Discovery BoxExodus 7:19 
Context7:19 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron, ‘Take your staff and stretch out your hand over Egypt’s waters – over their rivers, over their canals, 1 over their ponds, and over all their reservoirs 2 – so that it becomes 3 blood.’ There will be blood everywhere in 4 the land of Egypt, even in wooden and stone containers.”
Exodus 8:26
Context8:26 But Moses said, “That would not be the right thing to do, 5 for the sacrifices we make 6 to the Lord our God would be an abomination 7 to the Egyptians. 8 If we make sacrifices that are an abomination to the Egyptians right before their eyes, 9 will they not stone us? 10
Exodus 17:12
Context17:12 When 11 the hands of Moses became heavy, 12 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, 13 and so his hands were steady 14 until the sun went down.
1 tn Or “irrigation rivers” of the Nile.
2 sn The Hebrew term means “gathering,” i.e., wherever they gathered or collected waters, notably cisterns and reservoirs. This would naturally lead to the inclusion of both wooden and stone vessels – down to the smallest gatherings.
3 tn The imperfect tense with vav (ו) after the imperative indicates the purpose or result: “in order that they [the waters] be[come] blood.”
4 tn Or “in all.”
5 tn The clause is a little unusual in its formation. The form נָכוֹן (nakhon) is the Niphal participle from כּוּן (kun), which usually means “firm, fixed, steadfast,” but here it has a rare meaning of “right, fitting, appropriate.” It functions in the sentence as the predicate adjective, because the infinitive לַעֲשּׂוֹת (la’asot) is the subject – “to do so is not right.”
6 tn This translation has been smoothed out to capture the sense. The text literally says, “for the abomination of Egypt we will sacrifice to Yahweh our God.” In other words, the animals that Israel would sacrifice were sacred to Egypt, and sacrificing them would have been abhorrent to the Egyptians.
7 tn An “abomination” is something that is off-limits, something that is tabu. It could be translated “detestable” or “loathsome.”
8 sn U. Cassuto (Exodus, 109) says there are two ways to understand “the abomination of the Egyptians.” One is that the sacrifice of the sacred animals would appear an abominable thing in the eyes of the Egyptians, and the other is that the word “abomination” could be a derogatory term for idols – we sacrifice what is an Egyptian idol. So that is why he says if they did this the Egyptians would stone them.
9 tn Heb “if we sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians [or “of Egypt”] before their eyes.”
10 tn The interrogative clause has no particle to indicate it is a question, but it is connected with the conjunction to the preceding clause, and the meaning of these clauses indicate it is a question (GKC 473 §150.a).
11 tn Literally “now the hands of Moses,” the disjunctive vav (ו) introduces a circumstantial clause here – of time.
12 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.
13 tn Heb “from this, one, and from this, one.”
14 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.
