Exodus

No published English Bible, commentary, or study note was open while Exodus was drafted. The wording source was the ancient-language witnesses named in the notes. A lexicon or grammar may be used for a source word. Greek, Syriac, and Latin, when they appear, witness the source wording. They are not models for the English.

The continuous copy is the Leningrad Codex, read in the Open Scriptures diplomatic text of the Westminster Leningrad Codex. Dead Sea copies of Exodus are fragmentary. This draft does not replace Leningrad with a reading that was not read off a fragment. No earlier wording is guessed into the English. The Samaritan Pentateuch and the Greek, Syriac, and Latin versions are witnesses, not the default.

Leningrad writes seventy. The Greek of this verse reads seventy-five. The Greek number is not printed. No Dead Sea fragment of this number was read for this draft, so none is substituted.

Yotzei yerekh are the people who came out of the thigh, the descendants. Nefesh is printed “people.”

Vayishretzu is the verb for swarming, the same verb used of creatures that teem. A milder “increased” is not printed.

The people are spoken of as “him,” one man. Alah min ha-aretz is printed “go up out of the land.” “Rise over the land” is the live alternative.

Sarei missim are officers of forced labor. Arei miskenot are cities for stores. The builder is singular in the Hebrew, matching “him,” the people, so “he built” is printed.

Vayyaqutsu is a dread that turns the stomach. “They dreaded” would also do. “They were sick with dread” keeps the verb’s force.

Befarekh is crushing, back-breaking service. The same word returns in the next verse.

Ha-meyallidot ha-ivriyyot can be “the Hebrew midwives” or “the midwives for the Hebrew women.” “The Hebrew midwives” is printed.

Ovnayim is a dual of “stone.” The scene is a birth, so “birth stones” is printed. The Hebrew does not describe the object further. A potter’s wheel is a later guess from the same dual, and it is not printed.

Chayot means full of life, vigorous. The same consonants can be read “living creatures.” “Vigorous” is printed. “Like animals” is not.

Batim are houses. Here they are households, families given to the midwives. Buildings are the live alternative. The verb “he made” does not rename its subject. God is the subject of the previous sentence, so “he” is printed as God.

Ye’or is the Egyptian river. It is printed “the Nile.”

Leningrad says every son who is born, with no limit “to the Hebrews.” The Greek adds that limit. It is not printed.