Exodus 7:15

7:15 Go to Pharaoh in the morning when ¹  he goes out to the water. Position yourself ²  to meet him by the edge of the Nile, ³  and take ⁴  in your hand the staff ⁵  that was turned into a snake.

Exodus 33:8

33:8 And when Moses went out ⁶  to the tent, all the people would get up ⁷  and stand at the entrance to their tents ⁸  and watch ⁹  Moses until he entered the tent. ¹⁰ 

Exodus 34:2

34:2 Be prepared ¹¹  in the morning, and go up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and station yourself ¹²  for me there on the top of the mountain.

[7:15]  ¹ tn The clause begins with הִנֵּה (hinneh); here it provides the circumstances for the instruction for Moses – he is going out to the water so go meet him. A temporal clause translation captures the connection between the clauses.

[7:15]  ² tn The instruction to Moses continues with this perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive following the imperative. The verb means “to take a stand, station oneself.” It seems that Pharaoh’s going out to the water was a regular feature of his day and that Moses could be there waiting to meet him.

[7:15]  ³ sn The Nile, the source of fertility for the country, was deified by the Egyptians. There were religious festivals held to the god of the Nile, especially when the Nile was flooding. The Talmud suggests that Pharaoh in this passage went out to the Nile to make observations as a magician about its level. Others suggest he went out simply to bathe or to check the water level – but that would not change the view of the Nile that was prevalent in the land.

[7:15]  ⁴ tn The verb תִּקַּח (tiqqakh), the Qal imperfect of לָקַח (laqakh), functions here as the imperfect of instruction, or injunction perhaps, given the word order of the clause.

[7:15]  ⁵ tn The final clause begins with the noun and vav disjunctive, which singles this instruction out for special attention – “now the staff…you are to take.”

[33:8]  ⁶ tn The clause is introduced again with “and it was.” The perfect tense here with the vav (ו) is used to continue the sequence of actions that were done repeatedly in the past (see GKC 331-32 §112.e). The temporal clause is then formed with the infinitive construct of יָצָא (yatsa’), with “Moses” as the subjective genitive: “and it was according to the going out of Moses.”

[33:8]  ⁷ tn Or “rise up.”

[33:8]  ⁸ tn The subject of this verb is specified with the individualizing use of “man”: “and all Israel would station themselves, each person (man) at the entrance to his tent.”

[33:8]  ⁹ tn The perfect tense with the vav (ו) continues the sequence of the customary imperfect. The people “would gaze” (after) Moses until he entered the tent.

[33:8]  ¹⁰ tn This is a temporal clause using an infinitive construct with a suffixed subject.

[34:2]  ¹¹ tn The form is a Niphal participle that means “be prepared, be ready.” This probably means that Moses was to do in preparation what the congregation had to do back in Exod 19:11-15.

[34:2]  ¹² sn The same word is used in Exod 33:21. It is as if Moses was to be at his post when Yahweh wanted to communicate to him.