Exodus 4:20

4:20 Then Moses took ¹  his wife and sons ²  and put them on a donkey and headed back ³  to the land of Egypt, and Moses took the staff of God in his hand.

Exodus 9:9

9:9 It will become fine dust over the whole land of Egypt and will cause boils to break out and fester ⁴  on both people and animals in all the land of Egypt.”

Exodus 14:26

14:26 The Lord said to Moses, “Extend your hand toward the sea, so that the waters may flow ⁵  back on the Egyptians, on their chariots, and on their horsemen!”

Exodus 19:1

Israel at Sinai

19:1 ⁶ In the third month after the Israelites went out ⁷  from the land of Egypt, on the very day, ⁸  they came to the Desert of Sinai.

Exodus 27:12

27:12 The width of the court on the west side is to be seventy-five feet with hangings, with their ten posts and their ten bases.

Exodus 31:18

31:18 He gave Moses two tablets of testimony when he had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, tablets of stone written by the finger of God. ⁹ 

Exodus 39:7

39:7 He put ¹⁰  them on the shoulder pieces of the ephod as stones of memorial for the Israelites, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.

Exodus 39:30

39:30 They made a plate, the holy diadem, of pure gold and wrote on it an inscription, as on the engravings of a seal, “Holiness to the Lord.”

[4:20]  ¹ tn Heb “And Moses took.”

[4:20]  ² sn Only Gershom has been mentioned so far. The other son’s name will be explained in chapter 18. The explanation of Gershom’s name was important to Moses’ sojourn in Midian. The explanation of the name Eliezer fits better in the later chapter (18:2-4).

[4:20]  ³ tn The verb would literally be rendered “and returned”; however, the narrative will record other happenings before he arrived in Egypt, so an ingressive nuance fits here – he began to return, or started back.

[9:9]  ⁴ tn The word שְׁחִין (shÿkhin) means “boils.” It may be connected to an Arabic cognate that means “to be hot.” The illness is associated with Job (Job 2:7-8) and Hezekiah (Isa 38:21); it has also been connected with other skin diseases described especially in the Law. The word connected with it is אֲבַעְבֻּעֹת (’ava’bu’ot); this means “blisters, pustules” and is sometimes translated as “festering.” The etymology is debated, whether from a word meaning “to swell up” or “to overflow” (W. C. Kaiser, Jr., “Exodus,” EBC 2:359).

[14:26]  ⁷ tn The verb, “and they will return,” is here subordinated to the imperative preceding it, showing the purpose of that act.

[19:1]  ¹⁰ sn This chapter is essentially about mediation. The people are getting ready to meet with God, receive the Law from him, and enter into a covenant with him. All of this required mediation and preparation. Through it all, Israel will become God’s unique possession, a kingdom of priests on earth – if they comply with his Law. The chapter can be divided as follows: vv. 1-8 tell how God, Israel’s great deliverer promised to make them a kingdom of priests; this is followed by God’s declaration that Moses would be the mediator (v. 9); vv. 10-22 record instructions for Israel to prepare themselves to worship Yahweh and an account of the manifestation of Yahweh with all the phenomena; and the chapter closes with the mediation of Moses on behalf of the people (vv. 23-25). Having been redeemed from Egypt, the people will now be granted a covenant with God. See also R. E. Bee, “A Statistical Study of the Sinai Pericope,” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society 135 (1972): 406-21.

[19:1]  ¹¹ tn The construction uses the infinitive construct followed by the subjective genitive to form a temporal clause.

[19:1]  ¹² tn Heb “on this day.”

[31:18]  ¹³ sn The expression “the finger of God” has come up before in the book, in the plagues (Exod 8:15) to express that it was a demonstration of the power and authority of God. So here too the commandments given to Moses on stone tablets came from God. It too is a bold anthropomorphism; to attribute such a material action to Yahweh would have been thought provoking to say the least. But by using “God” and by stating it in an obviously figurative way, balance is maintained. Since no one writes with one finger, the expression simply says that the Law came directly from God.

[39:7]  ¹⁶ tn Or “attached.”