Discovery BoxExodus 5:18 
Context5:18 So now, get back to work! 1 You will not be given straw, but you must still produce 2 your quota 3 of bricks!”
Exodus 20:25
Context20:25 If you make me an altar of stone, you must not build it 4 of stones shaped with tools, 5 for if you use your tool on it you have defiled it. 6
Exodus 34:12
Context34:12 Be careful not to make 7 a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you are going, lest it become a snare 8 among you.
1 tn The text has two imperatives: “go, work.” They may be used together to convey one complex idea (so a use of hendiadys): “go back to work.”
2 tn The imperfect תִּתֵּנּוּ (tittennu) is here taken as an obligatory imperfect: “you must give” or “you must produce.”
3 sn B. Jacob is amazed at the wealth of this tyrant’s vocabulary in describing the work of others. Here, תֹכֶן (tokhen) is another word for “quota” of bricks, the fifth word used to describe their duty (Exodus, 137).
4 tn Heb “them” referring to the stones.
5 tn Heb “of hewn stones.” Gesenius classifies this as an adverbial accusative – “you shall not build them (the stones of the altar) as hewn stones.” The remoter accusative is in apposition to the nearer (GKC 372 §117.kk).
6 tn The verb is a preterite with vav (ו) consecutive. It forms the apodosis in a conditional clause: “if you lift up your tool on it…you have defiled it.”
7 tn The exact expression is “take heed to yourself lest you make.” It is the second use of this verb in the duties, now in the Niphal stem. To take heed to yourself means to watch yourself, be sure not to do something. Here, if they failed to do this, they would end up making entangling treaties.
8 sn A snare would be a trap, an allurement to ruin. See Exod 23:33.
