Exodus 4:13-14

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 

[4:13]  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).