12:29 3 It happened 4 at midnight – the Lord attacked all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the prison, and all the firstborn of the cattle.
3:19 Small and great are 6 there,
and the slave is free 7 from his master. 8
34:19 who shows no partiality to princes,
and does not take note of 9 the rich more than the poor,
because all of them are the work of his hands?
115:13 He will bless his loyal followers, 10
both young and old. 11
1 tn Heb “from the least to the greatest.”
2 tn Heb “they”; the referent (the men of Sodom outside the door) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
3 sn The next section records the deliverance of Israel from Egypt, and so becomes the turning point of the book. Verses 28 and 29 could be included in the exposition of the previous section as the culmination of that part. The message might highlight God’s requirement for deliverance from bondage through the application of the blood of the sacrifice, God’s instruction for the memorial of deliverance through the purging of corruption, and the compliance of those who believed the message. But these verses also form the beginning of this next section (and so could be used transitionally). This unit includes the judgment on Egypt (29-30), the exodus from Egypt (31-39) and the historical summation and report (40-42).
4 tn The verse begins with the temporal indicator וַיְהִי (vayÿhi), often translated “and it came to pass.” Here it could be left untranslated: “In the middle of the night Yahweh attacked.” The word order of the next and main clause furthers the emphasis by means of the vav disjunctive on the divine name preceding the verb. The combination of these initial and disjunctive elements helps to convey the suddenness of the attack, while its thoroughness is stressed by the repetition of “firstborn” in the rest of the verse, the merism (“from the firstborn of Pharaoh…to the firstborn of the captive”), and the mention of cattle.
5 tn Heb “yielding fruit poisonous and wormwood.” The Hebrew noun לַעֲנָה (la’anah) literally means “wormwood” (so KJV, ASV, NAB, NASB), but is used figuratively for anything extremely bitter, thus here “fruit poisonous and bitter.”
6 tn The versions have taken the pronoun in the sense of the verb “to be.” Others give it the sense of “the same thing,” rendering the verse as “small and great, there is no difference there.” GKC 437 §135.a, n. 1, follows this idea with a meaning of “the same.”
7 tn The LXX renders this as “unafraid,” although the negative has disappeared in some
8 tn The plural “masters” could be taken here as a plural of majesty rather than as referring to numerous masters.
9 tn The verb means “to give recognition; to take note of” and in this passage with לִפְנֵי (lifne, “before”) it means to show preferential treatment to the rich before the poor. The word for “rich” here is an unusual word, found parallel to “noble” (Isa 32:2). P. Joüon thinks it is a term of social distinction (Bib 18 [1937]: 207-8).
10 tn Heb “the fearers of the
11 tn Heb “the small along with the great.” The translation assumes that “small” and “great” here refer to age (see 2 Chr 15:13). Another option is to translate “both the insignificant and the prominent” (see Job 3:19; cf. NEB “high and low alike”).
12 tn Grk “So experiencing…I stand.” The participle τυχών (tucwn) has been translated as a finite verb due to requirements of contemporary English style.
13 tn BDAG 311 s.v. ἐκτός 3.b, “functions as prep. w. gen. οὐδὲν ἐ. ὧν nothing except what (cf. 1 Ch 29:3; 2 Ch 17:19; TestNapht. 6:2) Ac 26:22.”
14 sn What the prophets and Moses said. Paul argued that his message reflected the hope of the Jewish scriptures.
15 tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the vision.
16 tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated; nor is it translated before each of the following categories, since English normally uses a coordinating conjunction only between the last two elements in a series of three or more.
17 tn Grk “chiliarchs.” A chiliarch was normally a military officer commanding a thousand soldiers, but here probably used of higher-ranking commanders like generals (see L&N 55.15; cf. Rev 6:15).
18 tn See the note on the word “servants” in 1:1.
19 tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the vision.
20 tn Grk “another book was opened, which is of life.”
21 tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “so” to indicate the implied result of the books being opened.
22 tn Grk “from the things written in the books according to their works.”