15:16 Fear and dread 1 will fall 2 on them;
by the greatness 3 of your arm they will be as still as stone 4
until 5 your people pass by, O Lord,
until the people whom you have bought 6 pass by.
1 tn The two words can form a nominal hendiadys, “a dreadful fear,” though most English versions retain the two separate terms.
2 tn The form is an imperfect.
3 tn The adjective is in construct form and governs the noun “arm” (“arm” being the anthropomorphic expression for what God did). See GKC 428 §132.c.
4 sn For a study of the words for fear, see N. Waldman, “A Comparative Note on Exodus 15:14-16,” JQR 66 (1976): 189-92.
5 tn Clauses beginning with עַד (’ad) express a limit that is not absolute, but only relative, beyond which the action continues (GKC 446-47 §138.g).
6 tn The verb קָנָה (qanah) here is the verb “acquire, purchase,” and probably not the homonym “to create, make” (see Gen 4:1; Deut 32:6; and Prov 8:22).
7 tn The construction uses a Niphal infinitive absolute and a Niphal imperfect: if it should indeed be found. Gesenius says that in such conditional clauses the infinitive absolute has less emphasis, but instead emphasizes the condition on which some consequence depends (see GKC 342-43 §113.o).
8 tn Heb “in his hand.”
9 sn He must pay back one for what he took, and then one for the penalty – his loss as he was inflicting a loss on someone else.