Exodus 5:5

5:5 Pharaoh was thinking, ¹  “The people of the land are now many, and you are giving them rest from their labor.”

Exodus 6:30

6:30 But Moses said before the Lord, “Since I speak with difficulty, ²  why should Pharaoh listen to me?”

Exodus 6:12

6:12 But Moses replied to ³  the Lord, “If the Israelites did not listen to me, then ⁴  how will Pharaoh listen to me, since ⁵  I speak with difficulty?” ⁶ 

Exodus 8:26

8:26 But Moses said, “That would not be the right thing to do, ⁷  for the sacrifices we make ⁸  to the Lord our God would be an abomination ⁹  to the Egyptians. ¹⁰  If we make sacrifices that are an abomination to the Egyptians right before their eyes, ¹¹  will they not stone us? ¹² 

[5:5]  ¹ tn Heb “And Pharaoh said.” This is not the kind of thing that Pharaoh is likely to have said to Moses, and so it probably is what he thought or reasoned within himself. Other passages (like Exod 2:14; 3:3) show that the verb “said” can do this. (See U. Cassuto, Exodus, 67.)

[6:30]  ² tn See note on Exod 6:12.

[6:12]  ³ tn Heb “And Moses spoke before.”

[6:12]  ⁴ sn This analogy is an example of a qal wahomer comparison. It is an argument by inference from the light (qal) to the heavy (homer), from the simple to the more difficult. If the Israelites, who are Yahwists, would not listen to him, it is highly unlikely Pharaoh would.

[6:12]  ⁵ tn The final clause begins with a disjunctive vav (ו), a vav on a nonverb form – here a pronoun. It introduces a circumstantial causal clause.

[6:12]  ⁶ tn Heb “and [since] I am of uncircumcised lips.” The “lips” represent his speech (metonymy of cause). The term “uncircumcised” makes a comparison between his speech and that which Israel perceived as unacceptable, unprepared, foreign, and of no use to God. The heart is described this way when it is impervious to good impressions (Lev 26:41; Jer 9:26) and the ear when it hears imperfectly (Jer 6:10). Moses has here returned to his earlier claim – he does not speak well enough to be doing this.

[8:26]  ⁴ tn The clause is a little unusual in its formation. The form נָכוֹן (nakhon) is the Niphal participle from כּוּן (kun), which usually means “firm, fixed, steadfast,” but here it has a rare meaning of “right, fitting, appropriate.” It functions in the sentence as the predicate adjective, because the infinitive לַעֲשּׂוֹת (la’asot) is the subject – “to do so is not right.”

[8:26]  ⁵ tn This translation has been smoothed out to capture the sense. The text literally says, “for the abomination of Egypt we will sacrifice to Yahweh our God.” In other words, the animals that Israel would sacrifice were sacred to Egypt, and sacrificing them would have been abhorrent to the Egyptians.

[8:26]  ⁶ tn An “abomination” is something that is off-limits, something that is tabu. It could be translated “detestable” or “loathsome.”

[8:26]  ⁷ sn U. Cassuto (Exodus, 109) says there are two ways to understand “the abomination of the Egyptians.” One is that the sacrifice of the sacred animals would appear an abominable thing in the eyes of the Egyptians, and the other is that the word “abomination” could be a derogatory term for idols – we sacrifice what is an Egyptian idol. So that is why he says if they did this the Egyptians would stone them.

[8:26]  ⁸ tn Heb “if we sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians [or “of Egypt”] before their eyes.”

[8:26]  ⁹ tn The interrogative clause has no particle to indicate it is a question, but it is connected with the conjunction to the preceding clause, and the meaning of these clauses indicate it is a question (GKC 473 §150.a).