Exodus 2:2

2:2 The woman became pregnant ¹  and gave birth to a son. When ²  she saw that ³  he was a healthy ⁴  child, she hid him for three months.

Exodus 4:20

4:20 Then Moses took ⁵  his wife and sons ⁶  and put them on a donkey and headed back ⁷  to the land of Egypt, and Moses took the staff of God in his hand.

Exodus 18:5-6

18:5 Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, together with Moses’ ⁸  sons and his wife, came to Moses in the desert where he was camping by ⁹  the mountain of God. ¹⁰  18:6 He said ¹¹  to Moses, “I, your father-in-law Jethro, am coming to you, along with your wife and her two sons with her.”

Exodus 22:29

22:29 “Do not hold back offerings from your granaries or your vats. ¹²  You must give me the firstborn of your sons.

Exodus 28:41

28:41 “You are to clothe them – your brother Aaron and his sons with him – and anoint them ¹³  and ordain them ¹⁴  and set them apart as holy, ¹⁵  so that they may minister as my priests.

Exodus 29:10

29:10 “You are to present the bull at the front of the tent of meeting, and Aaron and his sons are to put ¹⁶  their hands on the head ¹⁷  of the bull.

Exodus 29:24

29:24 You are to put all these ¹⁸  in Aaron’s hands ¹⁹  and in his sons’ hands, and you are to wave them as a wave offering ²⁰  before the Lord.

Exodus 29:32

29:32 Aaron and his sons are to eat the meat of the ram and the bread that was in the basket at the entrance of the tent of meeting.

Exodus 29:44

29:44 “So I will set apart as holy ²¹  the tent of meeting and the altar, and I will set apart as holy Aaron and his sons, that they may minister as priests to me.

Exodus 32:2

32:2 So Aaron said to them, “Break off the gold earrings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” ²² 

Exodus 35:19

35:19 the woven garments for serving in the holy place, the holy garments for Aaron the priest, and the garments for his sons to minister as priests.”

[2:2]  ¹ tn Or “conceived” (KJV, ASV, NAB, NASB, NRSV).

[2:2]  ² tn A preterite form with the vav consecutive can be subordinated to a following clause. What she saw stands as a reason for what she did: “when she saw…she hid him three months.”

[2:2]  ³ tn After verbs of perceiving or seeing there are frequently two objects, the formal accusative (“she saw him”) and then a noun clause that explains what it was about the child that she perceived (“that he was healthy”). See GKC 365 §117.h.

[2:2]  ⁴ tn Or “fine” (טוֹב, tov). The construction is parallel to phrases in the creation narrative (“and God saw that it was good,” Gen 1:4, 10, 12, 17, 21, 25, 31). B. Jacob says, “She looked upon her child with a joy similar to that of God upon His creation (Gen 1.4ff.)” (Exodus, 25).

[4:20]  ⁵ tn Heb “And Moses took.”

[4:20]  ⁶ sn Only Gershom has been mentioned so far. The other son’s name will be explained in chapter 18. The explanation of Gershom’s name was important to Moses’ sojourn in Midian. The explanation of the name Eliezer fits better in the later chapter (18:2-4).

[4:20]  ⁷ tn The verb would literally be rendered “and returned”; however, the narrative will record other happenings before he arrived in Egypt, so an ingressive nuance fits here – he began to return, or started back.

[18:5]  ⁹ tn Heb “his”; the referent (Moses) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[18:5]  ¹⁰ tn This is an adverbial accusative that defines the place (see GKC 373-74 §118.g).

[18:5]  ¹¹ sn The mountain of God is Horeb, and so the desert here must be the Sinai desert by it. But chap. 19 suggests that they left Rephidim to go the 24 miles to Sinai. It may be that this chapter fits in chronologically after the move to Sinai, but was placed here thematically. W. C. Kaiser defends the present location of the story by responding to other reasons for the change given by Lightfoot, but does not deal with the travel locations (W. C. Kaiser, Jr., “Exodus,” EBC 2:411).

[18:6]  ¹³ 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….’”

[22:29]  ¹⁷ tn The expressions are unusual. U. Cassuto renders them: “from the fullness of your harvest and from the outflow of your presses” (Exodus, 294). He adds the Hittite parallel material to show that the people were to bring the offerings on time and not let them overlap, because the firstfruits had to be eaten first by the priest.

[28:41]  ²¹ sn The instructions in this verse anticipate chap. 29, as well as the ordination ceremony described in Lev 8 and 9. The anointing of Aaron is specifically required in the Law, for he is to be the High Priest. The expression “ordain them” might also be translated as “install them” or “consecrate them”; it literally reads “and fill their hands,” an expression for the consecration offering for priesthood in Lev 8:33. The final instruction to sanctify them will involve the ritual of the atoning sacrifices to make the priests acceptable in the sanctuary.

[28:41]  ²² tn Heb “fill their hand.” As a result of this installation ceremony they will be officially designated for the work. It seems likely that the concept derives from the notion of putting the priestly responsibilities under their control (i.e., “filling their hands” with work). See note on the phrase “ordained seven days” in Lev 8:33.

[28:41]  ²³ tn Traditionally “sanctify them” (KJV, ASV).

[29:10]  ²⁵ tn The verb is singular, agreeing with the first of the compound subject – Aaron.

[29:10]  ²⁶ sn The details of these offerings have to be determined from a careful study of Leviticus. There is a good deal of debate over the meaning of laying hands on the animals. At the very least it identifies the animal formally as their sacrifice. But it may very well indicate that the animal is a substitute for them as well, given the nature and the effect of the sacrifices.

[29:24]  ²⁹ tn Heb “the whole” or “the all.”

[29:24]  ³⁰ tn Heb “palms.”

[29:24]  ³¹ tn The “wave offering” is תְּנוּפָה (tÿnufah); it is, of course, cognate with the verb, but an adverbial accusative rather than the direct object. In Lev 23 this seems to be a sacrificial gesture of things that are for the priests – but they present them first to Yahweh and then receive them back from him. So the waving is not side to side, but forward to Yahweh and then back to the priest. Here it is just an induction into that routine, since this is the ordination of the priests and the gifts are not yet theirs. So this will all be burned on the altar.

[29:44]  ³³ tn This verse affirms the same point as the last, but now with an active verb: “I will set apart as holy” (or “I will sanctify”). This verse, then, probably introduces the conclusion of the chapter: “So I will….”

[32:2]  ³⁷ sn B. Jacob (Exodus, 937-38) argues that Aaron simply did not have the resolution that Moses did, and wanting to keep peace he gave in to the crowd. He also tries to explain that Aaron was wanting to show their folly through the deed. U. Cassuto also says that Aaron’s request for the gold was a form of procrastination, but that the people quickly did it and so he had no alternative but to go through with it (Exodus, 412). These may be right, since Aaron fully understood what was wrong with this, and what the program was all about. The text gives no strong indication to support these ideas, but there are enough hints from the way Aaron does things to warrant such a conclusion.