4:11 The Lord said to him, “Who gave 8 a mouth to man, or who makes a person mute or deaf or seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? 9 4:12 So now go, and I will be with your mouth 10 and will teach you 11 what you must say.” 12
1 tn Heb “all the words of.”
2 tn Heb “your mouth will open.”
3 tn Heb “I will cause a horn to sprout for the house of Israel.” The horn is used as a figure for military power in the OT (Ps 92:10). A similar expression is made about the Davidic dynasty in Ps 132:17.
4 tn Heb “I will grant you an open mouth.”
5 tn The word הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally “behold”) indicates becoming aware of something and has been translated here as a verb.
6 tn Heb “one who makes playing music well.”
7 sn Similar responses are found in Isa 29:13; Matt 21:28-32; James 1:22-25.
8 tn The verb שִׂים (sim) means “to place, put, set”; the sentence here more precisely says, “Who put a mouth into a man?”
9 sn The final question obviously demands a positive answer. But the clause is worded in such a way as to return to the theme of “I AM.” Isaiah 45:5-7 developed this same idea of God’s control over life. Moses protests that he is not an eloquent speaker, and the
10 sn The promise of divine presence always indicates intervention (for blessing or cursing). Here it means that God would be working through the organs of speech to help Moses speak. See Deut 18:18; Jer 1:9.
11 sn The verb is וְהוֹרֵיתִיךָ (vÿhoretikha), the Hiphil perfect with a vav (ו) consecutive. The form carries the instructional meaning because it follows the imperative “go.” In fact, there is a sequence at work here: “go…and/that I may teach you.” It is from יָרָה (yara), the same root behind תּוֹרָה (torah, “law”). This always referred to teaching either wisdom or revelation. Here Yahweh promises to teach Moses what to say.
12 tn The form is the imperfect tense. While it could be taken as a future (“what you will say”), an obligatory imperfect captures the significance better (“what you must say” or “what you are to say”). Not even the content of the message will be left up to Moses.
13 tn Grk “a mouth.” It is a metonymy and refers to the reply the Lord will give to them.
14 tn Grk “and wisdom.”
15 tn To avoid a lengthy, convoluted sentence in English, the Greek sentence was broken up at this point and the verb “pray” was inserted in the English translation to pick up the participle προσευχόμενοι (proseuxomenoi, “praying”) in v. 18.
16 tn Grk “that a word may be given to me in the opening of my mouth.” Here “word” (λόγος, logo") is used in the sense of “message.”
17 tn The infinitive γνωρίσαι (gnwrisai, “to make known”) is functioning epexegetically to further explain what the author means by the preceding phrase “that I may be given the message when I begin to speak.”