Exodus 7:23

7:23 And Pharaoh turned and went into his house. He did not pay any attention to this. ¹ 

Exodus 7:1

7:1 So the Lord said to Moses, “See, I have made you like God ²  to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron will be your prophet. ³ 

Exodus 4:20

4:20 Then Moses took ⁴  his wife and sons ⁵  and put them on a donkey and headed back ⁶  to the land of Egypt, and Moses took the staff of God in his hand.

Exodus 4:1

The Source of Sufficiency

4:1 ⁷ Moses answered again, ⁸  “And if ⁹  they do not believe me or pay attention to me, ¹⁰  but say, ‘The Lord has not appeared to you’?”

Exodus 22:19

22:19 “Whoever has sexual relations ¹¹  with a beast must surely be put to death.

Job 7:17

Insignificance of Humans

7:17 “What is mankind ¹²  that you make so much of them, ¹³ 

and that you pay attention ¹⁴  to them?

Job 34:14

34:14 If God ¹⁵  were to set his heart on it, ¹⁶ 

and gather in his spirit and his breath,

Proverbs 24:32

24:32 When I saw this, I gave careful consideration to it; ¹⁷ 

I received instruction from what I saw: ¹⁸ 

Ezekiel 40:4

40:4 The man said to me, “Son of man, watch closely, listen carefully, and pay attention ¹⁹  to everything I show you, for you have been brought here so that I can show it to you. ²⁰  Tell the house of Israel everything you see.”

Daniel 10:12

10:12 Then he said to me, “Don’t be afraid, Daniel, for from the very first day you applied your mind ²¹  to understand and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard. I have come in response to your words.

[7:23]  ¹ tn The text has וְלֹא־שָׁת לִבּוֹ גַּם־לָזֹאת (vÿlo’-shat libbo gam-lazo’t), which literally says, “and he did not set his heart also to this.” To “set the heart” to something would mean “to consider it.” This Hebrew idiom means that he did not pay attention to it, or take it to heart (cf. 2 Sam 13:20; Ps 48:13; 62:10; Prov 22:17; 24:32). Since Pharaoh had not been affected by this, he did not consider it or its implications further.

[7:1]  ² tn The word “like” is added for clarity, making explicit the implied comparison in the statement “I have made you God to Pharaoh.” The word אֱלֹהִים (’elohim) is used a few times in the Bible for humans (e.g., Pss 45:6; 82:1), and always clearly in the sense of a subordinate to GOD – they are his representatives on earth. The explanation here goes back to 4:16. If Moses is like God in that Aaron is his prophet, then Moses is certainly like God to Pharaoh. Only Moses, then, is able to speak to Pharaoh with such authority, giving him commands.

[7:1]  ³ tn The word נְבִיאֶךָ (nÿvi’ekha, “your prophet”) recalls 4:16. Moses was to be like God to Aaron, and Aaron was to speak for him. This indicates that the idea of a “prophet” was of one who spoke for God, an idea with which Moses and Aaron and the readers of Exodus are assumed to be familiar.

[4:20]  ⁴ tn Heb “And Moses took.”

[4:20]  ⁵ sn Only Gershom has been mentioned so far. The other son’s name will be explained in chapter 18. The explanation of Gershom’s name was important to Moses’ sojourn in Midian. The explanation of the name Eliezer fits better in the later chapter (18:2-4).

[4:20]  ⁶ tn The verb would literally be rendered “and returned”; however, the narrative will record other happenings before he arrived in Egypt, so an ingressive nuance fits here – he began to return, or started back.

[4:1]  ⁷ sn In chap. 3, the first part of this extensive call, Yahweh promises to deliver his people. At the hesitancy of Moses, God guarantees his presence will be with him, and that assures the success of the mission. But with chap. 4, the second half of the call, the tone changes sharply. Now Moses protests his inadequacies in view of the nature of the task. In many ways, these verses address the question, “Who is sufficient for these things?” There are three basic movements in the passage. The first nine verses tell how God gave Moses signs in case Israel did not believe him (4:1-9). The second section records how God dealt with the speech problem of Moses (4:10-12). And finally, the last section records God’s provision of a helper, someone who could talk well (4:13-17). See also J. E. Hamlin, “The Liberator’s Ordeal: A Study of Exodus 4:1-9,” Rhetorical Criticism [PTMS], 33-42.

[4:1]  ⁸ tn Heb “and Moses answered and said.”

[4:1]  ⁹ tn Or “What if.” The use of הֵן (hen) is unusual here, introducing a conditional idea in the question without a following consequence clause (see Exod 8:22 HT [8:26 ET]; Jer 2:10; 2 Chr 7:13). The Greek has “if not” but adds the clause “what shall I say to them?”

[4:1]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “listen to my voice,” so as to respond positively.

[22:19]  ¹¹ tn Heb “lies with.”

[7:17]  ¹² tn The verse is a rhetorical question; it is intended to mean that man is too little for God to be making so much over him in all this.

[7:17]  ¹³ tn The Piel verb is a factitive meaning “to magnify.” The English word “magnify” might not be the best translation here, for God, according to Job, is focusing inordinately on him. It means to magnify in thought, appreciate, think highly of. God, Job argues, is making too much of mankind by devoting so much bad attention on them.

[7:17]  ¹⁴ tn The expression “set your heart on” means “concentrate your mind on” or “pay attention to.”

[34:14]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[34:14]  ¹⁶ tc This is the reading following the Qere. The Kethib and the Syriac and the LXX suggest a reading יָשִׂים (yasim, “if he [God] recalls”). But this would require leaving out “his heart,” and would also require redividing the verse to make “his spirit” the object. It makes better parallelism, but may require too many changes.

[24:32]  ¹⁷ sn Heb “I set my heart.” The “heart” represents the mind and the will combined; to “set” the mind and will means to give careful consideration to what was observed.

[24:32]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “I looked, I received instruction.” There are four verbs in the two parts of this verse: “I saw…I set…I saw…I received.” It is clear that the first two verbs in each half verse are the foundation for the next two. At the beginning of the verse the form is the preterite with the vav (ו) consecutive; it can be subordinated as a temporal clause to the next verb, probably to be identified as a preterite with the vav – “when I saw, I put.” The next two verbs are both perfect tenses; their construction would parallel the first half of the verse, even though there are no conjunctions here – “[when] I saw, I received.”

[40:4]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “look with your eyes, hear with your ears, and set your mind on.”

[40:4]  ²⁰ tn Heb “in order to show (it) to you.”

[10:12]  ²¹ tn Heb “gave your heart.”