I have come down suggests that God had come to that mountain from a higher level. It should be understood in contrast with the verb to bring them up. To deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians means “to rescue them from the Egyptians” (Good News Translation). The Hebrew word for “Egyptians” may also mean the land (“Egypt”) as well as the people. The hand of the Egyptians is a typical way of referring to “the power of Egypt” (New English Bible).

To bring them up out of that land is a frequently-repeated formula, where the verb “to bring up” alternates with the verb “to bring forth” (verse 10). Where the former is used, it probably suggests from the lowlands of Egypt to the highlands of Canaan, rather than from south to north. Good News Translation‘s “to bring them out of Egypt” does not make this distinction. In languages where the writer of Exodus is considered to be in Canaan, it may be necessary to show the “up” orientation and say, for example, “to bring them out of Egypt coming up to a land….”

A good and broad land means “a fertile and spacious land.” A broad or “spacious land” (Good News Translation) means “a big land,” or “a land with plenty of room.” It is also described as a land flowing with milk and honey, an idealistic picture of the “promised land” in the minds of desert nomads. Since this is figurative language, a literal translation may be meaningless. The meaning is “one that is rich and fertile.” Good News Translation has omitted “fertile” in the first phrase for reasons of style. If translators choose to keep the words milk and honey, they should know that the milk intended was goat’s milk, and the honey may have been a thick, sweet syrup made from dates, the fruit of the date tree, and not from bees. (But see the comment on honey at 16.31.)

The place of the Canaanites … is a further description of the land where six other ethnic groups “now live.” The origin of some of these groups is uncertain, and the form “-ites” does not distinguish between descendants of a person (such as Canaan) and inhabitants of a place (such as Jebus). If the translation must specify one or the other, it is best to consider them all people of a place. In many languages translators may refer to these people as “the people of Canaan,” “the people of Hit,” “the people of Amor,” and so on. (Gen 10.15-17 lists three of these groups as descendants of Canaan.)

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 .