Exodus 2:13–14

2:13 When he went out47 the next day,48 there were49 two Hebrew men fighting. So he said to the one who was in the wrong,50 “Why are you attacking51 your fellow Hebrew?”52

2:14 The man53 replied, “Who made you a ruler54 and a judge over us? Are you planning55 to kill me like you killed that56 Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid, thinking,57 “Surely what I did58 has become known.”

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47	tn The preterite with the vav consecutive is subordinated to the main idea of the verse.
48	tn Heb “the second day” (so KJV, ASV).
49	tn The deictic particle is used here to predicate existence, as in “here were” or “there were.” But this use of הִנֵּה (hinneh) indicates also that what he encountered was surprising or sudden—as in “Oh, look!”
50	tn The word רָשָׁע (rasha’) is a legal term, meaning the guilty. This guilty man rejects Moses’ intervention for much the same reason Pharaoh will later (5:2)—he does not recognize his authority. Later Pharaoh will use this term to declare himself as in the wrong (9:27) and God in the right.
51	tn This is the third use of the verb נָכָה (nakha) in the passage; here it is the Hiphil imperfect. It may be given a progressive imperfect nuance—the attack was going on when Moses tried to intervene.
52	sn Heb “your neighbor.” The word רֵעֶךָ (re’ekha) appears again in 33:11 to describe the ease with which God and Moses conversed. The Law will have much to say about how the Israelites were to treat their “neighbors, fellow citizens” (Exod 20:16–17; 21:14, 18, 35; 22:7–11, 14, 26; cf. Luke 10:25–37).
53	tn Heb “And he”; the referent (the man) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
54	tn Heb “Who placed you for a man, a ruler and a judge over us?” The pleonasm does not need to be translated. For similar constructions see Lev 21:9; Judg 6:8; 2 Sam 1:13; Esth 7:6.
55	tn The line reads “[is it] to kill me you are planning?” The form אֹמֵר (’omer) is the active participle used verbally; it would literally be “[are you] saying,” but in this context it conveys the meaning of “thinking, planning.” The Qal infinitive then serves as the object of this verbal form—are you planning to kill me?
56	tn Heb “the Egyptian.” Here the Hebrew article functions in an anaphoric sense, referring back to the individual Moses killed.
57	tn The verb form is “and he said.” But the intent of the form is that he said this within himself, and so it means “he thought, realized, said to himself.” The form, having the vav consecutive, is subordinated to the main idea of the verse, that he was afraid.
58	tn The term הַדָּבָר (haddavar, “the word [thing, matter, incident]”) functions here like a pronoun to refer in brief to what Moses had done. For clarity this has been specified in the translation with the phrase “what I did.”

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