Exodus 5:16

5:16 No straw is given to your servants, but we are told, ¹  ‘Make bricks!’ Your servants are even ²  being beaten, but the fault ³  is with your people.”

Exodus 9:27

9:27 So Pharaoh sent and summoned Moses and Aaron and said to them, “I have sinned this time! ⁴  The Lord is righteous, and I and my people are guilty. ⁵ 

Exodus 9:34

9:34 When Pharaoh saw ⁶  that the rain and hail and thunder ceased, he sinned again: ⁷  both he and his servants hardened ⁸  their hearts.

Exodus 23:33

23:33 They must not live in your land, lest they make you sin against me, for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare ⁹  to you.”

Exodus 29:36

29:36 Every day you are to prepare a bull for a purification offering ¹⁰  for atonement. ¹¹  You are to purge ¹²  the altar by making atonement ¹³  for it, and you are to anoint it to set it apart as holy.

Exodus 32:30-31

32:30 The next day Moses said to the people, ¹⁴  “You have committed a very serious sin, ¹⁵  but now I will go up to the Lord – perhaps I can make atonement ¹⁶  on behalf of your sin.”

32:31 So Moses returned to the Lord and said, “Alas, this people has committed a very serious sin, ¹⁷  and they have made for themselves gods of gold.

[5:16]  ¹ tn Heb “[they] are saying to us,” the line can be rendered as a passive since there is no expressed subject for the participle.

[5:16]  ² tn הִנֵּה (hinneh) draws attention to the action reflected in the passive participle מֻכִּים (mukkim): “look, your servants are being beaten.”

[5:16]  ³ tn The word rendered “fault” is the basic OT verb for “sin” – וְחָטָאת (vÿkhata’t). The problem is that it is pointed as a perfect tense, feminine singular verb. Some other form of the verb would be expected, or a noun. But the basic word-group means “to err, sin, miss the mark, way, goal.” The word in this context seems to indicate that the people of Pharaoh – the slave masters – have failed to provide the straw. Hence: “fault” or “they failed.” But, as indicated, the line has difficult grammar, for it would literally translate: “and you [fem.] sin your people.” Many commentators (so GKC 206 §74.g) wish to emend the text to read with the Greek and the Syriac, thus: “you sin against your own people” (meaning the Israelites are his loyal subjects).

[9:27]  ⁴ sn Pharaoh now is struck by the judgment and acknowledges that he is at fault. But the context shows that this penitence was short-lived. What exactly he meant by this confession is uncertain. On the surface his words seem to represent a recognition that he was in the wrong and Yahweh right.

[9:27]  ⁵ tn The word רָשָׁע (rasha’) can mean “ungodly, wicked, guilty, criminal.” Pharaoh here is saying that Yahweh is right, and the Egyptians are not – so they are at fault, guilty. S. R. Driver says the words are used in their forensic sense (in the right or wrong standing legally) and not in the ethical sense of morally right and wrong (Exodus, 75).

[9:34]  ⁷ tn The clause beginning with the preterite and vav (ו) consecutive is here subordinated to the next, and main clause – that he hardened his heart again.

[9:34]  ⁸ tn The construction is another verbal hendiadys: וַיֹּסֶף לַחֲטֹּא (vayyosef lakhatto’), literally rendered “and he added to sin.” The infinitive construct becomes the main verb, and the Hiphil preterite becomes adverbial. The text is clearly interpreting as sin the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart and his refusal to release Israel. At the least this means that the plagues are his fault, but the expression probably means more than this – he was disobeying Yahweh God.

[9:34]  ⁹ tn This phrase translates the Hebrew word כָּבֵד (kaved); see S. R. Driver, Exodus, 53.

[23:33]  ¹⁰ tn The idea of the “snare” is to lure them to judgment; God is apparently warning about contact with the Canaanites, either in worship or in business. They were very syncretistic, and so it would be dangerous to settle among them.

[29:36]  ¹³ tn The construction uses a genitive: “a bull of the sin offering,” which means, a bull that is designated for a sin (or better, purification) offering.

[29:36]  ¹⁴ sn It is difficult to understand how this verse is to be harmonized with the other passages. The ceremony in the earlier passages deals with atonement made for the priests, for people. But here it is the altar that is being sanctified. The “sin [purification] offering” seems to be for purification of the sanctuary and altar to receive people in their worship.

[29:36]  ¹⁵ tn The verb is וְחִטֵּאתָ (vÿhitte’ta), a Piel perfect of the word usually translated “to sin.” Here it may be interpreted as a privative Piel (as in Ps 51:7 [9]), with the sense of “un-sin” or “remove sin.” It could also be interpreted as related to the word for “sin offering,” and so be a denominative verb. It means “to purify, cleanse.” The Hebrews understood that sin and contamination could corrupt and pollute even things, and so they had to be purged.

[29:36]  ¹⁶ tn The construction is a Piel infinitive construct in an adverbial clause. The preposition bet (ב) that begins the clause could be taken as a temporal preposition, but in this context it seems to express the means by which the altar was purged of contamination – “in your making atonement” is “by [your] making atonement.”

[32:30]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “and it was on the morrow and Moses said to the people.”

[32:30]  ¹⁷ tn The text uses a cognate accusative: “you have sinned a great sin.”

[32:30]  ¹⁸ tn The form אֲכַפְּרָה (’akhappÿrah) is a Piel cohortative/imperfect. Here with only a possibility of being successful, a potential imperfect nuance works best.

[32:31]  ¹⁹ tn As before, the cognate accusative is used; it would literally be “this people has sinned a great sin.”