And they said to Moses introduces what they said when they “complained to Moses” (New American Bible, Contemporary English Version), not what they cried out to Yahweh in verse 10. In many languages it will be helpful to use a word such as “complained” (Contemporary English Version) rather than said as in Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation. What they may have said to Yahweh is not recorded. The direct quotation includes four sarcastic complaints, two in this verse and two in the following verse. They should be considered together. Three are rhetorical questions, and the fourth is a statement. They may need to be rearranged for greater impact. Note that Good News Translation breaks the first question into two and changes the second question into an exclamation.

Is it because there are no graves in Egypt is literally a double negative, “Without no graves in Egypt?” Is it because is implied by an initial question marker. In English a double negative (“without no graves”) makes a positive, but in Hebrew it intensifies the negative. The word for graves simply means a burial place; it does not indicate a specific kind of burial. That you have taken us away is literally “you [singular] took us.” Away is implied, but it may be more natural to say “out here” (Good News Translation). To die in the wilderness uses the general term for dying—it can be a natural death. For wilderness or “desert” (Good News Translation) see 3.1. It may be more natural to interchange these two clauses: “Have you taken us away to die in the wilderness because there are no graves in Egypt?” But using two questions instead of one is easier, and Contemporary English Version is a helpful model: “Wasn’t there enough room in Egypt to bury us? Is that why you brought us out here to die in the desert?”

What have you done to us is literally “what this you did to us?” (Compare this with verse 5, “What have we done?”) In bringing us out of Egypt is literally “to cause us to go out from Egypt.” New American Bible changes this into two questions: “Why did you do this to us? Why did you bring us out of Egypt?” And Good News Translation changes this to an exclamation: “Look what you have done by bringing us out of Egypt!” Contemporary English Version simply has “Why did you bring us out of Egypt anyway?”

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 .