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 22:9
Context22:9 In all cases of illegal possessions, 11 whether for an ox, a donkey, a sheep, a garment, or any kind of lost item, about which someone says ‘This belongs to me,’ 12 the matter of the two of them will come before the judges, 13 and the one whom 14 the judges declare guilty 15 must repay double to his neighbor.
Exodus 32:27
Context32:27 and he said to them, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Each man fasten 16 his sword on his side, and go back and forth 17 from entrance to entrance throughout the camp, and each one kill his brother, his friend, and his neighbor.’” 18
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 tn Heb “concerning every kind [thing] of trespass.”
12 tn The text simply has “this is it” (הוּא זֶה, hu’ zeh).
13 tn Again, or “God.”
14 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).
15 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.
16 tn Heb “put.”
17 tn The two imperatives form a verbal hendiadys: “pass over and return,” meaning, “go back and forth” throughout the camp.
18 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.
