A great cry means “loud crying” (Good News Translation), used here in a collective sense and suggesting “loud wailing” (New American Bible) at the same time. The word for cry means a “cry of anguish” (New English Bible), the same word used in 2.23 and 3.7 for the cry of the oppressed Israelites. Throughout all the land of Egypt suggests that the cry will come from every Egyptian family. An alternative model for this first clause is “Everywhere in Egypt people will wail loudly.” Such as there has never been may be understood as either a louder cry or greater anguish than ever before, or perhaps both. Some translations helpfully add the word “heard” (Jerusalem Bible, New English Bible, Revised English Bible), but this may be understood in both ways. (Revised English Bible has “the like of which has never been heard before.”) Nor ever shall be again may also need to have the word “heard” added; for example, “and will never be heard again.”

Quoted with permission from Osborn, Noel D. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Exodus. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1999. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .