Exodus 15:8

15:8 By the blast of your nostrils ¹  the waters were piled up,

the flowing water stood upright like a heap, ² 

and the deep waters were solidified in the heart of the sea.

Exodus 22:24

22:24 and my anger will burn and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives will be widows and your children will be fatherless. ³ 

Exodus 32:10

32:10 So now, leave me alone ⁴  so that my anger can burn against them and I can destroy them, and I will make from you a great nation.”

Exodus 32:22

32:22 Aaron said, “Do not let your anger burn hot, my lord; ⁵  you know these people, that they tend to evil. ⁶ 

Exodus 34:6

34:6 The Lord passed by before him and proclaimed: ⁷  “The Lord, the Lord, ⁸  the compassionate and gracious ⁹  God, slow to anger, ¹⁰  and abounding in loyal love and faithfulness, ¹¹ 

Exodus 4:14

4:14 Then the Lord became angry with ¹²  Moses, and he said, “What about ¹³  your brother Aaron the Levite? ¹⁴  I know that he can speak very well. ¹⁵  Moreover, he is coming ¹⁶  to meet you, and when he sees you he will be glad in his heart. ¹⁷ 

Exodus 11:8

11:8 All these your servants will come down to me and bow down ¹⁸  to me, saying, ‘Go, you and all the people who follow ¹⁹  you,’ and after that I will go out.” Then Moses ²⁰  went out from Pharaoh in great anger.

Exodus 32:11-12

32:11 But Moses sought the favor ²¹  of the Lord his God and said, “O Lord, why does your anger burn against your people, whom you have brought out from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 32:12 Why ²²  should the Egyptians say, ²³  ‘For evil ²⁴  he led them out to kill them in the mountains and to destroy ²⁵  them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your burning anger, and relent ²⁶  of this evil against your people.

Exodus 32:19

32:19 When he approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses became extremely angry. ²⁷  He threw the tablets from his hands and broke them to pieces at the bottom of the mountain. ²⁸ 

[15:8]  ¹ sn The phrase “the blast of your nostrils” is a bold anthropomorphic expression for the wind that came in and dried up the water.

[15:8]  ² tn The word “heap” describes the walls of water. The waters, which are naturally fluid, stood up as though they were a heap, a mound of earth. Likewise, the flowing waters deep in the ocean solidified – as though they were turned to ice (U. Cassuto, Exodus, 175).

[22:24]  ³ sn The punishment will follow the form of talionic justice, an eye for an eye, in which the punishment matches the crime. God will use invading armies (“sword” is a metonymy of adjunct here) to destroy them, making their wives widows and their children orphans.

[32:10]  ⁵ tn The imperative, from the word “to rest” (נוּחַ, nuakh), has the sense of “leave me alone, let me be.” It is a directive for Moses not to intercede for the people. B. S. Childs (Exodus [OTL], 567) reflects the Jewish interpretation that there is a profound paradox in God’s words. He vows the severest punishment but then suddenly conditions it on Moses’ agreement. “Let me alone that I may consume them” is the statement, but the effect is that he has left the door open for intercession. He allows himself to be persuaded – that is what a mediator is for. God could have slammed the door (as when Moses wanted to go into the promised land). Moreover, by alluding to the promise to Abraham God gave Moses the strongest reason to intercede.

[32:22]  ⁷ sn “My lord” refers to Moses.

[32:22]  ⁸ tn Heb “that on evil it is.”

[34:6]  ⁹ tn Here is one of the clearest examples of what it means “to call on the name of the Lord,” as that clause has been translated traditionally (וַיִּקְרָא בְשֵׁם יְהוָה, vayyiqra’ vÿshem yÿhvah). It seems more likely that it means “to make proclamation of Yahweh by name.” Yahweh came down and made a proclamation – and the next verses give the content of what he said. This cannot be prayer or praise; it is a proclamation of the nature or attributes of God (which is what his “name” means throughout the Bible). Attempts to make Moses the subject of the verb are awkward, for the verb is repeated in v. 6 with Yahweh clearly doing the proclaiming.

[34:6]  ¹⁰ sn U. Cassuto (Exodus, 439) suggests that these two names be written as a sentence: “Yahweh, He is Yahweh.” In this manner it reflects “I am that I am.” It is impossible to define his name in any other way than to make this affirmation and then show what it means.

[34:6]  ¹¹ tn See Exod 33:19.

[34:6]  ¹² sn This is literally “long of anger.” His anger prolongs itself, allowing for people to repent before punishment is inflicted.

[34:6]  ¹³ sn These two words (“loyal love” and “truth”) are often found together, occasionally in a hendiadys construction. If that is the interpretation here, then it means “faithful covenant love.” Even if they are left separate, they are dual elements of a single quality. The first word is God’s faithful covenant love; the second word is God’s reliability and faithfulness.

[4:14]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and the anger of Yahweh burned against.”

[4:14]  ¹² tn Heb “Is not” or perhaps “Is [there] not.”

[4:14]  ¹³ sn S. R. Driver (Exodus, 29) suggests that the term “Levite” may refer to a profession rather than ancestry here, because both Moses and Aaron were from the tribe of Levi and there would be little point in noting that ancestry for Aaron. In thinking through the difficult problem of the identity of Levites, he cites McNeile as saying “the Levite” referred to one who had had official training as a priest (cf. Judg 17:7, where a member of the tribe of Judah was a Levite). If it was the duty of the priest to give “torah” – to teach – then some training in the power of language would have been in order.

[4:14]  ¹⁴ tn The construction uses the Piel infinitive absolute and the Piel imperfect to express the idea that he spoke very well: דַבֵּר יְדַבֵּר (dabber yÿdabber).

[4:14]  ¹⁵ tn The particle הִנֵּה (hinneh) with the participle points to the imminent future; it means “he is about to come” or “here he is coming.”

[4:14]  ¹⁶ sn It is unlikely that this simply means that as a brother he will be pleased to see Moses, for the narrative has no time for that kind of comment. It is interested in more significant things. The implication is that Aaron will rejoice because of the revelation of God to Moses and the plan to deliver Israel from bondage (see B. Jacob, Exodus, 93).

[11:8]  ¹³ sn Moses’ anger is expressed forcefully. “He had appeared before Pharaoh a dozen times either as God’s emissary or when summoned by Pharaoh, but he would not come again; now they would have to search him out if they needed help” (B. Jacob, Exodus, 289-90).

[11:8]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “that are at your feet.”

[11:8]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and he”; the referent (Moses) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[32:11]  ¹⁵ tn S. R. Driver (Exodus, 351) draws on Arabic to show that the meaning of this verb (חָלָה, khalah) was properly “make sweet the face” or “stroke the face”; so here “to entreat, seek to conciliate.” In this prayer, Driver adds, Moses urges four motives for mercy: 1) Israel is Yahweh’s people, 2) Israel’s deliverance has demanded great power, 3) the Egyptians would mock if the people now perished, and 4) the oath God made to the fathers.

[32:12]  ¹⁷ tn The question is rhetorical; it really forms an affirmation that is used here as a reason for the request (see GKC 474 §150.e).

[32:12]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “speak, saying.” This is redundant in English and has been simplified in the translation.

[32:12]  ¹⁹ tn The word “evil” means any kind of life-threatening or fatal calamity. “Evil” is that which hinders life, interrupts life, causes pain to life, or destroys it. The Egyptians would conclude that such a God would have no good intent in taking his people to the desert if now he destroyed them.

[32:12]  ²⁰ tn The form is a Piel infinitive construct from כָּלָה (kalah, “to complete, finish”) but in this stem, “bring to an end, destroy.” As a purpose infinitive this expresses what the Egyptians would have thought of God’s motive.

[32:12]  ²¹ tn The verb “repent, relent” when used of God is certainly an anthropomorphism. It expresses the deep pain that one would have over a situation. Earlier God repented that he had made humans (Gen 6:6). Here Moses is asking God to repent/relent over the judgment he was about to bring, meaning that he should be moved by such compassion that there would be no judgment like that. J. P. Hyatt observes that the Bible uses so many anthropomorphisms because the Israelites conceived of God as a dynamic and living person in a vital relationship with people, responding to their needs and attitudes and actions (Exodus [NCBC], 307). See H. V. D. Parunak, “A Semantic Survey of NHM,” Bib 56 (1975): 512-32.

[32:19]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “and the anger of Moses burned hot.”

[32:19]  ²⁰ sn See N. M. Waldham, “The Breaking of the Tablets,” Judaism 27 (1978): 442-47.