Exodus 4:13-19

4:13 But Moses said, ¹  “O ²  my Lord, please send anyone else whom you wish to send!” ³ 

4:14 Then the Lord became angry with ⁴  Moses, and he said, “What about ⁵  your brother Aaron the Levite? ⁶  I know that he can speak very well. ⁷  Moreover, he is coming ⁸  to meet you, and when he sees you he will be glad in his heart. ⁹ 

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 ¹⁰  and with his mouth, ¹¹  and I will teach you both ¹²  what you must do. ¹³  4:16 He ¹⁴  will speak for you to the people, and it will be as if ¹⁵  he ¹⁶  were your mouth ¹⁷  and as if you were his God. ¹⁸  4:17 You will also take in your hand this staff, with which you will do the signs.” ¹⁹ 

The Return of Moses

4:18 ²⁰ So Moses went back ²¹  to his father-in-law Jethro and said to him, “Let me go, so that I may return ²²  to my relatives ²³  in Egypt and see ²⁴  if they are still alive.” Jethro said to Moses, “Go in peace.” 4:19 The Lord said to Moses in Midian, “Go back ²⁵  to Egypt, because all the men who were seeking your life are dead.” ²⁶ 

[4:13]  ¹ tn Heb “And he said”; the referent (Moses) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[4:13]  ² 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]  ³ 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]  ⁴ tn Heb “and the anger of Yahweh burned against.”

[4:14]  ⁵ tn Heb “Is not” or perhaps “Is [there] not.”

[4:14]  ⁶ 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]  ⁷ 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]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ tn Or “I will help you speak.” The independent pronoun puts emphasis (“as for me”) on the subject (“I”).

[4:15]  ¹¹ tn Or “and will help him speak.”

[4:15]  ¹² 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]  ¹³ 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]  ¹⁴ tn The word “he” represents the Hebrew independent pronoun, which makes the subject emphatic.

[4:16]  ¹⁵ tn The phrase “as if” is supplied for clarity.

[4:16]  ¹⁶ 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]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “he will be to you for a mouth.”

[4:16]  ¹⁸ tn The phrase “as if” is supplied for clarity. The word “you” represents the Hebrew independent pronoun, which makes the subject emphatic.

[4:17]  ¹⁹ sn Mention of the staff makes an appropriate ending to the section, for God’s power (represented by the staff) will work through Moses. The applicable point that this whole section is making could be worded this way: The servants of God who sense their inadequacy must demonstrate the power of God as their sufficiency.

[4:18]  ²⁰ sn This last section of the chapter reports Moses’ compliance with the commission. It has four parts: the decision to return (18-20), the instruction (21-23), the confrontation with Yahweh (24-26), and the presentation with Aaron (27-31).

[4:18]  ²¹ tn The two verbs form a verbal hendiadys, the second verb becoming adverbial in the translation: “and he went and he returned” becomes “and he went back.”

[4:18]  ²² tn There is a sequence here with the two cohortative forms: אֵלְכָה נָּא וְאָשׁוּבָה (’elÿkhah nna’ vÿ’ashuva) – “let me go in order that I may return.”

[4:18]  ²³ tn Heb “brothers.”

[4:18]  ²⁴ tn This verb is parallel to the preceding cohortative and so also expresses purpose: “let me go that I may return…and that I may see.”

[4:19]  ²⁵ tn The text has two imperatives, “Go, return”; if these are interpreted as a hendiadys (as in the translation), then the second is adverbial.

[4:19]  ²⁶ sn The text clearly stated that Pharaoh sought to kill Moses; so this seems to be a reference to Pharaoh’s death shortly before Moses’ return. Moses was forty years in Midian. In the 18th dynasty, only Pharaoh Thutmose III had a reign of the right length (1504-1450 b.c.) to fit this period of Moses’ life. This would place Moses’ returning to Egypt near 1450 b.c., in the beginning of the reign of Amenhotep II, whom most conservatives identify as the pharaoh of the exodus. Rameses II, of course, had a very long reign (1304-1236). But if he were the one from whom Moses fled, then he could not be the pharaoh of the exodus, but his son would be – and that puts the date of the exodus after 1236, a date too late for anyone. See E. H. Merrill, Kingdom of Priests, 62.