Exodus 2:13

2:13 When he went out ¹  the next day, ²  there were ³  two Hebrew men fighting. So he said to the one who was in the wrong, ⁴  “Why are you attacking ⁵  your fellow Hebrew?” ⁶ 

Exodus 12:6

12:6 You must care for it ⁷  until the fourteenth day of this month, and then the whole community ⁸  of Israel will kill it around sundown. ⁹ 

Exodus 13:7-8

13:7 Bread made without yeast must be eaten ¹⁰  for seven days; ¹¹  no bread made with yeast shall be seen ¹²  among you, and you must have no yeast among you within any of your borders.

13:8 You are to tell your son ¹³  on that day, ¹⁴  ‘It is ¹⁵  because of what ¹⁶  the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.’

Exodus 15:22

The Bitter Water

15:22 ¹⁷ Then Moses led Israel to journey ¹⁸  away from the Red Sea. They went out to the Desert of Shur, walked for three days ¹⁹  into the desert, and found no water.

Exodus 16:22

16:22 And ²⁰  on the sixth day they gathered twice as much food, two omers ²¹  per person; ²²  and all the leaders ²³  of the community ²⁴  came and told ²⁵  Moses.

[2:13]  ¹ tn The preterite with the vav consecutive is subordinated to the main idea of the verse.

[2:13]  ² tn Heb “the second day” (so KJV, ASV).

[2:13]  ³ tn The deictic particle is used here to predicate existence, as in “here were” or “there were.” But this use of הִנֵּה (hinneh) indicates also that what he encountered was surprising or sudden – as in “Oh, look!”

[2:13]  ⁴ tn The word רָשָׁע (rasha’) is a legal term, meaning the guilty. This guilty man rejects Moses’ intervention for much the same reason Pharaoh will later (5:2) – he does not recognize his authority. Later Pharaoh will use this term to declare himself as in the wrong (9:27) and God in the right.

[2:13]  ⁵ tn This is the third use of the verb נָכָה (nakha) in the passage; here it is the Hiphil imperfect. It may be given a progressive imperfect nuance – the attack was going on when Moses tried to intervene.

[2:13]  ⁶ sn Heb “your neighbor.” The word רֵעֶךָ (re’ekha) appears again in 33:11 to describe the ease with which God and Moses conversed. The Law will have much to say about how the Israelites were to treat their “neighbors, fellow citizens” (Exod 20:16-17; 21:14, 18, 35; 22:7-11, 14, 26; cf. Luke 10:25-37).

[12:6]  ⁷ tn The text has וְהָיָה לָכֶם לְמִשְׁמֶרֶת (vÿhaya lakem lÿmishmeret, “and it will be for you for a keeping”). This noun stresses the activity of watching over or caring for something, probably to keep it in its proper condition for its designated use (see 16:23, 32-34).

[12:6]  ⁸ tn Heb “all the assembly of the community.” This expression is a pleonasm. The verse means that everyone will kill the lamb, i.e., each family unit among the Israelites will kill its animal.

[12:6]  ⁹ tn Heb “between the two evenings” or “between the two settings” (בֵּין הָעַרְבָּיִם, ben ha’arbayim). This expression has had a good deal of discussion. (1) Tg. Onq. says “between the two suns,” which the Talmud explains as the time between the sunset and the time the stars become visible. More technically, the first “evening” would be the time between sunset and the appearance of the crescent moon, and the second “evening” the next hour, or from the appearance of the crescent moon to full darkness (see Deut 16:6 – “at the going down of the sun”). (2) Saadia, Rashi, and Kimchi say the first evening is when the sun begins to decline in the west and cast its shadows, and the second evening is the beginning of night. (3) The view adopted by the Pharisees and the Talmudists (b. Pesahim 61a) is that the first evening is when the heat of the sun begins to decrease, and the second evening begins at sunset, or, roughly from 3-5 p.m. The Mishnah (m. Pesahim 5:1) indicates the lamb was killed about 2:30 p.m. – anything before noon was not valid. S. R. Driver concludes from this survey that the first view is probably the best, although the last view was the traditionally accepted one (Exodus, 89-90). Late afternoon or early evening seems to be intended, the time of twilight perhaps.

[13:7]  ¹³ tn The imperfect has the nuance of instruction or injunction again, but it could also be given an obligatory nuance.

[13:7]  ¹⁴ tn The construction is an adverbial accusative of time, answering how long the routine should be followed (see GKC 374 §118.k).

[13:7]  ¹⁵ tn Or “visible to you” (B. Jacob, Exodus, 366).

[13:8]  ¹⁹ tn The form is the Hiphil perfect with the vav (ו) consecutive, carrying the sequence forward: “and you will declare to your son.”

[13:8]  ²⁰ tn Heb “day, saying.” “Tell…saying” is redundant, so “saying” has not been included in the translation here.

[13:8]  ²¹ tn “it is” has been supplied.

[13:8]  ²² tn The text uses זֶה (zeh), which Gesenius classifies as the use of the pronoun to introduce a relative clause after the preposition (GKC 447 §138.h) – but he thinks the form is corrupt. B. S. Childs, however, sees no reason to posit a corruption in this form (Exodus [OTL], 184).

[15:22]  ²⁵ sn The first event of the Israelites’ desert experience is a failure, for they murmur against Yahweh and are given a stern warning – and the provision of sweet water. The event teaches that God is able to turn bitter water into sweet water for his people, and he promises to do such things if they obey. He can provide for them in the desert – he did not bring them into the desert to let them die. But there is a deeper level to this story – the healing of the water is incidental to the healing of the people, their lack of trust. The passage is arranged in a neat chiasm, starting with a journey (A), ending with the culmination of the journey (A'); developing to bitter water (B), resolving to sweet water (B'); complaints by the people (C), leading to to the instructions for the people (C'); and the central turning point is the wonder miracle (D).

[15:22]  ²⁶ tn The verb form is unusual; the normal expression is with the Qal, which expresses that they journeyed. But here the Hiphil is used to underscore that Moses caused them to journey – and he is following God. So the point is that God was leading Israel to the bitter water.

[15:22]  ²⁷ sn The mention that they travelled for three days into the desert is deliberately intended to recall Moses’ demand that they go three days into the wilderness to worship. Here, three days in, they find bitter water and complain – not worship.

[16:22]  ³¹ tn Heb “and it happened/was.”

[16:22]  ³² tn This construction is an exception to the normal rule for the numbers 2 through 10 taking the object numbered in the plural. Here it is “two of the omer” or “the double of the omer” (see GKC 433 §134.e).

[16:22]  ³³ tn Heb “for one.”

[16:22]  ³⁴ tn The word suggests “the ones lifted up” above others, and therefore the rulers or the chiefs of the people.

[16:22]  ³⁵ tn Or “congregation” (KJV, ASV, NASB, NRSV).

[16:22]  ³⁶ sn The meaning here is probably that these leaders, the natural heads of the families in the clans, saw that people were gathering twice as much and they reported this to Moses, perhaps afraid it would stink again (U. Cassuto, Exodus, 197).