Exodus 3:22

3:22 Every ¹  woman will ask her neighbor and the one who happens to be staying ²  in her house for items of silver and gold ³  and for clothing. You will put these articles on your sons and daughters – thus you will plunder Egypt!” ⁴ 

Exodus 22:7

22:7 “If a man gives his neighbor money or articles ⁵  for safekeeping, ⁶  and it is stolen from the man’s house, if the thief is caught, ⁷  he must repay double.

Exodus 30:23

30:23 “Take ⁸  choice spices: ⁹  twelve and a half pounds ¹⁰  of free-flowing myrrh, ¹¹  half that – about six and a quarter pounds – of sweet-smelling cinnamon, six and a quarter pounds of sweet-smelling cane,

[3:22]  ¹ tn Heb “a woman,” one representing all.

[3:22]  ² tn Heb “from the sojourner.” Both the “neighbor” and the “sojourner” (“one who happens to be staying in her house”) are feminine. The difference between them seems to be primarily that the second is temporary, “a lodger” perhaps or “visitor,” while the first has permanent residence.

[3:22]  ³ tn Heb “vessels of silver and vessels of gold.” These phrases both use genitives of material, telling what the vessels are made of.

[3:22]  ⁴ sn It is clear that God intended the Israelites to plunder the Egyptians, as they might a defeated enemy in war. They will not go out “empty.” They will “plunder” Egypt. This verb (וְנִצַּלְתֶּם [vÿnitsaltem] from נָצַל [natsal]) usually means “rescue, deliver,” as if plucking out of danger. But in this stem it carries the idea of plunder. So when the text says that they will ask (וְשָׁאֲלָה, vÿsha’alah) their neighbors for things, it implies that they will be making many demands, and the Egyptians will respond like a defeated nation before victors. The spoils that Israel takes are to be regarded as back wages or compensation for the oppression (see also Deut 15:13). See further B. Jacob, “The Gifts of the Egyptians, a Critical Commentary,” Journal of Reformed Judaism 27 (1980): 59-69; and T. C. Vriezen, “A Reinterpretation of Exodus 3:21-22 and Related Texts,” Ex Oriente Lux 23 (1975): 389-401.

[22:7]  ⁵ tn The word usually means “vessels” but can have the sense of household goods and articles. It could be anything from jewels and ornaments to weapons or pottery.

[22:7]  ⁶ tn Heb “to keep.” Here “safekeeping,” that is, to keep something secure on behalf of a third party, is intended.

[22:7]  ⁷ tn Heb “found.”

[30:23]  ⁹ tn The construction uses the imperative “take,” but before it is the independent pronoun to add emphasis to it. After the imperative is the ethical dative (lit. “to you”) to stress the task to Moses as a personal responsibility: “and you, take to yourself.”

[30:23]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “spices head.” This must mean the chief spices, or perhaps the top spice, meaning fine spices or choice spices. See Song 4:14; Ezek 27:22.

[30:23]  ¹¹ tn Or “500 shekels.” Verse 24 specifies that the sanctuary shekel was the unit for weighing the spices. The total of 1500 shekels for the four spices is estimated at between 77 and 100 pounds, or 17 to 22 kilograms, depending on how much a shekel weighed (C. Houtman, Exodus, 3:576).

[30:23]  ¹² sn Myrrh is an aromatic substance that flows from the bark of certain trees in Arabia and Africa and then hardens. “The hardened globules of the gum appear also to have been ground into a powder that would have been easy to store and would have been poured from a container” (J. Durham, Exodus [WBC], 3:406).