104:2 He covers himself with light as if it were a garment.
He stretches out the skies like a tent curtain,
60:19 The sun will no longer supply light for you by day,
nor will the moon’s brightness shine on you;
the Lord will be your permanent source of light –
the splendor of your God will shine upon you. 7
60:20 Your sun will no longer set;
your moon will not disappear; 8
the Lord will be your permanent source of light;
your time 9 of sorrow will be over.
17:1 Six days later 12 Jesus took with him Peter, James, and John the brother of James, 13 and led them privately up a high mountain.
6:16 “When 14 you fast, do not look sullen like the hypocrites, for they make their faces unattractive 15 so that people will see them fasting. I tell you the truth, 16 they have their reward.
1 sn God chose to guide the people with a pillar of cloud in the day and one of fire at night, or, as a pillar of cloud and fire, since they represented his presence. God had already appeared to Moses in the fire of the bush, and so here again is revelation with fire. Whatever the exact nature of these things, they formed direct, visible revelations from God, who was guiding the people in a clear and unambiguous way. Both clouds and fire would again and again represent the presence of God in his power and majesty, guiding and protecting his people, by judging their enemies.
2 tn The infinitive construct here indicates the result of these manifestations – “so that they went” or “could go.”
3 tn These are adverbial accusatives of time.
4 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.
5 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.
6 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.
7 tn Heb “and your God for your splendor.”
8 sn In this verse “sun” and “moon” refer to the Lord’s light, which will replace the sun and moon (see v. 19). Light here symbolizes the restoration of divine blessing and prosperity in conjunction with the Lord’s presence. See 30:26.
9 tn Heb “days” (so KJV, NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).
10 sn In 1st century Judaism and in the NT, there was the belief that the righteous get new, glorified bodies in order to enter heaven (1 Cor 15:42-49; 2 Cor 5:1-10). This transformation means the righteous will share the glory of God. One recalls the way Moses shared the Lord’s glory after his visit to the mountain in Exod 34. So the disciples saw Jesus transfigured, and they were getting a sneak preview of the great glory that Jesus would have (only his glory is more inherent to him as one who shares in the rule of the kingdom).
11 tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated.
12 tn Grk “And after six days.”
13 tn Grk “John his brother” with “his” referring to James.
14 tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.
15 tn Here the term “disfigure” used in a number of translations was not used because it could convey to the modern reader the notion of mutilation. L&N 79.17 states, “‘to make unsightly, to disfigure, to make ugly.’ ἀφανίζουσιν γὰρ τὰ πρόσωπα αὐτῶν ‘for they make their faces unsightly’ Mt 6:16.”
16 tn Grk “Truly (ἀμήν, amhn), I say to you.”