And he cried to the LORD means that “Moses prayed earnestly” (Good News Translation) to Yahweh. This clause may also be expressed as “Moses pleaded with the LORD to help him” or “Moses pleaded with Yahweh, ‘Please help me.’ ” The same word is used in 14.10, where the people “cried out to the LORD.” And the LORD showed him a tree is literally “and Yahweh caused him to see a tree.” Tree is better understood as “a piece of wood” (Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version).
And he threw it into the water means that Moses threw the tree, “a piece of it” (Translator’s Old Testament), or the “piece of wood” into the bitter water. It is obvious that Moses must have thrown the wood at Yahweh’s command. One may also express this as “Yahweh showed Moses a piece of wood and said, ‘Throw it into the water.’ When he did this, the water….” And the water became sweet means that it became potable, or drinkable (Good News Translation “fit to drink”). The word for sweet may also mean pleasant. New American Bible has “fresh.”
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 .
Most translations begin a new paragraph with this second part of the verse. There the LORD made for them is literally “There he put for him,” but the present context clearly suggests that the “he” refers to Yahweh and the “him” refers to the people. (“People” in verse 24 is singular in form but refers to all the Israelites.) There may also be expressed as “at Marah.” A statute (choq) means a task, obligation, or law. An ordinance (mishpat) means a legal decision or judgment. Although these terms are often used interchangeably, Revised Standard Version usually tries to be concordant in translation, that is, always using the same English word for a particular Hebrew word. New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh considers the two words to be a hendiadys, or one idea expressed by two words, namely “a fixed rule.” Good News Translation treats both words as “laws to live by.” (See the introduction to 20.22-26.) It seems best to have a general translation like Good News Translation‘s. If, however, a receptor language has many synonyms for laws or regulations, one may say, for example, “some rules and directions [or, instructions] on how to live their lives.”
And there he proved them uses a word meaning to train or put to the test, so Good News Translation has “there he also tested them.” There refers to Marah, the place where they were. In a number of languages it will be necessary to specify the content of the testing. In such cases one may say, for example, “and there he tested them to see if they would obey him” or “he tried to find out if they would obey him.”
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 .