Genesis 24:26-27

24:26 The man bowed his head and worshiped the Lord, 24:27 saying “Praised be the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who has not abandoned his faithful love ¹  for my master! The Lord has led me ²  to the house ³  of my master’s relatives!” ⁴ 

Genesis 24:48

24:48 Then I bowed down and worshiped the Lord. I praised the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who had led me on the right path to find the granddaughter ⁵  of my master’s brother for his son.

Exodus 4:30-31

4:30 Aaron spoke ⁶  all the words that the Lord had spoken to Moses and did the signs in the sight of the people, 4:31 and the people believed. When they heard ⁷  that the Lord had attended to ⁸  the Israelites and that he had seen their affliction, they bowed down close to the ground. ⁹ 

Exodus 4:2

4:2 The Lord said to him, “What is that in your hand?” He said, “A staff.” ¹⁰ 

Exodus 20:18-19

20:18 All the people were seeing ¹¹  the thundering and the lightning, and heard ¹²  the sound of the horn, and saw ¹³  the mountain smoking – and when ¹⁴  the people saw it they trembled with fear ¹⁵  and kept their distance. ¹⁶  20:19 They said to Moses, “You speak ¹⁷  to us and we will listen, but do not let God speak with us, lest we die.”

[24:27]  ¹ tn Heb “his faithfulness and his commitment.”

[24:27]  ² tn Heb “As for me – in the way the Lord led me.”

[24:27]  ³ tn Here “house” is an adverbial accusative of termination.

[24:27]  ⁴ tn Heb “brothers.”

[24:48]  ⁵ tn Heb “daughter.” Rebekah was actually the granddaughter of Nahor, Abraham’s brother. One can either translate the Hebrew term בַּת (bat) as “daughter,” in which case the term אָח (’akh) must be translated more generally as “relative” rather than “brother” (cf. NASB, NRSV) or one can translate בַּת as “granddaughter,” in which case אָח may be translated “brother” (cf. NIV).

[4:30]  ⁶ tn Heb “And Aaron spoke.”

[4:31]  ⁷ tc The LXX (Greek OT) has “and they rejoiced,” probably reading וַיִּשְׂמְחוּ (vayyismÿkhu) instead of what the MT reading, וַיִּשְׂמְעוּ (vayyismÿ’u, “and they heard”). To rejoice would have seemed a natural response of the people at the news, and the words sound similar in Hebrew.

[4:31]  ⁸ tn Or “intervened for.” The word פָּקַד (paqad) has traditionally been translated “visited,” which is open to many interpretations. It means that God intervened in the life of the Israelites to bless them with the fulfillment of the promises. It says more than that he took notice of them, took pity on them, or remembered them. He had not yet fulfilled the promises, but he had begun to act by calling Moses and Aaron. The translation “attended to” attempts to capture that much.

[4:31]  ⁹ tn The verb וַיִּשְׁתַּחֲוּוּ (vayyishtakhavu) is usually rendered “worshiped.” More specifically, the verbal root חָוָה (khava) in the hishtaphel stem means “to cause oneself to be low to the ground.” While there is nothing wrong with giving it a general translation of “worship,” it may be better in a passage like this to take it in conjunction with the other verb (“bow”) as a verbal hendiadys, using it as an adverb to that verb. The implication is certainly that they prayed, or praised, and performed some other aspect of worship, but the text may just be describing it from their posture of worship. With this response, all the fears of Moses are swept aside – they believed and they were thankful to God.

[4:2]  ¹⁰ tn Or “rod” (KJV, ASV); NCV, CEV “walking stick”; NLT “shepherd’s staff.”

[20:18]  ¹¹ tn The participle is used here for durative action in the past time (GKC 359 §116.o).

[20:18]  ¹² tn The verb “to see” (רָאָה, ra’ah) refers to seeing with all the senses, or perceiving. W. C. Kaiser suggests that this is an example of the figure of speech called zeugma because the verb “saw” yokes together two objects, one that suits the verb and the other that does not. So, the verb “heard” is inserted here to clarify (“Exodus,” EBC 2:427).

[20:18]  ¹³ tn The verb “saw” is supplied here because it is expected in English (see the previous note on “heard”).

[20:18]  ¹⁴ tn The preterite with vav (ו) consecutive is here subordinated as a temporal clause to the following clause, which receives the prominence.

[20:18]  ¹⁵ tn The meaning of נוּעַ (nua’) is “to shake, sway to and fro” in fear. Compare Isa 7:2 – “and his heart shook…as the trees of the forest shake with the wind.”

[20:18]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “and they stood from/at a distance.”

[20:19]  ¹⁷ tn The verb is a Piel imperative. In this context it has more of the sense of a request than a command. The independent personal pronoun “you” emphasizes the subject and forms the contrast with God’s speaking.