6:25 Now Eleazar son of Aaron married one of the daughters of Putiel and she bore him Phinehas.
These are the heads of the fathers’ households 1 of Levi according to their clans.
17:1 6 The whole community 7 of the Israelites traveled on their journey 8 from the Desert of Sin according to the Lord’s instruction, and they pitched camp in Rephidim. 9 Now 10 there was no water for the people to drink. 11
23:24 “You must not bow down to their gods; you must not serve them or do according to their practices. Instead you must completely overthrow them and smash their standing stones 12 to pieces. 13
38:24 All the gold that was used for the work, in all the work of the sanctuary 26 (namely, 27 the gold of the wave offering) was twenty-nine talents and 730 shekels, 28 according to the sanctuary shekel.
39:32 32 So all the work of the tabernacle, the tent of meeting, was completed, and the Israelites did according to all that the Lord had commanded Moses – they did it exactly so.
1 tn Heb “heads of the fathers” is taken as an abbreviation for the description of “households” in v. 14.
2 tn Heb “and they will take for them a man a lamb.” This is clearly a distributive, or individualizing, use of “man.”
3 tn The שֶּׂה (seh) is a single head from the flock, or smaller cattle, which would include both sheep and goats.
4 tn Heb “according to the house of their fathers.” The expression “house of the father” is a common expression for a family.
sn The Passover was to be a domestic institution. Each lamb was to be shared by family members.
5 tn Heb “house” (also at the beginning of the following verse).
6 sn This is the famous story telling how the people rebelled against Yahweh when they thirsted, saying that Moses had brought them out into the wilderness to kill them by thirst, and how Moses with the staff brought water from the rock. As a result of this the name was called Massa and Meribah because of the testing and the striving. It was a challenge to Moses’ leadership as well as a test of Yahweh’s presence. The narrative in its present form serves an important point in the argument of the book. The story turns on the gracious provision of God who can give his people water when there is none available. The narrative is structured to show how the people strove. Thus, the story intertwines God’s free flowing grace with the sad memory of Israel’s sins. The passage can be divided into three parts: the situation and the complaint (1-3), the cry and the miracle (4-6), and the commemoration by naming (7).
7 tn Or “congregation” (KJV, ASV, NASB, NRSV).
8 tn The text says that they journeyed “according to their journeyings.” Since the verb form (and therefore the derived noun) essentially means to pull up the tent pegs and move along, this verse would be saying that they traveled by stages, or, from place to place.
9 sn The location is a bit of a problem. Exod 19:1-2 suggests that it is near Sinai, whereas it is normally located near Kadesh in the north. Without any details provided, M. Noth concludes that two versions came together (Exodus [OTL], 138). S. R. Driver says that the writer wrote not knowing that they were 24 miles apart (Exodus, 157). Critics have long been bothered by this passage because of the two names given at the same place. If two sources had been brought together, it is not possible now to identify them. But Noth insisted that if there were two names there were two different locations. The names Massah and Meribah occur alone in Scripture (Deut 9:22, and Num 20:1 for examples), but together in Ps 95 and in Deut 33:8. But none of these passages is a clarification of the difficulty. Most critics would argue that Massah was a secondary element that was introduced into this account, because Exod 17 focuses on Meribah. From that starting point they can diverge greatly on the interpretation, usually having something to do with a water test. But although Num 20 is parallel in several ways, there are major differences: 1) it takes place 40 years later than this, 2) the name Kadesh is joined to the name Meribah there, and 3) Moses is punished there. One must conclude that if an event could occur twice in similar ways (complaint about water would be a good candidate for such), then there is no reason a similar name could not be given.
10 tn The disjunctive vav introduces a parenthetical clause that is essential for this passage – there was no water.
11 tn Here the construction uses a genitive after the infinitive construct for the subject: “there was no water for the drinking of the people” (GKC 353-54 §115.c).
12 tn The Hebrew is מַצֵּבֹתֵיהֶם (matsevotehem, “their standing stones”); these long stones were erected to represent the abode of the numen or deity. They were usually set up near the altar or the high place. To destroy these would be to destroy the centers of Canaanite worship in the land.
13 tn Both verbs are joined with their infinitive absolutes to provide the strongest sense to these instructions. The images of the false gods in Canaan were to be completely and utterly destroyed. This could not be said any more strongly.
14 tn The two preterites quite likely form a verbal hendiadys (the verb “to get up early” is frequently in such constructions). Literally it says, “and he got up early [in the morning] and he built”; this means “early [in the morning] he built.” The first verb becomes the adverb.
15 tn “under.”
16 tn The verb “arranged” is not in the Hebrew text but has been supplied to clarify exactly what Moses did with the twelve stones.
17 tn The thing numbered is found in the singular when the number is plural – “twelve standing-stone.” See GKC 433 §134.f. The “standing-stone” could be a small piece about a foot high, or a huge column higher than men. They served to commemorate treaties (Gen 32), or visions (Gen 28) or boundaries, or graves. Here it will function with the altar as a place of worship.
18 tn For clarity the phrase “the first” has been supplied.
19 tn For clarity the phrase “the next” has been supplied.
20 tn For clarity the phrase “the third” has been supplied.
21 sn Each man was to pass in front of the counting officer and join those already counted on the other side.
22 sn The half shekel weight of silver would be about one-fifth of an ounce (6 grams).
23 sn It appears that some standard is in view for the amount of a shekel weight. The sanctuary shekel is sometimes considered to be twice the value of the ordinary shekel. The “gerah,” also of uncertain meaning, was mentioned as a reference point for the ancient reader to understand the value of the required payment. It may also be that the expression meant “a sacred shekel” and looked at the purpose more – a shekel for sanctuary dues. This would mean that the standard of the shekel weight was set because it was the traditional amount of sacred dues (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 333). “Though there is no certainty, the shekel is said to weigh about 11,5 grams…Whether an official standard is meant [by ‘sanctuary shekel’] or whether the sanctuary shekel had a different weight than the ‘ordinary’ shekel is not known” (C. Houtman, Exodus, 3:181).
24 tn Or “contribution” (תְּרוּמָה, tÿrumah).
25 tn As in Exod 26:35, the translation of “first” and “next” and “third” is interpretive, because the text simply says “under two branches” in each of three places.
26 tn These words form the casus pendens, or independent nominative absolute, followed by the apodosis beginning with the vav (ו; see U. Cassuto, Exodus, 469).
27 tn Heb “and it was.”
28 sn There were 3000 shekels in a talent, and so the total weight here in shekels would be 87,730 shekels of gold. If the sanctuary shekel was 224 grs., then this was about 40,940 oz. troy. This is estimated to be a little over a ton (cf. NCV “over 2,000 pounds”; TEV “a thousand kilogrammes”; CEV “two thousand two hundred nine pounds”; NLT “about 2,200 pounds”), although other widely diverging estimates are also given.
29 sn The weight would be about half an ounce.
30 tn Heb “upward.”
31 tn The phrase “in all” has been supplied.
32 sn The last sections of the book bring several themes together to a full conclusion. Not only is it the completion of the tabernacle, it is the fulfillment of God’s plan revealed at the beginning of the book, i.e., to reside with his people.