Exodus 8:20

The Fourth Blow: Flies

8:20 ¹ The Lord ²  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 9:13

The Seventh Blow: Hail

9:13 ³ The Lord said ⁴  to Moses, “Get up early in the morning, stand ⁵  before Pharaoh, and tell him, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of the Hebrews: “Release my people so that they may serve me!

Exodus 16:8

16:8 Moses said, “You will know this ⁶  when the Lord gives you ⁷  meat to eat in the evening and bread in the morning to satisfy you, because the Lord has heard your murmurings that you are murmuring against him. As for us, what are we? ⁸  Your murmurings are not against us, ⁹  but against the Lord.”

Exodus 24:4

24:4 and Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord. Early in the morning he built ¹⁰  an altar at the foot ¹¹  of the mountain and arranged ¹²  twelve standing stones ¹³  – according to the twelve tribes of Israel.

Exodus 34:4

34:4 So Moses ¹⁴  cut out two tablets of stone like the first; ¹⁵  early in the morning he went up ¹⁶  to Mount Sinai, just as the Lord had commanded him, and he took in his hand the two tablets of stone.

[8:20]  ¹ 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]  ² tn Heb “And Yahweh said.”

[9:13]  ³ sn With the seventh plague there is more explanation of what God is doing to Pharaoh. This plague begins with an extended lesson (vv. 13-21). Rain was almost unknown in Egypt, and hail and lightning were harmless. The Egyptians were fascinated by all these, though, and looked on them as portentous. Herodotus describes how they studied such things and wrote them down (1.2.c.38). If ordinary rainstorms were ominous, what must fire and hail have been? The Egyptians had denominated fire Hephaistos, considering it to be a mighty deity (cf. Diodorus, 1.1.c.1). Porphry says that at the opening of the temple of Serapis the Egyptians worshiped with water and fire. If these connections were clearly understood, then these elements in the plague were thought to be deities that came down on their own people with death and destruction.

[9:13]  ⁴ tn Heb “and Yahweh said.”

[9:13]  ⁵ tn Or “take your stand.”

[16:8]  ⁵ tn “You will know this” has been added to make the line smooth. Because of the abruptness of the lines in the verse, and the repetition with v. 7, B. S. Childs (Exodus [OTL], 273) thinks that v. 8 is merely a repetition by scribal error – even though the versions render it as the MT has it. But B. Jacob (Exodus, 447) suggests that the contrast with vv. 6 and 7 is important for another reason – there Moses and Aaron speak, and it is smooth and effective, but here only Moses speaks, and it is labored and clumsy. “We should realize that Moses had properly claimed to be no public speaker.”

[16:8]  ⁶ tn Here again is an infinitive construct with the preposition forming a temporal clause.

[16:8]  ⁷ tn The words “as for us” attempt to convey the force of the Hebrew word order, which puts emphasis on the pronoun: “and we – what?” The implied answer to the question is that Moses and Aaron are nothing, merely the messengers.

[16:8]  ⁸ tn The word order is “not against us [are] your murmurings.”

[24:4]  ⁷ tn The two preterites quite likely form a verbal hendiadys (the verb “to get up early” is frequently in such constructions). Literally it says, “and he got up early [in the morning] and he built”; this means “early [in the morning] he built.” The first verb becomes the adverb.

[24:4]  ⁸ tn “under.”

[24:4]  ⁹ tn The verb “arranged” is not in the Hebrew text but has been supplied to clarify exactly what Moses did with the twelve stones.

[24:4]  ¹⁰ tn The thing numbered is found in the singular when the number is plural – “twelve standing-stone.” See GKC 433 §134.f. The “standing-stone” could be a small piece about a foot high, or a huge column higher than men. They served to commemorate treaties (Gen 32), or visions (Gen 28) or boundaries, or graves. Here it will function with the altar as a place of worship.

[34:4]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ 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]  ¹¹ 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.