Exodus 5:11

5:11 You ¹  go get straw for yourselves wherever you can ²  find it, because there will be no reduction at all in your workload.’”

Exodus 5:18

5:18 So now, get back to work! ³  You will not be given straw, but you must still produce ⁴  your quota ⁵  of bricks!”

Exodus 12:5

12:5 Your lamb must be ⁶  perfect, ⁷  a male, one year old; ⁸  you may take ⁹  it from the sheep or from the goats.

Exodus 12:26

12:26 When your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’ ¹⁰  –

Exodus 20:23

20:23 You must not make gods of silver alongside me, ¹¹  nor make gods of gold for yourselves. ¹² 

Exodus 30:37

30:37 And the incense that you are to make, you must not make for yourselves using the same recipe; it is to be most holy to you, belonging to the Lord.

[5:11]  ¹ tn The independent personal pronoun emphasizes that the people were to get their own straw, and it heightens the contrast with the king. “You – go get.”

[5:11]  ² tn The tense in this section could be translated as having the nuance of possibility: “wherever you may find it,” or the nuance of potential imperfect: “wherever you are able to find any.”

[5:18]  ³ tn The text has two imperatives: “go, work.” They may be used together to convey one complex idea (so a use of hendiadys): “go back to work.”

[5:18]  ⁴ tn The imperfect תִּתֵּנּוּ (tittennu) is here taken as an obligatory imperfect: “you must give” or “you must produce.”

[5:18]  ⁵ sn B. Jacob is amazed at the wealth of this tyrant’s vocabulary in describing the work of others. Here, תֹכֶן (tokhen) is another word for “quota” of bricks, the fifth word used to describe their duty (Exodus, 137).

[12:5]  ⁵ tn The construction has: “[The] lamb…will be to you.” This may be interpreted as a possessive use of the lamed, meaning, “[the] lamb…you have” (your lamb) for the Passover. In the context instructing the people to take an animal for this festival, the idea is that the one they select, their animal, must meet these qualifications.

[12:5]  ⁶ tn The Hebrew word תָּמִים (tamim) means “perfect” or “whole” or “complete” in the sense of not having blemishes and diseases – no physical defects. The rules for sacrificial animals applied here (see Lev 22:19-21; Deut 17:1).

[12:5]  ⁷ tn The idiom says “a son of a year” (בֶּן־שָׁנָה, ben shanah), meaning a “yearling” or “one year old” (see GKC 418 §128.v).

[12:5]  ⁸ tn Because a choice is being given in this last clause, the imperfect tense nuance of permission should be used. They must have a perfect animal, but it may be a sheep or a goat. The verb’s object “it” is supplied from the context.

[12:26]  ⁷ tn Heb “what is this service to you?”

[20:23]  ⁹ tn The direct object of the verb must be “gods of silver.” The prepositional phrase modifies the whole verse to say that these gods would then be alongside the one true God.

[20:23]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “neither will you make for you gods of gold.”