Exodus 22:27

22:27 for it is his only covering – it is his garment for his body. ¹  What else can he sleep in? ²  And ³  when he cries out to me, I will hear, for I am gracious.

Exodus 32:18

32:18 Moses ⁴  said, “It is not the sound of those who shout for victory, ⁵  nor is it the sound of those who cry because they are overcome, ⁶  but the sound of singing ⁷  I hear.” ⁸ 

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¹ tn Heb “his skin.”

² tn Literally the text reads, “In what can he lie down?” The cloak would be used for a covering at night to use when sleeping. The garment, then, was the property that could not be taken and not given back – it was the last possession. The modern idiom of “the shirt off his back” gets at the point being made here.

³ tn Heb “and it will be.”

⁴ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Moses) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁵ tn Heb “the sound of the answering of might,” meaning it is not the sound of shouting in victory (U. Cassuto, Exodus, 418).

⁶ tn Heb “the sound of the answering of weakness,” meaning the cry of the defeated (U. Cassuto, Exodus, 415).

⁷ tn Heb “answering in song” (a play on the twofold meaning of the word).

⁸ sn See A. Newman, “Compositional Analysis and Functional Ambiguity Equivalence: Translating Exodus 32, 17-18,” Babel 21 (1975): 29-35.