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 8:20

The Fourth Blow: Flies

8:20 ⁶ The Lord ⁷  said to Moses, “Get up early in the morning and position yourself before Pharaoh as he goes out to the water, and tell him, ‘Thus says the Lord, “Release my people that they may serve me!

Exodus 15:1

The Song of Triumph

15:1 ⁸ Then Moses and the Israelites sang ⁹  this song to the Lord. They said, ¹⁰ 

“I will sing ¹¹  to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously, ¹² 

the horse and its rider ¹³  he has thrown into the sea.

Exodus 15:19

15:19 For the horses of Pharaoh came with his chariots and his footmen into the sea,

and the Lord brought back the waters of the sea on them,

but the Israelites walked on dry land in the middle of the sea.”

Exodus 17:14

17:14 The Lord said to Moses, “Write this as a memorial in the ¹⁴  book, and rehearse ¹⁵  it in Joshua’s hearing; ¹⁶  for I will surely wipe out ¹⁷  the remembrance ¹⁸  of Amalek from under heaven.

Exodus 19:16

19:16 On ¹⁹  the third day in the morning there was thunder and lightning and a dense ²⁰  cloud on the mountain, and the sound of a very loud ²¹  horn; ²²  all the people who were in the camp trembled.

Exodus 19:18

19:18 Now Mount Sinai was completely covered with smoke because the Lord had descended on it in fire, and its smoke went up like the smoke of a great furnace, ²³  and the whole mountain shook ²⁴  violently.

Exodus 26:13

26:13 The foot and a half ²⁵  on the one side and the foot and a half on the other side of what remains in the length of the curtains of the tent will hang over the sides of the tabernacle, on one side and the other side, to cover it. ²⁶ 

Exodus 32:4

32:4 He accepted the gold ²⁷  from them, ²⁸  fashioned ²⁹  it with an engraving tool, and made a molten calf. ³⁰  Then they said, “These are your gods, ³¹  O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”

[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.”

[8:20]  ⁶ sn The announcement of the fourth plague parallels that of the first plague. Now there will be flies, likely dogflies. Egypt has always suffered from flies, more so in the summer than in the winter. But the flies the plague describes involve something greater than any normal season for flies. The main point that can be stressed in this plague comes by tracing the development of the plagues in their sequence. Now, with the flies, it becomes clear that God can inflict suffering on some people and preserve others – a preview of the coming judgment that will punish Egypt but set Israel free. God is fully able to keep the dog-fly in the land of the Egyptians and save his people from these judgments.

[8:20]  ⁷ tn Heb “And Yahweh said.”

[15:1]  ¹¹ sn This chapter is a song of praise sung by Moses and the people right after the deliverance from the Sea. The song itself is vv. 1b-18; it falls into three sections – praise to God (1b-3), the cause for the praise (4-13), and the conclusion (14-18). The point of the first section is that God’s saving acts inspire praise from his people; the second is that God’s powerful acts deliver his people from the forces of evil; and the third section is that God’s demonstrations of his sovereignty inspire confidence in him by his people. So the Victory Song is very much like the other declarative praise psalms – the resolve to praise, the power of God, the victory over the enemies, the incomparability of God in his redemption, and the fear of the people. See also C. Cohen, “Studies in Early Israelite Poetry I: An Unrecognized Case of Three Line Staircase Parallelism in the Song of the Sea,” JANESCU 7 (1975): 13-17; D. N. Freedman, “Strophe and Meter in Exodus 15,” A Light unto My Path, 163-203; E. Levine, “Neofiti I: A Study of Exodus 15,” Bib 54 (1973): 301-30; T. C. Butler, “‘The Song of the Sea’: Exodus 15:1-18: A Study in the Exegesis of Hebrew Poetry,” DissAb 32 (1971): 2782-A.

[15:1]  ¹² tn The verb is יָשִׁיר (yashir), a normal imperfect tense form. But after the adverb “then” this form is to be treated as a preterite (see GKC 314-15 §107.c).

[15:1]  ¹³ tn Heb “and they said, saying.” This has been simplified in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[15:1]  ¹⁴ tn The form is the singular cohortative, expressing the resolution of Moses to sing the song of praise (“I will” being stronger than “I shall”).

[15:1]  ¹⁵ tn This causal clause gives the reason for and summary of the praise. The Hebrew expression has כִּי־גָּאֹה גָּאָה (ki ga’oh ga’ah). The basic idea of the verb is “rise up loftily” or “proudly.” But derivatives of the root carry the nuance of majesty or pride (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 132). So the idea of the perfect tense with its infinitive absolute may mean “he is highly exalted” or “he has done majestically” or “he is gloriously glorious.”

[15:1]  ¹⁶ sn The common understanding is that Egypt did not have people riding horses at this time, and so the phrase the horse and its rider is either viewed as an anachronism or is interpreted to mean charioteers. The word “to ride” can mean on a horse or in a chariot. Some have suggested changing “rider” to “chariot” (re-vocalization) to read “the horse and its chariot.”

[17:14]  ¹⁶ tn The presence of the article does not mean that he was to write this in a book that was existing now, but in one dedicated to this purpose (book, meaning scroll). See GKC 408 §126.s.

[17:14]  ¹⁷ tn The Hebrew word is “place,” meaning that the events were to be impressed on Joshua.

[17:14]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “in the ears of Joshua.” The account should be read to Joshua.

[17:14]  ¹⁹ tn The construction uses the infinitive absolute and the imperfect tense to stress the resolution of Yahweh to destroy Amalek. The verb מָחָה (makhah) is often translated “blot out” – but that is not a very satisfactory image, since it would not remove completely what is the object. “Efface, erase, scrape off” (as in a palimpsest, a manuscript that is scraped clean so it can be reused) is a more accurate image.

[17:14]  ²⁰ sn This would seem to be defeated by the preceding statement that the events would be written in a book for a memorial. If this war is recorded, then the Amalekites would be remembered. But here God was going to wipe out the memory of them. But the idea of removing the memory of a people is an idiom for destroying them – they will have no posterity and no lasting heritage.

[19:16]  ²¹ tn Heb “and it was on.”

[19:16]  ²² tn Heb “heavy” (כָּבֵד, kaved).

[19:16]  ²³ tn Literally “strong” (חָזָק, khazaq).

[19:16]  ²⁴ tn The word here is שֹׁפָר (shofar), the normal word for “horn.” This word is used especially to announce something important in a public event (see 1 Kgs 1:34; 2 Sam 6:15). The previous word used in the context (v. 16) was יֹבֵל (yovel, “ram’s horn”).

[19:18]  ²⁶ sn The image is that of a large kiln, as in Gen 19:28.

[19:18]  ²⁷ tn This is the same word translated “trembled” above (v. 16).

[26:13]  ³¹ tn Literally “cubit.”

[26:13]  ³² sn U. Cassuto states the following: “To the north and to the south, since the tent curtains were thirty cubits long, there were ten cubits left over on each side; these covered the nine cubits of the curtains of the tabernacle and also the bottom cubit of the boards, which the tabernacle curtains did not suffice to cover. It is to this that v. 13 refers” (Exodus, 353).

[32:4]  ³⁶ tn Here “the gold” has been supplied.

[32:4]  ³⁷ tn Heb “from their hand.”

[32:4]  ³⁸ tn The verb looks similar to יָצַר (yatsar), “to form, fashion” by a plan or a design. That is the verb used in Gen 2:7 for Yahweh God forming the man from the dust of the ground. If it is here, it is the reverse, a human – the dust of the ground – trying to form a god or gods. The active participle of this verb in Hebrew is “the potter.” A related noun is the word יֵצֶּר (yetser), “evil inclination,” the wicked designs or intent of the human heart (Gen 6:5). But see the discussion by B. S. Childs (Exodus [OTL], 555-56) on a different reading, one that links the root to a hollow verb meaning “to cast out of metal” (as in 1 Kgs 7:15).

[32:4]  ³⁹ sn The word means a “young bull” and need not be translated as “calf” (although “calf” has become the traditional rendering in English). The word could describe an animal three years old. Aaron probably made an inner structure of wood and then, after melting down the gold, plated it. The verb “molten” does not need to imply that the image was solid gold; the word is used in Isa 30:22 for gold plating. So it was a young bull calf that was overlaid with gold, and the gold was fashioned with the stylus.

[32:4]  ⁴⁰ tn The word could be singular here and earlier; here it would then be “this is your god, O Israel.” However, the use of “these” indicates more than one god was meant by the image. But their statement and their statue, although they do not use the holy name, violate the first two commandments.