Exodus 4:18-19

Context

The Return of Moses

4:18 ¹So Moses went back² to his father-in-law Jethro and said to him, “Let me go, so that I may return³ to my relatives⁴ in Egypt and see⁵ if they are still alive.” Jethro said to Moses, “Go in peace.” 4:19 The Lord said to Moses in Midian, “Go back⁶ to Egypt, because all the men who were seeking your life are dead.”⁷

[4:18] ¹sn 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] ²tn 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] ³tn 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] ⁴tn Heb “brothers.”

[4:18] ⁵tn 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] ⁶tn 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] ⁷sn 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.