Exodus 22:26-28

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Exodus 22:26 tn The construction again uses the infinitive absolute with the verb in the conditional clause to stress the condition.
2. Exodus 22:26 tn The clause uses the preposition, the infinitive construct, and the noun that is the subjective genitive—“at the going in of the sun.”
3. Exodus 22:27 tn Heb “his skin.”
4. Exodus 22:27 tn Literally the text reads, “In what can he lie down?” The cloak would be used for a covering at night to use when sleeping. The garment, then, was the property that could not be taken and not given back—it was the last possession. The modern idiom of “the shirt off his back” gets at the point being made here.
5. Exodus 22:27 tn Heb “and it will be.”
6. Exodus 22:28 tn The two verbs in this verse are synonyms: קָלַל (qalal) means “to treat lightly, curse,” and אָרַר (ʾarar) means “to curse.”
7. Exodus 22:28 tn The word אֱלֹהִים (ʾelohim) is “gods” or “God.” If taken as the simple plural, it could refer to the human judges, as it has in the section of laws; this would match the parallelism in the verse. If it was taken to refer to God, then the idea of cursing God would be more along the line of blasphemy. B. Jacob says that the word refers to functioning judges, and that would indirectly mean God, for they represented the religious authority, and the prince the civil authority (Exodus, 708).