Exodus 14:3

14:3 Pharaoh will think ¹  regarding the Israelites, ‘They are wandering around confused ²  in the land – the desert has closed in on them.’ ³ 

Exodus 18:11

18:11 Now I know that the Lord is greater than all the gods, for in the thing in which they dealt proudly against them he has destroyed them.” ⁴ 

Exodus 28:9

28:9 “You are to take two onyx stones and engrave on them the names of the sons of Israel, ⁵ 

Exodus 15:16

15:16 Fear and dread ⁶  will fall ⁷  on them;

by the greatness ⁸  of your arm they will be as still as stone ⁹ 

until ¹⁰  your people pass by, O Lord,

until the people whom you have bought ¹¹  pass by.

Exodus 32:34

32:34 So now go, lead the people to the place I have spoken to you about. See, ¹²  my angel will go before you. But on the day that I punish, I will indeed punish them for their sin.” ¹³ 

Exodus 5:8

5:8 But you must require ¹⁴  of them the same quota of bricks that they were making before. ¹⁵  Do not reduce it, for they are slackers. ¹⁶  That is why they are crying, ‘Let us go sacrifice to our God.’

[14:3]  ¹ tn Heb “and Pharaoh will say.”

[14:3]  ² sn The word translated “wandering around confused” indicates that Pharaoh thought the Israelites would be so perplexed and confused that they would not know which way to turn in order to escape – and they would never dream of crossing the sea (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 115).

[14:3]  ³ tn The expression has also been translated “the desert has shut [the way] for them,” and more freely “[the Israelites are] hemmed in by the desert.”

[18:11]  ⁴ tn The end of this sentence seems not to have been finished, or it is very elliptical. In the present translation the phrase “he has destroyed them” is supplied. Others take the last prepositional phrase to be the completion and supply only a verb: “[he was] above them.” U. Cassuto (Exodus, 216) takes the word “gods” to be the subject of the verb “act proudly,” giving the sense of “precisely (כִּי, ki) in respect of these things of which the gods of Egypt boasted – He is greater than they (עֲלֵיהֶם, ‘alehem).” He suggests rendering the clause, “excelling them in the very things to which they laid claim.”

[28:9]  ⁷ tn Although this is normally translated “Israelites,” here a more literal translation is clearer because it refers to the names of the twelve tribes – the actual sons of Israel.

[15:16]  ¹⁰ tn The two words can form a nominal hendiadys, “a dreadful fear,” though most English versions retain the two separate terms.

[15:16]  ¹¹ tn The form is an imperfect.

[15:16]  ¹² tn The adjective is in construct form and governs the noun “arm” (“arm” being the anthropomorphic expression for what God did). See GKC 428 §132.c.

[15:16]  ¹³ sn For a study of the words for fear, see N. Waldman, “A Comparative Note on Exodus 15:14-16,” JQR 66 (1976): 189-92.

[15:16]  ¹⁴ tn Clauses beginning with עַד (’ad) express a limit that is not absolute, but only relative, beyond which the action continues (GKC 446-47 §138.g).

[15:16]  ¹⁵ tn The verb קָנָה (qanah) here is the verb “acquire, purchase,” and probably not the homonym “to create, make” (see Gen 4:1; Deut 32:6; and Prov 8:22).

[32:34]  ¹³ tn Heb “behold, look.” Moses should take this fact into consideration.

[32:34]  ¹⁴ sn The Law said that God would not clear the guilty. But here the punishment is postponed to some future date when he would revisit this matter. Others have taken the line to mean that whenever a reckoning was considered necessary, then this sin would be included (see B. Jacob, Exodus, 957). The repetition of the verb traditionally rendered “visit” in both clauses puts emphasis on the certainty – so “indeed.”

[5:8]  ¹⁶ tn The verb is the Qal imperfect of שִׂים (sim, “place, put”). The form could be an imperfect of instruction: “You will place upon them the quota.” Or, as here, it may be an obligatory imperfect: “You must place.”

[5:8]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “yesterday and three days ago” or “yesterday and before that” is idiomatic for “previously” or “in the past.”

[5:8]  ¹⁸ tn Or “loafers.” The form נִרְפִּים (nirpim) is derived from the verb רָפָה (rafah), meaning “to be weak, to let oneself go.” They had been letting the work go, Pharaoh reasoned, and being idle is why they had time to think about going to worship.