Exodus 10:16

10:16 ¹ Then Pharaoh quickly ²  summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “I have sinned ³  against the Lord your God and against you!

Exodus 23:25

23:25 You must serve ⁴  the Lord your God, and he ⁵  will bless your bread and your water, ⁶  and I will remove sickness from your midst.

[10:16]  ¹ sn The third part of the passage now begins, the confrontation that resulted from the onslaught of the plague. Pharaoh goes a step further here – he confesses he has sinned and adds a request for forgiveness. But his acknowledgment does not go far enough, for this is not genuine confession. Since his heart was not yet submissive, his confession was vain.

[10:16]  ² tn The Piel preterite וַיְמַהֵר (vaymaher) could be translated “and he hastened,” but here it is joined with the following infinitive construct to form the hendiadys. “He hurried to summon” means “He summoned quickly.”

[10:16]  ³ sn The severity of the plague prompted Pharaoh to confess his sin against Yahweh and them, now in much stronger terms than before. He also wants forgiveness – but in all probability what he wants is relief from the consequences of his sin. He pretended to convey to Moses that this was it, that he was through sinning, so he asked for forgiveness “only this time.”

[23:25]  ⁴ tn The perfect tense, masculine plural, with vav (ו) consecutive is in sequence with the preceding: do not bow down to them, but serve Yahweh. It is then the equivalent of an imperfect of instruction or injunction.

[23:25]  ⁵ tn The LXX reads “and I will bless” to make the verb conform with the speaker, Yahweh.

[23:25]  ⁶ sn On this unusual clause B. Jacob says that it is the reversal of the curse in Genesis, because the “bread and water” represent the field work and ground suitability for abundant blessing of provisions (Exodus, 734).