Exodus 30:38

30:38 Whoever makes anything like it, to use as perfume, ¹  will be cut off from his people.”

Exodus 5:9

5:9 Make the work harder ²  for the men so they will keep at it ³  and pay no attention to lying words!” ⁴ 

Exodus 6:4

6:4 I also established my covenant with them ⁵  to give them the land of Canaan, where they were living as resident foreigners. ⁶ 

Exodus 18:20

18:20 warn ⁷  them of the statutes and the laws, and make known to them the way in which they must walk ⁸  and the work they must do. ⁹ 

Exodus 21:8

21:8 If she does not please ¹⁰  her master, who has designated her ¹¹  for himself, then he must let her be redeemed. ¹²  He has no right ¹³  to sell her to a foreign nation, because he has dealt deceitfully ¹⁴  with her.

Exodus 2:3

2:3 But when she was no longer able to hide him, she took a papyrus basket ¹⁵  for him and sealed it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child in it and set it among the reeds along the edge of the Nile. ¹⁶ 

Exodus 31:14

31:14 So you must keep the Sabbath, for it is holy for you. Everyone who defiles it ¹⁷  must surely be put to death; indeed, ¹⁸  if anyone does ¹⁹  any ²⁰  work on it, then that person will be cut off from among his ²¹  people.

Exodus 38:30

38:30 With it he made the bases for the door of the tent of meeting, the bronze altar, the bronze grating for it, and all the utensils of the altar,

[30:38]  ¹ tn Or to smell it, to use for the maker’s own pleasure.

[5:9]  ² tn Heb “let the work be heavy.”

[5:9]  ³ tn The text has וְיַעֲשׂוּ־בָהּ (vÿya’asu-vah, “and let them work in it”) or the like. The jussive forms part of the king’s decree that the men not only be required to work harder but be doing it: “Let them be occupied in it.”

[5:9]  ⁴ sn The words of Moses are here called “lying words” (דִבְרֵי־שָׁקֶר, divre-shaqer). Here is the main reason, then, for Pharaoh’s new policy. He wanted to discredit Moses. So the words that Moses spoke Pharaoh calls false and lying words. The world was saying that God’s words were vain and deceptive because they were calling people to a higher order. In a short time God would reveal that they were true words.

[6:4]  ³ tn The statement refers to the making of the covenant with Abraham (Gen 15 and following) and confirming it with the other patriarchs. The verb הֲקִמֹתִי (haqimoti) means “set up, establish, give effect to, conclude” a covenant agreement. The covenant promised the patriarchs a great nation, a land – Canaan, and divine blessing. They lived with those promises, but now their descendants were in bondage in Egypt. God’s reference to the covenant here is meant to show the new revelation through redemption will start to fulfill the promises and show what the reality of the name Yahweh is to them.

[6:4]  ⁴ tn Heb “the land of their sojournings.” The noun מְגֻרִים (mÿgurim) is a reminder that the patriarchs did not receive the promises. It is also an indication that those living in the age of promise did not experience the full meaning of the name of the covenant God. The “land of their sojournings” is the land of Canaan where the family lived (גּרוּ, garu) as foreigners, without owning property or having the rights of kinship with the surrounding population.

[18:20]  ⁴ tn The perfect tense with the vav (ו) continues the sequence of instruction for Moses. He alone was to be the mediator, to guide them in the religious and moral instruction.

[18:20]  ⁵ tn The verb and its following prepositional phrase form a relative clause, modifying “the way.” The imperfect tense should be given the nuance of obligatory imperfect – it is the way they must walk.

[18:20]  ⁶ tn This last part is parallel to the preceding: “work” is also a direct object of the verb “make known,” and the relative clause that qualifies it also uses an obligatory imperfect.

[21:8]  ⁵ tn Heb “and if unpleasant (רָעָה, ra’ah) in the eyes of her master.”

[21:8]  ⁶ tn The verb יָעַד (ya’ad) does not mean “betroth, espouse” as some of the earlier translations had it, but “to designate.” When he bought the girl, he designated her for himself, giving her and her family certain expectations.

[21:8]  ⁷ tn The verb is a Hiphil perfect with vav (ו) consecutive from פָדָה (padah, “to redeem”). Here in the apodosis the form is equivalent to an imperfect: “let someone redeem her” – perhaps her father if he can, or another. U. Cassuto says it can also mean she can redeem herself and dissolve the relationship (Exodus, 268).

[21:8]  ⁸ tn Heb “he has no authority/power,” for the verb means “rule, have dominion.”

[21:8]  ⁹ sn The deceit is in not making her his wife or concubine as the arrangement had stipulated.

[2:3]  ⁶ sn See on the meaning of this basket C. Cohen, “Hebrew tbh: Proposed Etymologies,” JANESCU 9 (1972): 36-51. This term is used elsewhere only to refer to the ark of Noah. It may be connected to the Egyptian word for “chest.”

[2:3]  ⁷ sn The circumstances of the saving of the child Moses have prompted several attempts by scholars to compare the material to the Sargon myth. See R. F. Johnson, IDB 3:440-50; for the text see L. W. King, Chronicles concerning Early Babylonian Kings, 2:87-90. Those who see the narrative using the Sargon story’s pattern would be saying that the account presents Moses in imagery common to the ancient world’s expectations of extraordinary achievement and deliverance. In the Sargon story the infant’s mother set him adrift in a basket in a river; he was loved by the gods and destined for greatness. Saying Israel used this to invent the account in Exodus would undermine its reliability. But there are other difficulties with the Sargon comparison, not the least of which is the fact that the meaning and function of the Sargon story are unclear. Second, there is no outside threat to the child Sargon. The account simply shows how a child was exposed, rescued, nurtured, and became king (see B. S. Childs, Exodus [OTL], 8-12). Third, other details do not fit: Moses’ father is known, Sargon’s is not; Moses is never abandoned, since he is never out of the care of his parents, and the finder is a princess and not a goddess. Moreover, without knowing the precise function and meaning of the Sargon story, it is almost impossible to explain its use as a pattern for the biblical account. By itself, the idea of a mother putting a child by the river if she wants him to be found would have been fairly sensible, for that is where the women of the town would be washing their clothes or bathing. If someone wanted to be sure the infant was discovered by a sympathetic woman, there would be no better setting (see R. A. Cole, Exodus [TOTC], 57). While there need not be a special genre of storytelling here, it is possible that Exodus 2 might have drawn on some of the motifs and forms of the other account to describe the actual event in the sparing of Moses – if they knew of it. If so it would show that Moses was cast in the form of the greats of the past.

[31:14]  ⁷ tn This clause is all from one word, a Piel plural participle with a third, feminine suffix: מְחַלְלֶיהָ (mÿkhalleha, “defilers of it”). This form serves as the subject of the sentence. The word חָלַל (khalal) is the antonym of קָדַשׁ (qadash, “to be holy”). It means “common, profane,” and in the Piel stem “make common, profane” or “defile.” Treating the Sabbath like an ordinary day would profane it, make it common.

[31:14]  ⁸ tn This is the asseverative use of כִּי (ki) meaning “surely, indeed,” for it restates the point just made (see R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 73, §449).

[31:14]  ⁹ tn Heb “the one who does.”

[31:14]  ¹⁰ tn “any” has been supplied.

[31:14]  ¹¹ tn Literally “her” (a feminine pronoun agreeing with “soul/life,” which is grammatically feminine).