Exodus 3:6

3:6 He added, “I am the God of your father, ¹  the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Then Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look ²  at God.

Exodus 4:11-13

4:11 The Lord said to him, “Who gave ³  a mouth to man, or who makes a person mute or deaf or seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? ⁴  4:12 So now go, and I will be with your mouth ⁵  and will teach you ⁶  what you must say.” ⁷ 

4:13 But Moses said, ⁸  “O ⁹  my Lord, please send anyone else whom you wish to send!” ¹⁰ 

Ezra 9:5-6

9:5 At the time of the evening offering I got up from my self-abasement, ¹¹  with my tunic and robe torn, and then dropped to my knees and spread my hands to the Lord my God. 9:6 I prayed, ¹² 

“O my God, I am ashamed and embarrassed to lift my face to you, my God! For our iniquities have climbed higher than our heads, and our guilt extends to the heavens.

Job 9:16

9:16 If I summoned him, and he answered me, ¹³ 

I would not believe ¹⁴ 

that he would be listening to my voice –

Isaiah 6:5

6:5 I said, “Too bad for me! I am destroyed, ¹⁵  for my lips are contaminated by sin, ¹⁶  and I live among people whose lips are contaminated by sin. ¹⁷  My eyes have seen the king, the Lord who commands armies.” ¹⁸ 

Daniel 9:7

9:7 “You are righteous, ¹⁹  O Lord, but we are humiliated this day ²⁰  – the people ²¹  of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel, both near and far away in all the countries in which you have scattered them, because they have behaved unfaithfully toward you.

Luke 8:47-48

8:47 When ²²  the woman saw that she could not escape notice, ²³  she came trembling and fell down before him. In ²⁴  the presence of all the people, she explained why ²⁵  she had touched him and how she had been immediately healed. 8:48 Then ²⁶  he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. ²⁷  Go in peace.”

[3:6]  ¹ sn This self-revelation by Yahweh prepares for the revelation of the holy name. While no verb is used here, the pronoun and the predicate nominative are a construction used throughout scripture to convey the “I am” disclosures – “I [am] the God of….” But the significant point here is the naming of the patriarchs, for this God is the covenant God, who will fulfill his promises.

[3:6]  ² tn The clause uses the Hiphil infinitive construct with a preposition after the perfect tense: יָרֵא מֵהַבִּיט (yare’ mehabbit, “he was afraid from gazing”) meaning “he was afraid to gaze.” The preposition min (מִן) is used before infinitives after verbs like the one to complete the verb (see BDB 583 s.v. 7b).

[4:11]  ³ tn The verb שִׂים (sim) means “to place, put, set”; the sentence here more precisely says, “Who put a mouth into a man?”

[4:11]  ⁴ 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 Lord replies with reminders about himself and promises, “I will be with your mouth,” an assertion that repeats the verb he used four times in 3:12 and 14 and in promises to Isaac and Jacob (Gen 26:3; 31:3).

[4:12]  ⁵ 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.

[4:12]  ⁶ 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.

[4:12]  ⁷ 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.

[4:13]  ⁸ tn Heb “And he said”; the referent (Moses) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[4:13]  ⁹ tn The word בִּי (bi) is a particle of entreaty; it seeks permission to speak and is always followed by “Lord” or “my Lord.”

[4:13]  ¹⁰ tn The text has simply שְׁלַח־נָא בְּיַד־תִּשְׁלָח (shÿlakh-na’ bÿyad tishlakh, “send by the hand you will send”). This is not Moses’ resignation to doing God’s will – it is his final attempt to avoid the call. It carries the force of asking God to send someone else. This is an example of an independent relative clause governed by the genitive: “by the hand of – whomever you will send” (see GKC 488-89 §155.n).

[9:5]  ¹¹ tn The Hebrew word used here is a hapax legomenon. It refers to the self-abasement that accompanies religious sorrow and fasting.

[9:6]  ¹² tn Heb “I said.”

[9:16]  ¹³ sn The idea of “answer” in this line is that of responding to the summons, i.e., appearing in court. This preterite and the perfect before it have the nuance of hypothetical perfects since they are in conditional clauses (GKC 330 §111.x). D. J. A. Clines (Job [WBC], 219) translates literally, “If I should call and he should answer.”

[9:16]  ¹⁴ tn The Hiphil imperfect in the apodosis of this conditional sentence expresses what would (not) happen if God answered the summons.

[6:5]  ¹⁵ tn Isaiah uses the suffixed (perfect) form of the verb for rhetorical purposes. In this way his destruction is described as occurring or as already completed. Rather than understanding the verb as derived from דָּמַה (damah, “be destroyed”), some take it from a proposed homonymic root דמה, which would mean “be silent.” In this case, one might translate, “I must be silent.”

[6:5]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “a man unclean of lips am I.” Isaiah is not qualified to praise the king. His lips (the instruments of praise) are “unclean” because he has been contaminated by sin.

[6:5]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “and among a nation unclean of lips I live.”

[6:5]  ¹⁸ tn Perhaps in this context, the title has a less militaristic connotation and pictures the Lord as the ruler of the heavenly assembly. See the note at 1:9.

[9:7]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “to you (belongs) righteousness.”

[9:7]  ²⁰ tn Heb “and to us (belongs) shame of face like this day.”

[9:7]  ²¹ tn Heb “men.”

[8:47]  ²² tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

[8:47]  ²³ tn Or “could not remain unnoticed” (see L&N 28.83).

[8:47]  ²⁴ tn Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation. The order of the clauses in the remainder of the verse has been rearranged to reflect contemporary English style.

[8:47]  ²⁵ tn Grk “told for what reason.”

[8:48]  ²⁶ tn Here δέ (de) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the narrative.

[8:48]  ²⁷ tn Or “has delivered you”; Grk “has saved you.” This should not be understood as an expression for full salvation in the immediate context; it refers only to the woman’s healing.