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20 Now the firstling[a] of a donkey you may redeem with a lamb, but if you do not redeem it, then break its neck.[b] You must redeem all the firstborn of your sons.

“No one will appear before me empty-handed.[c]

21 “On six days[d] you may labor, but on the seventh day you must rest;[e] even at the time of plowing and of harvest[f] you are to rest.[g]

22 “You must observe[h] the Feast of Weeks—the firstfruits of the harvest of wheat—and the Feast of Ingathering at the end[i] of the year.

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Footnotes

  1. Exodus 34:20 tn Heb “and the one that opens [the womb of] the donkey.”
  2. Exodus 34:20 sn See G. Brin, “The Firstling of Unclean Animals,” JQR 68 (1971): 1-15.
  3. Exodus 34:20 tn The form is the adverb “empty.”
  4. Exodus 34:21 tn This is an adverbial accusative of time.
  5. Exodus 34:21 tn Or “cease” (i.e., from the labors).
  6. Exodus 34:21 sn See M. Dahood, “Vocative lamed in Exodus 2, 4 and Merismus in 34, 21, ” Bib 62 (1981): 413-15.
  7. Exodus 34:21 tn The imperfect tense expresses injunction or instruction.
  8. Exodus 34:22 tn The imperfect tense means “you will do”; it is followed by the preposition with a suffix to express the ethical dative to stress the subject.
  9. Exodus 34:22 tn The expression is “the turn of the year,” which is parallel to “the going out of the year,” and means the end of the agricultural season.