And they said to them means that the foremen spoke to Moses and Aaron. The LORD look upon you and judge is usually understood as a kind of curse: “May the LORD…!” Good News Translation takes it as a simple statement of fact and a prediction: “The LORD has seen what you have done and will punish you.” (The words “what you have done” are only implied.) But the rest of the verse clearly shows that the foremen were very angry. Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch has therefore effectively placed this curse at the end of the foremen’s speech: “May the Lord punish you for this!” To show their anger even more clearly, one may express they said to them as “They scolded Moses and Aaron, saying, ‘May the LORD [or, Yahweh] punish you for what you have done.’ ”

Look upon you suggests a look of disapproval. And judge means to make a just decision, or to “punish.” Some translations have combined these two actions into one (as in Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch above), but the first act, look upon, precedes the second in the sense of taking note of what was done (so Translator’s Old Testament) and then passing judgment. So one may translate “May the LORD notice what you have done and punish you.”

Because you have made us offensive is literally “[you] who have caused our odor to stink.” The meaning of this figure of speech is “You have made us hated” (Jerusalem Bible), or “loathsome” (New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh), or even “obnoxious” (so Brevard Childs). Attempts to retain the metaphor have not always been successful: “You have brought us into bad odor” (New American Bible); “You have made us a stench” (New International Version); “ye have made our savour to be abhorred” (King James Version). But New English Bible is a bit better: “You have made us stink in the nostrils of Pharaoh and his subjects.”

In the sight of Pharaoh is literally “in the eyes of Pharaoh.” But this is a common expression for “in the presence of.” And his servants uses the same word as the Israelite foremen used in reference to themselves in verse 15. But here the meaning is the Egyptian servants of Pharaoh, perhaps his “officials.” New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh uses the word “courtiers.”

And have put a sword in their hand to kill us changes to a new metaphor. The meaning, of course, is simply “you have given them an excuse to kill us” (Good News Translation), or even “Now they even have an excuse to kill us” (Contemporary English Version). The figure of speech may easily be retained as a simile: “What you have done is like putting a sword in their hand to kill us.”

An alternative translation model for this verse is:

• They scolded Moses and Aaron, saying, “May the LORD notice what you have done and punish you. You have caused the king and his officials to hate us. What you have done is like putting a sword in their hand to kill us.”

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 .