Discovery BoxExodus 7:10 
Context7:10 When 1 Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh, they did so, just as the Lord had commanded them – Aaron threw 2 down his staff before Pharaoh and his servants and it became a snake. 3
Exodus 7:12
Context7:12 Each man 4 threw down his staff, and the staffs became snakes. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs.
1 tn The clause begins with the preterite and the vav (ו) consecutive; it is here subordinated to the next clause as a temporal clause.
2 tn Heb “and Aaron threw.”
3 tn The noun used here is תַּנִּין (tannin), and not the word for “serpent” or “snake” used in chap. 4. This noun refers to a large reptile, in some texts large river or sea creatures (Gen 1:21; Ps 74:13) or land creatures (Deut 32:33). This wonder paralleled Moses’ miracle in 4:3 when he cast his staff down. But this is Aaron’s staff, and a different miracle. The noun could still be rendered “snake” here since the term could be broad enough to include it.
4 tn The verb is plural, but the subject is singular, “a man – his staff.” This noun can be given a distributive sense: “each man threw down his staff.”
