Translation or Tradition: A Brief Survey of Some Translational Issues in the Book of Exodus

Abstract

In translating the MT of Exodus, we should be aware of the danger of allowing strongly embedded traditions to influence our rendering of specific Hebrew terms into English. Due to a now redundant sense of the English term “plague,” which previously meant a “strike” or “blow,” we should abandon its use to denote the miraculous events that are recorded in Exodus. For different reasons, we should also jettison references to an angelic destroyer and the Israelites departing as an army from the story of God’s redemption of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.