And I will take you for my people means “I will make you my own people.” It may be understood as “I will adopt you” (New English Bible), “I will claim you” (Translator’s Old Testament), or “I will accept you” (Contemporary English Version). And I will be your God shows the other aspect of the new relationship between God and the Israelites, but in both aspects it is God who is the actor. (New American Bible‘s “you shall have me as your God” may suggest incorrectly that it is the people who act.) New English Bible has “I will become your God.” In certain languages where the phrase your God suggests that the Israelites actually own God, translators may say something like “I will be the God whom you worship.”
And you shall know is addressed to the Israelites (you is plural). Know here means more than just intellectual knowledge. It means to “know by experience” (Durham). That I am the LORD your God is literally “that I Yahweh your God.” It is not clear where the am should be inserted in English. Some translations therefore give it a slightly different meaning: “that I, the LORD, am your God.” (New English Bible, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh, New American Bible, and others.) Jerusalem Bible has “that it is I, Yahweh your God.” In languages where a similar choice must be made, the interpretation of Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation is recommended. In some languages it will be helpful to begin this sentence with “Then” and say “Then you will know that I am Yahweh your God.”
Who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians is almost identical with the expression in verse 6. However, the relative pronoun who is only implied by just one word in the Hebrew, a participle that literally means “one-who-causes-to-come-out.” Good News Translation‘s “when I set you free” is therefore equally possible (so also New American Bible). In languages where dependent clauses must precede the main clause, one may translate “When I set you free from slavery in Egypt, you will know that I am Yahweh, your God.”
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 .