Discovery BoxExodus 12:22-23 
Context12:22 Take a branch of hyssop, 1 dip it in the blood that is in the basin, 2 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 3 the door of his house until morning. 12:23 For the Lord will pass through to strike Egypt, and when he sees 4 the blood on the top of the doorframe and the two side posts, then the Lord will pass over the door, and he will not permit the destroyer 5 to enter your houses to strike you. 6
Exodus 17:12
Context17:12 When 7 the hands of Moses became heavy, 8 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, 9 and so his hands were steady 10 until the sun went down.
Exodus 32:27
Context32:27 and he said to them, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Each man fasten 11 his sword on his side, and go back and forth 12 from entrance to entrance throughout the camp, and each one kill his brother, his friend, and his neighbor.’” 13
1 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.
2 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).
3 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.
4 tn The first of the two clauses begun with perfects and vav consecutives may be subordinated to form a temporal clause: “and he will see…and he will pass over,” becomes “when he sees…he will pass over.”
5 tn Here the form is the Hiphil participle with the definite article. Gesenius says this is now to be explained as “the destroyer” although some take it to mean “destruction” (GKC 406 §126.m, n. 1).
6 tn “you” has been supplied.
7 tn Literally “now the hands of Moses,” the disjunctive vav (ו) introduces a circumstantial clause here – of time.
8 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.
9 tn Heb “from this, one, and from this, one.”
10 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.
11 tn Heb “put.”
12 tn The two imperatives form a verbal hendiadys: “pass over and return,” meaning, “go back and forth” throughout the camp.
13 tn The phrases have “and kill a man his brother, and a man his companion, and a man his neighbor.” The instructions were probably intended to mean that they should kill leaders they knew to be guilty because they had been seen or because they failed the water test – whoever they were.
