Exodus 11:4

11:4 Moses said, “Thus says the Lord: ‘About midnight ¹  I will go throughout Egypt, ² 

Exodus 14:20

14:20 It came between the Egyptian camp and the Israelite camp; it was a dark cloud ³  and it lit up the night so that one camp did not come near the other ⁴  the whole night. ⁵ 

Exodus 12:42

12:42 It was a night of vigil for the Lord to bring them out from the land of Egypt, ⁶  and so ⁷  on this night all Israel is to keep the vigil ⁸  to the Lord for generations to come.

Exodus 10:13

10:13 So Moses extended his staff over the land of Egypt, and then the Lord ⁹  brought ¹⁰  an east wind on the land all that day and all night. ¹¹  The morning came, ¹²  and the east wind had brought up ¹³  the locusts!

Exodus 12:29

The Deliverance from Egypt

12:29 ¹⁴ It happened ¹⁵  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.

Exodus 14:21

14:21 Moses stretched out his hand toward the sea, and the Lord drove the sea apart ¹⁶  by a strong east wind all that night, and he made the sea into dry land, and the water was divided.

[11:4]  ¹ tn Heb “about the middle of the night.”

[11:4]  ² tn Heb “I will go out in the midst of Egypt.”

[14:20]  ³ tn The two nouns “cloud” and “darkness” form a nominal hendiadys: “and it was the cloud and the darkness” means “and it was the dark cloud.” Perhaps this is what the Egyptians saw, preventing them from observing Moses and the Israelites.

[14:20]  ⁴ tn Heb “this to this”; for the use of the pronouns in this reciprocal sense of “the one to the other,” see GKC 448 §139.e, n. 3.

[14:20]  ⁵ tc The LXX reads very differently at the end of this verse: “and there was darkness and blackness and the night passed.” B. S. Childs (Exodus [OTL], 218) summarizes three proposals: (1) One takes the MT as it stands and explains it along the lines of the Targum and Jewish exegesis, that there was one cloud that was dark to one group and light to the other. (2) Another tries to reconstruct a verb from the noun “darkness” or make some use of the Greek verb. (3) A third seeks a different meaning for the verb “lit,” “gave light” by comparative philology, but no consensus has been reached. Given that there is no easy solution apart from reconstructing the text, and given that the MT can be interpreted as it is, the present translation follows the MT.

[12:42]  ⁵ tn There is some ambiguity in לֵיל שִׁמֻּרִים הוּא לַיהוָה (lel shimmurim hu’ la’adonay [layhveh]). It is likely that this first clause means that Yahweh was on watch for Israel to bring them out, as the next clause says. He was protecting his people (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 102). Then, the night of vigil will be transferred to Israel, who now must keep it “to” him.

[12:42]  ⁶ tn “and so” has been supplied.

[12:42]  ⁷ tn Heb “this night is for Yahweh a vigil for all Israelites for their generations.”

[10:13]  ⁷ 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]  ⁸ tn The verb נָהַג (nahag) means “drive, conduct.” It is elsewhere used for driving sheep, leading armies, or leading in processions.

[10:13]  ⁹ tn Heb “and all the night.”

[10:13]  ¹⁰ 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]  ¹¹ tn The verb here is a past perfect, indicting that the locusts had arrived before the day came.

[12:29]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ 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.

[14:21]  ¹¹ tn Or “drove the sea back” (NIV, NCV, NRSV, TEV). The verb is simply the Hiphil of הָלַךְ (halakh, “to walk, go”). The context requires that it be interpreted along the lines of “go back, go apart.”