Exodus 13:3

13:3 Moses said to the people, “Remember ¹  this day on which you came out from Egypt, from the place where you were enslaved, ²  for the Lord brought you out of there ³  with a mighty hand – and no bread made with yeast may be eaten. ⁴ 

Exodus 13:19

13:19 Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for Joseph ⁵  had made the Israelites solemnly swear, ⁶  “God will surely attend ⁷  to you, and you will carry ⁸  my bones up from this place with you.”

Exodus 17:12

17:12 When ⁹  the hands of Moses became heavy, ¹⁰  they took a stone and put it under him, and Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side and one on the other, ¹¹  and so his hands were steady ¹²  until the sun went down.

Exodus 33:1

33:1 The Lord said to Moses, “Go up ¹³  from here, you and the people whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, to the land I promised on oath ¹⁴  to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ ¹⁵ 

[13:3]  ¹ tn The form is the infinitive absolute of זָכַר (zakhar, “remember”). The use of this form in place of the imperative (also found in the Decalogue with the Sabbath instruction) stresses the basic meaning of the root word, everything involved with remembering (emphatic imperative, according to GKC 346 §113.bb). The verb usually implies that there will be proper action based on what was remembered.

[13:3]  ² tn Heb “from a house of slaves.” “House” is obviously not meant to be literal; it indicates a location characterized by slavery, a land of slaves, as if they were in a slave house. Egypt is also called an “iron-smelting furnace” (Deut 4:20).

[13:3]  ³ tn Heb “from this” [place].

[13:3]  ⁴ tn The verb is a Niphal imperfect; it could be rendered “must not be eaten” in the nuance of the instruction or injunction category, but permission fits this sermonic presentation very well – nothing with yeast may be eaten.

[13:19]  ⁵ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Joseph) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[13:19]  ⁶ tn Heb “solemnly swear, saying” (so NASB). The construction uses the Hiphil infinitive absolute with the Hiphil perfect to stress that Joseph had made them take a solemn oath to carry his bones out of Egypt. “Saying” introduces the content of what Joseph said.

[13:19]  ⁷ sn This verb appears also in 3:16 and 4:31. The repetition here is a reminder that God was doing what he had said he would do and what Joseph had expected.

[13:19]  ⁸ tn The form is a Hiphil perfect with the vav (ו) consecutive; it follows in the sequence of the imperfect tense before it, and so is equal to an imperfect of injunction (because of the solemn oath). Israel took Joseph’s bones with them as a sign of piety toward the past and as a symbol of their previous bond with Canaan (B. Jacob, Exodus, 380).

[17:12]  ⁹ tn Literally “now the hands of Moses,” the disjunctive vav (ו) introduces a circumstantial clause here – of time.

[17:12]  ¹⁰ tn The term used here is the adjective כְּבֵדִים (kÿvedim). It means “heavy,” but in this context the idea is more that of being tired. This is the important word that was used in the plague stories: when the heart of Pharaoh was hard, then the Israelites did not gain their freedom or victory. Likewise here, when the staff was lowered because Moses’ hands were “heavy,” Israel started to lose.

[17:12]  ¹¹ tn Heb “from this, one, and from this, one.”

[17:12]  ¹² tn The word “steady” is אֱמוּנָה (’emuna) from the root אָמַן (’aman). The word usually means “faithfulness.” Here is a good illustration of the basic idea of the word – firm, steady, reliable, dependable. There may be a double entendre here; on the one hand it simply says that his hands were stayed so that Israel might win, but on the other hand it is portraying Moses as steady, firm, reliable, faithful. The point is that whatever God commissioned as the means or agency of power – to Moses a staff, to the Christians the Spirit – the people of God had to know that the victory came from God alone.

[33:1]  ¹³ tn The two imperatives underscore the immediacy of the demand: “go, go up,” meaning “get going up” or “be on your way.”

[33:1]  ¹⁴ tn Or “the land which I swore.”

[33:1]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “seed.”