9:7 Remember – don’t ever forget 15 – how you provoked the Lord your God in the desert; from the time you left the land of Egypt until you came to this place you were constantly rebelling against him. 16
20:1 When you go to war against your enemies and see chariotry 27 and troops 28 who outnumber you, do not be afraid of them, for the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, is with you.
29:2 Moses proclaimed to all Israel as follows: “You have seen all that the Lord did 34 in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh, all his servants, and his land.
1 tn The translation assumes the reference is to Israel’s God in which case the point is this: God’s intervention in Israel’s experience is unique in the sense that he has never intervened in such power for any other people on earth. The focus is on the uniqueness of Israel’s experience. Some understand the divine name here in a generic sense, “a god,” or “any god.” In this case God’s incomparability is the focus (cf. v. 35, where this theme is expressed).
2 tn Heb “tried to go to take for himself.”
3 tn Heb “by testings.” The reference here is the judgments upon Pharaoh in the form of plagues. See Deut 7:19 (cf. v. 18) and 29:3 (cf. v. 2).
4 tn Heb “by strong hand and by outstretched arm.”
5 tn Heb “by a strong hand and an outstretched arm,” the hand and arm symbolizing divine activity and strength. Cf. NLT “with amazing power and mighty deeds.”
6 tn Or “keep” (so KJV, NRSV).
9 tn Heb “the
10 tn For the verb אָהַב (’ahav, “to love”) as a term of choice or election, see note on the word “loved” in Deut 4:37.
11 tn Heb “oath.” This is a reference to the promises of the so-called “Abrahamic Covenant” (cf. Gen 15:13-16).
12 tn Heb “swore on oath.”
13 tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 12, 13).
14 tn Heb “by a strong hand” (NAB similar); NLT “with such amazing power.”
15 sn Redeeming you from the place of slavery. The Hebrew verb translated “redeeming” (from the root פָּדָה, padah) has the idea of redemption by the payment of a ransom. The initial symbol of this was the Passover lamb, offered by Israel to the
16 tn Heb “hand” (so KJV, NRSV), a metaphor for power or domination.
13 tn By juxtaposing the positive זְכֹר (zekhor, “remember”) with the negative אַל־תִּשְׁכַּח (’al-tishÿkakh, “do not forget”), Moses makes a most emphatic plea.
14 tn Heb “the
17 tc Heb “a casting.” The MT reads מַסֵּכָה (massekhah, “a cast thing”) but some
21 tn Heb “Reed Sea.” “Reed Sea” (or “Sea of Reeds”) is a more accurate rendering of the Hebrew expression יָם סוּף (yam suf), traditionally translated “Red Sea.” See note on the term “Red Sea” in Exod 13:18.
22 tn Heb “the
23 tn Heb “and the Lord destroyed them to this day” (cf. NRSV); NLT “he has kept them devastated to this very day.” The translation uses the verb “annihilated” to indicate the permanency of the action.
25 tn Heb “you are going there to possess it”; NASB “into which you are about to cross to possess it”; NRSV “that you are crossing over to occupy.”
26 tn Heb “with your foot” (so NASB, NLT). There is a two-fold significance to this phrase. First, Egypt had no rain so water supply depended on human efforts at irrigation. Second, the Nile was the source of irrigation waters but those waters sometimes had to be pumped into fields and gardens by foot-power, perhaps the kind of machinery (Arabic shaduf) still used by Egyptian farmers (see C. Aldred, The Egyptians, 181). Nevertheless, the translation uses “by hand,” since that expression is the more common English idiom for an activity performed by manual labor.
29 tn Heb “the Passover.” The translation uses a pronoun to avoid redundancy in English.
30 tc The MT reading אֶל (’el, “unto”) before “the place” should, following Smr, Syriac, Targums, and Vulgate, be omitted in favor of ב (bet; בַּמָּקוֹם, bammaqom), “in the place.”
31 tn Heb “the
33 tn Heb “in order to multiply horses.” The translation uses “do so” in place of “multiply horses” to avoid redundancy (cf. NAB, NIV).
37 tn Heb “horse and chariot.”
38 tn Heb “people.”
41 tn Heb “hired against you.”
45 tn Though the Hebrew term אָבַד (’avad) generally means “to perish” or the like (HALOT 2-3 s.v.; BDB 1-2 s.v.; cf. KJV “a Syrian ready to perish”), a meaning “to go astray” or “to be lost” is also attested. The ambivalence in the Hebrew text is reflected in the versions where LXX Vaticanus reads ἀπέβαλεν (apebalen, “lose”) for a possibly metathesized reading found in Alexandrinus, Ambrosianus, ἀπέλαβεν (apelaben, “receive”); others attest κατέλειπεν (kateleipen, “leave, abandon”). “Wandering” seems to suit best the contrast with the sedentary life Israel would enjoy in Canaan (v. 9) and is the meaning followed by many English versions.
46 sn A wandering Aramean. This is a reference to Jacob whose mother Rebekah was an Aramean (Gen 24:10; 25:20, 26) and who himself lived in Aram for at least twenty years (Gen 31:41-42).
47 tn Heb “father.”
48 tn Heb “sojourned there few in number.” The words “with a household” have been supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons and for clarity.
49 tn The Hebrew text includes “to your eyes,” but this is redundant in English style (cf. the preceding “you have seen”) and is omitted in the translation.