention to me, ¹⁷  but say, ‘The Lord has not appeared to you’?”

[20:16]  ¹ tn Heb “his garment.”

[20:16]  ² sn Taking a garment was the way of holding someone responsible to pay debts. In fact, the garment was the article normally taken for security (Exod 22:24-26; Deut 24:10-13). Because this is a high risk security pledge (e.g., 6:1-5), the creditor is to deal more severely than when the pledge is given by the debtor for himself.

[20:16]  ³ tc The Kethib has the masculine plural form, נָכְרִים (nakhrim), suggesting a reading “strangers.” But the Qere has the feminine form נָכְרִיָּה (nakhriyyah), “strange woman” or “another man’s wife” (e.g., 27:13). The parallelism would suggest “strangers” is the correct reading, although theories have been put forward for the interpretation of “strange woman” (see below).

[20:16]  ⁴ tn M. Dahood argues that the cloak was taken in pledge for a harlot (cf. NIV “a wayward woman”). Two sins would then be committed: taking a cloak and going to a prostitute (“To Pawn One’s Cloak,” Bib 42 [1961]: 359-66; also Snijders, “The Meaning of זָר,” 85-86). In the MT the almost identical proverb in 27:13 has a feminine singular form here.

[20:16]  ⁵ tn Or “hold it” (so NIV, NCV).

[22:26]  ⁶ tn The construction again uses the infinitive absolute with the verb in the conditional clause to stress the condition.

[22:26]  ⁷ tn The clause uses the preposition, the infinitive construct, and the noun that is the subjective genitive – “at the going in of the sun.”

[22:27]  ⁸ tn Heb “his skin.”

[22:27]  ⁹ tn Literally the text reads, “In what can he lie down?” The cloak would be used for a covering at night to use when sleeping. The garment, then, was the property that could not be taken and not given back – it was the last possession. The modern idiom of “the shirt off his back” gets at the point being made here.

[22:27]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and it will be.”

[22:2]  ¹¹ tn Heb “found” (so KJV, ASV, NRSV).

[22:2]  ¹² tn The word בַּמַּחְתֶּרֶת (bammakhteret) means “digging through” the walls of a house (usually made of mud bricks). The verb is used only a few times and has the meaning of dig in (as into houses) or row hard (as in Jonah 1:13).

[22:2]  ¹³ tn The text has “there is not to him bloods.” When the word “blood” is put in the plural, it refers to bloodshed, or the price of blood that is shed, i.e., blood guiltiness.

[4:1]  ¹⁴ sn In chap. 3, the first part of this extensive call, Yahweh promises to deliver his people. At the hesitancy of Moses, God guarantees his presence will be with him, and that assures the success of the mission. But with chap. 4, the second half of the call, the tone changes sharply. Now Moses protests his inadequacies in view of the nature of the task. In many ways, these verses address the question, “Who is sufficient for these things?” There are three basic movements in the passage. The first nine verses tell how God gave Moses signs in case Israel did not believe him (4:1-9). The second section records how God dealt with the speech problem of Moses (4:10-12). And finally, the last section records God’s provision of a helper, someone who could talk well (4:13-17). See also J. E. Hamlin, “The Liberator’s Ordeal: A Study of Exodus 4:1-9,” Rhetorical Criticism [PTMS], 33-42.

[4:1]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and Moses answered and said.”

[4:1]  ¹⁶ tn Or “What if.” The use of הֵן (hen) is unusual here, introducing a conditional idea in the question without a following consequence clause (see Exod 8:22 HT [8:26 ET]; Jer 2:10; 2 Chr 7:13). The Greek has “if not” but adds the clause “what shall I say to them?”

[4:1]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “listen to my voice,” so as to respond positively.