Exodus 4:11-16

4:11 The Lord said to him, “Who gave ¹  a mouth to man, or who makes a person mute or deaf or seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? ²  4:12 So now go, and I will be with your mouth ³  and will teach you ⁴  what you must say.” ⁵ 

4:13 But Moses said, ⁶  “O ⁷  my Lord, please send anyone else whom you wish to send!” ⁸ 

4:14 Then the Lord became angry with ⁹  Moses, and he said, “What about ¹⁰  your brother Aaron the Levite? ¹¹  I know that he can speak very well. ¹²  Moreover, he is coming ¹³  to meet you, and when he sees you he will be glad in his heart. ¹⁴ 

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 ¹⁵  and with his mouth, ¹⁶  and I will teach you both ¹⁷  what you must do. ¹⁸  4:16 He ¹⁹  will speak for you to the people, and it will be as if ²⁰  he ²¹  were your mouth ²²  and as if you were his God. ²³ 

[4:11]  ¹ 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]  ² 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]  ³ 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]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ tn Heb “And he said”; the referent (Moses) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[4:13]  ⁷ 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]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ tn Heb “and the anger of Yahweh burned against.”

[4:14]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Is not” or perhaps “Is [there] not.”

[4:14]  ¹¹ 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]  ¹² 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]  ¹³ 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]  ¹⁴ 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]  ¹⁵ tn Or “I will help you speak.” The independent pronoun puts emphasis (“as for me”) on the subject (“I”).

[4:15]  ¹⁶ tn Or “and will help him speak.”

[4:15]  ¹⁷ 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]  ¹⁸ 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]  ¹⁹ tn The word “he” represents the Hebrew independent pronoun, which makes the subject emphatic.

[4:16]  ²⁰ tn The phrase “as if” is supplied for clarity.

[4:16]  ²¹ 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]  ²² tn Heb “he will be to you for a mouth.”

[4:16]  ²³ tn The phrase “as if” is supplied for clarity. The word “you” represents the Hebrew independent pronoun, which makes the subject emphatic.