Exodus 2:18

2:18 So when they came home ¹  to their father Reuel, ²  he asked, “Why have you come home so early ³  today?”

Exodus 6:11

6:11 “Go, tell Pharaoh king of Egypt that he must release ⁴  the Israelites from his land.”

Exodus 18:6

18:6 He said ⁵  to Moses, “I, your father-in-law Jethro, am coming to you, along with your wife and her two sons with her.”

Exodus 22:15

22:15 If its owner was with it, he will not have to pay; if it was hired, what was paid for the hire covers it. ⁶ 

Exodus 22:26

22:26 If you do take ⁷  the garment of your neighbor in pledge, you must return it to him by the time the sun goes down, ⁸ 

Exodus 8:1

8:1 (7:26) ⁹  Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh and tell him, ‘Thus says the Lord: “Release my people in order that they may serve me!

Exodus 9:1

The Fifth Blow: Disease

9:1 ¹⁰ Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh and tell him, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, “Release my people that they may serve me!

Exodus 18:16

18:16 When they have a dispute, ¹¹  it comes to me and I decide ¹²  between a man and his neighbor, and I make known the decrees of God and his laws.” ¹³ 

Exodus 34:12

34:12 Be careful not to make ¹⁴  a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you are going, lest it become a snare ¹⁵  among you.

Exodus 3:13

3:13 Moses said ¹⁶  to God, “If ¹⁷  I go to the Israelites and tell them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ ¹⁸  – what should I say ¹⁹  to them?”

Exodus 10:1

The Eighth Blow: Locusts

10:1 ²⁰ The Lord said ²¹  to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, in order to display ²²  these signs of mine before him, ²³ 

Exodus 15:19

15:19 For the horses of Pharaoh came with his chariots and his footmen into the sea,

and the Lord brought back the waters of the sea on them,

but the Israelites walked on dry land in the middle of the sea.”

Exodus 17:12

17:12 When ²⁴  the hands of Moses became heavy, ²⁵  they took a stone and put it under him, and Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side and one on the other, ²⁶  and so his hands were steady ²⁷  until the sun went down.

Exodus 19:9

19:9 The Lord said to Moses, “I am going to come ²⁸  to you in a dense cloud, ²⁹  so that the people may hear when I speak with you and so that they will always believe in you.” ³⁰  And Moses told the words of the people to the Lord.

Exodus 20:20

20:20 Moses said to the people, “Do not fear, for God has come to test you, ³¹  that the fear of him ³²  may be before you so that you do not ³³  sin.”

[2:18]  ¹ tn The verb means “to go, to come, to enter.” In this context it means that they returned to their father, or came home.

[2:18]  ² sn The name “Reuel” is given here. In other places (e.g., chap. 18) he is called Jethro (cf. CEV, which uses “Jethro” here). Some suggest that this is simply a confusion of traditions. But it is not uncommon for ancients, like Sabean kings and priests, to have more than one name. Several of the kings of Israel, including Solomon, did. “Reuel” means “friend of God.”

[2:18]  ³ tn The sentence uses a verbal hendiadys construction: מִהַרְתֶּן בֹּא (miharten bo’, “you have made quick [to] come”). The finite verb functions as if it were an adverb modifying the infinitive, which becomes the main verb of the clause.

[6:11]  ⁴ tn The form וִישַׁלַּח (vishallakh) is the Piel imperfect or jussive with a sequential vav; following an imperative it gives the imperative’s purpose and intended result. They are to speak to Pharaoh, and (so that as a result) he will release Israel. After the command to speak, however, the second clause also indirectly states the content of the speech (cf. Exod 11:2; 14:2, 15; 25:2; Lev 16:2; 22:2). As the next verse shows, Moses doubts that what he says will have the intended effect.

[18:6]  ⁷ sn This verse may seem out of place, since the report has already been given that they came to the desert. It begins to provide details of the event that the previous verse summarizes. The announcement in verse 6 may have come in advance by means of a messenger or at the time of arrival, either of which would fit with the attention to formal greetings in verse 7. This would suit a meeting between two important men; the status of Moses has changed. The LXX solves the problem by taking the pronoun “I” as the particle “behold” and reads it this way: “one said to Moses, ‘Behold, your father-in-law has come….’”

[22:15]  ¹⁰ tn Literally “it came with/for its hire,” this expression implies that the owner who hired it out and was present was prepared to take the risk, so there would be no compensation.

[22:26]  ¹³ tn The construction again uses the infinitive absolute with the verb in the conditional clause to stress the condition.

[22:26]  ¹⁴ tn The clause uses the preposition, the infinitive construct, and the noun that is the subjective genitive – “at the going in of the sun.”

[8:1]  ¹⁶ sn Beginning with 8:1, the verse numbers through 8:32 in English Bibles differ from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text (BHS), with 8:1 ET = 7:26 HT, 8:2 ET = 7:27 HT, 8:3 ET = 7:28 HT, 8:4 ET = 7:29 HT, 8:5 ET = 8:1 HT, etc., through 8:32 ET = 8:28 HT. Thus in English Bibles chapter 8 has 32 verses, while in the Hebrew Bible it has 28 verses, with the four extra verses attached to chapter 7.

[9:1]  ¹⁹ sn This plague demonstrates that Yahweh has power over the livestock of Egypt. He is able to strike the animals with disease and death, thus delivering a blow to the economic as well as the religious life of the land. By the former plagues many of the Egyptian religious ceremonies would have been interrupted and objects of veneration defiled or destroyed. Now some of the important deities will be attacked. In Goshen, where the cattle are merely cattle, no disease hits, but in the rest of Egypt it is a different matter. Osiris, the savior, cannot even save the brute in which his own soul is supposed to reside. Apis and Mnevis, the ram of Ammon, the sheep of Sais, and the goat of Mendes, perish together. Hence, Moses reminds Israel afterward, “On their gods also Yahweh executed judgments” (Num 33:4). When Jethro heard of all these events, he said, “Now I know that Yahweh is greater than all the gods” (Exod 18:11).

[18:16]  ²² tn Or “thing,” “matter,” “issue.”

[18:16]  ²³ tn The verb שָׁפַט (shafat) means “to judge”; more specifically, it means to make a decision as an arbiter or umpire. When people brought issues to him, Moses decided between them. In the section of laws in Exodus after the Ten Commandments come the decisions, the מִשְׁפָּטִים (mishppatim).

[18:16]  ²⁴ tn The “decrees” or “statutes” were definite rules, stereotyped and permanent; the “laws” were directives or pronouncements given when situations arose. S. R. Driver suggests this is another reason why this event might have taken place after Yahweh had given laws on the mountain (Exodus, 165).

[34:12]  ²⁵ tn The exact expression is “take heed to yourself lest you make.” It is the second use of this verb in the duties, now in the Niphal stem. To take heed to yourself means to watch yourself, be sure not to do something. Here, if they failed to do this, they would end up making entangling treaties.

[34:12]  ²⁶ sn A snare would be a trap, an allurement to ruin. See Exod 23:33.

[3:13]  ²⁸ tn Heb “And Moses said.”

[3:13]  ²⁹ tn The particle הִנֵּה (hinneh) in this clause introduces the foundation for what comes later – the question. Moses is saying, “Suppose I do all this and they ask this question – what should I say?”

[3:13]  ³⁰ sn There has been considerable debate about the name of Yahweh in the Pentateuch, primarily because of theories that have maintained that the name Yahweh was not known in antiquity (see also 6:3 and notes there). The argument of this whole section nullifies that view. The idea that God’s name was revealed only here raises the question of what he was called earlier. The word “God” is not a name. “El Shaddai” is used only a few times in Genesis. But Israel would not have had a nameless deity – especially since Genesis says that from the very beginning people were making proclamation of the name of Yahweh (Gen 4:26; 12:8). It is possible that they did not always need a name if they were convinced that only he existed and there was no other God. But probably what Moses was anticipating was the Israelites’ wanting to be sure that Moses came with a message from their God, and that some sign could prove it. They would have known his name (Yahweh), and they would have known the ways that he had manifested himself. It would do no good for Moses to come with a new name for God, for that would be like introducing them to a new God. That would in no way authenticate to them Moses’ call, only confuse; after all, they would not be expecting a new name – they had been praying to their covenant God all along. They would want to be sure that their covenant God actually had sent Moses. To satisfy the Israelites Moses would have had to have been familiar with the name Yahweh – as they were – and know that he appeared to individuals. They would also want to know if Yahweh had sent Moses, how this was going to work in their deliverance, because they had been crying to him for deliverance. As it turned out, the Israelites had less problem with this than Moses anticipated – they were delighted when he came. It is likely that much of this concern was Moses’ own need for assurance that this was indeed the God of the fathers and that the promised deliverance was now to take place.

[3:13]  ³¹ tn The imperfect tense here has a deliberative nuance (“should”), for Moses is wondering what would be best to say when the Israelites want proof of the calling.

[10:1]  ³¹ sn The Egyptians dreaded locusts like every other ancient civilization. They had particular gods to whom they looked for help in such catastrophes. The locust-scaring deities of Greece and Asia were probably looked to in Egypt as well (especially in view of the origins in Egypt of so many of those religious ideas). The announcement of the plague falls into the now-familiar pattern. God tells Moses to go and speak to Pharaoh but reminds Moses that he has hardened his heart. Yahweh explains that he has done this so that he might show his power, so that in turn they might declare his name from generation to generation. This point is stressed so often that it must not be minimized. God was laying the foundation of the faith for Israel – the sovereignty of Yahweh.

[10:1]  ³² tn Heb “and Yahweh said.”

[10:1]  ³³ tn The verb is שִׁתִי (shiti, “I have put”); it is used here as a synonym for the verb שִׂים (sim). Yahweh placed the signs in his midst, where they will be obvious.

[10:1]  ³⁴ tn Heb “in his midst.”

[17:12]  ³⁴ tn Literally “now the hands of Moses,” the disjunctive vav (ו) introduces a circumstantial clause here – of time.

[17:12]  ³⁵ tn The term used here is the adjective כְּבֵדִים (kÿvedim). It means “heavy,” but in this context the idea is more that of being tired. This is the important word that was used in the plague stories: when the heart of Pharaoh was hard, then the Israelites did not gain their freedom or victory. Likewise here, when the staff was lowered because Moses’ hands were “heavy,” Israel started to lose.

[17:12]  ³⁶ tn Heb “from this, one, and from this, one.”

[17:12]  ³⁷ tn The word “steady” is אֱמוּנָה (’emuna) from the root אָמַן (’aman). The word usually means “faithfulness.” Here is a good illustration of the basic idea of the word – firm, steady, reliable, dependable. There may be a double entendre here; on the one hand it simply says that his hands were stayed so that Israel might win, but on the other hand it is portraying Moses as steady, firm, reliable, faithful. The point is that whatever God commissioned as the means or agency of power – to Moses a staff, to the Christians the Spirit – the people of God had to know that the victory came from God alone.

[19:9]  ³⁷ tn The construction uses the deictic particle and the participle to express the imminent future, what God was about to do. Here is the first announcement of the theophany.

[19:9]  ³⁸ tn Heb “the thickness of the cloud”; KJV, ASV, NASB, NCV, TEV, CEV, NLT “in a thick cloud.”

[19:9]  ³⁹ tn Since “and also in you” begins the clause, the emphasis must be that the people would also trust Moses. See Exod 4:1-9, 31; 14:31.

[20:20]  ⁴⁰ tn נַסּוֹת (nassot) is the Piel infinitive construct; it forms the purpose of God’s coming with all the accompanying phenomena. The verb can mean “to try, test, prove.” The sense of “prove” fits this context best because the terrifying phenomena were intended to put the fear of God in their hearts so that they would obey. In other words, God was inspiring them to obey, not simply testing to see if they would.

[20:20]  ⁴¹ tn The suffix on the noun is an objective genitive, referring to the fear that the people would have of God (GKC 439 §135.m).

[20:20]  ⁴² tn The negative form לְבִלְתִּי (lÿvilti) is used here with the imperfect tense (see for other examples GKC 483 §152.x). This gives the imperfect the nuance of a final imperfect: that you might not sin. Others: to keep you from sin.