10:24 Then Pharaoh summoned Moses and said, “Go, serve the Lord – only your flocks and herds will be detained. Even your families 5 may go with you.”
10:1 6 The Lord said 7 to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, in order to display 8 these signs of mine before him, 9
21:15 “Whoever strikes 10 his father or his mother must surely be put to death.
10:6 I sent him 11 against a godless 12 nation,
I ordered him to attack the people with whom I was angry, 13
to take plunder and to carry away loot,
to trample them down 14 like dirt in the streets.
10:7 But he does not agree with this,
his mind does not reason this way, 15
for his goal is to destroy,
and to eliminate many nations. 16
1 tn The first of the two clauses begun with perfects and vav consecutives may be subordinated to form a temporal clause: “and he will see…and he will pass over,” becomes “when he sees…he will pass over.”
2 tn Here the form is the Hiphil participle with the definite article. Gesenius says this is now to be explained as “the destroyer” although some take it to mean “destruction” (GKC 406 §126.m, n. 1).
3 tn “you” has been supplied.
4 sn B. Jacob (Exodus, 294-95) shows that the intent of the passage was not to make this month in the spring the New Year – that was in the autumn. Rather, when counting months this was supposed to be remembered first, for it was the great festival of freedom from Egypt. He observes how some scholars have unnecessarily tried to date one New Year earlier than the other.
5 tn Or “dependents.” The term is often translated “your little ones,” but as mentioned before (10:10), this expression in these passages takes in women and children and other dependents. Pharaoh will now let all the people go, but he intends to detain the cattle to secure their return.
6 sn The Egyptians dreaded locusts like every other ancient civilization. They had particular gods to whom they looked for help in such catastrophes. The locust-scaring deities of Greece and Asia were probably looked to in Egypt as well (especially in view of the origins in Egypt of so many of those religious ideas). The announcement of the plague falls into the now-familiar pattern. God tells Moses to go and speak to Pharaoh but reminds Moses that he has hardened his heart. Yahweh explains that he has done this so that he might show his power, so that in turn they might declare his name from generation to generation. This point is stressed so often that it must not be minimized. God was laying the foundation of the faith for Israel – the sovereignty of Yahweh.
7 tn Heb “and Yahweh said.”
8 tn The verb is שִׁתִי (shiti, “I have put”); it is used here as a synonym for the verb שִׂים (sim). Yahweh placed the signs in his midst, where they will be obvious.
9 tn Heb “in his midst.”
10 sn This is the same construction that was used in v. 12, but here there is no mention of the parents’ death. This attack, then, does not lead to their death – if he killed one of them then v. 12 would be the law. S. R. Driver says that the severity of the penalty was in accord with the high view of parents (Exodus, 216).
11 sn Throughout this section singular forms are used to refer to Assyria; perhaps the king of Assyria is in view (see v. 12).
12 tn Or “defiled”; cf. ASV “profane”; NAB “impious”; NCV “separated from God.”
13 tn Heb “and against the people of my anger I ordered him.”
14 tn Heb “to make it [i.e., the people] a trampled place.”
15 tn Heb “but he, not so does he intend, and his heart, not so does it think.”
16 tn Heb “for to destroy [is] in his heart, and to cut off nations, not a few.”