16:4 Then the Lord said to Moses, “I am going to rain 7 bread from heaven for you, and the people will go out 8 and gather the amount for each day, so that I may test them. 9 Will they will walk in my law 10 or not?
16:32 Moses said, “This is what 11 the Lord has commanded: ‘Fill an omer with it to be kept 12 for generations to come, 13 so that they may see 14 the food I fed you in the desert when I brought you out from the land of Egypt.’”
19:9 The Lord said to Moses, “I am going to come 15 to you in a dense cloud, 16 so that the people may hear when I speak with you and so that they will always believe in you.” 17 And Moses told the words of the people to the Lord.
33:1 The Lord said to Moses, “Go up 20 from here, you and the people whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, to the land I promised on oath 21 to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ 22
1 tn Or “distinguish.” וְהִפְלֵיתִי (vÿhifleti) is the Hiphil perfect of פָּלָה (palah). The verb in Hiphil means “to set apart, make separate, make distinct.” God was going to keep the flies away from Goshen – he was setting that apart. The Greek text assumed that the word was from פָּלֵא (pale’), and translated it something like “I will marvelously glorify.”
2 tn The relative clause modifies the land of Goshen as the place “in which my people are dwelling.” But the normal word for “dwelling” is not used here. Instead, עֹמֵד (’omed) is used, which literally means “standing.” The land on which Israel stood was spared the flies and the hail.
3 tn Or “of the earth” (KJV, ASV, NAB).
4 tn Heb “dealt hardly in letting us go” or “made it hard to let us go” (see S. R. Driver, Exodus, 110). The verb is the simple Hiphil perfect הִקְשָׁה (hiqshah, “he made hard”); the infinitive construct לְשַׁלְּחֵנוּ (lÿshallÿkhenu, “to release us”) could be taken epexegetically, meaning “he made releasing us hard.” But the infinitive more likely gives the purpose or the result after the verb “hardened himself.” The verb is figurative for “be stubborn” or “stubbornly refuse.”
5 tn The text uses “man” and “beast.”
6 tn The form is the active participle.
7 tn The particle הִנְנִי (hinni) before the active participle indicates the imminent future action: “I am about to rain.”
8 tn This verb and the next are the Qal perfect tenses with vav (ו) consecutives; they follow the sequence of the participle, and so are future in orientation. The force here is instruction – “they will go out” or “they are to go out.”
9 tn The verb in the purpose/result clause is the Piel imperfect of נָסָה (nasah), אֲנַסֶּנוּ (’anassenu) – “in order that I may prove them [him].” The giving of the manna will be a test of their obedience to the detailed instructions of God as well as being a test of their faith in him (if they believe him they will not gather too much). In chap. 17 the people will test God, showing that they do not trust him.
10 sn The word “law” here properly means “direction” at this point (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 146), but their obedience here would indicate also whether or not they would be willing to obey when the Law was given at Sinai.
11 tn Heb “This is the thing that.”
12 tn Heb “for keeping.”
13 tn Heb “according to your generations” (see Exod 12:14).
14 tn In this construction after the particle expressing purpose or result, the imperfect tense has the nuance of final imperfect, equal to a subjunctive in the classical languages.
15 tn The construction uses the deictic particle and the participle to express the imminent future, what God was about to do. Here is the first announcement of the theophany.
16 tn Heb “the thickness of the cloud”; KJV, ASV, NASB, NCV, TEV, CEV, NLT “in a thick cloud.”
17 tn Since “and also in you” begins the clause, the emphasis must be that the people would also trust Moses. See Exod 4:1-9, 31; 14:31.
18 tn The form is a perfect tense with vav consecutive.
19 tn In the Hebrew Bible “the River” usually refers to the Euphrates (cf. NASB, NCV, NRSV, TEV, CEV, NLT). There is some thought that it refers to a river Nahr el Kebir between Lebanon and Syria. See further W. C. Kaiser, Jr., “Exodus,” EBC 2:447; and G. W. Buchanan, The Consequences of the Covenant (NovTSup), 91-100.
20 tn The two imperatives underscore the immediacy of the demand: “go, go up,” meaning “get going up” or “be on your way.”
21 tn Or “the land which I swore.”
22 tn Heb “seed.”