Discovery BoxExodus 4:18 
Context4:18 1 So Moses went back 2 to his father-in-law Jethro and said to him, “Let me go, so that I may return 3 to my relatives 4 in Egypt and see 5 if they are still alive.” Jethro said to Moses, “Go in peace.”
Exodus 10:6
Context10:6 They will fill your houses, the houses of your servants, and all the houses of Egypt, such as 6 neither 7 your fathers nor your grandfathers have seen since they have been 8 in the land until this day!’” Then Moses 9 turned and went out from Pharaoh.
Exodus 17:12
Context17:12 When 10 the hands of Moses became heavy, 11 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, 12 and so his hands were steady 13 until the sun went down.
Exodus 33:5
Context33:5 For 14 the Lord had said to Moses, “Tell the Israelites, ‘You are a stiff-necked people. If I went up among you for a moment, 15 I might destroy you. Now take off your ornaments, 16 that I may know 17 what I should do to you.’” 18
1 sn This last section of the chapter reports Moses’ compliance with the commission. It has four parts: the decision to return (18-20), the instruction (21-23), the confrontation with Yahweh (24-26), and the presentation with Aaron (27-31).
2 tn The two verbs form a verbal hendiadys, the second verb becoming adverbial in the translation: “and he went and he returned” becomes “and he went back.”
3 tn There is a sequence here with the two cohortative forms: אֵלְכָה נָּא וְאָשׁוּבָה (’elÿkhah nna’ vÿ’ashuva) – “let me go in order that I may return.”
4 tn Heb “brothers.”
5 tn This verb is parallel to the preceding cohortative and so also expresses purpose: “let me go that I may return…and that I may see.”
6 tn The relative pronoun אֲשֶׁר (’asher) is occasionally used as a comparative conjunction (see GKC 499 §161.b).
7 tn Heb “which your fathers have not seen, nor your fathers’ fathers.”
8 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).
9 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Moses) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
10 tn Literally “now the hands of Moses,” the disjunctive vav (ו) introduces a circumstantial clause here – of time.
11 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.
12 tn Heb “from this, one, and from this, one.”
13 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.
14 tn The verse simply begins “And Yahweh said.” But it is clearly meant to be explanatory for the preceding action of the people.
15 tn The construction is formed with a simple imperfect in the first half and a perfect tense with vav (ו) in the second half. Heb “[in] one moment I will go up in your midst and I will destroy you.” The verse is certainly not intended to say that God was about to destroy them. That, plus the fact that he has announced he will not go in their midst, leads most commentators to take this as a conditional clause: “If I were to do such and such, then….”
16 tn The Hebrew text also has “from on you.”
17 tn The form is the cohortative with a vav (ו) following the imperative; it therefore expresses the purpose or result: “strip off…that I may know.” The call to remove the ornaments must have been perceived as a call to show true repentance for what had happened. If they repented, then God would know how to deal with them.
18 tn This last clause begins with the interrogative “what,” but it is used here as an indirect interrogative. It introduces a noun clause, the object of the verb “know.”
