Exodus 33:21

33:21 The Lord said, “Here ¹  is a place by me; you will station yourself ²  on a rock.

Exodus 21:13

21:13 But if he does not do it with premeditation, ³  but it happens by accident, ⁴  then I will appoint for you a place where he may flee.

Exodus 23:20

The Angel of the Presence

23:20 ⁵ “I am going to send ⁶  an angel ⁷  before you to protect you as you journey ⁸  and to bring you into the place that I have prepared. ⁹ 

Exodus 29:31

29:31 “You are to take the ram of the consecration and cook ¹⁰  its meat in a holy place. ¹¹ 

Exodus 3:5

3:5 God ¹²  said, “Do not approach any closer! ¹³  Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ¹⁴  ground.” ¹⁵ 

Exodus 18:23

18:23 If you do this thing, and God so commands you, ¹⁶  then you will be able ¹⁷  to endure, ¹⁸  and all these people ¹⁹  will be able to go ²⁰  home ²¹  satisfied.” ²² 

Exodus 3:8

3:8 I have come down ²³  to deliver them ²⁴  from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up from that land to a land that is both good and spacious, ²⁵  to a land flowing with milk and honey, ²⁶  to the region of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. ²⁷ 

Exodus 16:29

16:29 See, because the Lord has given you the Sabbath, that is why ²⁸  he is giving you food for two days on the sixth day. Each of you stay where you are; ²⁹  let no one ³⁰  go out of his place on the seventh day.”

Exodus 17:7

17:7 He called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the contending of the Israelites and because of their testing the Lord, ³¹  saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

Exodus 20:24

20:24 ‘You must make for me an altar made of earth, ³²  and you will sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, ³³  your sheep and your cattle. In every place ³⁴  where I cause my name to be honored ³⁵  I will come to you and I will bless you.

[33:21]  ¹ tn The deictic particle is used here simply to call attention to a place of God’s knowing and choosing.

[33:21]  ² tn Heb “and you will,” or interpretively, “where you will.”

[21:13]  ³ tn Heb “if he does not lie in wait” (NASB similar).

[21:13]  ⁴ tn Heb “and God brought into his hand.” The death is unintended, its circumstances outside human control.

[23:20]  ⁵ sn This passage has some of the most interesting and perplexing expressions and constructions in the book. It is largely promise, but it is part of the Law and so demands compliance by faith. Its points are: God promises to send his angel to prepare the way before his obedient servants (20-23); God promises blessing for his loyal servants (24-33). So in the section one learns that God promises his protection (victory) and blessing (through his angel) for his obedient and loyal worshipers.

[23:20]  ⁶ tn The particle הִנֵּה (hinneh) with the active participle indicates imminent future, something God is about to do.

[23:20]  ⁷ sn The word is מַלְאָךְ (mal’akh, “messenger, angel”). This angel is to be treated with the same fear and respect as Yahweh, for Yahweh will be speaking in him. U. Cassuto (Exodus, 305-6) says that the words of the first clause do not imply a being distinct from God, for in the ancient world the line of demarcation between the sender and the sent is liable easily to be blurred. He then shows how the “Angel of Yahweh” in Genesis is Yahweh. He concludes that the words here mean “I will guide you.” Christian commentators tend to identify the Angel of Yahweh as the second person of the Trinity (W. C. Kaiser, Jr., “Exodus,” EBC 2:446). However, in addition to being a preincarnate appearance, the word could refer to Yahweh – some manifestation of Yahweh himself.

[23:20]  ⁸ tn Heb “protect you in the way.”

[23:20]  ⁹ tn The form is the Hiphil perfect of the verb כּוּן (kun, “to establish, prepare”).

[29:31]  ⁷ tn Or “boil” (see Lev 8:31).

[29:31]  ⁸ sn The “holy place” must be in the courtyard of the sanctuary. Lev 8:31 says it is to be cooked at the entrance of the tent of meeting. Here it says it will be eaten there as well. This, then, becomes a communion sacrifice, a peace offering which was a shared meal. Eating a communal meal in a holy place was meant to signify that the worshipers and the priests were at peace with God.

[3:5]  ⁹ tn Heb “And he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[3:5]  ¹⁰ sn Even though the Lord was drawing near to Moses, Moses could not casually approach him. There still was a barrier between God and human, and God had to remind Moses of this with instructions. The removal of sandals was, and still is in the East, a sign of humility and reverence in the presence of the Holy One. It was a way of excluding the dust and dirt of the world. But it also took away personal comfort and convenience and brought the person more closely in contact with the earth.

[3:5]  ¹¹ sn The word קֹדֶשׁ (qodesh, “holy”) indicates “set apart, distinct, unique.” What made a mountain or other place holy was the fact that God chose that place to reveal himself or to reside among his people. Because God was in this place, the ground was different – it was holy.

[3:5]  ¹² tn The causal clause includes within it a typical relative clause, which is made up of the relative pronoun, then the independent personal pronoun with the participle, and then the preposition with the resumptive pronoun. It would literally be “which you are standing on it,” but the relative pronoun and the resumptive pronoun are combined and rendered, “on which you are standing.”

[18:23]  ¹¹ tn The form is a Piel perfect with vav (ו) consecutive; it carries the same nuance as the preceding imperfect in the conditional clause.

[18:23]  ¹² tn The perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive now appears in the apodosis of the conditional sentence – “if you do this…then you will be able.”

[18:23]  ¹³ tn Heb “to stand.” B. Jacob (Exodus, 501) suggests that there might be a humorous side to this: “you could even do this standing up.”

[18:23]  ¹⁴ tn Literally “this people.”

[18:23]  ¹⁵ tn The verb is the simple imperfect, “will go,” but given the sense of the passage a potential nuance seems in order.

[18:23]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “his place.”

[18:23]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “in peace.”

[3:8]  ¹³ sn God’s coming down is a frequent anthropomorphism in Genesis and Exodus. It expresses his direct involvement, often in the exercise of judgment.

[3:8]  ¹⁴ tn The Hiphil infinitive with the suffix is לְהַצִּילוֹ (lÿhatsilo, “to deliver them”). It expresses the purpose of God’s coming down. The verb itself is used for delivering or rescuing in the general sense, and snatching out of danger for the specific.

[3:8]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “to a land good and large”; NRSV “to a good and broad land.” In the translation the words “that is both” are supplied because in contemporary English “good and” combined with any additional descriptive term can be understood as elative (“good and large” = “very large”; “good and spacious” = “very spacious”; “good and ready” = “very ready”). The point made in the Hebrew text is that the land to which they are going is both good (in terms of quality) and large (in terms of size).

[3:8]  ¹⁶ tn This vibrant description of the promised land is a familiar one. Gesenius classifies “milk and honey” as epexegetical genitives because they provide more precise description following a verbal adjective in the construct state (GKC 418-19 §128.x). The land is modified by “flowing,” and “flowing” is explained by the genitives “milk and honey.” These two products will be in abundance in the land, and they therefore exemplify what a desirable land it is. The language is hyperbolic, as if the land were streaming with these products.

[3:8]  ¹⁷ tn Each people group is joined to the preceding by the vav conjunction, “and.” Each also has the definite article, as in other similar lists (3:17; 13:5; 34:11). To repeat the conjunction and article in the translation seems to put more weight on the list in English than is necessary to its function in identifying what land God was giving the Israelites.

[16:29]  ¹⁵ sn Noting the rabbinic teaching that the giving of the Sabbath was a sign of God’s love – it was accomplished through the double portion on the sixth day – B. Jacob says, “God made no request unless He provided the means for its execution” (Exodus, 461).

[16:29]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “remain, a man where he is.”

[16:29]  ¹⁷ tn Or “Let not anyone go” (see GKC 445 §138.d).

[17:7]  ¹⁷ sn The name Massah (מַסָּה, massah) means “Proving”; it is derived from the verb “test, prove, try.” And the name Meribah (מְרִיבָה, mÿrivah) means “Strife”; it is related to the verb “to strive, quarrel, contend.” The choice of these names for the place would serve to remind Israel for all time of this failure with God. God wanted this and all subsequent generations to know how unbelief challenges God. And yet, he gave them water. So in spite of their failure, he remained faithful to his promises. The incident became proverbial, for it is the warning in Ps 95:7-8, which is quoted in Heb 3:15: “Oh, that today you would listen as he speaks! Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of testing in the wilderness. There your fathers tested me and tried me, and they saw my works for forty years.” The lesson is clear enough: to persist in this kind of unbelief could only result in the loss of divine blessing. Or, to put it another way, if they refused to believe in the power of God, they would wander powerless in the wilderness. They had every reason to believe, but they did not. (Note that this does not mean they are unbelievers, only that they would not take God at his word.)

[20:24]  ¹⁹ sn The instructions here call for the altar to be made of natural things, not things manufactured or shaped by man. The altar was either to be made of clumps of earth or natural, unhewn rocks.

[20:24]  ²⁰ sn The “burnt offering” is the offering prescribed in Lev 1. Everything of this animal went up in smoke as a sweet aroma to God. It signified complete surrender by the worshiper who brought the animal, and complete acceptance by God, thereby making atonement. The “peace offering” is legislated in Lev 3 and 7. This was a communal meal offering to celebrate being at peace with God. It was made usually for thanksgiving, for payment of vows, or as a freewill offering.

[20:24]  ²¹ tn Gesenius lists this as one of the few places where the noun in construct seems to be indefinite in spite of the fact that the genitive has the article. He says בְּכָל־הַמָּקוֹם (bÿkhol-hammaqom) means “in all the place, sc. of the sanctuary, and is a dogmatic correction of “in every place” (כָּל־מָקוֹם, kol-maqom). See GKC 412 §127.e.

[20:24]  ²² tn The verb is זָכַר (zakhar, “to remember”), but in the Hiphil especially it can mean more than remember or cause to remember (remind) – it has the sense of praise or honor. B. S. Childs says it has a denominative meaning, “to proclaim” (Exodus [OTL], 447). The point of the verse is that God will give Israel reason for praising and honoring him, and in every place that occurs he will make his presence known by blessing them.