Discovery BoxExodus 2:17 
Context2:17 When some 1 shepherds came and drove them away, 2 Moses came up and defended them 3 and then watered their flock.
Exodus 3:3
Context3:3 So Moses thought, 4 “I will turn aside to see 5 this amazing 6 sight. Why does the bush not burn up?” 7
Exodus 7:12
Context7:12 Each man 8 threw down his staff, and the staffs became snakes. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs.
Exodus 8:6-7
Context8:6 So Aaron extended his hand over the waters of Egypt, and frogs 9 came up and covered the land of Egypt.
8:7 The magicians did the same 10 with their secret arts and brought up frogs on the land of Egypt too. 11
Exodus 12:38
Context12:38 A mixed multitude 12 also went up with them, and flocks and herds – a very large number of cattle. 13
Exodus 20:26
Context20:26 And you must not go up by steps to my altar, so that your nakedness is not exposed.’ 14
Exodus 26:30
Context26:30 You are to set up the tabernacle according to the plan 15 that you were shown on the mountain.
Exodus 33:15
Context33:15 And Moses 16 said to him, “If your presence does not go 17 with us, 18 do not take us up from here. 19
Exodus 38:4
Context38:4 He made a grating for the altar, a network of bronze under its ledge, halfway up from the bottom.
Exodus 40:2
Context40:2 “On the first day of the first month you are to set up 20 the tabernacle, the tent of meeting.
Exodus 40:8
Context40:8 You are to set up the courtyard around it and put the curtain at the gate of the courtyard.
Exodus 40:17
Context40:17 So the tabernacle was set up on the first day of the first month, in the second year.
Exodus 40:36
Context40:36 But when the cloud was lifted up 21 from the tabernacle, the Israelites would set out 22 on all their journeys;
1 tn The definite article here is the generic use; it simply refers to a group of shepherds.
2 tn The actions of the shepherds are subordinated to the main statement about what Moses did.
sn The verb is וַיְגָרְשׁוּם (vaygorshum). Some shepherds came and drove the daughters away. The choice of this verb in the narrative has a tie with the name of Moses’ first son, Gershom. Moses senses very clearly that he is a sojourner in a strange land – he has been driven away.
3 sn The verb used here is וַיּוֹשִׁעָן (vayyoshi’an, “and he saved them”). The word means that he came to their rescue and delivered them. By the choice of words the narrator is portraying Moses as the deliverer – he is just not yet ready to deliver Israel from its oppressors.
4 tn Heb “And Moses said.” The implication is that Moses said this to himself.
5 tn The construction uses the cohortative אָסֻרָה־נָּא (’asura-nna’) followed by an imperfect with vav (וְאֶרְאֶה, vÿ’er’eh) to express the purpose or result (logical sequence): “I will turn aside in order that I may see.”
6 tn Heb “great.” The word means something extraordinary here. In using this term Moses revealed his reaction to the strange sight and his anticipation that something special was about to happen. So he turned away from the flock to investigate.
7 tn The verb is an imperfect. Here it has the progressive nuance – the bush is not burning up.
8 tn The verb is plural, but the subject is singular, “a man – his staff.” This noun can be given a distributive sense: “each man threw down his staff.”
9 tn The noun is singular, a collective. B. Jacob notes that this would be the more natural way to refer to the frogs (Exodus, 260).
10 tn Heb “thus, so.”
11 sn In these first two plagues the fact that the Egyptians could and did duplicate them is ironic. By duplicating the experience, they added to the misery of Egypt. One wonders why they did not use their skills to rid the land of the pests instead, and the implication of course is that they could not.
12 tn The “mixed multitude” (עֵרֶב רַב, ’erev rav) refers to a great “swarm” (see a possible cognate in 8:21[17]) of folk who joined the Israelites, people who were impressed by the defeat of Egypt, who came to faith, or who just wanted to escape Egypt (maybe slaves or descendants of the Hyksos). The expression prepares for later references to riffraff who came along.
13 tn Heb “and very much cattle.”
14 tn Heb “uncovered” (so ASV, NAB).
15 tn The noun is מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat), often translated “judgment” or “decision” in other contexts. In those settings it may reflect its basic idea of custom, which here would be reflected with a rendering of “prescribed norm” or “plan.”
16 tn Heb “and he said”; the referent (
17 tn The construction uses the active participle to stress the continual going of the presence: if there is not your face going.
18 tn “with us” has been supplied.
19 tn Heb “from this.”
20 tn Heb “you will raise,” an imperfect of instruction.
21 tn The construction uses the Niphal infinitive construct to form the temporal clause.
22 tn The imperfect tense in this context describes a customary action.
