Discovery BoxExodus 10:6 
Context10:6 They will fill your houses, the houses of your servants, and all the houses of Egypt, such as 1 neither 2 your fathers nor your grandfathers have seen since they have been 3 in the land until this day!’” Then Moses 4 turned and went out from Pharaoh.
Exodus 10:26
Context10:26 Our livestock must 5 also go with us! Not a hoof is to be left behind! For we must take 6 these animals 7 to serve the Lord our God. Until we arrive there, we do not know what we must use to serve the Lord.” 8
Exodus 12:22
Context12:22 Take a branch of hyssop, 9 dip it in the blood that is in the basin, 10 and apply to the top of the doorframe and the two side posts some of the blood that is in the basin. Not one of you is to go out 11 the door of his house until morning.
Exodus 16:23
Context16:23 He said to them, “This is what the Lord has said: ‘Tomorrow is a time of cessation from work, 12 a holy Sabbath 13 to the Lord. Whatever you want to 14 bake, bake today; 15 whatever you want to boil, boil today; whatever is left put aside for yourselves to be kept until morning.’”
Exodus 17:12
Context17:12 When 16 the hands of Moses became heavy, 17 they took a stone and put it under him, and Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side and one on the other, 18 and so his hands were steady 19 until the sun went down.
Exodus 18:14
Context18:14 When Moses’ father-in-law saw all that he was doing for the people, he said, “What is this 20 that you are doing for the people? 21 Why are you sitting by yourself, and all the people stand around you from morning until evening?”
1 tn The relative pronoun אֲשֶׁר (’asher) is occasionally used as a comparative conjunction (see GKC 499 §161.b).
2 tn Heb “which your fathers have not seen, nor your fathers’ fathers.”
3 tn The Hebrew construction מִיּוֹם הֱיוֹתָם (miyyom heyotam, “from the day of their being”). The statement essentially says that no one, even the elderly, could remember seeing a plague of locusts like this. In addition, see B. Childs, “A Study of the Formula, ‘Until This Day,’” JBL 82 (1963).
4 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Moses) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
5 tn This is the obligatory imperfect nuance. They were obliged to take the animals if they were going to sacrifice, but more than that, since they were not coming back, they had to take everything.
6 tn The same modal nuance applies to this verb.
7 tn Heb “from it,” referring collectively to the livestock.
8 sn Moses gives an angry but firm reply to Pharaoh’s attempt to control Israel; he makes it clear that he has no intention of leaving any pledge with Pharaoh. When they leave, they will take everything that belongs to them.
9 sn The hyssop is a small bush that grows throughout the Sinai, probably the aromatic herb Origanum Maru L., or Origanum Aegyptiacum. The plant also grew out of the walls in Jerusalem (1 Kgs 4:33). See L. Baldensperger and G. M. Crowfoot, “Hyssop,” PEQ 63 (1931): 89-98. A piece of hyssop was also useful to the priests because it worked well for sprinkling.
10 tn The Greek and the Vulgate translate סַף (saf, “basin”) as “threshold.” W. C. Kaiser reports how early traditions grew up about the killing of the lamb on the threshold (“Exodus,” EBC 2:376).
11 tn Heb “and you, you shall not go out, a man from the door of his house.” This construction puts stress on prohibiting absolutely everyone from going out.
12 tn The noun שַׁבָּתוֹן (shabbaton) has the abstract ending on it: “resting, ceasing.” The root word means “cease” from something, more than “to rest.” The Law would make it clear that they were to cease from their normal occupations and do no common work.
13 tn The technical expression is now used: שַׁבַּת־קֹדֶשׁ (shabbat-qodesh, “a holy Sabbath”) meaning a “cessation of/for holiness” for Yahweh. The rest was to be characterized by holiness.
14 tn The two verbs in these objective noun clauses are desiderative imperfects – “bake whatever you want to bake.”
15 tn The word “today” is implied from the context.
16 tn Literally “now the hands of Moses,” the disjunctive vav (ו) introduces a circumstantial clause here – of time.
17 tn The term used here is the adjective כְּבֵדִים (kÿvedim). It means “heavy,” but in this context the idea is more that of being tired. This is the important word that was used in the plague stories: when the heart of Pharaoh was hard, then the Israelites did not gain their freedom or victory. Likewise here, when the staff was lowered because Moses’ hands were “heavy,” Israel started to lose.
18 tn Heb “from this, one, and from this, one.”
19 tn The word “steady” is אֱמוּנָה (’emuna) from the root אָמַן (’aman). The word usually means “faithfulness.” Here is a good illustration of the basic idea of the word – firm, steady, reliable, dependable. There may be a double entendre here; on the one hand it simply says that his hands were stayed so that Israel might win, but on the other hand it is portraying Moses as steady, firm, reliable, faithful. The point is that whatever God commissioned as the means or agency of power – to Moses a staff, to the Christians the Spirit – the people of God had to know that the victory came from God alone.
20 tn Heb “what is this thing.”
21 sn This question, “what are you doing for the people,” is qualified by the next question. Sitting alone all day and the people standing around all day showed that Moses was exhibiting too much care for the people – he could not do this.
