Exodus 2:16

2:16 Now a priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came and began to draw ¹  water ²  and fill ³  the troughs in order to water their father’s flock.

Exodus 16:22

16:22 And ⁴  on the sixth day they gathered twice as much food, two omers ⁵  per person; ⁶  and all the leaders ⁷  of the community ⁸  came and told ⁹  Moses.

[2:16]  ¹ tn The preterites describing their actions must be taken in an ingressive sense, since they did not actually complete the job. Shepherds drove them away, and Moses watered the flocks.

[2:16]  ² tn The object “water” is not in the Hebrew text, but is implied.

[2:16]  ³ tn This also has the ingressive sense, “began to fill,” but for stylistic reasons is translated simply “fill” here.

[16:22]  ⁴ tn Heb “and it happened/was.”

[16:22]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ tn Heb “for one.”

[16:22]  ⁷ tn The word suggests “the ones lifted up” above others, and therefore the rulers or the chiefs of the people.

[16:22]  ⁸ tn Or “congregation” (KJV, ASV, NASB, NRSV).

[16:22]  ⁹ 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).