14:13 Moses said to the people, “Do not fear! 1 Stand firm 2 and see 3 the salvation 4 of the Lord that he will provide 5 for you today; for the Egyptians that you see today you will never, ever see again. 6
15:16 Fear and dread 7 will fall 8 on them;
by the greatness 9 of your arm they will be as still as stone 10
until 11 your people pass by, O Lord,
until the people whom you have bought 12 pass by.
20:18 All the people were seeing 13 the thundering and the lightning, and heard 14 the sound of the horn, and saw 15 the mountain smoking – and when 16 the people saw it they trembled with fear 17 and kept their distance. 18
1 tn The use of אַל (’al) with the jussive has the force of “stop fearing.” It is a more immediate negative command than לֹא (lo’) with the imperfect (as in the Decalogue).
2 tn The force of this verb in the Hitpael is “to station oneself” or “stand firm” without fleeing.
3 tn The form is an imperative with a vav (ו). It could also be rendered “stand firm and you will see” meaning the result, or “stand firm that you may see” meaning the purpose.
4 tn Or “victory” (NAB) or “deliverance” (NIV, NRSV).
5 tn Heb “do,” i.e., perform or accomplish.
6 tn The construction uses a verbal hendiadys consisting of a Hiphil imperfect (“you will not add”) and a Qal infinitive construct with a suffix (“to see them”) – “you will no longer see them.” Then the clause adds “again, for ever.”
sn U. Cassuto (Exodus, 164) notes that the antithetical parallelism between seeing salvation and seeing the Egyptians, as well as the threefold repetition of the word “see” cannot be accidental; so too the alliteration of the last three words beginning with ayin (ע).
7 tn The two words can form a nominal hendiadys, “a dreadful fear,” though most English versions retain the two separate terms.
8 tn The form is an imperfect.
9 tn The adjective is in construct form and governs the noun “arm” (“arm” being the anthropomorphic expression for what God did). See GKC 428 §132.c.
10 sn For a study of the words for fear, see N. Waldman, “A Comparative Note on Exodus 15:14-16,” JQR 66 (1976): 189-92.
11 tn Clauses beginning with עַד (’ad) express a limit that is not absolute, but only relative, beyond which the action continues (GKC 446-47 §138.g).
12 tn The verb קָנָה (qanah) here is the verb “acquire, purchase,” and probably not the homonym “to create, make” (see Gen 4:1; Deut 32:6; and Prov 8:22).
13 tn The participle is used here for durative action in the past time (GKC 359 §116.o).
14 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).
15 tn The verb “saw” is supplied here because it is expected in English (see the previous note on “heard”).
16 tn The preterite with vav (ו) consecutive is here subordinated as a temporal clause to the following clause, which receives the prominence.
17 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.”
18 tn Heb “and they stood from/at a distance.”