Exodus 6:30

6:30 But Moses said before the Lord, “Since I speak with difficulty, ¹  why should Pharaoh listen to me?”

Exodus 6:12

6:12 But Moses replied to ²  the Lord, “If the Israelites did not listen to me, then ³  how will Pharaoh listen to me, since ⁴  I speak with difficulty?” ⁵ 

Exodus 12:48

12:48 “When a foreigner lives ⁶  with you and wants to observe the Passover to the Lord, all his males must be circumcised, ⁷  and then he may approach and observe it, and he will be like one who is born in the land ⁸  – but no uncircumcised person may eat of it.

[6:30]  ¹ tn See note on Exod 6:12.

[6:12]  ² tn Heb “And Moses spoke before.”

[6:12]  ³ sn This analogy is an example of a qal wahomer comparison. It is an argument by inference from the light (qal) to the heavy (homer), from the simple to the more difficult. If the Israelites, who are Yahwists, would not listen to him, it is highly unlikely Pharaoh would.

[6:12]  ⁴ tn The final clause begins with a disjunctive vav (ו), a vav on a nonverb form – here a pronoun. It introduces a circumstantial causal clause.

[6:12]  ⁵ tn Heb “and [since] I am of uncircumcised lips.” The “lips” represent his speech (metonymy of cause). The term “uncircumcised” makes a comparison between his speech and that which Israel perceived as unacceptable, unprepared, foreign, and of no use to God. The heart is described this way when it is impervious to good impressions (Lev 26:41; Jer 9:26) and the ear when it hears imperfectly (Jer 6:10). Moses has here returned to his earlier claim – he does not speak well enough to be doing this.

[12:48]  ³ tn Both the participle “foreigner” and the verb “lives” are from the verb גּוּר (gur), which means “to sojourn, to dwell as an alien.” This reference is to a foreigner who settles in the land. He is the protected foreigner; when he comes to another area where he does not have his clan to protect him, he must come under the protection of the Law, or the people. If the “resident alien” is circumcised, he may participate in the Passover (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 104).

[12:48]  ⁴ tn The infinitive absolute functions as the finite verb here, and “every male” could be either the object or the subject (see GKC 347 §113.gg and 387 §121.a).

[12:48]  ⁵ tn אֶזְרָח (’ezrakh) refers to the native-born individual, the native Israelite as opposed to the “stranger, alien” (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 104); see also W. F. Albright, Archaeology and the Religion of Israel, 127, 210.