Exodus 5:21

5:21 and they said to them, “May the Lord look on you and judge, ¹  because you have made us stink ²  in the opinion of ³  Pharaoh and his servants, ⁴  so that you have given them an excuse to kill us!” ⁵ 

Exodus 8:24

8:24 The Lord did so; a ⁶  thick ⁷  swarm of flies came into ⁸  Pharaoh’s house and into the houses ⁹  of his servants, and throughout the whole land of Egypt the land was ruined ¹⁰  because of the swarms of flies.

Exodus 9:20-21

9:20 Those ¹¹  of Pharaoh’s servants who feared the word of the Lord hurried to bring their ¹²  servants and livestock into the houses, 9:21 but those ¹³  who did not take ¹⁴  the word of the Lord seriously left their servants and their cattle ¹⁵  in the field.

[5:21]  ¹ tn The foremen vented their anger on Moses and Aaron. The two jussives express their desire that the evil these two have caused be dealt with. “May Yahweh look on you and may he judge” could mean only that God should decide if Moses and Aaron are at fault, but given the rest of the comments it is clear the foremen want more. The second jussive could be subordinated to the first – “so that he may judge [you].”

[5:21]  ² tn Heb “you have made our aroma stink.”

[5:21]  ³ tn Heb “in the eyes of.”

[5:21]  ⁴ tn Heb “in the eyes of his servants.” This phrase is not repeated in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[5:21]  ⁵ tn Heb “to put a sword in their hand to kill us.” The infinitive construct with the lamed (לָתֶת, latet) signifies the result (“so that”) of making the people stink. Their reputation is now so bad that Pharaoh might gladly put them to death. The next infinitive could also be understood as expressing result: “put a sword in their hand so that they can kill us.”

[8:24]  ⁶ tn Heb “and there came a….”

[8:24]  ⁷ tn Heb “heavy,” or “severe.”

[8:24]  ⁸ tn Here, and in the next phrase, the word “house” has to be taken as an adverbial accusative of termination.

[8:24]  ⁹ tn The Hebrew text has the singular here.

[8:24]  ¹⁰ tc Concerning the connection of “the land was ruined” with the preceding, S. R. Driver (Exodus, 68) suggests reading with the LXX, Smr, and Peshitta; this would call for adding a conjunction before the last clause to make it read, “into the house of Pharaoh, and into his servants’ houses, and into all the land of Egypt; and the land was…”

[9:20]  ¹¹ tn The text has “the one fearing.” The singular expression here and throughout vv. 20-21 refers to all who fit the description.

[9:20]  ¹² tn Heb “his” (singular).

[9:21]  ¹⁶ tn The Hebrew text again has the singular.

[9:21]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “put to his heart.”

[9:21]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “his servants and his cattle.”