14:13 Moses said to the Lord, “When the Egyptians hear 1 it – for you brought up this people by your power from among them – 14:14 then they will tell it to the inhabitants 2 of this land. They have heard that you, Lord, are among this people, that you, Lord, are seen face to face, 3 that your cloud stands over them, and that you go before them by day in a pillar of cloud and in a pillar of fire by night. 14:15 If you kill 4 this entire people at once, 5 then the nations that have heard of your fame will say, 14:16 ‘Because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land that he swore to them, he killed them in the wilderness.’ 14:17 So now, let the power of my Lord 6 be great, just as you have said,
1 tn The construction is unusual in that we have here a perfect tense with a vav (ו) consecutive with no verb before it to establish the time sequence. The context requires that this be taken as a vav (ו) consecutive. It actually forms the protasis for the next verse, and would best be rendered “when…then they will say.”
2 tn The singular participle is to be taken here as a collective, representing all the inhabitants of the land.
3 tn “Face to face” is literally “eye to eye.” It only occurs elsewhere in Isa 52:8. This expresses the closest communication possible.
3 tn The verb is the Hiphil perfect of מוּת (mut), וְהֵמַתָּה (vÿhemattah). The vav (ו) consecutive makes this also a future time sequence verb, but again in a conditional clause.
4 tn Heb “as one man.”
4 tc The form in the text is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay), the word that is usually used in place of the tetragrammaton. It is the plural form with the pronominal suffix, and so must refer to God.