Exodus 5:23

5:23 From the time I went to speak to Pharaoh in your name, he has caused trouble ¹  for this people, and you have certainly not rescued ²  them!” ³ 

Exodus 18:10

18:10 Jethro said, “Blessed ⁴  be the Lord who has delivered you from the hand of Egypt, and from the hand of Pharaoh, who has delivered the people from the Egyptians’ control! ⁵ 

Exodus 33:6

33:6 So the Israelites stripped off their ornaments by Mount Horeb.

Exodus 12:36

12:36 The Lord ⁶  gave the people favor ⁷  in the sight of the Egyptians, and they gave them whatever they wanted, ⁸  and so they plundered Egypt. ⁹ 

Exodus 18:4

18:4 and the other Eliezer (for Moses had said, ¹⁰  “The God of my father has been my help ¹¹  and delivered ¹²  me from the sword of Pharaoh”).

Exodus 2:19

2:19 They said, “An Egyptian man rescued us ¹³  from the shepherds, ¹⁴  and he actually ¹⁵  drew water for us and watered the flock!”

Exodus 3:22

3:22 Every ¹⁶  woman will ask her neighbor and the one who happens to be staying ¹⁷  in her house for items of silver and gold ¹⁸  and for clothing. You will put these articles on your sons and daughters – thus you will plunder Egypt!” ¹⁹ 

Exodus 18:9

18:9 Jethro rejoiced ²⁰  because of all the good that the Lord had done for Israel, whom he had delivered from the hand of Egypt.

Exodus 3:8

3:8 I have come down ²¹  to deliver them ²²  from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up from that land to a land that is both good and spacious, ²³  to a land flowing with milk and honey, ²⁴  to the region of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. ²⁵ 

Exodus 6:6

6:6 Therefore, tell the Israelites, ‘I am the Lord. I will bring you out ²⁶  from your enslavement to ²⁷  the Egyptians, I will rescue you from the hard labor they impose, ²⁸  and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments.

Exodus 12:27

12:27 then you will say, ‘It is the sacrifice ²⁹  of the Lord’s Passover, when he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt, when he struck ³⁰  Egypt and delivered our households.’” The people bowed down low ³¹  to the ground,

Exodus 18:8

18:8 Moses told his father-in-law all that the Lord had done to Pharaoh and to Egypt for Israel’s sake, and all the hardship ³²  that had come on them ³³  along the way, and how ³⁴  the Lord had delivered them.

[5:23]  ¹ sn Now the verb (הֵרַע, hera’) has a different subject – Pharaoh. The ultimate cause of the trouble was God, but the immediate cause was Pharaoh and the way he increased the work. Meanwhile, the Israelite foremen have pinned most of the blame on Moses and Aaron. Moses knows all about the sovereignty of God, and as he speaks in God’s name, he sees the effect it has on pagans like Pharaoh. So the rhetorical questions are designed to prod God to act differently.

[5:23]  ² tn The Hebrew construction is emphatic: וְהַצֵּל לֹא־הִצַּלְתָּ (vÿhatsel lo’-hitsalta). The verb נָצַל (natsal) means “to deliver, rescue” in the sense of plucking out, even plundering. The infinitive absolute strengthens both the idea of the verb and the negative. God had not delivered this people at all.

[5:23]  ³ tn Heb “your people.” The pronoun (“them”) has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons here, to avoid redundancy.

[18:10]  ⁴ tn This is a common form of praise. The verb בָּרוּךְ (barukh) is the Qal passive participle of the verb. Here must be supplied a jussive, making this participle the predicate: “May Yahweh be blessed.” The verb essentially means “to enrich”; in praise it would mean that he would be enriched by the praises of the people.

[18:10]  ⁵ tn Heb “from under the hand of the Egyptians.”

[12:36]  ⁷ tn The holy name (“Yahweh,” represented as “the Lord” in the translation) has the vav disjunctive with it. It may have the force: “Now it was Yahweh who gave the people favor….”

[12:36]  ⁸ sn God was destroying the tyrant and his nobles and the land’s economy because of their stubborn refusal. But God established friendly, peaceful relations between his people and the Egyptians. The phrase is used outside Exod only in Gen 39:21, referring to Joseph.

[12:36]  ⁹ tn The verb וַיַּשְׁאִלוּם (vayyash’ilum) is a Hiphil form that has the root שָׁאַל (sha’al), used earlier in Qal with the meaning “requested” (12:35). The verb here is frequently translated “and they lent them,” but lending does not fit the point. What they gave the Israelites were farewell gifts sought by demanding or asking for them. This may exemplify a “permissive” use of the Hiphil stem, in which “the Hiphil designates an action that is agreeable to the object and allowed by the subject” (B. T. Arnold and J. H. Choi, A Guide to Biblical Hebrew Syntax, 52).

[12:36]  ¹⁰ sn See B. Jacob, “The Gifts of the Egyptians; A Critical Commentary,” Journal of Reformed Judaism 27 (1980): 59-69.

[18:4]  ¹⁰ tn The referent (Moses) and the verb have been specified in the translation for clarity.

[18:4]  ¹¹ tn Now is given the etymological explanation of the name of Moses’ other son, Eliezer (אֱלִיעֶזֶר, ’eli’ezer), which means “my God is a help.” The sentiment that explains this name is אֱלֹהֵי אָבִי בְּעֶזְרִי (’elohe ’avi bÿ’ezri, “the God of my father is my help”). The preposition in the sentiment is the bet (ב) essentiae (giving the essence – see GKC 379 §119.i). Not mentioned earlier, the name has become even more appropriate now that God has delivered Moses from Pharaoh again. The word for “help” is a common word in the Bible, first introduced as a description of the woman in the Garden. It means to do for someone what he or she cannot do for himself or herself. Samuel raised the “stone of help” (Ebenezer) when Yahweh helped Israel win the battle (1 Sam 7:12).

[18:4]  ¹² sn The verb “delivered” is an important motif in this chapter (see its use in vv. 8, 9, and 10 with reference to Pharaoh).

[2:19]  ¹³ sn Continuing the theme of Moses as the deliverer, the text now uses another word for salvation (נָצַל, natsal, “to deliver, rescue”) in the sense of plucking out or away, snatching out of danger.

[2:19]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “from the hand of the shepherds” (so NASB); NAB “saved us from the interference of the shepherds.” Most recent English versions translate simply “from the shepherds.”

[2:19]  ¹⁵ tn The construction is emphatic with the use of the perfect tense and its infinitive absolute: דָלָה דָּלֹה (daloh dalah). B. Jacob says, “They showed their enthusiasm through the use of the infinitive absolute – And think of that, he even drew water for us; a man did this for us girls” (Exodus, 41).

[3:22]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “a woman,” one representing all.

[3:22]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “from the sojourner.” Both the “neighbor” and the “sojourner” (“one who happens to be staying in her house”) are feminine. The difference between them seems to be primarily that the second is temporary, “a lodger” perhaps or “visitor,” while the first has permanent residence.

[3:22]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “vessels of silver and vessels of gold.” These phrases both use genitives of material, telling what the vessels are made of.

[3:22]  ¹⁹ sn It is clear that God intended the Israelites to plunder the Egyptians, as they might a defeated enemy in war. They will not go out “empty.” They will “plunder” Egypt. This verb (וְנִצַּלְתֶּם [vÿnitsaltem] from נָצַל [natsal]) usually means “rescue, deliver,” as if plucking out of danger. But in this stem it carries the idea of plunder. So when the text says that they will ask (וְשָׁאֲלָה, vÿsha’alah) their neighbors for things, it implies that they will be making many demands, and the Egyptians will respond like a defeated nation before victors. The spoils that Israel takes are to be regarded as back wages or compensation for the oppression (see also Deut 15:13). See further B. Jacob, “The Gifts of the Egyptians, a Critical Commentary,” Journal of Reformed Judaism 27 (1980): 59-69; and T. C. Vriezen, “A Reinterpretation of Exodus 3:21-22 and Related Texts,” Ex Oriente Lux 23 (1975): 389-401.

[18:9]  ¹⁹ tn The word חָדָה (khada) is rare, occurring only in Job 3:6 and Ps 21:6, although it is common in Aramaic. The LXX translated it “he shuddered.” U. Cassuto suggests that that rendering was based on the midrashic interpretation in b. Sanhedrin 94b, “he felt cuts in his body” – a wordplay on the verb (Exodus, 215-16).

[3:8]  ²² sn God’s coming down is a frequent anthropomorphism in Genesis and Exodus. It expresses his direct involvement, often in the exercise of judgment.

[3:8]  ²³ tn The Hiphil infinitive with the suffix is לְהַצִּילוֹ (lÿhatsilo, “to deliver them”). It expresses the purpose of God’s coming down. The verb itself is used for delivering or rescuing in the general sense, and snatching out of danger for the specific.

[3:8]  ²⁴ tn Heb “to a land good and large”; NRSV “to a good and broad land.” In the translation the words “that is both” are supplied because in contemporary English “good and” combined with any additional descriptive term can be understood as elative (“good and large” = “very large”; “good and spacious” = “very spacious”; “good and ready” = “very ready”). The point made in the Hebrew text is that the land to which they are going is both good (in terms of quality) and large (in terms of size).

[3:8]  ²⁵ tn This vibrant description of the promised land is a familiar one. Gesenius classifies “milk and honey” as epexegetical genitives because they provide more precise description following a verbal adjective in the construct state (GKC 418-19 §128.x). The land is modified by “flowing,” and “flowing” is explained by the genitives “milk and honey.” These two products will be in abundance in the land, and they therefore exemplify what a desirable land it is. The language is hyperbolic, as if the land were streaming with these products.

[3:8]  ²⁶ tn Each people group is joined to the preceding by the vav conjunction, “and.” Each also has the definite article, as in other similar lists (3:17; 13:5; 34:11). To repeat the conjunction and article in the translation seems to put more weight on the list in English than is necessary to its function in identifying what land God was giving the Israelites.

[6:6]  ²⁵ sn The verb וְהוֹצֵאתִי (vÿhotse’ti) is a perfect tense with the vav (ו) consecutive, and so it receives a future translation – part of God’s promises. The word will be used later to begin the Decalogue and other covenant passages – “I am Yahweh who brought you out….”

[6:6]  ²⁶ tn Heb “from under the burdens of” (so KJV, NASB); NIV “from under the yoke of.”

[6:6]  ²⁷ tn Heb “from labor of them.” The antecedent of the pronoun is the Egyptians who have imposed slave labor on the Hebrews.

[12:27]  ²⁸ sn This expression “the sacrifice of Yahweh’s Passover” occurs only here. The word זֶבַח (zevakh) means “slaughtering” and so a blood sacrifice. The fact that this word is used in Lev 3 for the peace offering has linked the Passover as a kind of peace offering, and both the Passover and the peace offerings were eaten as communal meals.

[12:27]  ²⁹ tn The verb means “to strike, smite, plague”; it is the same verb that has been used throughout this section (נָגַף, nagaf). Here the construction is the infinitive construct in a temporal clause.

[12:27]  ³⁰ tn The two verbs form a verbal hendiadys: “and the people bowed down and they worshiped.” The words are synonymous, and so one is taken as the adverb for the other.

[18:8]  ³¹ tn A rare word, “weariness” of the hardships.

[18:8]  ³² tn Heb “found them.”

[18:8]  ³³ tn Here “how” has been supplied.