Is this not what we said to you is literally “[Is] not this the davar which we spoke to you?” It is a negative question that means “This is exactly what we said to you in Egypt.” The word davar can mean word, or event, or thing. It is not clear what this davar refers to, but it is best to understand it as “this happening” (see Good News Translation), that is, this development, this present situation. (King James Version, American Standard Version, and New American Standard Bible understand it as “this word.”) New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh has “Is not this the very thing we told you in Egypt?” and Childs has “Is not this what we told you in Egypt would happen?”

What the people said back in Egypt is now given as a quote within a quote: Let us alone is literally “you [singular] stop from us.” Translator’s Old Testament has “Do not interfere,” and Durham has “Stop bothering us.” And let us serve the Egyptians uses the word that means “to be a slave” as well as to serve, so Good News Translation has “let us go on being slaves.” (See the comment on “slaves” at 1.11a.)

For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians is literally “for good for us to serve the Egyptians.” The idea of would have been is based on the interpretation that this is no longer part of what they said back in Egypt. (Note the single quotation marks in Revised Standard Version.) A few translations extend this embedded quote to the end of the verse (New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh, Translator’s Old Testament, Durham), but it is better to understand these words as spoken now to Moses for the first time. (See the discussion on embedded quotes at 7.16.) The tense is not indicated in the Hebrew, so one may say “It would be better” (Good News Translation), or simply “it is better” (Childs). Contemporary English Version has “We had rather be slaves in Egypt than die in this desert.”

The Hebrew has “good,” but the comparative form, better, is needed because of the phrase than to die in the wilderness, which is literally “than our dying in the wilderness.” (See verse 11.)

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 .