Exodus 34:18-26

34:18 “You must keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. For seven days ¹  you must eat bread made without yeast, as I commanded you; do this ²  at the appointed time of the month Abib, for in the month Abib you came out of Egypt.

34:19 “Every firstborn of the womb ³  belongs to me, even every firstborn ⁴  of your cattle that is a male, ⁵  whether ox or sheep. 34:20 Now the firstling ⁶  of a donkey you may redeem with a lamb, but if you do not redeem it, then break its neck. ⁷  You must redeem all the firstborn of your sons.

“No one will appear before me empty-handed. ⁸ 

34:21 “On six days ⁹  you may labor, but on the seventh day you must rest; ¹⁰  even at the time of plowing and of harvest ¹¹  you are to rest. ¹² 

34:22 “You must observe ¹³  the Feast of Weeks – the firstfruits of the harvest of wheat – and the Feast of Ingathering at the end ¹⁴  of the year. 34:23 At three times ¹⁵  in the year all your men ¹⁶  must appear before the Lord God, ¹⁷  the God of Israel. 34:24 For I will drive out ¹⁸  the nations before you and enlarge your borders; no one will covet ¹⁹  your land when you go up ²⁰  to appear before the Lord your God three times ²¹  in the year.

34:25 “You must not offer the blood of my sacrifice with yeast; the sacrifice from the feast of Passover must not remain until the following morning. ²² 

34:26 “The first of the firstfruits of your soil you must bring to the house of the Lord your God.

You must not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.” ²³ 

[34:18]  ¹ tn This is an adverbial accusative of time.

[34:18]  ² tn The words “do this” have been supplied.

[34:19]  ³ tn Heb “everything that opens the womb.”

[34:19]  ⁴ tn Here too: everything that “opens [the womb].”

[34:19]  ⁵ tn The verb basically means “that drops a male.” The verb is feminine, referring to the cattle.

[34:20]  ⁶ tn Heb “and the one that opens [the womb of] the donkey.”

[34:20]  ⁷ sn See G. Brin, “The Firstling of Unclean Animals,” JQR 68 (1971): 1-15.

[34:20]  ⁸ tn The form is the adverb “empty.”

[34:21]  ⁹ tn This is an adverbial accusative of time.

[34:21]  ¹⁰ tn Or “cease” (i.e., from the labors).

[34:21]  ¹¹ sn See M. Dahood, “Vocative lamed in Exodus 2,4 and Merismus in 34,21,” Bib 62 (1981): 413-15.

[34:21]  ¹² tn The imperfect tense expresses injunction or instruction.

[34:22]  ¹³ tn The imperfect tense means “you will do”; it is followed by the preposition with a suffix to express the ethical dative to stress the subject.

[34:22]  ¹⁴ tn The expression is “the turn of the year,” which is parallel to “the going out of the year,” and means the end of the agricultural season.

[34:23]  ¹⁵ tn “Three times” is an adverbial accusative.

[34:23]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “all your males.”

[34:23]  ¹⁷ tn Here the divine name reads in Hebrew הָאָדֹן יְהוָה (ha’adon yÿhvah), which if rendered according to the traditional scheme of “Lord” for “Yahweh” would result in “Lord Lord.” A number of English versions therefore render this phrase “Lord God,” and that convention has been followed here.

[34:24]  ¹⁸ tn The verb is a Hiphil imperfect of יָרַשׁ (yarash), which means “to possess.” In the causative stem it can mean “dispossess” or “drive out.”

[34:24]  ¹⁹ sn The verb “covet” means more than desire; it means that some action will be taken to try to acquire the land that is being coveted. It is one thing to envy someone for their land; it is another to be consumed by the desire that stops at nothing to get it (it, not something like it).

[34:24]  ²⁰ tn The construction uses the infinitive construct with a preposition and a suffixed subject to form the temporal clause.

[34:24]  ²¹ tn The expression “three times” is an adverbial accusative of time.

[34:25]  ²² sn See M. Haran, “The Passover Sacrifice,” Studies in the Religion of Ancient Israel (VTSup), 86-116.

[34:26]  ²³ sn See the note on this same command in 23:19.