Exodus 4:14-15

4:14 Then the Lord became angry with ¹  Moses, and he said, “What about ²  your brother Aaron the Levite? ³  I know that he can speak very well. ⁴  Moreover, he is coming ⁵  to meet you, and when he sees you he will be glad in his heart. ⁶ 

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 ⁷  and with his mouth, ⁸  and I will teach you both ⁹  what you must do. ¹⁰ 

Ecclesiastes 4:9-10

Labor is Beneficial When Its Rewards Are Shared

4:9 Two people are better than one,

because they can reap ¹¹  more benefit ¹²  from their labor.

4:10 For if they fall, one will help his companion up,

but pity ¹³  the person who falls down and has no one to help him up.

Revelation 11:3

11:3 And I will grant my two witnesses authority ¹⁴  to prophesy for 1,260 days, dressed in sackcloth.

[4:14]  ¹ tn Heb “and the anger of Yahweh burned against.”

[4:14]  ² tn Heb “Is not” or perhaps “Is [there] not.”

[4:14]  ³ 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]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ 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]  ⁷ tn Or “I will help you speak.” The independent pronoun puts emphasis (“as for me”) on the subject (“I”).

[4:15]  ⁸ tn Or “and will help him speak.”

[4:15]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ 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.”

[4:9]  ¹¹ tn Heb “they have.”

[4:9]  ¹² tn Heb “a good reward.”

[4:10]  ¹³ tn Heb “woe to him.”

[11:3]  ¹⁴ tn The word “authority” is not in the Greek text, but is implied. “Power” would be another alternative that could be supplied here.