Exodus 7:10

7:10 When ¹  Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh, they did so, just as the Lord had commanded them – Aaron threw ²  down his staff before Pharaoh and his servants and it became a snake. ³ 

Exodus 16:16

16:16 “This is what ⁴  the Lord has commanded: ⁵  ‘Each person is to gather ⁶  from it what he can eat, an omer ⁷  per person ⁸  according to the number ⁹  of your people; ¹⁰  each one will pick it up ¹¹  for whoever lives ¹²  in his tent.’”

Exodus 17:1

Water at Massa and Meribah

17:1 ¹³ The whole community ¹⁴  of the Israelites traveled on their journey ¹⁵  from the Desert of Sin according to the Lord’s instruction, and they pitched camp in Rephidim. ¹⁶  Now ¹⁷  there was no water for the people to drink. ¹⁸ 

Exodus 31:6

31:6 Moreover, ¹⁹  I have also given him Oholiab son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan, and I have given ability to all the specially skilled, ²⁰  that they may make ²¹  everything I have commanded you:

Exodus 34:4

34:4 So Moses ²²  cut out two tablets of stone like the first; ²³  early in the morning he went up ²⁴  to Mount Sinai, just as the Lord had commanded him, and he took in his hand the two tablets of stone.

Exodus 34:18

34:18 “You must keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. For seven days ²⁵  you must eat bread made without yeast, as I commanded you; do this ²⁶  at the appointed time of the month Abib, for in the month Abib you came out of Egypt.

Exodus 34:34

34:34 But when Moses went in ²⁷  before the Lord to speak with him, he would remove the veil until he came out. ²⁸  Then he would come out and tell the Israelites what he had been commanded. ²⁹ 

Exodus 35:29

35:29 The Israelites brought a freewill offering to the Lord, every man and woman whose heart was willing to bring materials for all the work that the Lord through ³⁰  Moses had commanded them ³¹  to do.

[7:10]  ¹ tn The clause begins with the preterite and the vav (ו) consecutive; it is here subordinated to the next clause as a temporal clause.

[7:10]  ² tn Heb “and Aaron threw.”

[7:10]  ³ tn The noun used here is תַּנִּין (tannin), and not the word for “serpent” or “snake” used in chap. 4. This noun refers to a large reptile, in some texts large river or sea creatures (Gen 1:21; Ps 74:13) or land creatures (Deut 32:33). This wonder paralleled Moses’ miracle in 4:3 when he cast his staff down. But this is Aaron’s staff, and a different miracle. The noun could still be rendered “snake” here since the term could be broad enough to include it.

[16:16]  ⁴ tn Heb “the thing that.”

[16:16]  ⁵ tn The perfect tense could be taken as a definite past with Moses now reporting it. In this case a very recent past. But in declaring the word from Yahweh it could be instantaneous, and receive a present tense translation – “here and now he commands you.”

[16:16]  ⁶ tn The form is the plural imperative: “Gather [you] each man according to his eating.”

[16:16]  ⁷ sn The omer is an amount mentioned only in this chapter, and its size is unknown, except by comparison with the ephah (v. 36). A number of recent English versions approximate the omer as “two quarts” (cf. NCV, CEV, NLT); TEV “two litres.”

[16:16]  ⁸ tn Heb “for a head.”

[16:16]  ⁹ tn The word “number” is an accusative that defines more precisely how much was to be gathered (see GKC 374 §118.h).

[16:16]  ¹⁰ tn Traditionally “souls.”

[16:16]  ¹¹ tn Heb “will take.”

[16:16]  ¹² tn “lives” has been supplied.

[17:1]  ⁷ sn This is the famous story telling how the people rebelled against Yahweh when they thirsted, saying that Moses had brought them out into the wilderness to kill them by thirst, and how Moses with the staff brought water from the rock. As a result of this the name was called Massa and Meribah because of the testing and the striving. It was a challenge to Moses’ leadership as well as a test of Yahweh’s presence. The narrative in its present form serves an important point in the argument of the book. The story turns on the gracious provision of God who can give his people water when there is none available. The narrative is structured to show how the people strove. Thus, the story intertwines God’s free flowing grace with the sad memory of Israel’s sins. The passage can be divided into three parts: the situation and the complaint (1-3), the cry and the miracle (4-6), and the commemoration by naming (7).

[17:1]  ⁸ tn Or “congregation” (KJV, ASV, NASB, NRSV).

[17:1]  ⁹ tn The text says that they journeyed “according to their journeyings.” Since the verb form (and therefore the derived noun) essentially means to pull up the tent pegs and move along, this verse would be saying that they traveled by stages, or, from place to place.

[17:1]  ¹⁰ sn The location is a bit of a problem. Exod 19:1-2 suggests that it is near Sinai, whereas it is normally located near Kadesh in the north. Without any details provided, M. Noth concludes that two versions came together (Exodus [OTL], 138). S. R. Driver says that the writer wrote not knowing that they were 24 miles apart (Exodus, 157). Critics have long been bothered by this passage because of the two names given at the same place. If two sources had been brought together, it is not possible now to identify them. But Noth insisted that if there were two names there were two different locations. The names Massah and Meribah occur alone in Scripture (Deut 9:22, and Num 20:1 for examples), but together in Ps 95 and in Deut 33:8. But none of these passages is a clarification of the difficulty. Most critics would argue that Massah was a secondary element that was introduced into this account, because Exod 17 focuses on Meribah. From that starting point they can diverge greatly on the interpretation, usually having something to do with a water test. But although Num 20 is parallel in several ways, there are major differences: 1) it takes place 40 years later than this, 2) the name Kadesh is joined to the name Meribah there, and 3) Moses is punished there. One must conclude that if an event could occur twice in similar ways (complaint about water would be a good candidate for such), then there is no reason a similar name could not be given.

[17:1]  ¹¹ tn The disjunctive vav introduces a parenthetical clause that is essential for this passage – there was no water.

[17:1]  ¹² tn Here the construction uses a genitive after the infinitive construct for the subject: “there was no water for the drinking of the people” (GKC 353-54 §115.c).

[31:6]  ¹⁰ tn The expression uses the independent personal pronoun (“and I”) with the deictic particle (“behold”) to enforce the subject of the verb – “and I, indeed I have given.”

[31:6]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and in the heart of all that are wise-hearted I have put wisdom.”

[31:6]  ¹² tn The form is a perfect with vav (ו) consecutive. The form at this place shows the purpose or the result of what has gone before, and so it is rendered “that they may make.”

[34:4]  ¹³ tn Heb “he”; the referent has been specified here and the name “Moses,” which occurs later in this verse, has been replaced with the pronoun (“he”), both for stylistic reasons.

[34:4]  ¹⁴ sn Deuteronomy says that Moses was also to make an ark of acacia wood before the tablets, apparently to put the tablets in until the sanctuary was built. But this ark may not have been the ark built later; or, it might be the wood box, but Bezalel still had to do all the golden work with it.

[34:4]  ¹⁵ tn The line reads “and Moses got up early in the morning and went up.” These verbs likely form a verbal hendiadys, the first one with its prepositional phrase serving in an adverbial sense.

[34:18]  ¹⁶ tn This is an adverbial accusative of time.

[34:18]  ¹⁷ tn The words “do this” have been supplied.

[34:34]  ¹⁹ tn The construction uses a infinitive construct for the temporal clause; it is prefixed with the temporal preposition: “and in the going in of Moses.”

[34:34]  ²⁰ tn The temporal clause begins with the temporal preposition “until,” followed by an infinitive construct with the suffixed subjective genitive.

[34:34]  ²¹ tn The form is the Pual imperfect, but since the context demands a past tense here, in fact a past perfect tense, this is probably an old preterite form without a vav consecutive.

[35:29]  ²² tn Heb “by the hand of.”

[35:29]  ²³ tn Here “them” has been supplied.