Exodus 3:11

3:11 Moses said ¹  to God, ²  “Who am I, that I should go ³  to Pharaoh, or that I should bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

Exodus 3:1

3:1 Now Moses ⁴  was shepherding the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert ⁵  and came to the mountain of God, to Horeb. ⁶ 

Exodus 18:9-14

18:9 Jethro rejoiced ⁷  because of all the good that the Lord had done for Israel, whom he had delivered from the hand of Egypt. 18:10 Jethro said, “Blessed ⁸  be the Lord who has delivered you from the hand of Egypt, and from the hand of Pharaoh, who has delivered the people from the Egyptians’ control! ⁹  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.” ¹⁰  18:12 Then Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, brought ¹¹  a burnt offering and sacrifices for God, ¹²  and Aaron and all the elders of Israel came to eat food ¹³  with the father-in-law of Moses before God.

18:13 On the next day ¹⁴  Moses sat to judge ¹⁵  the people, and the people stood around Moses from morning until evening. 18:14 When Moses’ father-in-law saw all that he was doing for the people, he said, “What is this ¹⁶  that you are doing for the people? ¹⁷  Why are you sitting by yourself, and all the people stand around you from morning until evening?”

Matthew 10:16

Persecution of Disciples

10:16 “I ¹⁸  am sending you out like sheep surrounded by wolves, ¹⁹  so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.

Luke 1:34

1:34 Mary ²⁰  said to the angel, “How will this be, since I have not had sexual relations with ²¹  a man?”

[3:11]  ¹ tn Heb “And Moses said.”

[3:11]  ² sn When he was younger, Moses was confident and impulsive, but now that he is older the greatness of the task makes him unsure. The remainder of this chapter and the next chapter record the four difficulties of Moses and how the Lord answers them (11-12, 13-22; then 4:1-9; and finally 4:10-17).

[3:11]  ³ tn The imperfect tense אֵלֵךְ (’elekh) carries the modal nuance of obligatory imperfect, i.e., “that I should go.” Moses at this point is overwhelmed with the task of representing God, and with his personal insufficiency, and so in honest humility questions the choice.

[3:1]  ⁴ sn The vav (ו) disjunctive with the name “Moses” introduces a new and important starting point. The Lord’s dealing with Moses will fill the next two chapters.

[3:1]  ⁵ tn Or “west of the desert,” taking אַחַר (’akhar, “behind”) as the opposite of עַל־פְּנֵי (’al-pÿne, “on the face of, east of”; cf. Gen 16:12; 25:18).

[3:1]  ⁶ sn “Horeb” is another name for Mount Sinai. There is a good deal of foreshadowing in this verse, for later Moses would shepherd the people of Israel and lead them to Mount Sinai to receive the Law. See D. Skinner, “Some Major Themes of Exodus,” Mid-America Theological Journal 1 (1977): 31-42.

[18:9]  ⁷ tn The word חָדָה (khada) is rare, occurring only in Job 3:6 and Ps 21:6, although it is common in Aramaic. The LXX translated it “he shuddered.” U. Cassuto suggests that that rendering was based on the midrashic interpretation in b. Sanhedrin 94b, “he felt cuts in his body” – a wordplay on the verb (Exodus, 215-16).

[18:10]  ⁸ tn This is a common form of praise. The verb בָּרוּךְ (barukh) is the Qal passive participle of the verb. Here must be supplied a jussive, making this participle the predicate: “May Yahweh be blessed.” The verb essentially means “to enrich”; in praise it would mean that he would be enriched by the praises of the people.

[18:10]  ⁹ tn Heb “from under the hand of the Egyptians.”

[18:11]  ¹⁰ 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.”

[18:12]  ¹¹ tn The verb is “and he took” (cf. KJV, ASV, NASB). It must have the sense of getting the animals for the sacrifice. The Syriac, Targum, and Vulgate have “offered.” But Cody argues because of the precise wording in the text Jethro did not offer the sacrifices but received them (A. Cody, “Exodus 18,12: Jethro Accepts a Covenant with the Israelites,” Bib 49 [1968]: 159-61).

[18:12]  ¹² sn Jethro brought offerings as if he were the one who had been delivered. The “burnt offering” is singular, to honor God first. The other sacrifices were intended for the invited guests to eat (a forerunner of the peace offering). See B. Jacob, Exodus, 498.

[18:12]  ¹³ tn The word לֶחֶם (lekhem) here means the sacrifice and all the foods that were offered with it. The eating before God was part of covenantal ritual, for it signified that they were in communion with the Deity, and with one another.

[18:13]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and it was/happened on the morrow.”

[18:13]  ¹⁵ sn This is a simple summary of the function of Moses on this particular day. He did not necessarily do this every day, but it was time now to do it. The people would come to solve their difficulties or to hear instruction from Moses on decisions to be made. The tradition of “sitting in Moses’ seat” is drawn from this passage.

[18:14]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “what is this thing.”

[18:14]  ¹⁷ sn This question, “what are you doing for the people,” is qualified by the next question. Sitting alone all day and the people standing around all day showed that Moses was exhibiting too much care for the people – he could not do this.

[10:16]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “Behold I.” The Greek word ἰδού (idou) has not been translated because it has no exact English equivalent here, but adds interest and emphasis (BDAG 468 s.v. 1).

[10:16]  ¹⁹ sn This imagery of wolves is found in intertestamental Judaism; see Pss. Sol. 8:23, 30.

[1:34]  ²⁰ tn Grk “And Mary.” Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[1:34]  ²¹ tn Grk “have not known.” The expression in the Greek text is a euphemism for sexual relations. Mary seems to have sensed that the declaration had an element of immediacy to it that excluded Joseph. Many modern translations render this phrase “since I am a virgin,” but the Greek word for virgin is not used in the text, and the euphemistic expression is really more explicit, referring specifically to sexual relations.