Gender-Related Changes to NJPS in The Torah: A Modern Commentary, Revised Edition • David E. S. Stein, Editor NJPS translation © 1962, 1985, 1999. Used and adapted with permission from The Jewish Publication Society. among the reeds by the bank of the Nile. 4And his sister sta- EXODUS tioned herself at a distance, to learn what would befall him. 5The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe in the SH’MOT Nile, while her maidens walked along the Nile. She spied the basket among the reeds and sent her slave girl to fetch it. These are the names of the sons of Israel[DS1] who came to 1 6When she opened it, she saw that it was a child, a boy cry- Egypt with Jacob, each coming with his household[DS2]: ing. She took pity on it and said, “This must be a Hebrew 2Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah; 3Issachar, Zebulun, and child.” 7Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go Benjamin; 4Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher. 5The total and get you a Hebrew nurse[DS9] to suckle the child for number of persons that were of Jacob’s issue came to seventy, you?” 8And Pharaoh’s daughter answered, “Yes.” So the girl Joseph being already in Egypt. 6Joseph died, and all his went and called the child’s mother. 9And Pharaoh’s daughter brothers, and all that generation. 7But the Israelites[DS3] were said to her, “Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will pay fertile and prolific; they multiplied and increased very greatly, your wages.” So the woman[DS10] took the child and nursed so that the land was filled with them. it. 10When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh’s 8A new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph. daughter, who made him her son. She named him Moses, 9And he said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people[DS4] explaining, “I drew him out of the water.” are much too numerous for us. 10Let us deal shrewdly with them, so that they may not increase; otherwise in the event of 11Some time after that, when Moses had grown up, he war they may join our enemies in fighting against us and rise went out to his kinsfolk and witnessed their labors. He saw an 11 from the ground.” So they set taskmasters over them to Egyptian beating a Hebrew[DS11], one of his kinsmen[DS12]. oppress them with forced labor;[DS5] and they built garrison 12He turned this way and that and, seeing no one 12 cities for Pharaoh: Pithom and Rameses. But the more they about[DS13], he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the were oppressed, the more they increased and spread out, so sand. 13When he went out the next day, he found two He- that the [Egyptians] came to dread the Israelites. brews[DS14] fighting; so he said to the offender, “Why do 13 The Egyptians ruthlessly imposed upon the Israelites you strike your fellow?” 14He retorted, “Who made you chief 14 the various labors that they made them perform. Ruthlessly and ruler[DS15] over us? Do you mean to kill me as you they made life bitter for them with harsh labor at mortar and killed the Egyptian?” Moses was frightened, and thought: bricks and with all sorts of tasks in the field. Then the matter is known! 15When Pharaoh learned of the 15 The king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, one matter, he sought to kill Moses; but Moses fled from Pharaoh. 16 of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, saying, He arrived in the land of Midian, and sat down beside a well. “When you deliver the Hebrew women, look at the birthstool: if it is a boy, kill him; if it is a girl, let her live.” 17The mid- 16Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters. They wives, fearing God, did not do as the king of Egypt had told came to draw water, and filled the troughs to water their fa- them; they let the boys live. 18So the king of Egypt sum- ther’s flock; 17but shepherds came and drove them off. Moses moned the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done rose to their defense, and he watered their flock. 18When they this thing, letting the boys live?” 19The midwives said to returned to their father Reuel, he said, “How is it that you Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyp- have come back so soon today?” 19They answered, “An tian women: they are vigorous. Before the midwife can come Egyptian was our champion! He rescued us from the shep- to them, they have given birth.” 20And God dealt well with herds[DS16]; he even drew water for us and watered the the midwives; and the people multiplied and increased flock.” 20He said to his daughters, “Where is he then? Why greatly. 21And [ God ] esta blished households for the mi d - did you leave the man this champion [DS17]? Ask him in to wives , because they feared God because the midwives feared break bread.” 21Moses consented to stay with the man in that God, He established households for them[DS6]. 22Then Phar- household [DS18], and he [Reuel] gave Moses his daughter aoh charged all his people, saying, “Every boy that is born Zipporah as wife. 22She bore a son whom he named Ger- you shall throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.” shom, for he said, “I have been a stranger in a foreign land.” 23 2A certain man member [DS7] of the house of Levi went and A long time after that, the king of Egypt died. The Is- married a Levite woman of Levi [DS8]. 2The woman con- raelites were groaning under the bondage and cried out; and 24 ceived and bore a son; and when she saw how beautiful he their cry for help from the bondage rose up to God. God was, she hid him for three months. 3When she could hide him heard their moaning, and God remembered His the covenant 25 no longer, she got a wicker basket for him and caulked it with [DS19]with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. God looked bitumen and pitch. She put the child into it and placed it upon the Israelites, and God took notice of them. NJPSAE06.doc • 1/28/13 • KEY: Red underline = insertion; blue strikethrough = deletion; highlight = note reference; highlight = since 2005 Substitutions not tracked include: “the Eternal” for “the LORD”(etc.); those related to sacrifices and to ritual purity (see the book’s preface). Gender-Related Changes to NJPS in The Torah: A Modern Commentary, Revised Edition • Page 2 and you shall say to him, ‘The Eternal, the God of the He- 3Now Moses, tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, brews, became manifested Himself [DS25]to us. Now there- the priest of Midian, drove the flock into the wilderness, and fore, let us go a distance of three days into the wilderness to 19 came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2An angel of the Eternal sacrifice to the Eternal our God.’ Yet I know that the king 20 appeared to him in a blazing fire out of a bush. He gazed, and of Egypt will let you go only because of a greater might. So there was a bush all aflame, yet the bush was not consumed. I will stretch out My hand and smite Egypt with various won- 3Moses said, “I must turn aside to look at this marvelous ders which I will work upon them; after that he shall let you 21 sight; why doesn’t the bush burn up?” 4When the Eternal saw go. And I will dispose the Egyptians favorably toward this that he had turned aside to look, God called to him out of the people, so that when you go, you will not go away empty- 22 bush: “Moses! Moses!” He answered, “Here I am.” 5And handed. Each woman shall borrow from her neighbor and He [God] said, “Do not come closer. ! Remove your sandals the lodger in her house objects of silver and gold, and cloth- from your feet, for the place on which you stand is holy ing, and you shall put these on your sons and daughters, thus ground !” . 6 and continued [DS20] , “ I am,” He said, “the God of stripping the Egyptians.” your father ’s [ house ] , — [DS21]the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for 4But Moses spoke up and said, “What if they do not believe he was afraid to look at God. me and do not listen to me, but say: The Eternal did not ap- 7And the Eternal continued, “I have marked well the pear to you?” 2The Eternal One said to him, “What is that in plight of My people in Egypt and have heeded their outcry your hand?” And he replied, “A rod.” 3He [God] said, “Cast it because of their taskmasters; yes, I am mindful of their suffer- on the ground.” He cast it on the ground and it became a ings. 8I have come down to rescue them from the Egyptians snake; and Moses recoiled from it. 4Then the Eternal said to and to bring them out of that land to a good and spacious land, Moses, “Put out your hand and grasp it by the tail”—he put a land flowing with milk and honey, the region of the Canaan- out his hand and seized it, and it became a rod in his ites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and hand—5“that they may believe that the Eternal, the God of the Jebusites.