Exodus 3:18

3:18 “The elders ¹  will listen ²  to you, and then you and the elders of Israel must go to the king of Egypt and tell him, ‘The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has met ³  with us. So now, let us go ⁴  three days’ journey into the wilderness, so that we may sacrifice ⁵  to the Lord our God.’

Exodus 12:27

12:27 then you will say, ‘It is the sacrifice ⁶  of the Lord’s Passover, when he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt, when he struck ⁷  Egypt and delivered our households.’” The people bowed down low ⁸  to the ground,

[3:18]  ¹ tn Heb “And they will listen”; the referent (the elders) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[3:18]  ² tn This is the combination of the verb שָׁמַע (shama’) followed by לְקֹלֶךָ (lÿqolekha), an idiomatic formation that means “listen to your voice,” which in turn implies a favorable response.

[3:18]  ³ tn The verb נִקְרָה (niqra) has the idea of encountering in a sudden or unexpected way (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 25).

[3:18]  ⁴ tn The form used here is the cohortative of הָלַךְ (halakh). It could be a resolve, but more likely before Pharaoh it is a request.

[3:18]  ⁵ tn Here a cohortative with a vav (ו) follows a cohortative; the second one expresses purpose or result: “let us go…in order that we may.”

[12:27]  ⁶ sn This expression “the sacrifice of Yahweh’s Passover” occurs only here. The word זֶבַח (zevakh) means “slaughtering” and so a blood sacrifice. The fact that this word is used in Lev 3 for the peace offering has linked the Passover as a kind of peace offering, and both the Passover and the peace offerings were eaten as communal meals.

[12:27]  ⁷ tn The verb means “to strike, smite, plague”; it is the same verb that has been used throughout this section (נָגַף, nagaf). Here the construction is the infinitive construct in a temporal clause.

[12:27]  ⁸ tn The two verbs form a verbal hendiadys: “and the people bowed down and they worshiped.” The words are synonymous, and so one is taken as the adverb for the other.