Psalms 2:8

2:8 Ask me,

and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, ¹ 

the ends of the earth as your personal property.

Psalms 80:11

80:11 Its branches reached the Mediterranean Sea, ² 

and its shoots the Euphrates River. ³ 

Psalms 89:25

89:25 I will place his hand over the sea,

his right hand over the rivers. ⁴ 

Psalms 89:36

89:36 His dynasty will last forever. ⁵ 

His throne will endure before me, like the sun, ⁶ 

Exodus 23:31

23:31 I will set ⁷  your boundaries from the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert to the River, ⁸  for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you will drive them out before you.

Exodus 23:1

Justice

23:1 ⁹ “You must not give ¹⁰  a false report. ¹¹  Do not make common cause ¹²  with the wicked ¹³  to be a malicious ¹⁴  witness.

Exodus 4:21-24

4:21 The Lord said ¹⁵  to Moses, “When you go back to Egypt, ¹⁶  see that you ¹⁷  do before Pharaoh all the wonders I have put under your control. ¹⁸  But I will harden ¹⁹  his heart ²⁰  and ²¹  he will not let the people go. 4:22 You must say ²²  to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says ²³  the Lord, “Israel is my son, my firstborn, ²⁴  4:23 and I said to you, ‘Let my son go that he may serve ²⁵  me,’ but since you have refused to let him go, ²⁶  I will surely kill ²⁷  your son, your firstborn!”’”

4:24 Now on the way, at a place where they stopped for the night, ²⁸  the Lord met Moses and sought to kill him. ²⁹ 

Zechariah 9:10

9:10 I will remove ³⁰  the chariot from Ephraim

and the warhorse from Jerusalem,

and the battle bow will be removed.

Then he will announce peace to the nations.

His dominion will be from sea to sea

and from the Euphrates River ³¹  to the ends of the earth.

Revelation 11:15

The Seventh Trumpet

11:15 Then ³²  the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven saying:

“The kingdom of the world

has become the kingdom of our Lord

and of his Christ, ³³ 

and he will reign for ever and ever.”

[2:8]  ¹ sn I will give you the nations. The Lord promises the Davidic king universal dominion.

[80:11]  ² tn Heb “to [the] sea.” The “sea” refers here to the Mediterranean Sea.

[80:11]  ³ tn Heb “to [the] river.” The “river” is the Euphrates River in Mesopotamia. Israel expanded both to the west and to the east.

[89:25]  ⁴ tn Some identify “the sea” as the Mediterranean and “the rivers” as the Euphrates and its tributaries. However, it is more likely that “the sea” and “the rivers” are symbols for hostile powers that oppose God and the king (see v. 9, as well as Ps 93:3-4).

[89:36]  ⁵ tn Heb “his offspring forever will be.”

[89:36]  ⁶ tn Heb “and his throne like the sun before me.”

[23:31]  ⁷ tn The form is a perfect tense with vav consecutive.

[23:31]  ⁸ tn In the Hebrew Bible “the River” usually refers to the Euphrates (cf. NASB, NCV, NRSV, TEV, CEV, NLT). There is some thought that it refers to a river Nahr el Kebir between Lebanon and Syria. See further W. C. Kaiser, Jr., “Exodus,” EBC 2:447; and G. W. Buchanan, The Consequences of the Covenant (NovTSup), 91-100.

[23:1]  ⁹ sn People who claim to worship and serve the righteous judge of the universe must preserve equity and justice in their dealings with others. These verses teach that God’s people must be honest witnesses (1-3); God’s people must be righteous even with enemies (4-5); and God’s people must be fair in dispensing justice (6-9).

[23:1]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “take up, lift, carry” (נָשָׂא, nasa’). This verb was also used in the prohibition against taking “the name of Yahweh in vain.” Sometimes the object of this verb is physical, as in Jonah 1:12 and 15. Used in this prohibition involving speech, it covers both originating and repeating a lie.

[23:1]  ¹¹ tn Or “a groundless report” (see Exod 20:7 for the word שָׁוְא, shav’).

[23:1]  ¹² tn Heb “do not put your hand” (cf. KJV, ASV); NASB “join your hand.”

[23:1]  ¹³ tn The word “wicked” (רָשָׁע, rasha’) refers to the guilty criminal, the person who is doing something wrong. In the religious setting it describes the person who is not a member of the covenant and may be involved in all kinds of sin, even though there is the appearance of moral and spiritual stability.

[23:1]  ¹⁴ tn The word חָמָס (khamas) often means “violence” in the sense of social injustices done to other people, usually the poor and needy. A “malicious” witness would do great harm to others. See J. W. McKay, “Exodus 23:1-43, 6-8: A Decalogue for Administration of Justice in the City Gate,” VT 21 (1971): 311-25.

[4:21]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “And Yahweh said.”

[4:21]  ¹⁶ tn The construction may involve a verbal hendiadys using the two infinitive forms: “when you go to return” (בְּלֶכְתְּךָ לָשׁוּב, bÿlekhtÿkha lashuv). The clause is temporal, subordinated to the instruction to do the signs. Therefore, its focus cannot be on going to return, i.e., preparing or beginning to return.

[4:21]  ¹⁷ tn The two verb forms in this section are the imperative (רְאֵה, rÿ’eh) followed by the perfect with the vav (וַעֲשִׂיתָם, va’asitam). The second could be coordinated and function as a second command: “see…and [then] do”; or it could be subordinated logically: “see…so that you do.” Some commentators who take the first option suggest that Moses was supposed to contemplate these wonders before doing them before Pharaoh. That does not seem as likely as the second interpretation reflected in the translation.

[4:21]  ¹⁸ tn Or “in your power”; Heb “in your hand.”

[4:21]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “strengthen” (in the sense of making stubborn or obstinate). The text has the expression וַאֲנִי אֲחַזֵּק אֶת־לִבּוֹ (va’ani ’akhazzeq ’et-libbo), “I will make strong his will,” or “I will strengthen his resolve,” recognizing the “heart” as the location of decision making (see Prov 16:1, 9).

[4:21]  ²⁰ sn Here is the first mention of the hardening of the heart of Pharaoh. God first tells Moses he must do the miracles, but he also announces that he will harden Pharaoh’s heart, as if working against Moses. It will help Moses to know that God is bringing about the resistance in order to bring a greater victory with greater glory. There is a great deal of literature on this, but see among the resources F. W. Danker, “Hardness of Heart: A Study in Biblical Thematic,” CTM 44 (1973): 89-100; R. R. Wilson, “The Hardening of Pharaoh’s Heart,” CBQ 41 (1979): 18-36; and R. B. Chisholm Jr., “Divine Hardening in the Old Testament,” BSac 153 (1996): 410-34.

[4:21]  ²¹ tn Or “so that.”

[4:22]  ²² tn The sequence of the instruction from God uses the perfect tense with vav (ו), following the preceding imperfects.

[4:22]  ²³ tn The instantaneous use of the perfect tense fits well with the prophetic announcement of what Yahweh said or says. It shows that the words given to the prophet are still binding.

[4:22]  ²⁴ sn The metaphor uses the word “son” in its connotation of a political dependent, as it was used in ancient documents to describe what was intended to be a loyal relationship with well-known privileges and responsibilities, like that between a good father and son. The word can mean a literal son, a descendant, a chosen king (and so, the Messiah), a disciple (in Proverbs), and here, a nation subject to God. If the people of Israel were God’s “son,” then they should serve him and not Pharaoh. Malachi reminds people that the Law said “a son honors his father,” and so God asked, “If I am a father, where is my honor?” (Mal 1:6).

[4:23]  ²⁵ tn The text uses the imperative, “send out” (שַׁלַּח, shallakh) followed by the imperfect or jussive with the vav (ו) to express purpose.

[4:23]  ²⁶ tn The Piel infinitive serves as the direct object of the verb, answering the question of what Pharaoh would refuse to do. The command and refusal to obey are the grounds for the announcement of death for Pharaoh’s son.

[4:23]  ²⁷ tn The construction is very emphatic. The particle הִנֵּה (hinneh) gives it an immediacy and a vividness, as if God is already beginning to act. The participle with this particle has the nuance of an imminent future act, as if God is saying, “I am about to kill.” These words are not repeated until the last plague.

[4:24]  ²⁸ tn Or “at a lodging place” or “at an inn.”

[4:24]  ²⁹ sn The next section (vv. 24-26) records a rather strange story. God had said that if Pharaoh would not comply he would kill his son – but now God was ready to kill Moses, the representative of Israel, God’s own son. Apparently, one would reconstruct that on the journey Moses fell seriously ill, but his wife, learning the cause of the illness, saved his life by circumcising her son and casting the foreskin at Moses’ feet (indicating that it was symbolically Moses’ foreskin). The point is that this son of Abraham had not complied with the sign of the Abrahamic covenant. No one, according to Exod 12:40-51, would take part in the Passover-exodus who had not complied. So how could the one who was going to lead God’s people not comply? The bold anthropomorphisms and the location at the border invite comparisons with Gen 32, the Angel wrestling with Jacob. In both cases there is a brush with death that could not be forgotten. See also, W. Dumbrell, “Exodus 4:24-25: A Textual Re-examination,” HTR 65 (1972): 285-90; T. C. Butler, “An Anti-Moses Tradition,” JSOT 12 (1979): 9-15; and L. Kaplan, “And the Lord Sought to Kill Him,” HAR 5 (1981): 65-74.

[9:10]  ³⁰ tc The MT first person pronoun (“I”), which seems to shift the subject too abruptly, becomes 3rd person masculine singular (“he”) in the LXX (הִכְרִית, hikhrit, presupposed for הִכְרַתִּי, hikhratti). However, the Lord is the subject of v. 8, which speaks of his protection of Jerusalem, so it is not surprising that he is the subject in v. 10 as well.

[9:10]  ³¹ tn Heb “the river.” The Hebrew expression typically refers to the Euphrates, so the referent has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[11:15]  ³² tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the vision.

[11:15]  ³³ tn Or “Messiah”; both “Christ” (Greek) and “Messiah” (Hebrew and Aramaic) mean “one who has been anointed.”