Add parallel Print Page Options

They will fill your houses, the houses of your servants, and all the houses of Egypt, such as[a] neither[b] your fathers nor your grandfathers have seen since they have been[c] in the land until this day!’” Then Moses[d] turned and went out from Pharaoh.

Pharaoh’s servants said to him, “How long[e] will this man be a menace[f] to us? Release the people so that they may serve the Lord their God. Do you not know[g] that Egypt is destroyed?”

So Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharaoh, and he said to them, “Go, serve the Lord your God. Exactly who is going with you?”[h]

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. Exodus 10:6 tn The relative pronoun אֲשֶׁר (ʾasher) is occasionally used as a comparative conjunction (see GKC 499 §161.b).
  2. Exodus 10:6 tn Heb “which your fathers have not seen, nor your fathers’ fathers.”
  3. Exodus 10:6 tn The Hebrew construction מִיּוֹם הֱיוֹתָם (miyyom heyotam, “from the day of their being”). The statement essentially says that no one, even the elderly, could remember seeing a plague of locusts like this. In addition, see B. Childs, “A Study of the Formula, ‘Until This Day,’” JBL 82 (1963).
  4. Exodus 10:6 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Moses) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
  5. Exodus 10:7 sn The question of Pharaoh’s servants echoes the question of Moses—“How long?” Now the servants of Pharaoh are demanding what Moses demanded—“Release the people.” They know that the land is destroyed, and they speak of it as Moses’ doing. That way they avoid acknowledging Yahweh or blaming Pharaoh.
  6. Exodus 10:7 tn Heb “snare” (מוֹקֵשׁ, moqesh), a word used for a trap for catching birds. Here it is a figure for the cause of Egypt’s destruction.
  7. Exodus 10:7 tn With the adverb טֶרֶם (terem), the imperfect tense receives a present sense: “Do you not know?” (See GKC 481 §152.r).
  8. Exodus 10:8 tn The question is literally “who and who are the ones going?” (מִי וָמִי הַהֹלְכִים, mi vami haholekhim). Pharaoh’s answer to Moses includes this rude question, which was intended to say that Pharaoh would control who went. The participle in this clause, then, refers to the future journey.