Deuteronomy 12:5

12:5 But you must seek only the place he ¹  chooses from all your tribes to establish his name as his place of residence, ²  and you must go there.

Deuteronomy 12:11

12:11 Then you must come to the place the Lord your God chooses for his name to reside, bringing ³  everything I am commanding you – your burnt offerings, sacrifices, tithes, the personal offerings you have prepared, ⁴  and all your choice votive offerings which you devote to him. ⁵ 

Deuteronomy 14:23-24

14:23 In the presence of the Lord your God you must eat from the tithe of your grain, your new wine, ⁶  your olive oil, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks in the place he chooses to locate his name, so that you may learn to revere the Lord your God always. 14:24 When he ⁷  blesses you, if the ⁸  place where he chooses to locate his name is distant,

Deuteronomy 16:6

16:6 but you must sacrifice it ⁹  in the evening in ¹⁰  the place where he ¹¹  chooses to locate his name, at sunset, the time of day you came out of Egypt.

Deuteronomy 16:11

16:11 You shall rejoice before him ¹²  – you, your son, your daughter, your male and female slaves, the Levites in your villages, ¹³  the resident foreigners, the orphans, and the widows among you – in the place where the Lord chooses to locate his name.

Deuteronomy 26:2

26:2 you must take the first of all the ground’s produce you harvest from the land the Lord your God is giving you, place it in a basket, and go to the place where he ¹⁴  chooses to locate his name. ¹⁵ 

Exodus 20:24

20:24 ‘You must make for me an altar made of earth, ¹⁶  and you will sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, ¹⁷  your sheep and your cattle. In every place ¹⁸  where I cause my name to be honored ¹⁹  I will come to you and I will bless you.

Exodus 20:1

The Decalogue

20:1 ²⁰ God spoke all these words: ²¹ 

Exodus 14:21

14:21 Moses stretched out his hand toward the sea, and the Lord drove the sea apart ²²  by a strong east wind all that night, and he made the sea into dry land, and the water was divided.

Exodus 14:2

14:2 “Tell the Israelites that they must turn and camp ²³  before Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea; you are to camp by the sea before Baal Zephon opposite it. ²⁴ 

Exodus 12:13

12:13 The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, so that when I see ²⁵  the blood I will pass over you, ²⁶  and this plague ²⁷  will not fall on you to destroy you ²⁸  when I attack ²⁹  the land of Egypt. ³⁰ 

Ezra 6:12

6:12 May God who makes his name to reside there overthrow any king or nation ³¹  who reaches out ³²  to cause such change so as to destroy this temple of God in Jerusalem. I, Darius, have given orders. Let them be carried out with precision!”

[12:5]  ¹ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

[12:5]  ² tc Some scholars, on the basis of v. 11, emend the MT reading שִׁכְנוֹ (shikhno, “his residence”) to the infinitive construct לְשָׁכֵן (lÿshakhen, “to make [his name] to dwell”), perhaps with the 3rd person masculine singular sf לְשַׁכְּנוֹ (lÿshakÿno, “to cause it to dwell”). Though the presupposed nounשֵׁכֶן (shekhen) is nowhere else attested, the parallel here with שַׁמָּה (shammah, “there”) favors retaining the MT as it stands.

[12:11]  ³ tn Heb “and it will be (to) the place where the Lord your God chooses to cause his name to dwell you will bring.”

[12:11]  ⁴ tn Heb “heave offerings of your hand.”

[12:11]  ⁵ tn Heb “the Lord.” See note on “he” in 12:5.

[14:23]  ⁶ tn This refers to wine in the early stages of fermentation. In its later stages it becomes wine (יַיִן, yayin) in its mature sense.

[14:24]  ⁷ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” See note on “He” in 14:2.

[14:24]  ⁸ tn The Hebrew text includes “way is so far from you that you are unable to carry it because the.” These words have not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons, because they are redundant.

[16:6]  ⁹ tn Heb “the Passover.” The translation uses a pronoun to avoid redundancy in English.

[16:6]  ¹⁰ tc The MT reading אֶל (’el, “unto”) before “the place” should, following Smr, Syriac, Targums, and Vulgate, be omitted in favor of ב (bet; בַּמָּקוֹם, bammaqom), “in the place.”

[16:6]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” See note on “he” in 16:1.

[16:11]  ¹² tn Heb “the Lord your God.” See note on “he” in 16:1.

[16:11]  ¹³ tn Heb “gates.”

[26:2]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

[26:2]  ¹⁵ sn The place where he chooses to locate his name. This is a circumlocution for the central sanctuary, first the tabernacle and later the Jerusalem temple. See Deut 12:1-14 and especially the note on the word “you” in v. 14.

[20:24]  ¹⁶ sn The instructions here call for the altar to be made of natural things, not things manufactured or shaped by man. The altar was either to be made of clumps of earth or natural, unhewn rocks.

[20:24]  ¹⁷ sn The “burnt offering” is the offering prescribed in Lev 1. Everything of this animal went up in smoke as a sweet aroma to God. It signified complete surrender by the worshiper who brought the animal, and complete acceptance by God, thereby making atonement. The “peace offering” is legislated in Lev 3 and 7. This was a communal meal offering to celebrate being at peace with God. It was made usually for thanksgiving, for payment of vows, or as a freewill offering.

[20:24]  ¹⁸ tn Gesenius lists this as one of the few places where the noun in construct seems to be indefinite in spite of the fact that the genitive has the article. He says בְּכָל־הַמָּקוֹם (bÿkhol-hammaqom) means “in all the place, sc. of the sanctuary, and is a dogmatic correction of “in every place” (כָּל־מָקוֹם, kol-maqom). See GKC 412 §127.e.

[20:24]  ¹⁹ tn The verb is זָכַר (zakhar, “to remember”), but in the Hiphil especially it can mean more than remember or cause to remember (remind) – it has the sense of praise or honor. B. S. Childs says it has a denominative meaning, “to proclaim” (Exodus [OTL], 447). The point of the verse is that God will give Israel reason for praising and honoring him, and in every place that occurs he will make his presence known by blessing them.

[20:1]  ²⁰ sn This chapter is the heart of the Law of Israel, and as such is well known throughout the world. There is so much literature on it that it is almost impossible to say anything briefly and do justice to the subject. But the exposition of the book must point out that this is the charter of the new nation of Israel. These ten commands (words) form the preamble; they will be followed by the decisions (judgments). And then in chap. 24 the covenant will be inaugurated. So when Israel entered into covenant with God, they entered into a theocracy by expressing their willingness to submit to his authority. The Law was the binding constitution for the nation of Israel under Yahweh their God. It was specifically given to them at a certain time and in a certain place. The Law legislated how Israel was to live in order to be blessed by God and used by him as a kingdom of priests. In the process of legislating their conduct and their ritual for worship, the Law revealed God. It revealed the holiness of Yahweh as the standard for all worship and service, and in revealing that it revealed or uncovered sin. But what the Law condemned, the Law (Leviticus) also made provision for in the laws of the sacrifice and the feasts intended for atonement. The NT teaches that the Law was good, and perfect, and holy. But it also teaches that Christ was the end (goal) of the Law, that it ultimately led to him. It was a pedagogue, Paul said, to bring people to Christ. And when the fulfillment of the promise came in him, believers were not to go back under the Law. What this means for Christians is that what the Law of Israel revealed about God and his will is timeless and still authoritative over faith and conduct, but what the Law regulated for Israel in their existence as the people of God has been done away with in Christ. The Ten Commandments reveal the essence of the Law; the ten for the most part are reiterated in the NT because they reflect the holy and righteous nature of God. The NT often raises them to a higher standard, to guard the spirit of the Law as well as the letter.

[20:1]  ²¹ sn The Bible makes it clear that the Law was the revelation of God at Mount Sinai. And yet study has shown that the law code’s form follows the literary pattern of covenant codes in the Late Bronze Age, notably the Hittite codes. The point of such codes is that all the covenant stipulations are appropriate because of the wonderful things that the sovereign has done for the people. God, in using a well-known literary form, was both drawing on the people’s knowledge of such to impress their duties on them, as well as putting new wine into old wineskins. The whole nature of God’s code was on a much higher level. For this general structure, see M. G. Kline, Treaty of the Great King. For the Ten Commandments specifically, see J. J. Stamm and M. E. Andrew, The Ten Commandments in Recent Research (SBT). See also some of the general articles: M. Barrett, “God’s Moral Standard: An Examination of the Decalogue,” BV 12 (1978): 34-40; C. J. H. Wright, “The Israelite Household and the Decalogue: The Social Background and Significance of Some Commandments,” TynBul 30 (1979): 101-24; J. D. Levenson, “The Theologies of Commandment in Biblical Israel,” HTR 73 (1980): 17-33; M. B. Cohen and D. B. Friedman, “The Dual Accentuation of the Ten Commandments,” Masoretic Studies 1 (1974): 7-190; D. Skinner, “Some Major Themes of Exodus,” Mid-America Theological Journal 1 (1977): 31-42; M. Tate, “The Legal Traditions of the Book of Exodus,” RevExp 74 (1977): 483-509; E. C. Smith, “The Ten Commandments in Today’s Permissive Society: A Principleist Approach,” SwJT 20 (1977): 42-58; and D. W. Buck, “Exodus 20:1-17,” Lutheran Theological Journal 16 (1982): 65-75.

[14:21]  ²² tn Or “drove the sea back” (NIV, NCV, NRSV, TEV). The verb is simply the Hiphil of הָלַךְ (halakh, “to walk, go”). The context requires that it be interpreted along the lines of “go back, go apart.”

[14:2]  ²³ tn The two imperfects follow the imperative and therefore express purpose. The point in the verses is that Yahweh was giving the orders for the direction of the march and the encampment by the sea.

[14:2]  ²⁴ sn The places have been tentatively identified. W. C. Kaiser summarizes the suggestions that Pi-Hahiroth as an Egyptian word may mean “temple of the [Syrian god] Hrt” or “The Hir waters of the canal” or “The Dwelling of Hator” (“Exodus,” EBC 2:387; see the literature on these names, including C. DeWit, The Date and Route of the Exodus, 17).

[12:13]  ²⁵ tn Both of the verbs for seeing and passing over are perfect tenses with vav (ו) consecutives: וּפָסַחְתִּי…וְרָאִיתִי (vÿra’iti...ufasakhti); the first of these parallel verb forms is subordinated to the second as a temporal clause. See Gesenius’s description of perfect consecutives in the protasis and apodosis (GKC 494 §159.g).

[12:13]  ²⁶ tn The meaning of the verb is supplied in part from the near context of seeing the sign and omitting to destroy, as well as the verb at the start of verse 12 “pass through, by, over.” Isa 31:5 says, “Just as birds hover over a nest, so the Lord who commands armies will protect Jerusalem. He will protect and deliver it; as he passes over he will rescue it.” The word does not occur enough times to enable one to delineate a clear meaning. It is probably not the same word as “to limp” found in 1 Kgs 18:21, 26, unless there is a highly developed category of meaning there.

[12:13]  ²⁷ tn The word “plague” (נֶגֶף, negef) is literally “a blow” or “a striking.” It usually describes a calamity or affliction given to those who have aroused God’s anger, as in Exod 30:12; Num 8:19; 16:46, 47; Josh 22:17 (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 92-93).

[12:13]  ²⁸ tn Heb “for destruction.” The form מַשְׁחִית (mashkhit) is the Hiphil participle of שָׁחַת (shakhat). The word itself is a harsh term; it was used to describe Yahweh’s destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen 13:10).

[12:13]  ²⁹ tn בְּהַכֹּתִי (bÿhakkoti) is the Hiphil infinitive construct from נָכָה (nakhah), with a preposition prefixed and a pronominal suffix added to serve as the subjective genitive – the subject of this temporal clause. It is also used in 12:12.

[12:13]  ³⁰ sn For additional discussions, see W. H. Elder, “The Passover,” RevExp 74 (1977): 511-22; E. Nutz, “The Passover,” BV 12 (1978): 23-28; H. M. Kamsler, “The Blood Covenant in the Bible,” Dor le Dor 6 (1977): 94-98; A. Rodriguez, Substitution in the Hebrew Cultus; B. Ramm, “The Theology of the Book of Exodus: A Reflection on Exodus 12:12,” SwJT 20 (1977): 59-68; and M. Gilula, “The Smiting of the First-Born: An Egyptian Myth?” TA 4 (1977): 94-85.

[6:12]  ³¹ tn Aram “people.”

[6:12]  ³² tn Aram “who sends forth his hand.”