Exodus 1:6

1:6 and in time ¹  Joseph ²  and his brothers and all that generation died.

Exodus 5:6

5:6 That same day Pharaoh commanded ³  the slave masters and foremen ⁴  who were ⁵  over the people: ⁶ 

Exodus 13:8

13:8 You are to tell your son ⁷  on that day, ⁸  ‘It is ⁹  because of what ¹⁰  the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.’

Exodus 12:19

12:19 For seven days ¹¹  yeast must not be found in your houses, for whoever eats what is made with yeast – that person ¹²  will be cut off from the community of Israel, whether a foreigner ¹³  or one born in the land.

Exodus 14:30

14:30 So the Lord saved ¹⁴  Israel on that day from the power ¹⁵  of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead ¹⁶  on the shore of the sea.

Exodus 32:28

32:28 The Levites did what Moses ordered, ¹⁷  and that day about three thousand men of the people died. ¹⁸ 

Exodus 3:8

3:8 I have come down ¹⁹  to deliver them ²⁰  from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up from that land to a land that is both good and spacious, ²¹  to a land flowing with milk and honey, ²²  to the region of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. ²³ 

Exodus 8:22

8:22 But on that day I will mark off ²⁴  the land of Goshen, where my people are staying, ²⁵  so that no swarms of flies will be there, that you may know that I am the Lord in the midst of this land. ²⁶ 

Exodus 10:13

10:13 So Moses extended his staff over the land of Egypt, and then the Lord ²⁷  brought ²⁸  an east wind on the land all that day and all night. ²⁹  The morning came, ³⁰  and the east wind had brought up ³¹  the locusts!

Exodus 12:15

12:15 For seven days ³²  you must eat ³³  bread made without yeast. ³⁴  Surely ³⁵  on the first day you must put away yeast from your houses because anyone who eats bread made with yeast ³⁶  from the first day to the seventh day will be cut off ³⁷  from Israel.

Exodus 31:14

31:14 So you must keep the Sabbath, for it is holy for you. Everyone who defiles it ³⁸  must surely be put to death; indeed, ³⁹  if anyone does ⁴⁰  any ⁴¹  work on it, then that person will be cut off from among his ⁴²  people.

Exodus 34:3

34:3 No one is to come up with you; do not let anyone be seen anywhere on the mountain; not even the flocks or the herds may graze in front of that mountain.”

[1:6]  ¹ tn The text simply uses the vav (ו) consecutive with the preterite, “and Joseph died.” While this construction shows sequence with the preceding verse, it does not require that the death follow directly the report of that verse. In fact, readers know from the record in Genesis that the death of Joseph occurred after a good number of years. The statement assumes the passage of time in the natural course of events.

[1:6]  ² tn The verse has a singular verb, “and Joseph died, and all his brothers, and all that generation.” Typical of Hebrew style the verb need only agree with the first of a compound subject.

[5:6]  ³ tn Heb “and Pharaoh commanded on that day.”

[5:6]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ tn The phrase “who were” is supplied for clarity.

[5:6]  ⁶ 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.

[13:8]  ⁵ tn The form is the Hiphil perfect with the vav (ו) consecutive, carrying the sequence forward: “and you will declare to your son.”

[13:8]  ⁶ tn Heb “day, saying.” “Tell…saying” is redundant, so “saying” has not been included in the translation here.

[13:8]  ⁷ tn “it is” has been supplied.

[13:8]  ⁸ tn The text uses זֶה (zeh), which Gesenius classifies as the use of the pronoun to introduce a relative clause after the preposition (GKC 447 §138.h) – but he thinks the form is corrupt. B. S. Childs, however, sees no reason to posit a corruption in this form (Exodus [OTL], 184).

[12:19]  ⁷ tn “Seven days” is an adverbial accusative of time (see R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 12, §56).

[12:19]  ⁸ tn The term is נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh), often translated “soul.” It refers to the whole person, the soul within the body. The noun is feminine, agreeing with the feminine verb “be cut off.”

[12:19]  ⁹ tn Or “alien”; or “stranger.”

[14:30]  ⁹ tn The Hebrew term וַיּוֹשַׁע (vayyosha’) is the key summation of the chapter, and this part of the book: “So Yahweh saved Israel.” This is the culmination of all the powerful works of God through these chapters.

[14:30]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the hand,” with “hand” being a metonymy for power.

[14:30]  ¹¹ tn The participle “dead” is singular, agreeing in form with “Egypt.”

[32:28]  ¹¹ tn Heb “did according to the word of Moses.”

[32:28]  ¹² tn Heb “fell.”

[3:8]  ¹³ sn God’s coming down is a frequent anthropomorphism in Genesis and Exodus. It expresses his direct involvement, often in the exercise of judgment.

[3:8]  ¹⁴ tn The Hiphil infinitive with the suffix is לְהַצִּילוֹ (lÿhatsilo, “to deliver them”). It expresses the purpose of God’s coming down. The verb itself is used for delivering or rescuing in the general sense, and snatching out of danger for the specific.

[3:8]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “to a land good and large”; NRSV “to a good and broad land.” In the translation the words “that is both” are supplied because in contemporary English “good and” combined with any additional descriptive term can be understood as elative (“good and large” = “very large”; “good and spacious” = “very spacious”; “good and ready” = “very ready”). The point made in the Hebrew text is that the land to which they are going is both good (in terms of quality) and large (in terms of size).

[3:8]  ¹⁶ tn This vibrant description of the promised land is a familiar one. Gesenius classifies “milk and honey” as epexegetical genitives because they provide more precise description following a verbal adjective in the construct state (GKC 418-19 §128.x). The land is modified by “flowing,” and “flowing” is explained by the genitives “milk and honey.” These two products will be in abundance in the land, and they therefore exemplify what a desirable land it is. The language is hyperbolic, as if the land were streaming with these products.

[3:8]  ¹⁷ tn Each people group is joined to the preceding by the vav conjunction, “and.” Each also has the definite article, as in other similar lists (3:17; 13:5; 34:11). To repeat the conjunction and article in the translation seems to put more weight on the list in English than is necessary to its function in identifying what land God was giving the Israelites.

[8:22]  ¹⁵ tn Or “distinguish.” וְהִפְלֵיתִי (vÿhifleti) is the Hiphil perfect of פָּלָה (palah). The verb in Hiphil means “to set apart, make separate, make distinct.” God was going to keep the flies away from Goshen – he was setting that apart. The Greek text assumed that the word was from פָּלֵא (pale’), and translated it something like “I will marvelously glorify.”

[8:22]  ¹⁶ tn The relative clause modifies the land of Goshen as the place “in which my people are dwelling.” But the normal word for “dwelling” is not used here. Instead, עֹמֵד (’omed) is used, which literally means “standing.” The land on which Israel stood was spared the flies and the hail.

[8:22]  ¹⁷ tn Or “of the earth” (KJV, ASV, NAB).

[10:13]  ¹⁷ tn The clause begins וַיהוָה (va’adonay [vayhvah], “Now Yahweh….”). In contrast to a normal sequence, this beginning focuses attention on Yahweh as the subject of the verb.

[10:13]  ¹⁸ tn The verb נָהַג (nahag) means “drive, conduct.” It is elsewhere used for driving sheep, leading armies, or leading in processions.

[10:13]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “and all the night.”

[10:13]  ²⁰ tn The text does not here use ordinary circumstantial clause constructions; rather, Heb “the morning was, and the east wind carried the locusts.” It clearly means “when it was morning,” but the style chosen gives a more abrupt beginning to the plague, as if the reader is in the experience – and at morning, the locusts are there!

[10:13]  ²¹ tn The verb here is a past perfect, indicting that the locusts had arrived before the day came.

[12:15]  ¹⁹ tn This expression is an adverbial accusative of time. The feast was to last from the 15th to the 21st of the month.

[12:15]  ²⁰ tn Or “you will eat.” The statement stresses their obligation – they must eat unleavened bread and avoid all leaven.

[12:15]  ²¹ tn The etymology of מַצּוֹת (matsot, “unleavened bread,” i.e., “bread made without yeast”) is uncertain. Suggested connections to known verbs include “to squeeze, press,” “to depart, go out,” “to ransom,” or to an Egyptian word “food, cake, evening meal.” For a more detailed study of “unleavened bread” and related matters such as “yeast” or “leaven,” see A. P. Ross, NIDOTTE 4:448-53.

[12:15]  ²² tn The particle serves to emphasize, not restrict here (B. S. Childs, Exodus [OTL], 183, n. 15).

[12:15]  ²³ tn Heb “every eater of leavened bread.” The participial phrase stands at the beginning of the clause as a casus pendens, that is, it stands grammatically separate from the sentence. It names a condition, the contingent occurrences of which involve a further consequence (GKC 361 §116.w).

[12:15]  ²⁴ tn The verb וְנִכְרְתָה (vÿnikhrÿtah) is the Niphal perfect with the vav (ו) consecutive; it is a common formula in the Law for divine punishment. Here, in sequence to the idea that someone might eat bread made with yeast, the result would be that “that soul [the verb is feminine] will be cut off.” The verb is the equivalent of the imperfect tense due to the consecutive; a translation with a nuance of the imperfect of possibility (“may be cut off”) fits better perhaps than a specific future. There is the real danger of being cut off, for while the punishment might include excommunication from the community, the greater danger was in the possibility of divine intervention to root out the evildoer (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 94). Gesenius lists this as the use of a perfect with a vav consecutive after a participle (a casus pendens) to introduce the apodosis (GKC 337 §112.mm).

[31:14]  ²¹ tn This clause is all from one word, a Piel plural participle with a third, feminine suffix: מְחַלְלֶיהָ (mÿkhalleha, “defilers of it”). This form serves as the subject of the sentence. The word חָלַל (khalal) is the antonym of קָדַשׁ (qadash, “to be holy”). It means “common, profane,” and in the Piel stem “make common, profane” or “defile.” Treating the Sabbath like an ordinary day would profane it, make it common.

[31:14]  ²² tn This is the asseverative use of כִּי (ki) meaning “surely, indeed,” for it restates the point just made (see R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 73, §449).

[31:14]  ²³ tn Heb “the one who does.”

[31:14]  ²⁴ tn “any” has been supplied.

[31:14]  ²⁵ tn Literally “her” (a feminine pronoun agreeing with “soul/life,” which is grammatically feminine).