Exodus 16:33

16:33 Moses said to Aaron, “Take a jar and put in it an omer full of manna, and place it before the Lord to be kept for generations to come.”

Exodus 30:23

30:23 “Take ¹  choice spices: ²  twelve and a half pounds ³  of free-flowing myrrh, ⁴  half that – about six and a quarter pounds – of sweet-smelling cinnamon, six and a quarter pounds of sweet-smelling cane,

Exodus 30:34

30:34 The Lord said to Moses: “Take ⁵  spices, gum resin, ⁶  onycha, ⁷  galbanum, ⁸  and pure frankincense ⁹  of equal amounts ¹⁰ 

Exodus 7:9

7:9 “When Pharaoh says to you, ‘Do ¹¹  a miracle,’ and you say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff and throw it down ¹²  before Pharaoh,’ it will become ¹³  a snake.”

Exodus 17:5

17:5 The Lord said to Moses, “Go over before the people; ¹⁴  take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand your staff with which you struck the Nile and go.

Exodus 7:19

7:19 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron, ‘Take your staff and stretch out your hand over Egypt’s waters – over their rivers, over their canals, ¹⁵  over their ponds, and over all their reservoirs ¹⁶  – so that it becomes ¹⁷  blood.’ There will be blood everywhere in ¹⁸  the land of Egypt, even in wooden and stone containers.”

[30:23]  ¹ tn The construction uses the imperative “take,” but before it is the independent pronoun to add emphasis to it. After the imperative is the ethical dative (lit. “to you”) to stress the task to Moses as a personal responsibility: “and you, take to yourself.”

[30:23]  ² tn Heb “spices head.” This must mean the chief spices, or perhaps the top spice, meaning fine spices or choice spices. See Song 4:14; Ezek 27:22.

[30:23]  ³ tn Or “500 shekels.” Verse 24 specifies that the sanctuary shekel was the unit for weighing the spices. The total of 1500 shekels for the four spices is estimated at between 77 and 100 pounds, or 17 to 22 kilograms, depending on how much a shekel weighed (C. Houtman, Exodus, 3:576).

[30:23]  ⁴ sn Myrrh is an aromatic substance that flows from the bark of certain trees in Arabia and Africa and then hardens. “The hardened globules of the gum appear also to have been ground into a powder that would have been easy to store and would have been poured from a container” (J. Durham, Exodus [WBC], 3:406).

[30:34]  ¹ tn The construction is “take to you,” which could be left in that literal sense, but more likely the suffix is an ethical dative, stressing the subject of the imperative.

[30:34]  ² sn This is from a word that means “to drip”; the spice is a balsam that drips from a resinous tree.

[30:34]  ³ sn This may be a plant, or it may be from a species of mollusks; it is mentioned in Ugaritic and Akkadian; it gives a pungent odor when burnt.

[30:34]  ⁴ sn This is a gum from plants of the genus Ferula; it has an unpleasant odor, but when mixed with others is pleasant.

[30:34]  ⁵ tn The word “spice is repeated here, suggesting that the first three formed half of the ingredient and this spice the other half – but this is conjecture (U. Cassuto, Exodus, 400).

[30:34]  ⁶ tn Heb “of each part there will be an equal part.”

[7:9]  ¹ tn The verb is תְּנוּ (tÿnu), literally “give.” The imperative is followed by an ethical dative that strengthens the subject of the imperative: “you give a miracle.”

[7:9]  ² tn Heb “and throw it.” The direct object, “it,” is implied.

[7:9]  ³ tn The form is the jussive יְהִי ( yÿhi). Gesenius notes that frequently in a conditional clause, a sentence with a protasis and apodosis, the jussive will be used. Here it is in the apodosis (GKC 323 §109.h).

[17:5]  ¹ tn “Pass over before” indicates that Moses is the leader who goes first, and the people follow him. In other words, לִפְנֵי (lifney) indicates time and not place here (B. Jacob, Exodus, 477-78).

[7:19]  ¹ tn Or “irrigation rivers” of the Nile.

[7:19]  ² sn The Hebrew term means “gathering,” i.e., wherever they gathered or collected waters, notably cisterns and reservoirs. This would naturally lead to the inclusion of both wooden and stone vessels – down to the smallest gatherings.

[7:19]  ³ tn The imperfect tense with vav (ו) after the imperative indicates the purpose or result: “in order that they [the waters] be[come] blood.”

[7:19]  ⁴ tn Or “in all.”