Exodus 2:16

2:16 Now a priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came and began to draw ¹  water ²  and fill ³  the troughs in order to water their father’s flock.

Exodus 2:19

2:19 They said, “An Egyptian man rescued us ⁴  from the shepherds, ⁵  and he actually ⁶  drew water for us and watered the flock!”

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¹ tn The preterites describing their actions must be taken in an ingressive sense, since they did not actually complete the job. Shepherds drove them away, and Moses watered the flocks.

² tn The object “water” is not in the Hebrew text, but is implied.

³ tn This also has the ingressive sense, “began to fill,” but for stylistic reasons is translated simply “fill” here.

⁴ sn Continuing the theme of Moses as the deliverer, the text now uses another word for salvation (נָצַל, natsal, “to deliver, rescue”) in the sense of plucking out or away, snatching out of danger.

⁵ tn Heb “from the hand of the shepherds” (so NASB); NAB “saved us from the interference of the shepherds.” Most recent English versions translate simply “from the shepherds.”

⁶ tn The construction is emphatic with the use of the perfect tense and its infinitive absolute: דָלָה דָּלֹה (daloh dalah). B. Jacob says, “They showed their enthusiasm through the use of the infinitive absolute – And think of that, he even drew water for us; a man did this for us girls” (Exodus, 41).