Exodus 4:27-31

4:27 The Lord said ¹  to Aaron, “Go to the wilderness to meet Moses. So he went and met him at the mountain of God ²  and greeted him with a kiss. ³  4:28 Moses told Aaron all the words of the Lord who had ⁴  sent him and all the signs that he had commanded him. 4:29 Then Moses and Aaron went and brought together all the Israelite elders. ⁵  4:30 Aaron spoke ⁶  all the words that the Lord had spoken to Moses and did the signs in the sight of the people, 4:31 and the people believed. When they heard ⁷  that the Lord had attended to ⁸  the Israelites and that he had seen their affliction, they bowed down close to the ground. ⁹ 

[4:27]  ¹ tn Heb “And Yahweh said.”

[4:27]  ² tn S. R. Driver considers that this verse is a continuation of vv. 17 and 18 and that Aaron met Moses before Moses started back to Egypt (Exodus, 33). The first verb, then, might have the nuance of a past perfect: Yahweh had said.

[4:27]  ³ tn Heb “and kissed him.”

[4:28]  ⁴ tn This verb and the last one in the verse are rendered with the past perfect nuance because they refer to what the Lord had done prior to Moses’ telling Aaron.

[4:29]  ⁵ sn These are the leaders of the tribes who represented all the people. Later, after the exodus, Moses will select the most capable of them and others to be rulers in a judicial sense (Exod 18:21).

[4:30]  ⁶ tn Heb “And Aaron spoke.”

[4:31]  ⁷ tc The LXX (Greek OT) has “and they rejoiced,” probably reading וַיִּשְׂמְחוּ (vayyismÿkhu) instead of what the MT reading, וַיִּשְׂמְעוּ (vayyismÿ’u, “and they heard”). To rejoice would have seemed a natural response of the people at the news, and the words sound similar in Hebrew.

[4:31]  ⁸ tn Or “intervened for.” The word פָּקַד (paqad) has traditionally been translated “visited,” which is open to many interpretations. It means that God intervened in the life of the Israelites to bless them with the fulfillment of the promises. It says more than that he took notice of them, took pity on them, or remembered them. He had not yet fulfilled the promises, but he had begun to act by calling Moses and Aaron. The translation “attended to” attempts to capture that much.

[4:31]  ⁹ tn The verb וַיִּשְׁתַּחֲוּוּ (vayyishtakhavu) is usually rendered “worshiped.” More specifically, the verbal root חָוָה (khava) in the hishtaphel stem means “to cause oneself to be low to the ground.” While there is nothing wrong with giving it a general translation of “worship,” it may be better in a passage like this to take it in conjunction with the other verb (“bow”) as a verbal hendiadys, using it as an adverb to that verb. The implication is certainly that they prayed, or praised, and performed some other aspect of worship, but the text may just be describing it from their posture of worship. With this response, all the fears of Moses are swept aside – they believed and they were thankful to God.