Exodus 4:1

The Source of Sufficiency

4:1 ¹ Moses answered again, ²  “And if ³  they do not believe me or pay attention to me, ⁴  but say, ‘The Lord has not appeared to you’?”

Exodus 4:10-16

4:10 Then Moses said to the Lord, ⁵  “O ⁶  my Lord, ⁷  I am not an eloquent man, ⁸  neither in the past ⁹  nor since you have spoken to your servant, for I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.” ¹⁰ 

4:11 The Lord said to him, “Who gave ¹¹  a mouth to man, or who makes a person mute or deaf or seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? ¹²  4:12 So now go, and I will be with your mouth ¹³  and will teach you ¹⁴  what you must say.” ¹⁵ 

4:13 But Moses said, ¹⁶  “O ¹⁷  my Lord, please send anyone else whom you wish to send!” ¹⁸ 

4:14 Then the Lord became angry with ¹⁹  Moses, and he said, “What about ²⁰  your brother Aaron the Levite? ²¹  I know that he can speak very well. ²²  Moreover, he is coming ²³  to meet you, and when he sees you he will be glad in his heart. ²⁴ 

4:15 “So you are to speak to him and put the words in his mouth. And as for me, I will be with your mouth ²⁵  and with his mouth, ²⁶  and I will teach you both ²⁷  what you must do. ²⁸  4:16 He ²⁹  will speak for you to the people, and it will be as if ³⁰  he ³¹  were your mouth ³²  and as if you were his God. ³³ 

Exodus 6:12

6:12 But Moses replied to ³⁴  the Lord, “If the Israelites did not listen to me, then ³⁵  how will Pharaoh listen to me, since ³⁶  I speak with difficulty?” ³⁷ 

Exodus 6:30

6:30 But Moses said before the Lord, “Since I speak with difficulty, ³⁸  why should Pharaoh listen to me?”

Isaiah 6:5

6:5 I said, “Too bad for me! I am destroyed, ³⁹  for my lips are contaminated by sin, ⁴⁰  and I live among people whose lips are contaminated by sin. ⁴¹  My eyes have seen the king, the Lord who commands armies.” ⁴² 

[4:1]  ¹ sn In chap. 3, the first part of this extensive call, Yahweh promises to deliver his people. At the hesitancy of Moses, God guarantees his presence will be with him, and that assures the success of the mission. But with chap. 4, the second half of the call, the tone changes sharply. Now Moses protests his inadequacies in view of the nature of the task. In many ways, these verses address the question, “Who is sufficient for these things?” There are three basic movements in the passage. The first nine verses tell how God gave Moses signs in case Israel did not believe him (4:1-9). The second section records how God dealt with the speech problem of Moses (4:10-12). And finally, the last section records God’s provision of a helper, someone who could talk well (4:13-17). See also J. E. Hamlin, “The Liberator’s Ordeal: A Study of Exodus 4:1-9,” Rhetorical Criticism [PTMS], 33-42.

[4:1]  ² tn Heb “and Moses answered and said.”

[4:1]  ³ tn Or “What if.” The use of הֵן (hen) is unusual here, introducing a conditional idea in the question without a following consequence clause (see Exod 8:22 HT [8:26 ET]; Jer 2:10; 2 Chr 7:13). The Greek has “if not” but adds the clause “what shall I say to them?”

[4:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “listen to my voice,” so as to respond positively.

[4:10]  ⁵ sn Now Moses took up another line of argumentation, the issue of his inability to speak fluently (vv. 10-17). The point here is that God’s servants must yield themselves as instruments to God, the Creator. It makes no difference what character traits they have or what weaknesses they think they have (Moses manages to speak very well) if God is present. If the sovereign God has chosen them, then they have everything that God intended them to have.

[4:10]  ⁶ tn The word בִּי (bi) is a particle of entreaty; it seeks permission to speak and is always followed by “my lord” or “my Lord.” Often rendered “please,” it is “employed in petitions, complaints and excuses” (W. H. C. Propp, Exodus 1–18 [AB], 213).

[4:10]  ⁷ tn The designation in Moses’ address is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay), a term of respect and deference such as “lord, master, sir” but pointed as it would be when it represents the tetragrammaton. B. Jacob says since this is the first time Moses spoke directly to Yahweh, he did so hesitatingly (Exodus, 87).

[4:10]  ⁸ tn When a noun clause is negated with לֹא (lo’), rather than אֵין (’en), there is a special emphasis, since the force of the negative falls on a specific word (GKC 479 §152.d). The expression “eloquent man” is אִישׁ דְּבָרִים (’ish dÿvarim, “a man of words”). The genitive may indicate a man characterized by words or a man who is able to command or control words. Moses apparently is resigned to the fact that he can do the signs, but he knows the signs have to be explained.

[4:10]  ⁹ tn Heb “also from yesterday also from three days ago” or “neither since yesterday nor since before that” is idiomatic for “previously” or “in the past.”

[4:10]  ¹⁰ tn The two expressions are כְבַד־פֶּה (khÿvad peh, “heavy of mouth”), and then כְבַד לָשׁוֹן (khÿvad lashon, “heavy of tongue”). Both use genitives of specification, the mouth and the tongue being what are heavy – slow. “Mouth” and “tongue” are metonymies of cause. Moses is saying that he has a problem speaking well. Perhaps he had been too long at the other side of the desert, or perhaps he was being a little dishonest. At any rate, he has still not captured the meaning of God’s presence. See among other works, J. H. Tigay, “‘Heavy of Mouth’ and ‘Heavy of Tongue’: On Moses’ Speech Difficulty,” BASOR 231 (1978): 57-67.

[4:11]  ¹¹ 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]  ¹² 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]  ¹³ 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]  ¹⁴ 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]  ¹⁵ 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]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “And he said”; the referent (Moses) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[4:13]  ¹⁷ 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]  ¹⁸ 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).

[4:14]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “and the anger of Yahweh burned against.”

[4:14]  ²⁰ tn Heb “Is not” or perhaps “Is [there] not.”

[4:14]  ²¹ sn S. R. Driver (Exodus, 29) suggests that the term “Levite” may refer to a profession rather than ancestry here, because both Moses and Aaron were from the tribe of Levi and there would be little point in noting that ancestry for Aaron. In thinking through the difficult problem of the identity of Levites, he cites McNeile as saying “the Levite” referred to one who had had official training as a priest (cf. Judg 17:7, where a member of the tribe of Judah was a Levite). If it was the duty of the priest to give “torah” – to teach – then some training in the power of language would have been in order.

[4:14]  ²² tn The construction uses the Piel infinitive absolute and the Piel imperfect to express the idea that he spoke very well: דַבֵּר יְדַבֵּר (dabber yÿdabber).

[4:14]  ²³ tn The particle הִנֵּה (hinneh) with the participle points to the imminent future; it means “he is about to come” or “here he is coming.”

[4:14]  ²⁴ sn It is unlikely that this simply means that as a brother he will be pleased to see Moses, for the narrative has no time for that kind of comment. It is interested in more significant things. The implication is that Aaron will rejoice because of the revelation of God to Moses and the plan to deliver Israel from bondage (see B. Jacob, Exodus, 93).

[4:15]  ²⁵ tn Or “I will help you speak.” The independent pronoun puts emphasis (“as for me”) on the subject (“I”).

[4:15]  ²⁶ tn Or “and will help him speak.”

[4:15]  ²⁷ tn The word “both” is supplied to convey that this object (“you”) and the subject of the next verb (“you must do”) are plural in the Hebrew text, referring to Moses and Aaron. In 4:16 “you” returns to being singular in reference to Moses.

[4:15]  ²⁸ tn The imperfect tense carries the obligatory nuance here as well. The relative pronoun with this verb forms a noun clause functioning as the direct object of “I will teach.”

[4:16]  ²⁹ tn The word “he” represents the Hebrew independent pronoun, which makes the subject emphatic.

[4:16]  ³⁰ tn The phrase “as if” is supplied for clarity.

[4:16]  ³¹ tn Heb “and it will be [that] he, he will be to you for a mouth,” or more simply, “he will be your mouth.”

[4:16]  ³² tn Heb “he will be to you for a mouth.”

[4:16]  ³³ tn The phrase “as if” is supplied for clarity. The word “you” represents the Hebrew independent pronoun, which makes the subject emphatic.

[6:12]  ³⁴ tn Heb “And Moses spoke before.”

[6:12]  ³⁵ sn This analogy is an example of a qal wahomer comparison. It is an argument by inference from the light (qal) to the heavy (homer), from the simple to the more difficult. If the Israelites, who are Yahwists, would not listen to him, it is highly unlikely Pharaoh would.

[6:12]  ³⁶ tn The final clause begins with a disjunctive vav (ו), a vav on a nonverb form – here a pronoun. It introduces a circumstantial causal clause.

[6:12]  ³⁷ tn Heb “and [since] I am of uncircumcised lips.” The “lips” represent his speech (metonymy of cause). The term “uncircumcised” makes a comparison between his speech and that which Israel perceived as unacceptable, unprepared, foreign, and of no use to God. The heart is described this way when it is impervious to good impressions (Lev 26:41; Jer 9:26) and the ear when it hears imperfectly (Jer 6:10). Moses has here returned to his earlier claim – he does not speak well enough to be doing this.

[6:30]  ³⁸ tn See note on Exod 6:12.

[6:5]  ³⁹ 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]  ⁴⁰ 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]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “and among a nation unclean of lips I live.”

[6:5]  ⁴² 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.