Discovery BoxExodus 3:22 
Context3:22 Every 1 woman will ask her neighbor and the one who happens to be staying 2 in her house for items of silver and gold 3 and for clothing. You will put these articles on your sons and daughters – thus you will plunder Egypt!” 4
Exodus 12:4
Context12:4 If any household is too small 5 for a lamb, 6 the man 7 and his next-door neighbor 8 are to take 9 a lamb according to the number of people – you will make your count for the lamb according to how much each one can eat. 10
Exodus 12:22
Context12:22 Take a branch of hyssop, 11 dip it in the blood that is in the basin, 12 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 13 the door of his house until morning.
Exodus 12:48
Context12:48 “When a foreigner lives 14 with you and wants to observe the Passover to the Lord, all his males must be circumcised, 15 and then he may approach and observe it, and he will be like one who is born in the land 16 – but no uncircumcised person may eat of it.
Exodus 16:16
Context16:16 “This is what 17 the Lord has commanded: 18 ‘Each person is to gather 19 from it what he can eat, an omer 20 per person 21 according to the number 22 of your people; 23 each one will pick it up 24 for whoever lives 25 in his tent.’”
Exodus 16:29
Context16:29 See, because the Lord has given you the Sabbath, that is why 26 he is giving you food for two days on the sixth day. Each of you stay where you are; 27 let no one 28 go out of his place on the seventh day.”
Exodus 21:19
Context21:19 and then 29 if he gets up and walks about 30 outside on his staff, then the one who struck him is innocent, except he must pay 31 for the injured person’s 32 loss of time 33 and see to it that he is fully healed.
Exodus 22:9
Context22:9 In all cases of illegal possessions, 34 whether for an ox, a donkey, a sheep, a garment, or any kind of lost item, about which someone says ‘This belongs to me,’ 35 the matter of the two of them will come before the judges, 36 and the one whom 37 the judges declare guilty 38 must repay double to his neighbor.
Exodus 23:15
Context23:15 You are to observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread; seven days 39 you must eat bread made without yeast, as I commanded you, at the appointed time of the month of Abib, for at that time 40 you came out of Egypt. No one may appear before 41 me empty-handed.
Exodus 25:33
Context25:33 Three cups shaped like almond flowers with buds and blossoms are to be on one branch, and three cups shaped like almond flowers with buds and blossoms are to be on the next 42 branch, and the same 43 for the six branches extending from the lampstand.
Exodus 32:27
Context32:27 and he said to them, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Each man fasten 44 his sword on his side, and go back and forth 45 from entrance to entrance throughout the camp, and each one kill his brother, his friend, and his neighbor.’” 46
Exodus 34:20
Context34:20 Now the firstling 47 of a donkey you may redeem with a lamb, but if you do not redeem it, then break its neck. 48 You must redeem all the firstborn of your sons.
“No one will appear before me empty-handed. 49
1 tn Heb “a woman,” one representing all.
2 tn Heb “from the sojourner.” Both the “neighbor” and the “sojourner” (“one who happens to be staying in her house”) are feminine. The difference between them seems to be primarily that the second is temporary, “a lodger” perhaps or “visitor,” while the first has permanent residence.
3 tn Heb “vessels of silver and vessels of gold.” These phrases both use genitives of material, telling what the vessels are made of.
4 sn It is clear that God intended the Israelites to plunder the Egyptians, as they might a defeated enemy in war. They will not go out “empty.” They will “plunder” Egypt. This verb (וְנִצַּלְתֶּם [vÿnitsaltem] from נָצַל [natsal]) usually means “rescue, deliver,” as if plucking out of danger. But in this stem it carries the idea of plunder. So when the text says that they will ask (וְשָׁאֲלָה, vÿsha’alah) their neighbors for things, it implies that they will be making many demands, and the Egyptians will respond like a defeated nation before victors. The spoils that Israel takes are to be regarded as back wages or compensation for the oppression (see also Deut 15:13). See further B. Jacob, “The Gifts of the Egyptians, a Critical Commentary,” Journal of Reformed Judaism 27 (1980): 59-69; and T. C. Vriezen, “A Reinterpretation of Exodus 3:21-22 and Related Texts,” Ex Oriente Lux 23 (1975): 389-401.
5 sn Later Judaism ruled that “too small” meant fewer than ten (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 88).
6 tn The clause uses the comparative min (מִן) construction: יִמְעַט הַבַּיִת מִהְיֹת מִשֶּׂה (yim’at habbayit mihyot miseh, “the house is small from being from a lamb,” or “too small for a lamb”). It clearly means that if there were not enough people in the household to have a lamb by themselves, they should join with another family. For the use of the comparative, see GKC 430 §133.c.
7 tn Heb “he and his neighbor”; the referent (the man) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
8 tn Heb “who is near to his house.”
9 tn The construction uses a perfect tense with a vav (ו) consecutive after a conditional clause: “if the household is too small…then he and his neighbor will take.”
10 tn Heb “[every] man according to his eating.”
sn The reference is normally taken to mean whatever each person could eat. B. Jacob (Exodus, 299) suggests, however, that the reference may not be to each individual person’s appetite, but to each family. Each man who is the head of a household was to determine how much his family could eat, and this in turn would determine how many families shared the lamb.
11 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.
12 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).
13 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.
14 tn Both the participle “foreigner” and the verb “lives” are from the verb גּוּר (gur), which means “to sojourn, to dwell as an alien.” This reference is to a foreigner who settles in the land. He is the protected foreigner; when he comes to another area where he does not have his clan to protect him, he must come under the protection of the Law, or the people. If the “resident alien” is circumcised, he may participate in the Passover (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 104).
15 tn The infinitive absolute functions as the finite verb here, and “every male” could be either the object or the subject (see GKC 347 §113.gg and 387 §121.a).
16 tn אֶזְרָח (’ezrakh) refers to the native-born individual, the native Israelite as opposed to the “stranger, alien” (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 104); see also W. F. Albright, Archaeology and the Religion of Israel, 127, 210.
17 tn Heb “the thing that.”
18 tn The perfect tense could be taken as a definite past with Moses now reporting it. In this case a very recent past. But in declaring the word from Yahweh it could be instantaneous, and receive a present tense translation – “here and now he commands you.”
19 tn The form is the plural imperative: “Gather [you] each man according to his eating.”
20 sn The omer is an amount mentioned only in this chapter, and its size is unknown, except by comparison with the ephah (v. 36). A number of recent English versions approximate the omer as “two quarts” (cf. NCV, CEV, NLT); TEV “two litres.”
21 tn Heb “for a head.”
22 tn The word “number” is an accusative that defines more precisely how much was to be gathered (see GKC 374 §118.h).
23 tn Traditionally “souls.”
24 tn Heb “will take.”
25 tn “lives” has been supplied.
26 sn Noting the rabbinic teaching that the giving of the Sabbath was a sign of God’s love – it was accomplished through the double portion on the sixth day – B. Jacob says, “God made no request unless He provided the means for its execution” (Exodus, 461).
27 tn Heb “remain, a man where he is.”
28 tn Or “Let not anyone go” (see GKC 445 §138.d).
29 tn “and then” has been supplied.
30 tn The verb is a Hitpael perfect with vav (ו) consecutive; it follows the sequence of the imperfect before it – “if he gets up and walks about.” This is proof of recovery.
31 tn The imperfect tense carries a nuance of obligatory imperfect because this is binding on the one who hit him.
32 tn Heb “his”; the referent (the injured person) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
33 tn The word appears to be the infinitive from the verb “to sit” with a meaning of “his sitting down”; some suggest it is from the verb “to rest” with a meaning “cease.” In either case the point in the context must mean compensation is due for the time he was down.
34 tn Heb “concerning every kind [thing] of trespass.”
35 tn The text simply has “this is it” (הוּא זֶה, hu’ zeh).
36 tn Again, or “God.”
37 tn This kind of clause Gesenius calls an independent relative clause – it does not depend on a governing substantive but itself expresses a substantival idea (GKC 445-46 §138.e).
38 tn The verb means “to be guilty” in Qal; in Hiphil it would have a declarative sense, because a causative sense would not possibly fit.
39 tn This is an adverbial accusative of time.
40 tn Heb “in it.”
41 tn The verb is a Niphal imperfect; the nuance of permission works well here – no one is permitted to appear before God empty (Heb “and they will not appear before me empty”).
42 tn The text uses “one” again; “the one…the one” means “the one…and the next” in the distributive sense.
43 tn Heb “thus.”
44 tn Heb “put.”
45 tn The two imperatives form a verbal hendiadys: “pass over and return,” meaning, “go back and forth” throughout the camp.
46 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.
47 tn Heb “and the one that opens [the womb of] the donkey.”
48 sn See G. Brin, “The Firstling of Unclean Animals,” JQR 68 (1971): 1-15.
49 tn The form is the adverb “empty.”
