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 2:20

2:20 He said ⁷  to his daughters, “So where is he? ⁸  Why in the world ⁹  did you leave the man? Call him, so that he may eat ¹⁰  a meal ¹¹  with us.”

Exodus 5:4

5:4 The king of Egypt said to them, “Moses and Aaron, why do you cause the people to refrain from their work? ¹²  Return to your labor!”

[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).

[2:20]  ⁷ tn Heb “And he said.”

[2:20]  ⁸ tn The conjunction vav (ו) joins Reuel’s question to what the daughters said as logically following with the idea, “If he has done all that you say, why is he not here for me to meet?” (see GKC 485 §154.b).

[2:20]  ⁹ tn This uses the demonstrative pronoun as an enclitic, for emphasis (R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 24, §118). The question reads more literally, “Why [is] this [that] you left him?”

[2:20]  ¹⁰ tn The imperfect tense coming after the imperative indicates purpose.

[2:20]  ¹¹ tn Heb “bread,” i.e., “food.”

[5:4]  ¹³ sn The clause is a rhetorical question. Pharaoh is not asking them why they do this, but rather is accusing them of doing it. He suspects their request is an attempt to get people time away from their labor. In Pharaoh’s opinion, Moses and Aaron were “removing the restraint” (פָּרַע, para’) of the people in an effort to give them rest. Ironically, under the Law the people would be expected to cease their labor when they went to appear before God. He would give them the rest that Pharaoh refused to give. It should be noted also that it was not Israel who doubted that Yahweh had sent Moses, as Moses had feared – but rather Pharaoh.