Exodus 1:10

1:10 Come, let’s deal wisely ¹  with them. Otherwise ²  they will continue to multiply, ³  and if ⁴  a war breaks out, they will ally themselves with ⁵  our enemies and fight against us and leave ⁶  the country.”

Exodus 18:11

18:11 Now I know that the Lord is greater than all the gods, for in the thing in which they dealt proudly against them he has destroyed them.” ⁷ 

Exodus 18:2

18:2 Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, took Moses’ wife Zipporah after he had sent her back,

Exodus 15:1

The Song of Triumph

15:1 ⁸ Then Moses and the Israelites sang ⁹  this song to the Lord. They said, ¹⁰ 

“I will sing ¹¹  to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously, ¹² 

the horse and its rider ¹³  he has thrown into the sea.

Exodus 16:23

16:23 He said to them, “This is what the Lord has said: ‘Tomorrow is a time of cessation from work, ¹⁴  a holy Sabbath ¹⁵  to the Lord. Whatever you want to ¹⁶  bake, bake today; ¹⁷  whatever you want to boil, boil today; whatever is left put aside for yourselves to be kept until morning.’”

Exodus 17:14

17:14 The Lord said to Moses, “Write this as a memorial in the ¹⁸  book, and rehearse ¹⁹  it in Joshua’s hearing; ²⁰  for I will surely wipe out ²¹  the remembrance ²²  of Amalek from under heaven.

Exodus 17:1

Water at Massa and Meribah

17:1 ²³ The whole community ²⁴  of the Israelites traveled on their journey ²⁵  from the Desert of Sin according to the Lord’s instruction, and they pitched camp in Rephidim. ²⁶  Now ²⁷  there was no water for the people to drink. ²⁸ 

Esther 7:10

7:10 So they hanged Haman on the very gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. The king’s rage then abated.

Psalms 7:14-15

7:14 See the one who is pregnant with wickedness,

who conceives destructive plans,

and gives birth to harmful lies – ²⁹ 

7:15 he digs a pit ³⁰ 

and then falls into the hole he has made. ³¹ 

Psalms 9:15-16

9:15 The nations fell ³²  into the pit they had made;

their feet were caught in the net they had hidden. ³³ 

9:16 The Lord revealed himself;

he accomplished justice;

the wicked were ensnared by their own actions. ³⁴  (Higgaion. ³⁵  Selah)

Psalms 141:10

141:10 Let the wicked fall ³⁶  into their ³⁷  own nets,

while I escape. ³⁸ 

[1:10]  ¹ tn The verb is the Hitpael cohortative of חָכַם (khakam, “to be wise”). This verb has the idea of acting shrewdly, dealing wisely. The basic idea in the word group is that of skill. So a skillful decision is required to prevent the Israelites from multiplying any more.

[1:10]  ² tn The word פֶּן (pen) expresses fear or precaution and can also be translated “lest” or “else” (R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 75-76, §461).

[1:10]  ³ tn The verb can be translated simply “will multiply,” but since Pharaoh has already indicated that he is aware they were doing that, the nuance here must mean to multiply all the more, or to continue to multiply. Cf. NIV “will become even more numerous.”

[1:10]  ⁴ tn The words וְהָיָה כִּי (vÿhayah ki) introduce a conditional clause – “if” (see GKC 335 §112.y).

[1:10]  ⁵ tn Heb “and [lest] he [Israel] also be joined to.”

[1:10]  ⁶ tn Heb “and go up from.” All the verbs coming after the particle פֶּן (pen, “otherwise, lest” in v. 10) have the same force and are therefore parallel. These are the fears of the Egyptians. This explains why a shrewd policy of population control was required. They wanted to keep Israel enslaved; they did not want them to become too numerous and escape.

[18:11]  ⁷ tn The end of this sentence seems not to have been finished, or it is very elliptical. In the present translation the phrase “he has destroyed them” is supplied. Others take the last prepositional phrase to be the completion and supply only a verb: “[he was] above them.” U. Cassuto (Exodus, 216) takes the word “gods” to be the subject of the verb “act proudly,” giving the sense of “precisely (כִּי, ki) in respect of these things of which the gods of Egypt boasted – He is greater than they (עֲלֵיהֶם, ‘alehem).” He suggests rendering the clause, “excelling them in the very things to which they laid claim.”

[15:1]  ⁸ sn This chapter is a song of praise sung by Moses and the people right after the deliverance from the Sea. The song itself is vv. 1b-18; it falls into three sections – praise to God (1b-3), the cause for the praise (4-13), and the conclusion (14-18). The point of the first section is that God’s saving acts inspire praise from his people; the second is that God’s powerful acts deliver his people from the forces of evil; and the third section is that God’s demonstrations of his sovereignty inspire confidence in him by his people. So the Victory Song is very much like the other declarative praise psalms – the resolve to praise, the power of God, the victory over the enemies, the incomparability of God in his redemption, and the fear of the people. See also C. Cohen, “Studies in Early Israelite Poetry I: An Unrecognized Case of Three Line Staircase Parallelism in the Song of the Sea,” JANESCU 7 (1975): 13-17; D. N. Freedman, “Strophe and Meter in Exodus 15,” A Light unto My Path, 163-203; E. Levine, “Neofiti I: A Study of Exodus 15,” Bib 54 (1973): 301-30; T. C. Butler, “‘The Song of the Sea’: Exodus 15:1-18: A Study in the Exegesis of Hebrew Poetry,” DissAb 32 (1971): 2782-A.

[15:1]  ⁹ tn The verb is יָשִׁיר (yashir), a normal imperfect tense form. But after the adverb “then” this form is to be treated as a preterite (see GKC 314-15 §107.c).

[15:1]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and they said, saying.” This has been simplified in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[15:1]  ¹¹ tn The form is the singular cohortative, expressing the resolution of Moses to sing the song of praise (“I will” being stronger than “I shall”).

[15:1]  ¹² tn This causal clause gives the reason for and summary of the praise. The Hebrew expression has כִּי־גָּאֹה גָּאָה (ki ga’oh ga’ah). The basic idea of the verb is “rise up loftily” or “proudly.” But derivatives of the root carry the nuance of majesty or pride (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 132). So the idea of the perfect tense with its infinitive absolute may mean “he is highly exalted” or “he has done majestically” or “he is gloriously glorious.”

[15:1]  ¹³ sn The common understanding is that Egypt did not have people riding horses at this time, and so the phrase the horse and its rider is either viewed as an anachronism or is interpreted to mean charioteers. The word “to ride” can mean on a horse or in a chariot. Some have suggested changing “rider” to “chariot” (re-vocalization) to read “the horse and its chariot.”

[16:23]  ¹⁴ tn The noun שַׁבָּתוֹן (shabbaton) has the abstract ending on it: “resting, ceasing.” The root word means “cease” from something, more than “to rest.” The Law would make it clear that they were to cease from their normal occupations and do no common work.

[16:23]  ¹⁵ tn The technical expression is now used: שַׁבַּת־קֹדֶשׁ (shabbat-qodesh, “a holy Sabbath”) meaning a “cessation of/for holiness” for Yahweh. The rest was to be characterized by holiness.

[16:23]  ¹⁶ tn The two verbs in these objective noun clauses are desiderative imperfects – “bake whatever you want to bake.”

[16:23]  ¹⁷ tn The word “today” is implied from the context.

[17:14]  ¹⁸ tn The presence of the article does not mean that he was to write this in a book that was existing now, but in one dedicated to this purpose (book, meaning scroll). See GKC 408 §126.s.

[17:14]  ¹⁹ tn The Hebrew word is “place,” meaning that the events were to be impressed on Joshua.

[17:14]  ²⁰ tn Heb “in the ears of Joshua.” The account should be read to Joshua.

[17:14]  ²¹ tn The construction uses the infinitive absolute and the imperfect tense to stress the resolution of Yahweh to destroy Amalek. The verb מָחָה (makhah) is often translated “blot out” – but that is not a very satisfactory image, since it would not remove completely what is the object. “Efface, erase, scrape off” (as in a palimpsest, a manuscript that is scraped clean so it can be reused) is a more accurate image.

[17:14]  ²² sn This would seem to be defeated by the preceding statement that the events would be written in a book for a memorial. If this war is recorded, then the Amalekites would be remembered. But here God was going to wipe out the memory of them. But the idea of removing the memory of a people is an idiom for destroying them – they will have no posterity and no lasting heritage.

[17:1]  ²³ sn This is the famous story telling how the people rebelled against Yahweh when they thirsted, saying that Moses had brought them out into the wilderness to kill them by thirst, and how Moses with the staff brought water from the rock. As a result of this the name was called Massa and Meribah because of the testing and the striving. It was a challenge to Moses’ leadership as well as a test of Yahweh’s presence. The narrative in its present form serves an important point in the argument of the book. The story turns on the gracious provision of God who can give his people water when there is none available. The narrative is structured to show how the people strove. Thus, the story intertwines God’s free flowing grace with the sad memory of Israel’s sins. The passage can be divided into three parts: the situation and the complaint (1-3), the cry and the miracle (4-6), and the commemoration by naming (7).

[17:1]  ²⁴ tn Or “congregation” (KJV, ASV, NASB, NRSV).

[17:1]  ²⁵ tn The text says that they journeyed “according to their journeyings.” Since the verb form (and therefore the derived noun) essentially means to pull up the tent pegs and move along, this verse would be saying that they traveled by stages, or, from place to place.

[17:1]  ²⁶ sn The location is a bit of a problem. Exod 19:1-2 suggests that it is near Sinai, whereas it is normally located near Kadesh in the north. Without any details provided, M. Noth concludes that two versions came together (Exodus [OTL], 138). S. R. Driver says that the writer wrote not knowing that they were 24 miles apart (Exodus, 157). Critics have long been bothered by this passage because of the two names given at the same place. If two sources had been brought together, it is not possible now to identify them. But Noth insisted that if there were two names there were two different locations. The names Massah and Meribah occur alone in Scripture (Deut 9:22, and Num 20:1 for examples), but together in Ps 95 and in Deut 33:8. But none of these passages is a clarification of the difficulty. Most critics would argue that Massah was a secondary element that was introduced into this account, because Exod 17 focuses on Meribah. From that starting point they can diverge greatly on the interpretation, usually having something to do with a water test. But although Num 20 is parallel in several ways, there are major differences: 1) it takes place 40 years later than this, 2) the name Kadesh is joined to the name Meribah there, and 3) Moses is punished there. One must conclude that if an event could occur twice in similar ways (complaint about water would be a good candidate for such), then there is no reason a similar name could not be given.

[17:1]  ²⁷ tn The disjunctive vav introduces a parenthetical clause that is essential for this passage – there was no water.

[17:1]  ²⁸ tn Here the construction uses a genitive after the infinitive construct for the subject: “there was no water for the drinking of the people” (GKC 353-54 §115.c).

[7:14]  ²⁹ tn Heb “and he conceives harm and gives birth to a lie.”

[7:15]  ³⁰ tn Heb “a pit he digs and he excavates it.” Apparently the imagery of hunting is employed; the wicked sinner digs this pit to entrap and destroy his intended victim. The redundancy in the Hebrew text has been simplified in the translation.

[7:15]  ³¹ tn The verb forms in vv. 15-16 describe the typical behavior and destiny of those who attempt to destroy others. The image of the evildoer falling into the very trap he set for his intended victim emphasizes the appropriate nature of God’s judgment.

[9:15]  ³² tn Heb “sank down.”

[9:15]  ³³ sn The hostility of the nations against God’s people is their downfall, for it prompts God to intervene and destroy them. See also Ps 7:15-16.

[9:16]  ³⁴ tn Heb “by the work of his hands [the] wicked [one] was ensnared. The singular form רָשָׁע (rasha’, “wicked”) is collective or representative here (see vv. 15, 17). The form נוֹקֵשׁ (noqesh) appears to be an otherwise unattested Qal form (active participle) from נָקַשׁ (naqash), but the form should be emended to נוֹקַשׁ (noqash), a Niphal perfect from יָקַשׁ (yaqash).

[9:16]  ³⁵ tn This is probably a technical musical term.

[141:10]  ³⁶ tn The prefixed verbal form is understood as a jussive of prayer. Another option is to translate, “the wicked will fall.”

[141:10]  ³⁷ tn Heb “his.”

[141:10]  ³⁸ tn Heb “at the same [that] I, until I pass by.” Another option is to take יַחַד (yakhad) with the preceding line, “let the wicked fall together into their own nets.”