Genesis 45:19

45:19 You are also commanded to say, ¹  ‘Do this: Take for yourselves wagons from the land of Egypt for your little ones and for your wives. Bring your father and come.

Exodus 17:1

Water at Massa and Meribah

17:1 ² The whole community ³  of the Israelites traveled on their journey ⁴  from the Desert of Sin according to the Lord’s instruction, and they pitched camp in Rephidim. ⁵  Now ⁶  there was no water for the people to drink. ⁷ 

Numbers 3:16

3:16 So Moses numbered them according to the word ⁸  of the Lord, just as he had been commanded. ⁹ 

Numbers 3:2

3:2 These are the names of the sons of Aaron: Nadab, the firstborn, and Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar.

Numbers 8:13

8:13 You are to have the Levites stand before Aaron ¹⁰  and his sons, and then offer them as a wave offering to the Lord.

Numbers 35:16

35:16 “But if he hits someone with an iron tool so that he dies, ¹¹  he is a murderer. The murderer must surely be put to death.

Ecclesiastes 8:2

8:2 Obey the king’s command, ¹² 

because you took ¹³  an oath before God ¹⁴  to be loyal to him. ¹⁵ 

Lamentations 1:18

Jerusalem Speaks:

צ (Tsade)

1:18 The Lord is right to judge me! ¹⁶ 

Yes, I rebelled against his commands. ¹⁷ 

Please listen, all you nations, ¹⁸ 

and look at my suffering!

My young women and men

have gone into exile.

[45:19]  ¹ tn The words “to say” have been supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[17:1]  ² sn This is the famous story telling how the people rebelled against Yahweh when they thirsted, saying that Moses had brought them out into the wilderness to kill them by thirst, and how Moses with the staff brought water from the rock. As a result of this the name was called Massa and Meribah because of the testing and the striving. It was a challenge to Moses’ leadership as well as a test of Yahweh’s presence. The narrative in its present form serves an important point in the argument of the book. The story turns on the gracious provision of God who can give his people water when there is none available. The narrative is structured to show how the people strove. Thus, the story intertwines God’s free flowing grace with the sad memory of Israel’s sins. The passage can be divided into three parts: the situation and the complaint (1-3), the cry and the miracle (4-6), and the commemoration by naming (7).

[17:1]  ³ tn Or “congregation” (KJV, ASV, NASB, NRSV).

[17:1]  ⁴ tn The text says that they journeyed “according to their journeyings.” Since the verb form (and therefore the derived noun) essentially means to pull up the tent pegs and move along, this verse would be saying that they traveled by stages, or, from place to place.

[17:1]  ⁵ sn The location is a bit of a problem. Exod 19:1-2 suggests that it is near Sinai, whereas it is normally located near Kadesh in the north. Without any details provided, M. Noth concludes that two versions came together (Exodus [OTL], 138). S. R. Driver says that the writer wrote not knowing that they were 24 miles apart (Exodus, 157). Critics have long been bothered by this passage because of the two names given at the same place. If two sources had been brought together, it is not possible now to identify them. But Noth insisted that if there were two names there were two different locations. The names Massah and Meribah occur alone in Scripture (Deut 9:22, and Num 20:1 for examples), but together in Ps 95 and in Deut 33:8. But none of these passages is a clarification of the difficulty. Most critics would argue that Massah was a secondary element that was introduced into this account, because Exod 17 focuses on Meribah. From that starting point they can diverge greatly on the interpretation, usually having something to do with a water test. But although Num 20 is parallel in several ways, there are major differences: 1) it takes place 40 years later than this, 2) the name Kadesh is joined to the name Meribah there, and 3) Moses is punished there. One must conclude that if an event could occur twice in similar ways (complaint about water would be a good candidate for such), then there is no reason a similar name could not be given.

[17:1]  ⁶ tn The disjunctive vav introduces a parenthetical clause that is essential for this passage – there was no water.

[17:1]  ⁷ tn Here the construction uses a genitive after the infinitive construct for the subject: “there was no water for the drinking of the people” (GKC 353-54 §115.c).

[3:16]  ⁸ tn Heb “at the mouth of the Lord.”

[3:16]  ⁹ tn The Pual perfect may be given the past perfect translation in this sentence because the act of commanding preceded the act of numbering.

[8:13]  ¹⁰ tc The Greek text adds the Lord here: “before the Lord, before Aaron.”

[35:16]  ¹¹ tn the verb is the preterite of “die.” The sentence has :“if…he strikes him and he dies.” The vav (ו) consecutive is showing the natural result of the blow.

[8:2]  ¹² tc The Leningrad Codex (the basis of BHS) reads אֲנִי (’ani, 1st person common singular independent personal pronoun): “I obey the king’s command.” Other medieval Hebrew mss and all the versions (LXX, Vulgate, Targum, Syriac Peshitta) preserve an alternate textual tradition of the definite accusative marker אֶת־ (’et) introducing the direct object: אֶת־פִּי־מֶלֶךְ שְׁמוֹר (’et-pi-melekh shÿmor, “Obey the command of the king”). External evidence supports the alternate textual tradition. The MT is guilty of simple orthographic confusion between similar looking letters. The BHS editors and the Hebrew Old Testament Text Project adopt אֶת־ as the original reading. See D. Barthélemy, ed., Preliminary and Interim Report on the Hebrew Old Testament Text Project, 3:582–83.

[8:2]  ¹³ tn The phrase “you took” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for smoothness.

[8:2]  ¹⁴ tn The genitive-construct שְׁבוּעַת אֱלֹהִים (shÿvu’at ’elohim, “an oath of God”) functions as a genitive of location (“an oath before God”) or an adjectival genitive of attribute (“a supreme oath”).

[8:2]  ¹⁵ tn The words “to be loyal to him” do not appear in the Hebrew text, but are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[1:18]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “The Lord himself is right.” The phrase “to judge me” is not in the Hebrew, but is added in the translation to clarify the expression.

[1:18]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “His mouth.” The term “mouth” (פֶּה, peh) is a metonymy of instrument (= mouth) for the product (= words). The term פֶּה (peh) often stands for spoken words (Ps 49:14; Eccl 10:3; Isa 29:13), declaration (Gen 41:40; Exod 38:21; Num 35:30; Deut 17:6; Ezra 1:1) and commands of God (Exod 17:1; Num 14:41; 22:18; Josh 15:13; 1 Sam 15:24; 1 Chr 12:24; Prov 8:29; Isa 34:16; 62:2). When the verb מָרָה (marah, “to rebel”) is used with the accusative direct object פֶּה (peh, “mouth”) to connote disobedience to God’s commandments (Num 20:24; 1 Sam 12:14, 15; 1 Kgs 13:21) (BDB 805 s.v. פֶּה 2.c).

[1:18]  ¹⁸ tc The Kethib is written עַמִּים (’ammim, “peoples”), but the Qere, followed by many medieval Hebrew mss and the ancient versions (LXX and Aramaic Targum), read הָעַמִּים (ha’ammim, “O peoples”). The Qere is probably the original reading.