Exodus 9:14

9:14 For this time I will send all my plagues ¹  on your very self ²  and on your servants and your people, so that you may know that there is no one like me in all the earth.

Exodus 9:1

The Fifth Blow: Disease

9:1 ³ Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh and tell him, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, “Release my people that they may serve me!

Exodus 5:6-11

5:6 That same day Pharaoh commanded ⁴  the slave masters and foremen ⁵  who were ⁶  over the people: ⁷  5:7 “You must no longer ⁸  give straw to the people for making bricks ⁹  as before. ¹⁰  Let them go ¹¹  and collect straw for themselves. 5:8 But you must require ¹²  of them the same quota of bricks that they were making before. ¹³  Do not reduce it, for they are slackers. ¹⁴  That is why they are crying, ‘Let us go sacrifice to our God.’ 5:9 Make the work harder ¹⁵  for the men so they will keep at it ¹⁶  and pay no attention to lying words!” ¹⁷ 

5:10 So the slave masters of the people and their foremen went to the Israelites and said, ¹⁸  “Thus says Pharaoh: ‘I am not giving ¹⁹  you straw. 5:11 You ²⁰  go get straw for yourselves wherever you can ²¹  find it, because there will be no reduction at all in your workload.’”

Jeremiah 44:28

44:28 Some who survive in battle will return to the land of Judah from the land of Egypt. But they will be very few indeed! ²²  Then the Judean remnant who have come to live in the land of Egypt will know whose word proves true, ²³  mine or theirs.’

Luke 16:23

16:23 And in hell, ²⁴  as he was in torment, ²⁵  he looked up ²⁶  and saw Abraham far off with Lazarus at his side. ²⁷ 

[9:14]  ¹ tn The expression “all my plagues” points to the rest of the plagues and anticipates the proper outcome. Another view is to take the expression to mean the full brunt of the attack on the Egyptian people.

[9:14]  ² tn Heb “to your heart.” The expression is unusual, but it may be an allusion to the hard heartedness of Pharaoh – his stubbornness and blindness (B. Jacob, Exodus, 274).

[9:1]  ³ sn This plague demonstrates that Yahweh has power over the livestock of Egypt. He is able to strike the animals with disease and death, thus delivering a blow to the economic as well as the religious life of the land. By the former plagues many of the Egyptian religious ceremonies would have been interrupted and objects of veneration defiled or destroyed. Now some of the important deities will be attacked. In Goshen, where the cattle are merely cattle, no disease hits, but in the rest of Egypt it is a different matter. Osiris, the savior, cannot even save the brute in which his own soul is supposed to reside. Apis and Mnevis, the ram of Ammon, the sheep of Sais, and the goat of Mendes, perish together. Hence, Moses reminds Israel afterward, “On their gods also Yahweh executed judgments” (Num 33:4). When Jethro heard of all these events, he said, “Now I know that Yahweh is greater than all the gods” (Exod 18:11).

[5:6]  ⁴ tn Heb “and Pharaoh commanded on that day.”

[5:6]  ⁵ tn The Greek has “scribes” for this word, perhaps thinking of those lesser officials as keeping records of the slaves and the bricks.

[5:6]  ⁶ tn The phrase “who were” is supplied for clarity.

[5:6]  ⁷ sn In vv. 6-14 the second section of the chapter describes the severe measures by the king to increase the labor by decreasing the material. The emphasis in this section must be on the harsh treatment of the people and Pharaoh’s reason for it – he accuses them of idleness because they want to go and worship. The real reason, of course, is that he wants to discredit Moses (v. 9) and keep the people as slaves.

[5:7]  ⁸ tn The construction is a verbal hendiadys: לֹא תֹאסִפוּן לָתֵת (lo’ to’sifun latet, “you must not add to give”). The imperfect tense acts adverbially, and the infinitive becomes the main verb of the clause: “you must no longer give.”

[5:7]  ⁹ tn The expression “for making bricks” is made of the infinitive construct followed by its cognate accusative: לִלְבֹּן הַלְּבֵנִים (lilbon hallÿvenim).

[5:7]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “as yesterday and three days ago” or “as yesterday and before that.” This is idiomatic for “as previously” or “as in the past.”

[5:7]  ¹¹ tn The jussive יֵלְכוּ (yelÿkhu) and its following sequential verb would have the force of decree and not permission or advice. He is telling them to go and find straw or stubble for the bricks.

[5:8]  ¹² tn The verb is the Qal imperfect of שִׂים (sim, “place, put”). The form could be an imperfect of instruction: “You will place upon them the quota.” Or, as here, it may be an obligatory imperfect: “You must place.”

[5:8]  ¹³ tn Heb “yesterday and three days ago” or “yesterday and before that” is idiomatic for “previously” or “in the past.”

[5:8]  ¹⁴ tn Or “loafers.” The form נִרְפִּים (nirpim) is derived from the verb רָפָה (rafah), meaning “to be weak, to let oneself go.” They had been letting the work go, Pharaoh reasoned, and being idle is why they had time to think about going to worship.

[5:9]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “let the work be heavy.”

[5:9]  ¹⁶ tn The text has וְיַעֲשׂוּ־בָהּ (vÿya’asu-vah, “and let them work in it”) or the like. The jussive forms part of the king’s decree that the men not only be required to work harder but be doing it: “Let them be occupied in it.”

[5:9]  ¹⁷ sn The words of Moses are here called “lying words” (דִבְרֵי־שָׁקֶר, divre-shaqer). Here is the main reason, then, for Pharaoh’s new policy. He wanted to discredit Moses. So the words that Moses spoke Pharaoh calls false and lying words. The world was saying that God’s words were vain and deceptive because they were calling people to a higher order. In a short time God would reveal that they were true words.

[5:10]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “went out and spoke to the people saying.” Here “the people” has been specified as “the Israelites” for clarity.

[5:10]  ¹⁹ tn The construction uses the negative particle combined with a subject suffix before the participle: אֵינֶנִּי נֹתֵן (’enenni noten, “there is not I – giving”).

[5:11]  ²⁰ tn The independent personal pronoun emphasizes that the people were to get their own straw, and it heightens the contrast with the king. “You – go get.”

[5:11]  ²¹ tn The tense in this section could be translated as having the nuance of possibility: “wherever you may find it,” or the nuance of potential imperfect: “wherever you are able to find any.”

[44:28]  ²² tn Heb “The survivors of the sword will return from the land of Egypt to the land of Judah few in number [more literally, “men of number”; for the idiom see BDB 709 s.v. מִסְפָּר 1.a].” The term “survivors of the sword” may be intended to represent both those who survive death in war or death by starvation or disease, a synecdoche of species for all three genera.

[44:28]  ²³ tn Heb “will stand,” i.e., in the sense of being fulfilled, proving to be true, or succeeding (see BDB 878 s.v. קוּם 7.g).

[16:23]  ²⁴ sn The Greek term Hades stands for the Hebrew concept of Sheol. It is what is called hell today. This is where the dead were gathered (Ps 16:10; 86:13). In the NT Hades has an additional negative force of awaiting judgment (Rev 20:13).

[16:23]  ²⁵ sn Hades is a place of torment, especially as one knows that he is separated from God.

[16:23]  ²⁶ tn Grk “he lifted up his eyes” (an idiom).

[16:23]  ²⁷ tn Grk “in his bosom,” the same phrase used in 16:22. This idiom refers to heaven and/or participation in the eschatological banquet. An appropriate modern equivalent is “at Abraham’s side.”