Exodus 9:14

9:14 For this time I will send all my plagues ¹  on your very self ²  and on your servants and your people, so that you may know that there is no one like me in all the earth.

Exodus 17:7

17:7 He called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the contending of the Israelites and because of their testing the Lord, ³  saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

Exodus 22:10

22:10 If a man gives his neighbor a donkey or an ox or a sheep or any beast to keep, and it dies or is hurt ⁴  or is carried away ⁵  without anyone seeing it, ⁶ 

[9:14]  ¹ tn The expression “all my plagues” points to the rest of the plagues and anticipates the proper outcome. Another view is to take the expression to mean the full brunt of the attack on the Egyptian people.

[9:14]  ² tn Heb “to your heart.” The expression is unusual, but it may be an allusion to the hard heartedness of Pharaoh – his stubbornness and blindness (B. Jacob, Exodus, 274).

[17:7]  ³ sn The name Massah (מַסָּה, massah) means “Proving”; it is derived from the verb “test, prove, try.” And the name Meribah (מְרִיבָה, mÿrivah) means “Strife”; it is related to the verb “to strive, quarrel, contend.” The choice of these names for the place would serve to remind Israel for all time of this failure with God. God wanted this and all subsequent generations to know how unbelief challenges God. And yet, he gave them water. So in spite of their failure, he remained faithful to his promises. The incident became proverbial, for it is the warning in Ps 95:7-8, which is quoted in Heb 3:15: “Oh, that today you would listen as he speaks! Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of testing in the wilderness. There your fathers tested me and tried me, and they saw my works for forty years.” The lesson is clear enough: to persist in this kind of unbelief could only result in the loss of divine blessing. Or, to put it another way, if they refused to believe in the power of God, they would wander powerless in the wilderness. They had every reason to believe, but they did not. (Note that this does not mean they are unbelievers, only that they would not take God at his word.)

[22:10]  ⁵ tn The form is a Niphal participle from the verb “to break” – “is broken,” which means harmed, maimed, or hurt in any way.

[22:10]  ⁶ tn This verb is frequently used with the meaning “to take captive.” The idea here then is that raiders or robbers have carried off the animal.

[22:10]  ⁷ tn Heb “there is no one seeing.”