² tn Heb “Solomon held at that time the festival, and all Israel was with him, a great assembly from Lebo Hamath to the Stream of Egypt, before the Lord our God for seven days and seven days, fourteen days.”

³ sn From the middle of the iron-smelting furnace. The metaphor of a furnace suggests fire and heat and is an apt image to remind the people of the suffering they endured while slaves in Egypt.

⁶ tn Heb “from Egypt, nations and their gods.” The LXX has “nations and tents,” which reflects a mistaken metathesis of letters in אֶלֹהָיו (ʾelohayv, “its gods”) and אֹהָלָיו (ʾohalayv, “its tents”).

³ tc Reading with 4QSam^a and the LXX “when they were in the land of Egypt, slaves to the house of Pharaoh.” The MT omits “slaves,” probably lost due to homoioteleuton.

² tn The words “Did I not deliver you” are interpretive. The Hebrew text simply reads, “Is it not from Egypt…when they oppressed you?” Perhaps the incomplete sentence reflects the Lord’s frustration.

² sn This apparently refers to Joseph’s special status among his brothers as a result of his being chosen by God to save the family from the famine and to lead Egypt.

¹ sn This material can be arranged into four sections: from Egypt to Sinai (vv. 1-15), the wilderness wanderings (vv. 16-36), from Kadesh to Moab (vv. 37-49), and final orders for Canaan (vv. 50-56).

⁴ tn The use of the demonstrative pronoun here (“why is this we went out…”) is enclitic, providing emphasis to the sentence: “Why in the world did we ever leave Egypt?”

³ sn This is an important report that Jethro has heard, for the claim of God that he brought Israel out of bondage in Egypt will be the foundation of the covenant stipulations (Exod 20).

⁴ tn The form in the text is לְצֵאתָם (l^etseʾtam, “after their going out”). It clearly refers to their deliverance from Egypt, and so it may be vividly translated.

¹ sn As with v. 8, the Law now requires that the children be instructed on the meaning of this observance. It is a memorial of the deliverance from bondage and the killing of the firstborn in Egypt.

¹ sn The thought is essentially the same as in Exod 7:3-4, but the wonders, or portents, here refer to what is yet to be done in Egypt.

⁴ tn A literal reading of the clause would be “which there was not like it in all the land of Egypt.” The relative pronoun must be joined to the resumptive pronoun: “which like it (like which) there had not been.”

³ tn The verb would literally be rendered “and returned”; however, the narrative will record other happenings before he arrived in Egypt, so an ingressive nuance fits here—he began to return, or started back.

³ sn The two uses of the root שָׁלָח (shalakh) in this verse contribute to its force. When the Lord “sends” (Qal) his hand, Pharaoh will “send” (Piel) the Israelites out of Egypt.

¹ tn Heb “All the people who went with Jacob to Egypt, the ones who came out of his body, apart from the wives of the sons of Jacob, all the people were sixty-six.”

¹ sn The number sixty-six includes the seventy-one descendants (including Dinah) listed in vv. 8-25 minus Er and Onan (deceased), and Joseph, Manasseh, and Ephraim (already in Egypt).

² sn Joseph became the grand vizier of the land of Egypt. See W. A. Ward, “The Egyptian Office of Joseph,” JSS 5 (1960): 144-50; and R. de Vaux, Ancient Israel, 129-31.

² tn The Hebrew verb כָּלָה (kalah) in the Piel stem means “to finish, to destroy, to bring an end to.” The severity of the famine will ruin the land of Egypt.

¹ sn Riblah was a strategic town on the Orontes River in Syria. It was at a crossing of the major roads between Egypt and Mesopotamia. Pharaoh Necho had earlier received Jehoahaz there and put him in chains (2 Kgs 23:33) prior to taking him captive to Egypt. Nebuchadnezzar had set up his base camp for conducting his campaigns against the Palestinian states there and was now sitting in judgment on prisoners brought to him.