Exodus 4:29

4:29 Then Moses and Aaron went and brought together all the Israelite elders. ¹ 

Exodus 12:21

12:21 Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel, and told them, “Go and select ²  for yourselves a lamb or young goat ³  for your families, and kill the Passover animals. ⁴ 

Exodus 3:16

3:16 “Go and bring together ⁵  the elders of Israel and tell them, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, ⁶  appeared ⁷  to me – the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – saying, “I have attended carefully ⁸  to you and to what has been done ⁹  to you in Egypt,

Exodus 17:6

17:6 I will be standing ¹⁰  before you there on ¹¹  the rock in Horeb, and you will strike ¹²  the rock, and water will come out of it so that the people may drink.” ¹³  And Moses did so in plain view ¹⁴  of the elders of Israel.

Exodus 18:12

18:12 Then Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, brought ¹⁵  a burnt offering and sacrifices for God, ¹⁶  and Aaron and all the elders of Israel came to eat food ¹⁷  with the father-in-law of Moses before God.

[4:29]  ¹ sn These are the leaders of the tribes who represented all the people. Later, after the exodus, Moses will select the most capable of them and others to be rulers in a judicial sense (Exod 18:21).

[12:21]  ² tn Heb “draw out and take.” The verb has in view the need “to draw out” a lamb or goat selected from among the rest of the flock.

[12:21]  ³ tn The Hebrew noun is singular and can refer to either a lamb or a goat. Since English has no common word for both, the phrase “a lamb or young goat” is used in the translation.

[12:21]  ⁴ tn The word “animals” is added to avoid giving the impression in English that the Passover festival itself is the object of “kill.”

[3:16]  ³ tn The form is the perfect tense with the sequential vav (ו) linking the nuance to the imperative that precedes it. Since the imperative calls for immediate action, this form either carries the same emphasis, or instructs action that immediately follows it. This applies likewise to “say,” which follows.

[3:16]  ⁴ sn “The God of your fathers” is in simple apposition to the name “the Lord” (Heb “Yahweh”) as a recognizable identification. If the holy name were a new one to the Israelites, an explanation would have been needed. Meanwhile, the title “God of my/your/our father(s)” was widely used in the ancient Near East and also in Genesis (26:24; 28:13; 31:5, 29; 46:1, 3; N. M. Sarna, Exodus [JPSTC], 268).

[3:16]  ⁵ tn The form is the Niphal perfect of the verb “to see.” See the note on “appeared” in 3:2.

[3:16]  ⁶ tn The verb פָּקַד (paqad) has traditionally been rendered “to visit.” This only partially communicates the point of the word. When God “visited” someone, it meant that he intervened in their lives to change their circumstances or their destiny. When he visited the Amalekites, he destroyed them (1 Sam 15:2). When he visited Sarah, he provided the long awaited child (Gen 21:1). It refers to God’s active involvement in human affairs for blessing or for cursing. Here it would mean that God had begun to act to deliver the Israelites from bondage and give them the blessings of the covenant. The form is joined here with the infinitive absolute to underscore the certainty – “I have indeed visited you.” Some translate it “remember”; others say “watch over.” These do not capture the idea of intervention to bless, and often with the idea of vengeance or judgment on the oppressors. If God were to visit what the Egyptians did, he would stop the oppression and also bring retribution for it. The nuance of the perfect tense could be a perfect of resolve (“I have decided to visit”), or an instantaneous perfect ( “I hereby visit”), or a prophetic perfect (“I have visited” = “I will visit”). The infinitive absolute reinforces the statement (so “carefully”), the rendering “attended to” attempts to convey the ideas of personal presence, mental awareness, and action, as when a nurse or physician “attends” a patient.

[3:16]  ⁷ tn The second object for the verb is the passive participle הֶעָשׂוּי (he’asuy). To say that God has visited the oppression (or “attended to” it) affirms that God has decided to judge the oppressing people as he blesses Israel.

[17:6]  ⁴ tn The construction uses הִנְנִי עֹמֵד (hinni ’omed) to express the futur instans or imminent future of the verb: “I am going to be standing.”

[17:6]  ⁵ tn Or “by” (NIV, NLT).

[17:6]  ⁶ tn The form is a Hiphil perfect with the vav (ו) consecutive; it follows the future nuance of the participle and so is equivalent to an imperfect tense nuance of instruction.

[17:6]  ⁷ tn These two verbs are also perfect tenses with vav (ו) consecutive: “and [water] will go out…and [the people] will drink.” But the second verb is clearly the intent or the result of the water gushing from the rock, and so it may be subordinated.

[17:6]  ⁸ tn Heb “in the eyes of.”

[18:12]  ⁵ tn The verb is “and he took” (cf. KJV, ASV, NASB). It must have the sense of getting the animals for the sacrifice. The Syriac, Targum, and Vulgate have “offered.” But Cody argues because of the precise wording in the text Jethro did not offer the sacrifices but received them (A. Cody, “Exodus 18,12: Jethro Accepts a Covenant with the Israelites,” Bib 49 [1968]: 159-61).

[18:12]  ⁶ sn Jethro brought offerings as if he were the one who had been delivered. The “burnt offering” is singular, to honor God first. The other sacrifices were intended for the invited guests to eat (a forerunner of the peace offering). See B. Jacob, Exodus, 498.

[18:12]  ⁷ tn The word לֶחֶם (lekhem) here means the sacrifice and all the foods that were offered with it. The eating before God was part of covenantal ritual, for it signified that they were in communion with the Deity, and with one another.