Exodus 20:8

20:8 “Remember ¹  the Sabbath ²  day to set it apart as holy. ³ 

Exodus 12:18

12:18 In the first month, ⁴  from the fourteenth day of the month, in the evening, you will eat bread made without yeast until the twenty-first day of the month in the evening.

Exodus 16:5

16:5 On the sixth day ⁵  they will prepare what they bring in, and it will be twice as much as they gather every other day.” ⁶ 

Exodus 5:13

5:13 The slave masters were pressuring ⁷  them, saying, “Complete ⁸  your work for each day, just like when there was straw!”

Exodus 21:21

21:21 However, if the injured servant ⁹  survives one or two days, the owner ¹⁰  will not be punished, for he has suffered the loss. ¹¹ 

Exodus 40:37

40:37 but if the cloud was not lifted up, then they would not journey further until the day it was lifted up. ¹² 

Exodus 5:19

5:19 The Israelite foremen saw ¹³  that they ¹⁴  were in trouble when they were told, ¹⁵  “You must not reduce the daily quota of your bricks.”

Exodus 12:6

12:6 You must care for it ¹⁶  until the fourteenth day of this month, and then the whole community ¹⁷  of Israel will kill it around sundown. ¹⁸ 

Exodus 24:18

24:18 Moses went into the cloud when he went up ¹⁹  the mountain, and Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights. ²⁰ 

Exodus 12:15

12:15 For seven days ²¹  you must eat ²²  bread made without yeast. ²³  Surely ²⁴  on the first day you must put away yeast from your houses because anyone who eats bread made with yeast ²⁵  from the first day to the seventh day will be cut off ²⁶  from Israel.

Exodus 16:1

The Provision of Manna

16:1 ²⁷ When ²⁸  they journeyed from Elim, the entire company ²⁹  of Israelites came to the Desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after their exodus ³⁰  from the land of Egypt.

Exodus 16:4

16:4 Then the Lord said to Moses, “I am going to rain ³¹  bread from heaven for you, and the people will go out ³²  and gather the amount for each day, so that I may test them. ³³  Will they will walk in my law ³⁴  or not?

Exodus 20:11

20:11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that is in them, and he rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy.

Exodus 34:28

34:28 So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; ³⁵  he did not eat bread, and he did not drink water. He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten commandments. ³⁶ 

[20:8]  ¹ tn The text uses the infinitive absolute זָכוֹר (zakhor) for the commandment for the Sabbath day, which is the sign of the Sinaitic Covenant. The infinitive absolute functions in place of the emphatic imperative here (see GKC 346 §113.bb); the absolute stresses the basic verbal idea of the root – remembering. The verb includes the mental activity of recalling and pondering as well as the consequent actions for such remembering.

[20:8]  ² tn The word “Sabbath” is clearly connected to the verb שָׁבַת (shavat, “to cease, desist, rest”). There are all kinds of theories as to the origin of the day, most notably in the Babylonian world, but the differences are striking in so far as the pagan world had these days filled with magic. Nevertheless, the pagan world does bear witness to a tradition of a regular day set aside for special sacrifices. See, for example, H. W. Wolff, “The Day of Rest in the Old Testament,” LTQ 7 (1972): 65-76; H. Routtenberg, “The Laws of Sabbath: Biblical Sources,” Dor le Dor 6 (1977): 41-43, 99-101, 153-55, 204-6; G. Robinson, “The Idea of Rest in the OT and the Search for the Basic Character of Sabbath,” ZAW 92 (1980): 32-42; and M. Tsevat, “The Basic Meaning of the Biblical Sabbath,” ZAW 84 (1972): 447-59.

[20:8]  ³ tn The Piel infinitive construct provides the purpose of remembering the Sabbath day – to set it apart, to make it distinct from the other days. Verses 9 and 10 explain in part how this was to be done. To set this day apart as holy taught Israel the difference between the holy and the profane, that there was something higher than daily life. If an Israelite bent down to the ground laboring all week, the Sabbath called his attention to the heavens, to pattern life after the Creator (B. Jacob, Exodus, 569-70).

[12:18]  ⁴ tn “month” has been supplied.

[16:5]  ⁷ tn Heb “and it will be on the sixth day.”

[16:5]  ⁸ sn There is a question here concerning the legislation – the people were not told why to gather twice as much on the sixth day. In other words, this instruction seems to presume that they knew about the Sabbath law. That law will be included in this chapter in a number of ways, suggesting to some scholars that this chapter is out of chronological order, placed here for a purpose. Some argue that the manna episode comes after the revelation at Sinai. But it is not necessary to take such a view. God had established the Sabbath in the creation, and if Moses has been expounding the Genesis traditions in his teachings then they would have known about that.

[5:13]  ¹⁰ tn Or “pressed.”

[5:13]  ¹¹ tn כַּלּוּ (kallu) is the Piel imperative; the verb means “to finish, complete” in the sense of filling up the quota.

[21:21]  ¹³ tn Heb “if he”; the referent (the servant struck and injured in the previous verse) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[21:21]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the owner of the injured servant) has been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[21:21]  ¹⁵ tn This last clause is a free paraphrase of the Hebrew, “for he is his money” (so KJV, ASV); NASB “his property.” It seems that if the slave survives a couple of days, it is probable that the master was punishing him and not intending to kill him. If he then dies, there is no penalty other than that the owner loses the slave who is his property – he suffers the loss.

[40:37]  ¹⁶ tn The clause uses the Niphal infinitive construct in the temporal clause: “until the day of its being taken up.”

[5:19]  ¹⁹ tn The common Hebrew verb translated “saw,” like the common English verb for seeing, is also used to refer to mental perception and understanding, as in the question “See what I mean?” The foremen understood how difficult things would be under this ruling.

[5:19]  ²⁰ tn The text has the sign of the accusative with a suffix and then a prepositional phrase: אֹתָם בְּרָע (’otam bÿra’), meaning something like “[they saw] them in trouble” or “themselves in trouble.” Gesenius shows a few examples where the accusative of the reflexive pronoun is represented by the sign of the accusative with a suffix, and these with marked emphasis (GKC 439 §135.k).

[5:19]  ²¹ tn The clause “when they were told” translates לֵאמֹר (le’mor), which usually simply means “saying.” The thing that was said was clearly the decree that was given to them.

[12:6]  ²² 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]  ²³ 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]  ²⁴ 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.

[24:18]  ²⁵ tn The verb is a preterite with vav (ו) consecutive; here, the second clause, is subordinated to the first preterite, because it seems that the entering into the cloud is the dominant point in this section of the chapter.

[24:18]  ²⁶ sn B. Jacob (Exodus, 750) offers this description of some of the mystery involved in Moses’ ascending into the cloud: Moses ascended into the presence of God, but remained on earth. He did not rise to heaven – the ground remained firmly under his feet. But he clearly was brought into God’s presence; he was like a heavenly servant before God’s throne, like the angels, and he consumed neither bread nor water. The purpose of his being there was to become familiar with all God’s demands and purposes. He would receive the tablets of stone and all the instructions for the tabernacle that was to be built (beginning in chap. 25). He would not descend until the sin of the golden calf.

[12:15]  ²⁸ tn This expression is an adverbial accusative of time. The feast was to last from the 15th to the 21st of the month.

[12:15]  ²⁹ tn Or “you will eat.” The statement stresses their obligation – they must eat unleavened bread and avoid all leaven.

[12:15]  ³⁰ tn The etymology of מַצּוֹת (matsot, “unleavened bread,” i.e., “bread made without yeast”) is uncertain. Suggested connections to known verbs include “to squeeze, press,” “to depart, go out,” “to ransom,” or to an Egyptian word “food, cake, evening meal.” For a more detailed study of “unleavened bread” and related matters such as “yeast” or “leaven,” see A. P. Ross, NIDOTTE 4:448-53.

[12:15]  ³¹ tn The particle serves to emphasize, not restrict here (B. S. Childs, Exodus [OTL], 183, n. 15).

[12:15]  ³² tn Heb “every eater of leavened bread.” The participial phrase stands at the beginning of the clause as a casus pendens, that is, it stands grammatically separate from the sentence. It names a condition, the contingent occurrences of which involve a further consequence (GKC 361 §116.w).

[12:15]  ³³ tn The verb וְנִכְרְתָה (vÿnikhrÿtah) is the Niphal perfect with the vav (ו) consecutive; it is a common formula in the Law for divine punishment. Here, in sequence to the idea that someone might eat bread made with yeast, the result would be that “that soul [the verb is feminine] will be cut off.” The verb is the equivalent of the imperfect tense due to the consecutive; a translation with a nuance of the imperfect of possibility (“may be cut off”) fits better perhaps than a specific future. There is the real danger of being cut off, for while the punishment might include excommunication from the community, the greater danger was in the possibility of divine intervention to root out the evildoer (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 94). Gesenius lists this as the use of a perfect with a vav consecutive after a participle (a casus pendens) to introduce the apodosis (GKC 337 §112.mm).

[16:1]  ³¹ sn Exod 16 plays an important part in the development of the book’s theme. It is part of the wider section that is the prologue leading up to the covenant at Sinai, a part of which was the obligation of obedience and loyalty (P. W. Ferris, Jr., “The Manna Narrative of Exodus 16:1-10,” JETS 18 [1975]: 191-99). The record of the wanderings in the wilderness is selective and not exhaustive. It may have been arranged somewhat topically for instructional reasons. U. Cassuto describes this section of the book as a didactic anthology arranged according to association of both context and language (Exodus, 187). Its themes are: lack of vital necessities, murmuring, proving, and providing. All the wilderness stories reiterate the same motifs. So, later, when Israel arrived in Canaan, they would look back and be reminded that it was Yahweh who brought them all the way, in spite of their rebellions. Because he is their Savior and their Provider, he will demand loyalty from them. In the Manna Narrative there is murmuring over the lack of bread (1-3), the disputation with Moses (4-8), the appearance of the glory and the promise of bread (9-12), the provision (13-22), the instructions for the Sabbath (23-30), and the memorial manna (31-36).

[16:1]  ³² tn The sentence begins with a preterite and vav (ו) consecutive, which can be subordinated to the next clause with the preterite and vav consecutive. Here it has been treated as a temporal clause.

[16:1]  ³³ tn The word is often rendered “congregation” (so KJV, ASV, NASB, NRSV), but the modern perception of a congregation is not exactly what is in mind in the desert. Another possible rendering is “community” (NAB, NIV, NCV, TEV) or “assembly.” The Hebrew word is used of both good and bad groups (Judg 14:8; Ps 1:5; 106:17-18).

[16:1]  ³⁴ tn The form in the text is לְצֵאתָם (lÿtse’tam, “after their going out”). It clearly refers to their deliverance from Egypt, and so it may be vividly translated.

[16:4]  ³⁴ tn The particle הִנְנִי (hinni) before the active participle indicates the imminent future action: “I am about to rain.”

[16:4]  ³⁵ tn This verb and the next are the Qal perfect tenses with vav (ו) consecutives; they follow the sequence of the participle, and so are future in orientation. The force here is instruction – “they will go out” or “they are to go out.”

[16:4]  ³⁶ tn The verb in the purpose/result clause is the Piel imperfect of נָסָה (nasah), אֲנַסֶּנוּ (’anassenu) – “in order that I may prove them [him].” The giving of the manna will be a test of their obedience to the detailed instructions of God as well as being a test of their faith in him (if they believe him they will not gather too much). In chap. 17 the people will test God, showing that they do not trust him.

[16:4]  ³⁷ sn The word “law” here properly means “direction” at this point (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 146), but their obedience here would indicate also whether or not they would be willing to obey when the Law was given at Sinai.

[34:28]  ³⁷ tn These too are adverbial in relation to the main clause, telling how long Moses was with Yahweh on the mountain.

[34:28]  ³⁸ tn Heb “the ten words,” though “commandments” is traditional.