Exodus 9:3-6

9:3 then the hand of the Lord will surely bring ¹  a very terrible plague ²  on your livestock in the field, on the horses, the donkeys, the camels, ³  the herds, and the flocks. 9:4 But the Lord will distinguish ⁴  between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt, and nothing ⁵  will die of all that the Israelites have.”’” ⁶ 

9:5 The Lord set ⁷  an appointed time, saying, “Tomorrow the Lord will do this ⁸  in the land.” 9:6 And the Lord did this ⁹  on the next day; ¹⁰  all ¹¹  the livestock of the Egyptians ¹²  died, but of the Israelites’ livestock not one died.

Exodus 12:29-30

The Deliverance from Egypt

12:29 ¹³ It happened ¹⁴  at midnight – the Lord attacked all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the prison, and all the firstborn of the cattle. 12:30 Pharaoh got up ¹⁵  in the night, ¹⁶  along with all his servants and all Egypt, and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was no house ¹⁷  in which there was not someone dead.

Exodus 15:26

15:26 He said, “If you will diligently obey ¹⁸  the Lord your God, and do what is right ¹⁹  in his sight, and pay attention ²⁰  to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, then all ²¹  the diseases ²²  that I brought on the Egyptians I will not bring on you, for I, the Lord, am your healer.” ²³ 

Leviticus 26:16

26:16 I for my part ²⁴  will do this to you: I will inflict horror on you, consumption and fever, which diminish eyesight and drain away the vitality of life. ²⁵  You will sow your seed in vain because ²⁶  your enemies will eat it. ²⁷ 

Leviticus 26:25

26:25 I will bring on you an avenging sword, a covenant vengeance. ²⁸  Although ²⁹  you will gather together into your cities, I will send pestilence among you and you will be given into enemy hands. ³⁰ 

Deuteronomy 7:15

7:15 The Lord will protect you from all sickness, and you will not experience any of the terrible diseases that you knew in Egypt; instead he will inflict them on all those who hate you.

Deuteronomy 28:22

28:22 He ³¹  will afflict you with weakness, ³²  fever, inflammation, infection, ³³  sword, ³⁴  blight, and mildew; these will attack you until you perish.

Deuteronomy 28:27

28:27 The Lord will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, eczema, and scabies, all of which cannot be healed.

Deuteronomy 28:60

28:60 He will infect you with all the diseases of Egypt ³⁵  that you dreaded, and they will persistently afflict you. ³⁶ 

Psalms 78:49-50

78:49 His raging anger lashed out against them, ³⁷ 

He sent fury, rage, and trouble

as messengers who bring disaster. ³⁸ 

78:50 He sent his anger in full force; ³⁹ 

he did not spare them from death;

he handed their lives over to destruction. ⁴⁰ 

[9:3]  ¹ tn The form used here is הוֹיָה (hoyah), the Qal active participle, feminine singular, from the verb “to be.” This is the only place in the OT that this form occurs. Ogden shows that this form is appropriate with the particle הִנֵּה (hinneh) to stress impending divine action, and that it conforms to the pattern in these narratives where five times the participle is used in the threat to Pharaoh (7:17; 8:2; 9:3, 14; 10:4). See G. S. Ogden, “Notes on the Use of הויה in Exodus IX. 3,” VT 17 (1967): 483-84.

[9:3]  ² tn The word דֶּבֶר (dever) is usually translated “pestilence” when it applies to diseases for humans. It is used only here and in Ps 78:50 for animals.

[9:3]  ³ sn The older view that camels were not domesticated at this time (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 70; W. F. Albright, Archaeology and the Religion of Israel, 96; et. al.) has been corrected by more recently uncovered information (see K. A. Kitchen, NBD³ 160-61).

[9:4]  ⁴ tn The verb פָּלָה (palah) in Hiphil means “to set apart, make separate, make distinct.” See also Exod 8:22 (18 HT); 11:7; 33:16.

[9:4]  ⁵ tn There is a wordplay in this section. A pestilence – דֶּבֶר (dever) – will fall on Egypt’s cattle, but no thing – דָּבָר (davar) – belonging to Israel would die. It was perhaps for this reason that the verb was changed in v. 1 from “say” to “speak” (דִּבֶּר, dibber). See U. Cassuto, Exodus, 111.

[9:4]  ⁶ tn The lamed preposition indicates possession: “all that was to the Israelites” means “all that the Israelites had.”

[9:5]  ⁷ tn Heb “and Yahweh set.”

[9:5]  ⁸ tn Heb “this thing.”

[9:6]  ⁹ tn Heb “this thing.”

[9:6]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “on the morrow.”

[9:6]  ¹¹ tn The word “all” clearly does not mean “all” in the exclusive sense, because subsequent plagues involve cattle. The word must denote such a large number that whatever was left was insignificant for the economy. It could also be taken to mean “all [kinds of] livestock died.”

[9:6]  ¹² tn Heb “of Egypt.” The place is put by metonymy for the inhabitants.

[12:29]  ¹³ sn The next section records the deliverance of Israel from Egypt, and so becomes the turning point of the book. Verses 28 and 29 could be included in the exposition of the previous section as the culmination of that part. The message might highlight God’s requirement for deliverance from bondage through the application of the blood of the sacrifice, God’s instruction for the memorial of deliverance through the purging of corruption, and the compliance of those who believed the message. But these verses also form the beginning of this next section (and so could be used transitionally). This unit includes the judgment on Egypt (29-30), the exodus from Egypt (31-39) and the historical summation and report (40-42).

[12:29]  ¹⁴ tn The verse begins with the temporal indicator וַיְהִי (vayÿhi), often translated “and it came to pass.” Here it could be left untranslated: “In the middle of the night Yahweh attacked.” The word order of the next and main clause furthers the emphasis by means of the vav disjunctive on the divine name preceding the verb. The combination of these initial and disjunctive elements helps to convey the suddenness of the attack, while its thoroughness is stressed by the repetition of “firstborn” in the rest of the verse, the merism (“from the firstborn of Pharaoh…to the firstborn of the captive”), and the mention of cattle.

[12:30]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “arose,” the verb קוּם (qum) in this context certainly must describe a less ceremonial act. The entire country woke up in terror because of the deaths.

[12:30]  ¹⁶ tn The noun is an adverbial accusative of time – “in the night” or “at night.”

[12:30]  ¹⁷ sn Or so it seemed. One need not push this description to complete literalness. The reference would be limited to houses that actually had firstborn people or animals. In a society in which households might include more than one generation of humans and animals, however, the presence of a firstborn human or animal would be the rule rather than the exception.

[15:26]  ¹⁸ tn The construction uses the infinitive absolute and the imperfect tense of שָׁמַע (shama’). The meaning of the verb is idiomatic here because it is followed by “to the voice of Yahweh your God.” When this is present, the verb is translated “obey.” The construction is in a causal clause. It reads, “If you will diligently obey.” Gesenius points out that the infinitive absolute in a conditional clause also emphasizes the importance of the condition on which the consequence depends (GKC 342-43 §113.o).

[15:26]  ¹⁹ tn The word order is reversed in the text: “and the right in his eyes you do,” or, “[if] you do what is right in his eyes.” The conditional idea in the first clause is continued in this clause.

[15:26]  ²⁰ tn Heb “give ear.” This verb and the next are both perfect tenses with the vav (ו) consecutive; they continue the sequence of the original conditional clause.

[15:26]  ²¹ tn The substantive כָּל־ (kol, “all of”) in a negative clause can be translated “none of.”

[15:26]  ²² sn The reference is no doubt to the plagues that Yahweh has just put on them. These will not come on God’s true people. But the interesting thing about a conditional clause like this is that the opposite is also true – “if you do not obey, then I will bring these diseases.”

[15:26]  ²³ tn The form is רֹפְאֶךָ (rofÿ’ekha), a participle with a pronominal suffix. The word is the predicate after the pronoun “I”: “I [am] your healer.” The suffix is an objective genitive – the Lord heals them.

[26:16]  ²⁴ tn Or “I also” (see HALOT 76 s.v. אַף 6.b).

[26:16]  ²⁵ tn Heb “soul.” These expressions may refer either to the physical effects of consumption and fever as the rendering in the text suggests (e.g., J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 452, 454, “diminishing eyesight and loss of appetite”), or perhaps the more psychological effects, “which exhausts the eyes” because of anxious hope “and causes depression” (Heb “causes soul [נֶפֶשׁ, nefesh] to pine away”), e.g., B. A. Levine, Leviticus (JPSTC), 185.

[26:16]  ²⁶ tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have causal force here.

[26:16]  ²⁷ tn That is, “your enemies will eat” the produce that grows from the sown seed.

[26:25]  ²⁸ tn Heb “vengeance of covenant”; cf. NAB “the avenger of my covenant.”

[26:25]  ²⁹ tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) has a concessive force in this context.

[26:25]  ³⁰ tn Heb “in hand of enemy,” but Tg. Ps.-J. and Tg. Neof. have “in the hands of your enemies” (J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 454).

[28:22]  ³¹ tn Heb “The Lord.” See note on “he” in 28:8.

[28:22]  ³² tn Or perhaps “consumption” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV). The term is from a verbal root that indicates a weakening of one’s physical strength (cf. NAB “wasting”; NIV, NLT “wasting disease”).

[28:22]  ³³ tn Heb “hot fever”; NIV “scorching heat.”

[28:22]  ³⁴ tn Or “drought” (so NIV, NRSV, NLT).

[28:60]  ³⁵ sn These are the plagues the Lord inflicted on the Egyptians prior to the exodus which, though they did not fall upon the Israelites, must have caused great terror (cf. Exod 15:26).

[28:60]  ³⁶ tn Heb “will cling to you” (so NIV); NLT “will claim you.”

[78:49]  ³⁷ tn Heb “he sent against them the rage of his anger.” The phrase “rage of his anger” employs an appositional genitive. Synonyms are joined in a construct relationship to emphasize the single idea. For a detailed discussion of the grammatical point with numerous examples, see Y. Avishur, “Pairs of Synonymous Words in the Construct State (and in Appositional Hendiadys) in Biblical Hebrew,” Semitics 2 (1971): 17-81.

[78:49]  ³⁸ tn Heb “fury and indignation and trouble, a sending of messengers of disaster.”

[78:50]  ³⁹ tn Heb “he leveled a path for his anger.” There were no obstacles to impede its progress; it moved swiftly and destructively.

[78:50]  ⁴⁰ tn Or perhaps “[the] plague.”