Exodus 5:14

5:14 The Israelite foremen whom Pharaoh’s slave masters had set over them were beaten and were asked, ¹  “Why did you not complete your requirement for brickmaking as in the past – both yesterday and today?” ² 

Exodus 14:20

14:20 It came between the Egyptian camp and the Israelite camp; it was a dark cloud ³  and it lit up the night so that one camp did not come near the other ⁴  the whole night. ⁵ 

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¹ tn The quotation is introduced with the common word לֵאמֹר (le’mor, “saying”) and no mention of who said the question.

² sn The idioms for time here are found also in 3:10 and 5:7-8. This question no doubt represents many accusations shouted at Israelites during the period when it was becoming obvious that, despite all their efforts, they were unable to meet their quotas as before.

³ tn The two nouns “cloud” and “darkness” form a nominal hendiadys: “and it was the cloud and the darkness” means “and it was the dark cloud.” Perhaps this is what the Egyptians saw, preventing them from observing Moses and the Israelites.

⁴ tn Heb “this to this”; for the use of the pronouns in this reciprocal sense of “the one to the other,” see GKC 448 §139.e, n. 3.

⁵ tc The LXX reads very differently at the end of this verse: “and there was darkness and blackness and the night passed.” B. S. Childs (Exodus [OTL], 218) summarizes three proposals: (1) One takes the MT as it stands and explains it along the lines of the Targum and Jewish exegesis, that there was one cloud that was dark to one group and light to the other. (2) Another tries to reconstruct a verb from the noun “darkness” or make some use of the Greek verb. (3) A third seeks a different meaning for the verb “lit,” “gave light” by comparative philology, but no consensus has been reached. Given that there is no easy solution apart from reconstructing the text, and given that the MT can be interpreted as it is, the present translation follows the MT.