Discovery BoxExodus 5:13 
Context5:13 The slave masters were pressuring 1 them, saying, “Complete 2 your work for each day, just like when there was straw!”
Exodus 7:13
Context7:13 Yet Pharaoh’s heart became hard, 3 and he did not listen to them, just as the Lord had predicted.
Exodus 12:32
Context12:32 Also, take your flocks and your herds, just as you have requested, and leave. But bless me also.” 4
Exodus 40:23
Context40:23 And he set the bread in order on it 5 before the Lord, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.
1 tn Or “pressed.”
2 tn כַּלּוּ (kallu) is the Piel imperative; the verb means “to finish, complete” in the sense of filling up the quota.
3 tn This phrase translates the Hebrew word חָזַק (khazaq); see S. R. Driver, Exodus, 53.
sn For more on this subject, see B. Jacob, Exodus, 241-49. S. R. Driver (Exodus, 53) notes that when this word (חָזַק) is used it indicates a will or attitude that is unyielding and firm, but when כָּבֵד (kaved) is used, it stresses the will as being slow to move, unimpressionable, slow to be affected.
4 tn The form is the Piel perfect with a vav (ו) consecutive (וּבֵרַכְתֶּם, uverakhtem); coming in the sequence of imperatives this perfect tense would be volitional – probably a request rather than a command.
sn Pharaoh probably meant that they should bless him also when they were sacrificing to Yahweh in their religious festival – after all, he might reason, he did let them go (after divine judgment). To bless him would mean to invoke good gifts from God for him.
5 tn Heb uses a cognate accusative construction, “he arranged the arrangement.”
