Exodus 7:19

7:19 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron, ‘Take your staff and stretch out your hand over Egypt’s waters – over their rivers, over their canals, ¹  over their ponds, and over all their reservoirs ²  – so that it becomes ³  blood.’ There will be blood everywhere in ⁴  the land of Egypt, even in wooden and stone containers.”

Exodus 9:22

9:22 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Extend your hand toward the sky ⁵  that there may be ⁶  hail in all the land of Egypt, on people and on animals, ⁷  and on everything that grows ⁸  in the field in the land of Egypt.”

Exodus 12:27

12:27 then you will say, ‘It is the sacrifice ⁹  of the Lord’s Passover, when he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt, when he struck ¹⁰  Egypt and delivered our households.’” The people bowed down low ¹¹  to the ground,

Exodus 12:39

12:39 They baked cakes of bread without yeast using the dough they had brought from Egypt, for it was made without yeast – because they were thrust out ¹²  of Egypt and were not able to delay, they ¹³  could not prepare ¹⁴  food for themselves either.

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¹ tn Or “irrigation rivers” of the Nile.

² sn The Hebrew term means “gathering,” i.e., wherever they gathered or collected waters, notably cisterns and reservoirs. This would naturally lead to the inclusion of both wooden and stone vessels – down to the smallest gatherings.

³ tn The imperfect tense with vav (ו) after the imperative indicates the purpose or result: “in order that they [the waters] be[come] blood.”

⁴ tn Or “in all.”

⁵ tn Or “the heavens” (also in the following verse). The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heavens” or “sky” depending on the context.

⁶ tn The jussive with the conjunction (וִיהִי, vihi) coming after the imperative provides the purpose or result.

⁷ tn Heb “on man and on beast.”

⁸ tn The noun refers primarily to cultivated grains. But here it seems to be the general heading for anything that grows from the ground, all vegetation and plant life, as opposed to what grows on trees.

⁹ sn This expression “the sacrifice of Yahweh’s Passover” occurs only here. The word זֶבַח (zevakh) means “slaughtering” and so a blood sacrifice. The fact that this word is used in Lev 3 for the peace offering has linked the Passover as a kind of peace offering, and both the Passover and the peace offerings were eaten as communal meals.

¹⁰ tn The verb means “to strike, smite, plague”; it is the same verb that has been used throughout this section (נָגַף, nagaf). Here the construction is the infinitive construct in a temporal clause.

¹¹ tn The two verbs form a verbal hendiadys: “and the people bowed down and they worshiped.” The words are synonymous, and so one is taken as the adverb for the other.

¹² sn For the use of this word in developing the motif, see Exod 2:17, 22; 6:1; and 11:1.

¹³ tn Heb “and also.”

¹⁴ tn The verb is עָשׂוּ (’asu, “they made”); here, with a potential nuance, it is rendered “they could [not] prepare.”