Exodus 6:6

6:6 Therefore, tell the Israelites, ‘I am the Lord. I will bring you out ¹  from your enslavement to ²  the Egyptians, I will rescue you from the hard labor they impose, ³  and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments.

Exodus 7:5

7:5 Then ⁴  the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord, when I extend my hand ⁵  over Egypt and bring the Israelites out from among them.

Exodus 9:15

9:15 For by now I could have stretched out ⁶  my hand and struck you and your people with plague, and you would have been destroyed ⁷  from the earth.

Ezekiel 20:33

20:33 As surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, with a powerful hand and an outstretched arm, ⁸  and with an outpouring of rage, I will be king over you.

[6:6]  ¹ 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]  ² tn Heb “from under the burdens of” (so KJV, NASB); NIV “from under the yoke of.”

[6:6]  ³ tn Heb “from labor of them.” The antecedent of the pronoun is the Egyptians who have imposed slave labor on the Hebrews.

[7:5]  ⁴ tn The emphasis on sequence is clear because the form is the perfect tense with the vav consecutive.

[7:5]  ⁵ sn This is another anthropomorphism, parallel to the preceding. If God were to “put” (נָתַן, natan), “extend” (נָטָה, nata), or “reach out” (שָׁלַח, shalakh) his hand against them, they would be destroyed. Contrast Exod 24:11.

[9:15]  ⁶ tn The verb is the Qal perfect שָׁלַחְתִּי (shalakhti), but a past tense, or completed action translation does not fit the context at all. Gesenius lists this reference as an example of the use of the perfect to express actions and facts, whose accomplishment is to be represented not as actual but only as possible. He offers this for Exod 9:15: “I had almost put forth” (GKC 313 §106.p). Also possible is “I should have stretched out my hand.” Others read the potential nuance instead, and render it as “I could have…” as in the present translation.

[9:15]  ⁷ tn The verb כָּחַד (kakhad) means “to hide, efface,” and in the Niphal it has the idea of “be effaced, ruined, destroyed.” Here it will carry the nuance of the result of the preceding verbs: “I could have stretched out my hand…and struck you…and (as a result) you would have been destroyed.”

[20:33]  ⁸ sn This phrase occurs frequently in Deuteronomy (Deut 4:34; 5:15; 7:19; 11:2; 26:8).