Introduction
\n1. The Book of Exodus as a Whole
\nBibliography
\nBentzen, A. Introduction to the Old Testament. Vols. 1 & 2. 6th ed. Copenhagen: G. E. C. Gad, 1961. Beyerlin, W. Origins and History of the Oldest Sinaitic Tradition. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1965. Cazelles, H. \u00c9tudes sur le Code de L\u2019Alliance. Paris: Letouzey et An\u00e9, 1946. Daube, D. The Exodus Pattern in the Bible. All Souls Studies II. London: Faber and Faber, 1963. Eissfeldt, O. The Old Testament: An Introduction. New York: Harper and Row, 1965. Fohrer, G. Introduction to the Old Testament. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1968. \u2014\u2014\u2014. \u00dcberlieferung und Geschichte des Exodus. BZAW 91. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1964. Fuss, W. Die deuteronomistische Pentateuchredaktion in Exodus 3\u201317. BZAW 126. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1972. Goldberg, M. Jews and Christians. Getting Our Stories Straight: The Exodus and The Passion-Resurrection. Nashville: Abingdon, 1985. Gressmann, H. Mose und seine Zeit: Ein Kommentar zu den Mose-Sagen. FRLANT 18. G\u00f6ttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1913. Knight, D. A. Rediscovering the Traditions of Israel. SBLDS 9. Rev. ed. Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1975. Koch, K. The Growth of the Biblical Tradition: The Form-Critical Method. New York: Charles Scribner\u2019s Sons, 1969. Loewenstamm, S. E. The Tradition of the Exodus in Its Development. 2d ed. Jerusalem: At the Magnes Press, 1972. Heb., with summary in Eng. Nicholson, E. W. Exodus and Sinai in History and Tradition. Richmond: John Knox Press, 1973. Noth, M. A History of Pentateuchal Traditions. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1972. Pedersen, J. \u201cPassahfest und Passahlegende.\u201d ZAW 52 (1934) 161\u201375. Pfeiffer, R. H. Introduction to the Old Testament. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1948. Rad, G. von. \u201cThe Form-Critical Problem of the Hexateuch\u201d in The Problem of the Hexateuch and Other Essays. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1965. 1\u201378. Rendtorff, R. Das \u00dcberlieferungsgeschichtliche Problem des Pentateuch. BZAW 147. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1977. Rudolph, W. Der \u2018Elohist\u2019 von Exodus bis Josua. BZAW 68. Berlin: Alfred T\u00f6pelmann, 1938. Schmid, H. H. Der sogenannte Jahwist: Beobachtungen und Fragen zur Pentateuchforschung. Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 1976. Seters, J. van. Abraham in History and Tradition. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975. \u2014\u2014\u2014. In Search of History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983. Soggin, A. Introduction to the Old Testament. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976. Walzer, M. Exodus and Revolution. New York: Basic Books, 1985.
\nThe Book of Exodus is the second book of the Bible. There in the ancient stories of Moses at Sinai, Israel in Egypt and Israel leaving Egypt, Israel in the Wilderness and Israel with Moses at Sinai are more beginnings for faith than are to be found in \u05d1\u05e8\u05d0\u05e9\u05d9\u05ea, the Book of Beginnings.
\nIn the Book of Exodus God gives Israel his special name, his special deliverance, his special guidance, his special covenant, his special worship, his special mercy and his special description of himself. In the Book of Exodus, the people Israel is born; \u05ea\u05bc\u05d5\u05b9\u05e8\u05b8\u05d4 Torah is born, and with it the Bible; the theology of Presence and response to Presence is born, and with it the special iconography of that large part of the Hebrew-Christian tradition which symbolizes ideas rather than beings; and priesthood and cultus in ancient Israel are born, laying the ancient sub-foundations of Temple, Synagogue and Church.
\nIn the Book of Exodus, Israel\u2019s celebration is followed by Israel\u2019s complaining, and Israel\u2019s promise of obedience to Yahweh first is followed by Israel\u2019s first disobedience of Yahweh. In the Book of Exodus, Yahweh\u2019s powerful proving of his Presence is disregarded because of the absence of Moses, his representative; the manna is provided to a hungry people who then criticize their unvaried menu; and a people eager and curious to know Yahweh become so frightened by his appearance that they ask to be spared any repetition of the experience. In the Book of Exodus, Passover is begun, and there is set in motion a continuity of testimony to a living faith that continues to this day.
\nThe Book of Exodus contains history, of course, and tradition, and instruction, and sociology, and folk-wisdom, and story, and perpetual and occasional requirement, and aetiology, and geography, and genealogy, and anti-Egyptian sentiment, and folk-song and hymnody, and desert lore, and the foundations of Western jurisprudence and Judeo-Christian religious mystery, along with much else.
\nThe primary burden of the Book of Exodus, however, is theological. The book is theological in concept, in arrangement, in content, and in implication. It is a book of faith, about faith, and directed primarily to those with faith. Those who read the Book of Exodus without faith, though they will inevitably profit from their reading, will not understand its message.
\nFor this reason, among others, the Book of Exodus must be read as a whole. Despite the strands of narrative and legal and sacerdotal source-material that are clearly visible in the forty chapters that make up this book, and despite the fact that it is a compilation whose layers are still at least partly visible and to a degree recoverable, the Book of Exodus must be considered as a whole piece of theological literature, quite deliberately put into the form in which we have it, for very specific purposes.
\nThe temptation has been great, since Wellhausen\u2019s revolutionary way of considering the beginning books of the OT, to concentrate on what the Book of Exodus is not, or is only in part. The source-documentary approach to Exodus correctly treats the book as one part of a larger literary whole, a whole made up of composites that extend from Genesis through Exodus to Leviticus and Numbers, and even on into Deuteronomy, Joshua, and beyond, according to some theorists. The history of the development and application of this approach has been frequently surveyed, sometimes in considerable detail, in the standard OT introductions (e.g., Bentzen, Eissfeldt, Fohrer, Soggin) and in such handy surveys as those of Noth and Knight, which reach beyond literary questions toward the influences that shaped the composites in tradition history. Despite a great many attempts at refinement, e.g., \u201cfragmentary hypotheses\u201d and the proposal of proto-sources such as \u201cL\u201d (Eissfeldt), \u201cS\u201d (Pfeiffer), \u201cG\u201d (Noth) and \u201cN\u201d (Fohrer), the source-documentary approach has remained a dominant theory in the interpretation of the first four books of the OT. At present, though the dating of the sources is under consideration (e.g., van Seters, Schmid), and though the question of the validity of a source-documentary approach as a key to theological understanding (so especially Pedersen and von Rad and Noth) is being raised (Rendtorff), the interweaving of the sources through the composites that make up Genesis, Exodus, and Numbers in particular remains still a presupposition approaching dogma, as the reviews in the sections on Form\/Structure\/Setting in the Commentary that follows make plain. There too, and at other appropriate points in the pages that follow, reference is made to important form-critical and redaction-critical study on the Book of Exodus, from Gressmann to Rudolph to Cazelles to Koch to Beyerlin to Fohrer to Loewenstamm to Schmid to Nicholson to Fuss.
\nDespite the massive amount of information provided by these studies, much of it helpful, an understanding of the Book of Exodus as a whole, and as it stands in the received text of the OT, has been lacking. The undoubted and considerable advantages of source criticism, and then form criticism, and still later tradition criticism and rhetorical and structural analysis have helped us understand Exodus, then hindered us in understanding it by directing our attention somehow away from the \u201cfinished product,\u201d which we have, to the ingredients we can guess at, but do not have. The process by which the Book of Exodus came to its canonical form began as early as the time of Moses and continued at least into the third century b.c.; it is exceedingly complex and can only be surmised. The end result of that process is at last our one certainty, for we have it at hand.
\nOf course, Exodus is an assemblage of pieces of narrative and sequences of laws, strands of story, and a carefully ordered system of religious symbols. But it is not literary or theological goulash. It did not come together haphazardly or without a guiding purpose, or with no unified concept to hold it together. The discrepancies and shifts of style and emphasis that we so quickly detect were not invisible to the editors who put the Book of Exodus together, nor to those who heard and used these accounts even while the book was evolving. These differences and inconsistencies were simply not as important to them as they have been to us, for the very good reason that they were primarily interested in the whole Exodus, while we have been preoccupied overmuch with its pieces.
\nFor its ancient compilers the whole of Exodus was theological. Their purpose in the composition of both intermediary forms and the final form of the book was a theological one. Thus all other considerations are shifted to the background, and the only unity that is of any real importance in the Book of Exodus is theological unity\u2014and that the book displays on every hand.
\nThe centerpiece of this unity is the theology of Yahweh present with and in the midst of his people Israel. Throughout the Book of Exodus in its canonical form, this theme is constantly in evidence, serving as a theological anchor and also as a kind of compass indicating the directions in which the book is to go. Indeed, the Book of Exodus may be seen as a series of interlocking concentric circles spreading outwards from the narratives of the coming of Yahweh: to Moses in chaps. 3 and 4, to all Israel in chaps. 19, 20 and 24, and to Moses representing Israel in chaps. 32, 33 and 34.
\nThe revelation to Moses in chaps. 3 and 4 establishes Yahweh\u2019s Presence with Moses (3:6, 12; 4:5, 11\u201312, 15), points backward to his Presence with Israel in Egypt (3:7\u201310) and forward to the proof of his Presence to Israel and to the Egyptians and to Pharaoh (3:17, 19\u201322; 4:21\u201323), as does the parallel summary of this narrative in Exod 6:2\u20138. The revelation to Israel in chaps. 19\u201320 establishes Yahweh\u2019s Presence in Israel\u2019s midst (19:9\u201311, 16\u201318; 20:1\u201321), points backward to the proof of his Presence in Egypt and at the sea (19:4; 20:2) and forward to the proof of his Presence manifested in Israel\u2019s response to his nearness (19:5\u20136, 8; 20:3\u201317). The revelation to Moses interceding for Israel in chaps. 32, 33, and 34 establishes Yahweh\u2019s Presence as the essential and indispensable basis of Israel\u2019s very existence as Yahweh\u2019s people (32:7\u201310; 33:1\u20136, 12\u201317). That revelation also points backward to the fact of his Presence and its benefits (32:11\u201313) and forward to what Yahweh is yet to accomplish in Israel\u2019s midst, making Israel unique among all peoples (33:15; 34:9) both by Yahweh\u2019s deeds and by Yahweh\u2019s requirements (34:10\u201326).
\nAlong with these principal passages and the themes that reach formatively out from them are numerous other references to the fact and the effect of Yahweh\u2019s Presence in and with Israel, so many of them that a theology of Yahweh\u2019s Presence as a kind of magnet for the gathering of the earliest and formative versions of what became the Book of Exodus may be suggested. For example, the multiplication of the sons of Jacob in the Egyptian delta, a fulfillment of the covenant promise to the fathers (Gen 17:1\u20138; 28:10\u201315, etc.), is effected by the Presence of God among them (Exod 1:7, 20); the dramatic series of the mighty acts in Egypt, by which first Israel, then the Egyptian people, then the Egyptian court, and finally, and nearly too soon at that, the Pharaoh of Egypt himself are convinced of the power of Yahweh, is represented repeatedly as the action of Yahweh on the scene (Exod 7:1\u20135, 14\u201317, 25; 7:26\u201329 [8:1\u20134]; 8:8\u201311 [8:12\u201315]; 8:17\u201320 [8:21\u201324]; 9:1\u20137, 12, 13\u201318, 23\u201326; 10:1\u20136, 12\u201315, 16\u201320, 27; 11:4\u20137; 12:12\u201313, 23, 27, 29\u201330, 36, etc.). The Presence of Yahweh\/Elohim guides the people in the proper route of Exodus (Exod 13:3, 17\u201318, 21\u201322), interposes a protective screen between fleeing Israel and the pursuing Egyptians (14:19\u201320), cleaves the sea to make way for Israel to cross it dry-footed, then brings the waters rushing in upon the Egyptians following (14:21\u201331). The great hymn celebrating this event and the conquest and settlement of Canaan as well ends with a celebration of Yahweh\u2019s Presence in his mountain sanctuary that sounds very much like a hymn of Zion (15:11\u201318).
\nThe Presence of Yahweh provides for Israel\u2019s need in the wilderness (15:22\u201327; 16:4, 9\u201316; 17:4\u20137). The Presence of Yahweh gives the principles by which Israel is to live in covenant (20:1\u201318) and the application of those principles to the needs and problems of daily living (20:22\u201323:33; note especially 20:22, 24; 21:6; 22:7\u20138 [22:8\u20139]; 22:25\u201326 [22:26\u201327]; 23:14\u201317). The Presence of Yahweh promises guidance, protection, and success in the settlement of the promised land (23:20\u201333). The Presence of Yahweh solemnizes the covenant, both with Israel (24:5\u20138, 18) and with Israel\u2019s leaders (24:9\u201317). And the Presence of Yahweh is at the center of the elaborate instructions for the media of worship in Exod 25\u201331 and of the account of their construction and consecration in Exod 35\u201340. Indeed, when that work was finished, Yahweh\u2019s Presence settled onto and into the Tabernacle (40:34\u201338), an indication both that the work had been done properly and that Yahweh had at last a permanent residence among his people, a theme elaborated still further by David and Solomon in the cult of Yahweh\u2019s Presence in Jerusalem.
\nThese are only representative references; the full list is much longer still. I have attempted to indicate and to discuss them all in the commentary on the translation that follows. Two additional themes are natural extensions of the Presence theme in the Book of Exodus. The first of these themes is Deliverance, or Salvation, or Rescue. The second of them is Covenant, the provision of a means of Response to Deliverance. God\u2019s Presence in Israel\u2019s midst witnesses the need for Deliverance and brings it about. God\u2019s Presence in Israel\u2019s midst guides Israel, both in a reaction of gratitude and also in a continuing acknowledgement of the reality of God\u2019s nearness. The story of the first half of Exodus, in broad summary, is Rescue. The story of the second half, in equally broad summary, is Response, both immediate response and continuing response. And binding together and undergirding both Rescue and Response is Presence, the Presence of Yahweh from whom both Rescue and Response ultimately derive. If all this seems to make Exodus sound like a one-track book, that is so because that is exactly what the Book of Exodus is: the foundational biblical declaration that whatever else he may be, God is first of all a God at hand, a God with his people, a God who rescues, protects, guides, provides for, forgives, and disciplines the people who call him their God and who call themselves his people.
\nNow if the Book of Exodus is as theologically single-minded as I am here suggesting (and what I am here suggesting is only a brief survey of the emphasis of the commentary that follows), and if the Book of Exodus is in fact the kind of first book of the Bible I am proposing that it is, we might expect that it would have had a very great impact on the OT, and indeed on the Bible as a whole. That is exactly the case. No other biblical book surfaces elsewhere in the NT as frequently as the Book of Exodus does; in the OT only the Books of Psalms and Isaiah are cited more, and that for the fairly obvious reasons of liturgy and messianism.
\nBoth within the Book of Exodus and beyond it, the exodus deliverance is depicted as the act by which Israel was brought into being as a people and thus as the beginning point in Israel\u2019s history. In the time of the fathers, God had revealed his Presence to individuals, had delivered and blessed, made promises to and sometimes judged them. But with the exodus, he revealed his Presence to a whole people and called them to nationhood and a special role by relating himself to them in covenant. This special role becomes a kind of lens through which Israel is viewed throughout the rest of the Bible, and the sequence of magnificent events that led up to the covenant and made it possible becomes a formative sequence, one that shapes much of the theology of the OT. It is this special role, indeed, that weaves the Book of Exodus so completely into the canonical fabric begun with Genesis and ended only with Revelation.
\nThe exodus was given theological expression in Israel\u2019s life in a number of ways. Quite early, no doubt at the time of the event itself, the exodus was celebrated in hymnic poetry and memorialized in narrative summary. Though as time passed, both the poetry and the narrative underwent expansion until they reached the form in which they are preserved in our OT, there is little reason to doubt that the exodus traditions of the OT, for all their confessional and sometimes stylized language, yet contain ancient memories of historical event. This is particularly apparent in the oldest confessions and hymns, which speak of Yahweh\u2019s deliverance from Egypt in terms of a \u201cbringing forth\u201d of his mighty arm and his right hand, of his wondrous deeds, of his salvation, of his defeat of the Egyptians at the sea, of his guidance and provision, of his choice and purchase of the people, and of his majestic and permanent reign (Exod 15:1\u201318, 21; Josh 24:2\u201313; Deut 6:20\u201325; 26:5\u201311). These motifs and the language in which they are given expression appear throughout the OT in virtually every period of Israel\u2019s existence. This recurrent language is a reflection of the theological common denominator of the OT. I refer to it frequently in the commentary that follows as \u201ctheological rhetoric,\u201d the vocabulary of confession in its irreducible minimum, the repeated key words and phrases that are the unique and common forms of OT theology.
\nWithin the extensive array of OT references to the exodus, further, a consistent pattern of meaning appears to have emerged. Whether reference was to the exodus from Egypt, as is the case in most of the OT, or to a new exodus yet to come in deliverance from Assyria or from Babylon, in general eschatological expectations, or in the more particularized expression of messianic hopes, the exodus\/new exodus references always bear specific relation to the deliverance brought by the Presence of God. It is God on the scene and in the midst of the fray who can effect deliverance, and any deliverance is testimony to this real and effective Presence. As in the first exodus, any subsequent deliverance will establish both his authority and his power and will show him to be all-sufficient to meet any need of his people that arises (cf. the thematic study of D. Daube, and, for the continuing application of the Exodus themes, the works of Goldberg and Walzer).
\n2. The Exodus in History and the Exodus as History
\nBibliography
\nBimson, J. J. Redating the Exodus and Conquest. JSOTSup 5. Sheffield: JSOT, 1978. Coats, G. \u201cThe Wilderness Itinerary.\u201d CBQ 34 (1972) 135\u201352. Davies, G. I. \u201cThe Wilderness Itineraries and The Composition of the Pentateuch.\u201d VT 33 (1983) 1\u201313. Driver, S. R. The Book of Exodus. CBSC. Cambridge: University Press, 1953. Dyer, C. H. \u201cThe Date of the Exodus Reexamined.\u201d BSac 140 (1983) 225\u201343. Greenberg, M. The \u1e2aab\/piru. AOS 39. New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1955. Herrmann, S. Israel in Egypt. SBT 2d ser., 27. London: SCM Press, 1973. McNeile, A. H. The Book of Exodus. WC. London: Methuen and Company, 1908. Nicholson, E. W. Exodus and Sinai in History and Tradition. Richmond: John Knox Press, 1973. Plaut, W. G. \u201cThe Israelites in Pharaoh\u2019s Egypt\u2014A Historical Reconstruction.\u201d Judaism 27 (1978) 40\u201346. Rowley, H. H. From Joseph to Joshua: Biblical Traditions in the Light of Archaeology. London: Published for the British Academy by the Oxford University Press, 1950. Seters, J. van. The Hyksos: a New Investigation. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966. Shanks, H. \u201cThe Exodus and the Crossing of the Red Sea, According to Hans Goedicke.\u201d BARev 7 (1981) 42\u201350. Thompson, T. L. The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives. BZAW 133. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1974. \u2014\u2014\u2014. \u201cThe Joseph and Moses Narratives: Historical Reconstructions of the Narratives.\u201d Israelite and Judaean History. Ed. J. H. Hayes and J. M. Miller. OTL. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1977. 149\u201366. Vaux, R. de. The Early History of Israel. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1978. Vergote, J. Joseph en \u00c9gypte, Gen\u00e8se chap. 37\u201350 \u00e0 la lumi\u00e8re des \u00e9tudes \u00e9gyptologiques r\u00e9centes. Louvain: Publications Universitaires, 1959. Walsh, J. T. \u201cFrom Egypt to Moab: A Source-Critical Analysis of the Wilderness Itinerary.\u201d CBQ 39 (1977) 20\u201333. Waltke, K. \u201cPalestinian Artifactual Evidence Supporting the Early Date of the Exodus.\u201d BSac 129 (1972) 33\u201347. Zenger, E. Israel am Sinai: Analysen und Interpretationen zu Exodus 17\u201334. Altenberge: CIS-Verlag, 1982.
\nThe problematical question of the historicity of the narratives of the Book of Exodus has been much discussed, particularly by commentators of the last fourth of the nineteenth century and the first fourth of the twentieth century. A number of careful studies (e.g., van Seters, Greenberg, Rowley, Herrmann, Nicholson, Vergote, Plaut) have established beyond cavil what may be called the contextual plausibility of the Exodus narrative without confirming the historicity of even one of its events or personages. We can prove of course that Egypt was there, and even that there were in Egypt displaced persons subjected to oppressive forced labor in a sequence of dynasties. We can prove that many of the laws and law-forms of both the Decalogue and the Book of the Covenant are anticipated by earlier and companion lawcodes, whatever possible date is suggested for the earliest form of the Exodus laws. We can prove the presence of people very like the early Israelites appear to have been, in the Sinai peninsula, in the wilderness area of Kadesh-Barnea, and in general in all the other places where the Books of Exodus and Numbers and Joshua place the people of Israel. We can present archeological data to support more than one set of dates for the wilderness wandering and the conquest\/settlement, as shown by such studies as those of de Vaux (291\u2013472), Herrmann (1\u201391), Nicholson (xiii\u2013xv, 1\u201390) and Bimson (7\u2013324). We can make a case for three or four excellent Egyptian Sitze im Leben that would fit the sojourn-exodus narratives of Genesis and Exodus (Thompson).
\nWhat we cannot do, without more specific data than we have, however, is provide historical confirmation for anything or anybody mentioned in the Book of Exodus. No one yet has given any convincing extrabiblical hint, much less proof, of any single part of the Exodus narrative. Apart from the Pharaoh\u2019s store-cities, Pithom and Ra\u02d3amses, which can be generally located, and the oasis of Kadesh-Barnea, which can be certainly located, we cannot fix with any degree of certainty one single place of the many mentioned in the Book of Exodus, not even Mount Sinai itself (Coats, Walsh, Davies, Zenger). This is not of course to say that the events and persons referred to by Exodus are not historical, only that we have no historical proof of them. Thus it is far better to speak of the narrative of Exodus in history rather than as history and to be content with the general historical context we can have rather than longing for specific historical proof we cannot have, at least until some dramatic new evidence is presented.
\nThis subject in any case is the province of the historian, the geographer, the archeologist, the ethnographer, and the expert in ancient demographics. The translator and commentator is of course interested in the work of these scholars, as in anything else that can help the recovery of ancient meaning in the task of determining contemporary meaning. But the subject of historicity must not be a primary interest. The commentator has enough other subjects with which to stay busy and needs to leave such matters to those who know what they are (or in the case of the Book of Exodus, alas, are not) talking about. We should have learned this lesson from the long and straw-grasping excursuses on historicity in the works of the commentators who wrote in the sixty years following 1875 (e.g., Driver, McNeile, etc.).
\nThe determination of any exact historical context for events mentioned in the Book of Exodus thus remains impossible. Given the purpose of the book, and the manner in which that purpose is attempted, such a determination is also relatively unimportant. Despite a variety of attempts to fix an earlier date for the oppression and the exodus (e.g., Waltke, Goedicke; see Shanks, Bimson, Dyer), no case is any more convincing than the case for the later date most frequently proposed, at the beginning of the nineteenth dynasty of Egypt (with Seti I as the Pharaoh of the oppression, Raamses II as the Pharaoh of the exodus, and Merneptah as the Pharaoh of Israel\u2019s early forays into Canaan). That is the dating assumed in the Commentary below, but the chronology of the events described in Exodus is of little importance to the theological message of the book in its present form, a form vastly removed from the connection of any of these events with an historical time-frame. To such an extent is this true, indeed, that a shift of dating to an earlier context would have no effect on the message of Exodus as I understand that message.
\n3. The Text of Exodus and Its Translation
\nBibliography
\nD\u00e9aut, R. le. Targum du Pentateuque. SC. Paris: Les \u00c9ditions du Cerf, 1979. Elliger, K., and W. Rudolf, eds. Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelstiftung, 1977. Fitzmyer, Joseph A. The Dead Sea Scrolls: Major Publications and Tools for Study. Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1977. Gall, A. F. von. Der Hebr\u00e4ische Pentateuch der Samaritaner. Giessen: Verlag Alfred T\u00f6pelmann, 1918. Hatch, E., and H. A. Redpath, eds. A Concordance to the Septuagint and the Other Greek Versions of the Old Testament. Graz: Akademische Druck-U. Verlagsanstalt, 1954. Mandelkern, S. Veteris Testamenti Concordantiae Hebraicae atque Chaldaicae. Graz: Akademische Druck-U. Verlaganstalt, 1955. Postma, F., E. Talstra, and M. Vervenne. Instrumenta Biblica 1: Exodus. Materials in Automatic Text Processing. Pts. I, II. Amsterdam: Turnhout, VU Boekhandel\/Uitgeverij Brepols, 1983. Quell, G., ed. Exodus et Leviticus: Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia 2. Ed. K. Elliger and W. Rudolph. Stuttgart: W\u00fcrttembergische Bibelanstalt, 1973. Rahlfs, A., ed. Septuaginta, 6th ed. 2 vols. Stuttgart: Privilegierte W\u00fcrttembergische Bibelanstah, n.d. Sperber, A., ed. The Bible in Aramaic. Vol. 1: The Pentateuch According to Targum Onkelos. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1959. Weber, R., ed. Biblia Sacra Iuxta Vulgatam Versionem. 2 vols. Stuttgart: W\u00fcrttembergische Bibelanstalt, 1969. Weil, G. E. Massorah Gedolah Iuxta Codicem Leningradensem B 19a. Vol. 1. Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1971.
\nThe task of the author of a volume such as this one, as I have undertaken it, is defined first and last by the need for a careful and sensitive translation of the biblical text, in this case the text of the Book of Exodus preserved by Codex Leningradensis (B19a) as edited by Gottfried Quell and published in 1973 as Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia 2, and subsequently as a component part of Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia by the W\u00fcrttembergische Bibelanstalt of Stuttgart. At a number of points in the Hebrew text of Exodus, there are significant variations from the version of the Masoretic text of the Book of Exodus preserved by Codex Leningradensis. Many of these are noted in the critical apparatus of Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia prepared by Gottfried Quell, along with a great many minor variations as well. Every note in this apparatus has been considered carefully, and those deemed to provide important or, in some cases, merely interesting variations have been noted. Sometimes the notes of the Masora Parva, as edited for BHS by Gerard Weil, have been of help in this evaluation, and the 4271 lists of the Masora Magna of L have also been an asset (see Weil, vol. 1: Catalogi). Wherever a variant reading has been adopted, such a decision is clearly indicated.
\nThe textual notes in Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia are necessarily limited, however, primarily by a lack of space. For that reason, I have supplemented the information provided by Quell by reference to (1) the text of the Septuagint, in the version based, so far as Exodus is concerned, primarily on Codex Vaticanus (B) and Codex Alexandrinus (A), edited and annotated by Alfred Rahlfs (6th ed.), published by the W\u00fcrttembergische Bibelanstalt; (2) the text of the Latin Vulgate, in the translation generally regarded as Jerome\u2019s, edited and annotated from a series of ancient manuscript editions and from the modern critical edition of the Benedictines of the monastery of St. Jerome in Rome by Robert Weber, with the help of B. Fischer, I. Gribomont, H. F. D. Sparks, and W. Thiele, published by the W\u00fcrttembergische Bibelanstalt in 1969; (3) the text of the Samaritan Pentateuch, edited and annotated from an extensive array of handwritten manuscripts by August Freiherrn von Gall and published by Alfred T\u00f6pelmann in 1918 (I used the photomechanical edition of 1966); and (4) the text of The Bible in Aramaic: Volume I, The Pentateuch According to Targum Onkelos, based primarily, for Genesis 1:1\u2014Leviticus 12, on three manuscripts from the British Museum\u2019s Oriental collection (mss Or 2228, 2229, and 2363), edited and annotated by Alexander Sperber, published by E. J. Brill in 1969. This latter text was further supplemented by reference to the translation of two Palestinian Targums (Codex Neofiti 1 in the Vatican Library and ms Add. 27031 in the British Museum) by Roger le D\u00e9aut, assisted by J. Robert, published in the Sources Chr\u00e9tiennes series as Targum du Pentateuque, Tome II, by Les \u00c9ditions du Cerf in 1979.
\nThe texts from Exodus that appear in full or fragmentary form in the Dead Sea Scrolls show little variation of significance from the readings of the Masoretic text. Of the forty-seven passages listed by Fitzmyer (153\u201354), to which now must be added the verses from Exod 12:43\u201313:16 and 20:7\u201312 from phylacteries and mezuzot published in DJD VI, far the majority follow substantially the reading preserved in B 19a. Those that do not are noted at the appropriate places in the commentary below.
\nThe Veteris Testamenti Concordantiae of Solomon Mandelkern and A Concordance to the Septuagint of Edwin Hatch and Henry A. Redpath were invaluable aids in the crossreferencing of key vocabulary and the attempt to achieve consistency in the translation of words and phrases that recur in a variety of places in the Book of Exodus. Quite late in the preparation of this commentary, there appeared the first of a series of works that promises additional supplementary help to the translator and the exegete. Instrumenta Biblica 1, prepared by Ferenc Postma, Eep Talstra, and Marc Vervenne, has presented \u201cmaterials in automatic text processing\u201d drawn from the BHS text of the Book of Exodus. Part II, Concordance, presents \u201ca catalogue of the vocabulary\u201d of Exodus, arranged alphabetically from \u05d0\u05b8\u05d1 \u201cfather\u201d to \u05ea\u05b5\u05bc\u05e9\u05b7\u05c1\u05e2 \u201cnine,\u201d and enabling the translator to determine, for example, that \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4 \u201cYahweh\u201d occurs 398 times in Exodus, and where (cf. pp. 192\u2013201), or that the preposition \u05db\u05b4\u05bc\u05d9 \u201cfor\u201d occurs 198 times in Exodus, and where (cf. pp. 226\u201330). Part I, Morphological, Syntactical and Literary Case Studies, presents a sampling of data generated by computerized morphological and syntactical listings, and a particularly helpful pairing of parallel passages in Exod 25\u201328 and Exod 36\u201339. This work, the firstfruits of a joint project of the Centre Informatique et Bible of the Abbey of Maredsous in Belgium and the Werkgroep Information of the Faculty of Theology of the Free University of Amsterdam, appeared late in 1983. It offers the student of the Book of Exodus a mine of conveniently assembled information for analysis and cross-reference.
\nThe text of the Book of Exodus has on the whole been well preserved despite its antiquity, no doubt owing chiefly to the fact that much of the book achieved by use what was effectively a canonical status quite early in the history of the growth of the Old Testament. The usual kinds of textual error are to be found in the Hebrew text of Exodus, and some of these are pointed out in the notes that follow the translation below, but a comparison of the significant problems posed here with those present in certain Psalms, or in parts of the Books of Kings, Isaiah, or Ezekiel, for example, indicates that the text of Exodus is remarkably free of serious textual difficulty.
\nThe language of the Book of Exodus is biblical or \u201cclassical\u201d Hebrew. For the most part, the Hebrew of Exodus is straightforward and generally devoid of philological and grammatical complication. The major problem posed by the language of Exodus has to do with terms that appear to be quite correctly transmitted, but for which a precise significance is now unknown. There is no large number of these, however, and by far the bulk of the text of Exodus can be translated both clearly and easily. The few obscure terms are discussed in either the notes or the commentary below.
\nMost of the Book of Exodus is written in prose forms, either as narrative or as lists of apodictic and casuistic laws or as detailed sequences of cultic specification. One consequential section is in poetic form (15:1b\u201318, 21), and there is one three-line poetic stanza that some translators render as prose (so rsv Childs, 554). These poems are certainly among the oldest parts of the book, and there is a possibility that some sections now preserved in prose form were originally in poetic form, as for example the decalogue, expanded from its original \u201cten words,\u201d or early recitations of the mighty acts of Yahweh\u2019s deliverance from Egypt and sustenance in the wilderness. Indeed, Pss 105:24\u201345; 106:1\u201323; and 136:10\u201316 may provide later examples of such poetic originals.
\nI have considered the translation of Exodus my primary and central assignment, and I have attempted to make this translation the foundation of everything else in the volume, deleting from my commentary everything that does not bear directly on the translation itself. I have tried indeed to incorporate the essential results of my research and reflection in the translation, so that the central theological emphasis I have referred to is apparent there. Everything else, whether in the notes on the text, in the discussion of the literary form of the text and the traditions that lie behind it, in the commentary on the text, and in the explanation of the essential point of a given pericope, has been dictated and governed by what is in the translation.
\nMy intention has been to present a translation as near as possible to the sense of the text of the Book of Exodus, in clear if sometimes Hebrew-flavored English. I have given special weight to the particles and to the narrative waw (the so-called \u201cconsecutive\u201d or \u201cconservative\u201d waw, for which my title is simply \u201cspecial waw\u201d), because I believe their use in this carefully weighed and redacted text serves more than an incidental purpose. I have translated every proper name in a parenthesis following its first occurrence in the Book of Exodus. I have sought to indicate special emphasis wherever it occurs, as for example with the double use of prepositions or the use of such emphatic particles as \u05d2\u05b7\u05bc\u05dd \u201calso\u201d and \u05d7\u05b4\u05e0\u05b5\u05bc\u05d7 \u201cbehold.\u201d I have endeavored to allow the drama of narrative dialogue to shine through the translation, along with the flashes of humor that sparkle here and there. I have tried to suggest the action-oriented sense of the Hebrew verb system, rather than the Latinized tenses so frequently imposed on a verb system that really includes no sense of time. I have reflected upon the possible meanings of every single word in the Book of Exodus, chosen meanings that seem to me best to translate the liveliness of the text, and then attempted as much as possible to render the same Hebrew word throughout the translation by the same English word, noting any significant departures from this rule. I have avoided paraphrase, that bane of the reader attempting to hear the original voice of any text, except in those few cases where a literal translation simply made no sense. Such instances are clearly indicated in the notes. I have sought to achieve a translation that suggests the oral flow and cadence of the Hebrew text, and for that reason I suggest that the translation be read aloud, with careful attention to punctuation. The narrative sections of the Book of Exodus, in particular, appear to have been composed with hearing rather than reading in mind.
\nMy attempt, in sum, has been to hear the ancient voice of a living faith speaking in this marvelous theological narrative, and to transmit that voice as clearly as I can to my own time and context. My ambition has been to provide a translation that is not only the center and the anchor of my commentary treatment, but one which in itself is a summary of a commentary that is in turn a sampling of a far wider and more extensive range of questions and proposed answers. Thus the translation is both the beginning and the objective of this volume, the distillation of a lengthy period of work and reflection on the text of the Book of Exodus.
\n4. The Shape and the Content of Exodus
\nThe outline of the Book of Exodus is deceptively simple, given the complexity of the book\u2019s contents. I have divided the text into three major parts on the basis of the location of the people of Israel in the narrative sequence, so:
\nPart One: Israel in Egypt (1:1\u201313:16)
\nPart Two: Israel in the Wilderness (13:17\u201318:27)
\nPart Three: Israel at Sinai (19:1\u201340:38)
\nPart One is then subdivided into three major sections, each with a varied number of pericopae: Section I, The Progeny of Israel, The Persecution and the Deliverer, Exod 1:1\u20132:25, is comprised of seven pericopae; Section II, The Call of the Deliverer, His Commission, and His Obedience, Exod 3:1\u20137:7, is comprised of ten pericopae; and Section III, The Ten Mighty Acts and the Exodus: the Proof of Yahweh\u2019s Presence, Exod 7:8\u201313:16, is comprised of seventeen pericopae.
\nPart Two, the briefest of the three major divisions, has no subsections, only eleven pericopae, the last of which, The Beginning of Israel\u2019s Legal System, Exod 18:13\u201327, probably belongs somewhere in the third major division (see below, pp. 240\u201343).
\nPart Three is subdivided into four major sections, each with a varied number of pericopae: Section I, The Advent of Yahweh\u2019s Presence and the Making of the Covenant, Exod 19:1\u201324:18, is comprised of six pericopae; Section II, Yahweh\u2019s Instructions for the Media of Worship, Exod 25:1\u201331:18, is comprised of sixteen pericopae; Section III, Israel\u2019s First Disobedience and Its Aftermath, Exod 32:1\u201334:35, is comprised of eight pericopae; and Section IV, Israel\u2019s Obedience of Yahweh\u2019s Instructions, Exodus 35:1\u201340:38, is comprised of eight pericopae.
\nThe full outline I have followed can be seen in the Contents. It is an outline that emerges from the text, rather than one superimposed upon it, and it gives some indication of the whole Book of Exodus as a unified composite moving from the promise and the proof of Yahweh\u2019s Presence to the revelation and advent of that Presence, incorporating the involvement of that Presence in the solemnization of covenant relationship, recalling the threatened withdrawal of the Presence because of disobedience, and presenting with relief the reconciliation of Yahweh\u2019s Presence and his settlement in Israel\u2019s midst.
\n5. The Development of Commentaries on Exodus
\nBibliography
\nBeer, G. Exodus. HAT. T\u00fcbingen: Verlag J. C. B. Mohr, 1939. Cassuto, U. A Commentary on the Book of Exodus. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1967. Childs, B. S. Exodus. OTL. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1974. \u2014\u2014\u2014. \u201cInterpretation in Faith: The Theological Responsibility of an Old Testament Commentary.\u201d Int 18 (1964) 432\u201349. Clements, R. E. Exodus. CBC. Cambridge: University Press, 1972. Davies, G. H. Exodus. TBC. London: SCM Press, 1967. Driver, S. R. The Book of Exodus. CBSC. Cambridge: University Press, 1953. Ellison, H. L. Exodus. DSB. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1982. Gispen, W. H. Exodus. BSC. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1982. Greenberg, M. Understanding Exodus. Melton Research Center Series, vol. 2, pt 1. New York: Behrman House, 1969. Hyatt, J. P. Exodus. NCB. London: Oliphants, 1971. Knight, G. A. F. Theology as Narration: A Commentary on the Book of Exodus. Edinburgh: Handsel Press, 1976. Lowenstamm, S. E. The Tradition of Exodus in Its Development. 2d edition. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1972. Heb., with a brief summary in Eng. McNeile, A. H. The Book of Exodus. WC. London: Methuen and Co., 1908. Noth, M. Exodus. OTL. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1962. Schmidt, W. H. Exodus. BKAT II, 1, 2, 3. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1974, 1977, 1983. Wharton, J. A. \u201cSplendid Failure or Flawed Success?\u201d Int 29 (1975) 266\u201376.
\nIn the list of abbreviations, and in the bibliography to this final section of the Introduction, I have listed the standard works of reference and commentaries that have been of invaluable help to me in my study of the Book of Exodus, many of them for a number of years. In the commentary, these works are cited only by the author\u2019s last name and the relevant page references. They are not listed in the bibliographies preceding the individual pericopae in the commentary, because to have done so would have added unnecessary length to the volume. When two or more works by the same author are cited in the same section, a work from these general bibliographies will be listed only by the author\u2019s last name, and the additional work or works will be listed by a shortened form of the title of the work. I have listed no work, either in the general bibliographies or in the more specific bibliographies preceding the individual sections of the commentary, which is not cited directly in the commentary. The works in the table of abbreviations and in the bibliographies in this Introduction have for the most part been cited repeatedly.
\nThe Book of Exodus has not lacked good commentaries from the time of the fathers of the Church to the present day (for a helpful list of commentaries predating the nineteenth century, see Childs, xxi\u2013xxiii). The rise of literary critical approaches to the study of the Bible in the second half of the nineteenth century began a tradition of intense interest in the books of the Pentateuch, an interest that continues unabated to this very day, albeit with important shifts of subject and motive. The Book of Exodus has received more of this attention than any other pentateuchal book except the Book of Genesis, and nearly every major commentary set published in the past one hundred and fifty years has included a consequential volume on Exodus. The notable exception to this record is the International Critical Commentary of T. and T. Clark of Edinburgh, which never presented an Exodus commentary.
\nThe standard commentaries on Exodus have tended to summarize the scholarly opinion of their time, and to be governed, even limited, by the translations upon which they were based. Early in this century, the commentary of A. H. McNeile (WC, 1908) and the commentary of S. R. Driver (CBSC, 1911), both based on the English Revised Version of 1884, displayed in the margins by the biblical text what their authors judged to be the allocation of each verse to the appropriate documentary source. They gave a good bit of space, in introductory and excursus sections, to what were believed to be assumed historical, geographical, and parallel literary connections
\nBy 1939, when the excellent commentary of Georg Beer (HAT) was published, there was a bit less certainty in the matter of the sources, a bit more tentativeness about matters historical and geographical, and Beer commented on his own translation, in a fresh and pointed manner. Twenty years later, Martin Noth (ATD) published a commentary on his translation of Exodus, a volume published in English translation in 1962 (OTL), somewhat unfortunately carrying a slightly adapted rsv text, instead of a translation of Noth\u2019s own rendering. Noth differentiated JE from P by differing margins (differing typefaces in the English translation), and secondary material by brackets, but the interest in and assurance about source-literary questions is less prominent still, and Noth gave virtually no space to historical matters. The attention of commentaries on the Book of Exodus was being drawn more and more by the text itself and was being determined less and less by considerations taken to that text from nonbiblical interests.
\nIn 1951, Umberto Cassuto published in Hebrew a massive commentary on Exodus, intermingling an explanatory narrative with the Hebrew text, assuming an ancient heroic poem as the principle source of the book, and appealing for a consideration of \u201cthe book before us.\u201d In 1967, this work was translated by I. Abrahams, who adapted the rsv, jps, Moffatt\u2019s New Translation of the Bible and renderings of his own for the biblical text. It presents a treatment in dramatic contrast to the modern commentaries preceding it, not only in format, but also in its emphasis on an Exodus that, though combined from a variety of traditions, is nonetheless regarded as a unified work in its own right, and one that deserves to be considered in its final form. Cassuto\u2019s contribution is not without its flaws, but it deserves more consideration than it has had. Some of its implications have been helpfully explored by S. E. Loewenstamm\u2019s The Tradition of the Exodus in Its Development (1972), and in the very helpful but unfortunately incomplete Understanding Exodus (1969) of Moshe Greenberg.
\nG. Henton Davis in 1967 gave us a compact commentary (TBC) on the rsv text, following a standard source-literary critical approach to the text and giving only minimal and passing attention to historical and geographic matters, but emphasizing the theological unity of Exodus by reference to \u201cthe theme of the Presence of God.\u201d The stark simplicity of this striking conclusion remains another important contribution to an understanding of the Book of Exodus for what it is, as a unified composite, rather than for what it may once have been, as a series of parts.
\nJ. P. Hyatt\u2019s Exodus (NCB, 1971), also based on the rsv text, marks a return to the earlier commentary form typified by McNeile and Driver, both as regards source-literary analysis and also as regards attention to historical and geographical allusion and extended excursuses. Hyatt\u2019s treatment is a good one, if somewhat old-fashioned, and its chief advance is a summary of traditio-historical approaches that bring balance to source and form analysis.
\nA stimulating and influential next step in Exodus commentary was taken in 1974 with the appearance of Brevard S. Childs\u2019s The Book of Exodus: A Critical, Theological Commentary, a unique second commentary on a single book in a single series (OTL). Childs undertook in this volume to do more than any commentator on an OT book has done heretofore, particularly in the address of \u201cthe final shape of the text\u201d (xiv), in a consideration of the treatment of Exodus by the writers of the New Testament and by both Christian and Jewish exegetes through history, and in theological reflection on Exodus as Holy Scripture within a Christian context. Childs\u2019s commentary is on his own translation of the Hebrew text of Exodus, accompanied by both textcritical and philological annotation. He has given careful but not excessive attention to source and form-critical questions, and has helpfully surveyed traditio-historical theories. He has entirely abandoned the usual introductory survey of the contents of Exodus and the special problems facing a commentator, and he has largely ignored historical and geographical discourse, I think correctly so. Childs has given us a new kind of commentary (cf. Wharton, 266\u201376, and Childs\u2019s own commentary manifesto in Int 18 [1964] 432\u201349) and in doing so has raised a series of important questions about what is and is not a part of the commentator\u2019s task. He has clearly attempted more than can be fully achieved in a single volume and by a single scholar, but he has also achieved more than many would have thought possible. By the encyclopedic sweep of his review, he has moved Exodus commentary to another stage in its evolution, particularly in his insistence that the \u201cfinal\u201d Exodus, the canonical Exodus, be taken as seriously as it stands as it has been studied in dissection.
\nMore massive still than Childs\u2019s volume, in prospect, is the Exodus of Werner H. Schmidt (BKAT II) of which thus far only three 80-page fascicles have appeared, giving Schmidt\u2019s translation, with extensive bibliography, notes, and commentary, of Exodus 1:1\u20134:31. The format of the BKAT series more or less insures that this treatment will be a \u201cstandard\u201d commentary, and the pace at which it is appearing (II:l, 1974; II:2, 1977; II:3, 1983) suggests that it will be a long time coming to completion. Thus far, it breaks no new ground but provides reference survey of previous work on Exodus, with much attention to source-literary, form- and tradition-critical, and historical and geographical questions.
\nNew commentaries on the Book of Exodus and translations of older ones will certainly continue to appear, not least because of the essential importance of the account Exodus presents for an understanding of the OT and of the Bible as a whole. Some of these will represent basic information in traditional ways, as for example the Exodus of R. E. Clements on the text of the neb (CBC, 1972) or the Exodus of H. L. Ellison on the text of the rsv (DSB, 1982) or the translation of the Exodus by W. H. Gispen (BSC, 1982), incorporating in its English format the text of the niv (Gispen\u2019s Dutch Commentary, which appeared in KVHS in 1951, was on his own translation). Some of them will take new and imaginative approaches, as for example George A. F. Knight\u2019s Theology as Narration: A Commentary on the Book of Exodus (1976), in which Exodus is presented as \u201can \u2018incarnational\u2019 theological essay,\u201d \u201cvirtually a chapter in the history of God\u201d written by \u201csome one person\u201d whom Knight calls \u201cEx\u201d (ix\u2013xi).
\nSuch preoccupation with Exodus is an inevitability, and it is also to our very great benefit. We have not begun to understand this magnificent book, much less exhaust its treasure. Every additional work it stimulates makes it available, on some level, to that many more members of the human family who are hungry to know the God who comes and who gives himself to us.
\nWhen Moses turned aside on Mount Sinai to the bush all aflame that strangely was not being burnt, he came into Yahweh\u2019s Presence. From that moment on, Moses found himself in the stretching tension between ineffable mystery and pragmatic daily living. In the Book of Exodus he is presented struggling to convince a frightened and insecure people in a strange place of the reality of a God he himself knows but has not seen. There is little wonder at his asking Yahweh on Sinai, when he had won mercy for a compromised Israel, \u201cShow me, please, your glory\u201d (Exod 33:18).
\nSuch a request, of course, Yahweh does not answer, though he does come to Moses in a theophany of striking and unique revelatory proportions (Exod 34:5\u20138). After the covenant has been remade, however, and after the instructions concerning the media of worship have all been fully carried out (a point the account repeatedly goes to great trouble to make), when \u201cMoses,\u201d as the text says, \u201ccompleted the work,\u201d Yahweh\u2019s Presence filled the Tabernacle, and Moses could no longer enter the Tent of Appointed Meeting (Exod 40:34\u201335). A great satisfaction must have come over Moses then. He still could not see Yahweh, but he knew, for certain, that Yahweh was there.
\nAnyone who studies the Book of Exodus seriously and with faith will know how Moses felt.
\nPART ONE
\nISRAEL IN EGYPT
\n(1:1\u201313:16)
\nI. The Progeny of Israel, the Persecution, and the Deliverer (1:1\u20132:25)
\nII. The Call of the Deliverer, His Commission, and His Obedience (3:1\u20137:7)
\nIII. The Ten Mighty Acts and the Exodus: The Proof of Yahweh\u2019s Presence (7:8\u201313:16)
\nI. The Progeny of Israel, the Persecution, and the Deliverer (1:1\u20132:25)
\n\u201cAnd These Are the Names\u201d (1:1\u20137)
\nBibliography
\nAlbright, W. F. \u201cNorthwest-Semitic Names in a List of Egyptian Slaves from the Eighteenth Century b.c.\u201d JAOS 74 (1954) 222\u201333. Coats, G. W. \u201cA Structural Transition in Exodus.\u201d VT 22 (1972) 129\u201342. Cross, F. M., Jr. The Ancient Library of Qumran and Modern Biblical Studies. Rev. ed. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1980. Klein, R. W. Textual Criticism of the Old Testament. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974. Noth, M. Die israelitischen Personennamen im Rahmen der gemeinsemitischen Namengebung. BWANT III, 10. Stuttgart: Verlag W. Kohlhammer, 1928. Vriezen, Th. C. \u201cExodusstudien Exodus I.\u201d VT 17 (1967) 334\u201353.
\nTranslation
\n1 And these are the names of the sons of Israel, the ones who went down into Egypt with Jacob\u2014to a man they went, each with his family: 2 Reuben (\u201cBehold, a son!\u201d), Simeon (\u201cHe Surely Heard!\u201d), Levi (\u201cJoined\u201d) and Judah (\u201cObject of Praise\u201d), 3 Issachar (\u201cThere is recompense\u201d), Zebulun (\u201cHonored\u201d) and Benjamin (\u201cSon of the Right Hand\u201d), 4 Dan (\u201cJudge\u201d) and Naphtali (\u201cMy Wrestling\u201d), Gad (\u201cGood Fortune\u201d) and Asher (\u201cHappy One\u201d). 5 Thus was the full issue of the loins of Jacob seventy souls, since Joseph (\u201cIncreasing One\u201d) was already in Egypt.
\n6 In time, Joseph died, and his brothers and indeed that entire generation as well.
\n7 But the sons of Israel were fertile, and so they became a teeming swarm. Indeed, they became so many they were a strength to be reckoned with by their numbers alone. The land was simply filled with them.
\nNotes
\n1.a. LXX and Vg omit this \u201cand,\u201d and many translators follow their lead. The \u201cand\u201d is important, however; see Comment, below.
\n1.b. LXX reads \u1f04\u03bc\u03b1 \u0399\u03b1\u03ba\u03c9\u03b2 \u03c4\u1ff7 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u1f76 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u201cwith Jacob, their father.\u201d
\n4.a. See n. 5.b.
\n5.a. LXX gives a total of 75, here and in Gen 46:27, as also does a fragment from Qumran, 4QExa (Cross, 184\u201385). See Num 26:28\u201337 and Hyatt, 57. As Klein (15) correctly notes, this alternate number is a \u201csecondary calculation\u201d based on the addition of five more descendants of Ephraim and Manasseh to the original count. MT\u2019s \u201cseventy\u201d is the preferred reading.
\n5.b. LXX locates \u0399\u03c9\u03c3\u03b7\u03c6 \u2026 \u0391\u1f30\u03b3\u03cd\u03c0\u03c4\u1ff3 \u201cJoseph \u2026 Egypt,\u201d somewhat logically, following the \u201cAsher\u201d of v 4.
\nForm\/Structure\/Setting
\nThis opening passage of Exodus functions as a compact transitional unit that summarizes that part of the preceding Genesis narrative that is essential to what follows, states a new and discontinuous situation, and anticipates the progress of the family of Jacob\/Israel toward their birth, in exodus and at Sinai, as the people of God.
\nSource critics have tended to favor the assignment of v 6 to the Yahwist, because of a supposed connection with the final verse of Genesis (Fohrer, 9), or with Exod 1:8 (Vriezen, VT 17 [1967] 335). There is no convincing reason for such a division of this unit, however. It is better taken as a carefully composed introductory section from the Priestly source (Noth, 20; Coats, VT 22 [1972] 133), strategically placed to afford an ingenious bridge (see Comment below).
\nAs such, this passage links both person and purpose in the patriarchal history to person and purpose in the story of the exodus, and it connects the promise of progeny to the patriarchs with the fulfillment of that promise in the patriarchs\u2019 greatly multiplied descendants in Egypt. Above all, it combines these themes to impel the narrative forward into the next stage of its development and into the fulfillment of the second part of the promise to the fathers, the promise of land.
\nComment
\n1 The Book of Exodus opens with a phrase that serves also as its Hebrew name: \u05d5\u05b0\u05d0\u05b5\u05dc\u05b6\u05bc\u05d4 \u05e9\u05b0\u05c1\u05de\u05d5\u05b9\u05ea \u201cAnd these are the names.\u201d This phrase is a carefully chosen and precisely placed connecting link, a bridge from the promise of descendants to Jacob and his sons to a reality of descendants that makes an exodus from Egypt a necessity. Indeed, the first six words of Exod 1:1 are in the Hebrew text an exact quotation of the first six words of Gen 46:8, a clear rhetorical indication of the continuity intended not only in the narrative, but in the underlying theological assertion.
\nThe author of the opening lines of the Book of Exodus quite probably had at hand, in some form, the genealogical list of Gen 46:8\u201327. There is good reason to suggest that these two passages have the same author, and that an original sequence may have included at least Gen 46:8\u201327 followed by 47:6\u201312, 27b\u201328; then 48:3\u20137; 49:28\u201333; 50:12\u201313; then Exod 1:1\u20135, 7. The canonical Exodus thus opens with a listing of the essential names of the detailed genealogy of Gen 46:8\u201327 (the first substantial passage in the patriarchal history from this author after Gen 36:1\u201337:2a), continues the account of the settlement in Egypt begun in Gen 47:6\u201312, and amplifies (v 7) the theme of fertility in Egypt introduced in Gen 47:27b and referred to in prospect in Gen 48:3\u20137.
\nThe narrative regarding Jacob\u2019s desire to be buried in Canaan (Gen 49:28\u201333 and 50:12\u201313) and the account of the population explosion in the Egyptian delta (Exod 1:7) both point forward to what is to come, just as the summary of the genealogy of Gen 46:8\u201327 points backward to what has been promised and thence to what has already come to pass in the fulfillment of that promise.
\nThus the \u201cand\u201d with which the Hebrew text of the Book of Exodus begins is an indication of an all-important continuity obscured already both by the growth of the closing part of the Book of Genesis and by the division of the text into \u201cbooks.\u201d Though many modern translators follow the lead of LXX in omitting this copula, to do so is a mistake. The connection of the text of Exodus with what has preceded it must be emphasized, not further obscured.
\n7 The fertility of the sons of Israel in Egypt is dramatically underscored by the use in v 7 of the verb \u05e9\u05c1\u05e8\u05e5, which generally refers in the OT to the swarming multiplication of frogs or fish or other animal life. This verb is used in reference to humans only here and in the blessing upon Noah and his sons (Gen 9:1\u20137; esp. v 7), two passages stressing, for different reasons, an extraordinary increase in numbers. The translation should in each case emphasize the unusual usage: hence, with \u201csequential\u201d waw, \u201cand so they became a teeming swarm.\u201d This multiplication is further dramatized by no less than five separate statements of it in this one verse: \u201cfertile \u2026 swarm \u2026 so many \u2026 numbers \u2026 simply filled.\u201d
\n2\u20135 A final important connecting link is reflected in the significance of the names of the twelve sons of Jacob, suggested in the parentheses in the Translation above. Present in these names, in a manner unfortunately not always apparent, are clues to the important questions connected with tribal biography and the theological descendancy of Israel. Further clues are present, though some of them are also obscure, in the lists of the \u201cBlessing of Jacob\u201d in Gen 49:3\u201327 and the \u201cBlessing of Moses\u201d in Deut 33:2\u201329.
\nThese names, in the present arrangement of the biblical text, also provide a point of contact with the \u201cBlessing of Jacob\u201d in Gen 49:3\u201327. The same twelve names are listed there, though the final eight occur in a different order. In the list in Gen 46:8\u201327, the final six names appear in an order different from the one in Exod 1. The \u201cBlessing of Jacob,\u201d with its intriguing plus-and-minus characterizations of the twelve tribal families, gives us more history than we can understand. Quite possibly its present location in the text may have been suggested by the two lists that now bracket it, in Gen 46 and Exod 1.
\nThe significance of the twelve names in the traditions of the OT is thus one more part of the interweaving of threads that connect the Book of Exodus with what precedes it. References particularly relevant to this significance are as follows:
\n1. Reuben\u2014from \u05e8\u05d0\u05d4 \u201csee\u201d + \u05d1\u05b5\u05bc\u05df \u201cson,\u201d Gen 29:32.
\n2. Simeon\u2014from \u05e9\u05c1\u05de\u05e2 \u201chear\u201d + emphatic \u05df, Gen 29:33.
\n3. Levi\u2014possibly from \u05dc\u05d5\u05d4 \u201cjoined,\u201d as husband joined to wife, Gen 29:34; or as servants joined to Aaron, Num 18:2\u20134.
\n4. Judah\u2014possibly from hiphil of \u05d9\u05d3\u05d4 \u201cgive praise, thanks,\u201d Gen 29:35, 49:8.
\n5. Issachar\u2014from \u05d9\u05b5\u05e9\u05c1 \u201cit is\u201d or \u05d0\u05bc\u05d9\u05e9\u05c1 \u201ca man\u201d + \u05e9\u05b8\u05c2\u05db\u05b8\u05e8 \u201crecompense, wage,\u201d Gen 30:18. See Albright, JAOS 74 (1954) 229 and 231, on name 231.
\n6. Zebulun\u2014from \u05d6\u05d1\u05dc \u201chonor, exalt\u201d + emphatic \u05df, Gen 30:20.
\n7. Benjamin\u2014from \u05d1\u05b5\u05bc\u05df + \u201cson\u201d + \u05d9\u05b8\u05de\u05b4\u05d9\u05df \u201cthe right,\u201d Gen 35:18.
\n8. Dan\u2014from \u05d3\u05d9\u05df \u201cjudge,\u201d Gen 30:6.
\n9. Naphtali\u2014from niphal of \u05e4\u05ea\u05dc \u201ctwist oneself = wrestle,\u201d + pronominal suffix \u201cmy,\u201d Gen 30:8.
\n10. Gad\u2014from \u05d2\u05b7\u05bc\u05d3 \u201cgood fortune,\u201d Gen 30:11; though compare the fascinating play on Gad and the verb \u05d2\u05d3\u05d3 \u201cpenetrate, attack,\u201d and its derivatives \u05d2\u05bc\u05d5\u05bc\u05d3 and \u05d2\u05b0\u05bc\u05d3\u05d5\u05bc\u05d3 in Gen 49:19.
\n11. Asher\u2014from \u05d0\u05e9\u05c1\u05e8 \u201cgo straight on, pronounce happy,\u201d Gen 30:13. See Albright, JAOS 74 (1954) 227\u201328, on name 13.
\n12. Joseph\u2014from \u05d9\u05d8\u05e3 \u201cadd to, increase,\u201d Gen 30:24.
\nExplanation
\nThe beginning of the Book of Exodus is a continuation, a look at the present, and a hint of what must come. What is continued is the story of Jacob\u2019s family, begun in the history of the patriarchs. The naming of the twelve sons is a link with both the past and the future.
\nThe look at the present is in the pointed, almost laconic obituary notice regarding the twelve just named, and indeed all their generation, in its entirety, and in the awed, almost incredulous description of the unusual multiplication of the progeny of those twelve. There is more than a hint of the miraculous in this growth of \u201cseventy souls\u201d into \u201ca teeming swarm,\u201d for the author intends that his readers should recall the promise of a vast descendancy to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Gen 17:1\u20138 or 26:1\u20135 or 28:13\u201315, for example). This unnatural family growth is everywhere accounted for in Exodus as God\u2019s doing.
\nIn this recollection of God\u2019s covenant-promise, however, there is also an allusion to what is to come, for the promise was a promise of land as well as progeny. And with the promise of progeny so wondrously and abundantly fulfilled, the promise of land must not be far from fulfillment. It cannot be, since the Egyptian delta is \u201csimply filled\u201d with Israel\u2019s descendants. A shadow of what else is to come is present in the reference to the strength such numbers present, as also in the continuing biblical tension between God\u2019s promise and the threats that oppose it.
\nNever very far from such a text is the larger theological purpose underlying all these events and implicit in any account of them. What God is doing with Israel\u2019s descendants has meaning for the whole family of humankind.
\nThe New Dynasty (1:8\u201314)
\nBibliography
\nBesters, A. \u201c \u2018Isra\u00ebl\u2019 et \u2018fils d\u2019Isra\u00e4l\u2019 dans les livres historiques (Gen\u00e8se-II Rois)\u201d and \u201cL\u2019expression \u2018fils d\u2019Isra\u00ebl\u2019 en Ex., I\u2013XIV.\u201d RB 74 (1967) 5\u201323, 321\u201355. Gardiner, A. Egyptian Grammar. 3d ed. rev. London: Oxford University Press, 1957. Helck, W. \u201ckw und die Ramses-Stadt.\u201d VT 15 (1965) 35\u201348. Mendelsohn, I. \u201cOn Corv\u00e9e Labor in Ancient Canaan and Israel.\u201d BASOR 167 (1962) 31\u201335. Plaut, W. G. \u201cThe Israelites in Pharaoh\u2019s Egypt\u2014A Historical Reconstruction.\u201d Judaism 27 (1978) 40\u201346. Redford, D. B. \u201cExodus 1:11.\u201d VT 13 (1963) 401\u201318.
\nTranslation
\n8 Then a new king came to power over Egypt, one with no experience of Joseph. 9 Thus it was that he said to his people, \u201cJust look: the people of the sons of Israel are numerous and so stronger even than we are. 10 My advice is that we outsmart them before theybecome so many that in the event of a war they could join themselves\u2014indeed they could\u2014with those who hate us to do battle against us. Under such conditions, they might even go up from the land.\u201d
\n11 So they set in authority over them slave-gang overseers, in order to keep them under control with hard labor. Thus did Israel build supply-cities for Pharaoh, Pithom, and Ra\u02d3amses. 12 Yet even as they heaped hard labor upon them, they became more numerous still and broke through the limits imposed upon them. And so the Egyptians came to have a sickening dread because of the presence of the sons of Israel.
\n13 The Egyptians then forced the sons of Israel to toil more unremitting than ever, 14 making their lives utterly bitter with a backbreaking slavery, mixing mortar, and molding bricks, and even doing every kind of field-labor. In all the toil to which they forced them, the Egyptians made them work without relief,
\nNotes
\n9.a. The sense of \u05e2\u05b7\u05dd \u05d1\u05b0\u05bc\u05e0\u05b5\u05d9 \u05d9\u05b4\u05e9\u05b0\u05c2\u05e8\u05b8\u05d0\u05b5\u05dc is virtually \u201cthe people, \u2018sons of Israel.\u2019 \u201d The writer has Pharaoh calling the group previously known as \u201cIsrael\u2019s sons\u201d a people, in parallel to the same usage in reference to his own nation (\u05e2\u05b7\u05de\u05bc\u05d5\u05b9 \u201chis people\u201d), because of Israel\u2019s consequential growth to a threatening size. See also Besters RB 74 (1967) 7, 21\u201323, 323\u201326.
\n10.a. The subjects and verbs referring to Israel in vv 8\u201312 are sg in MT, but pl. in LXX, Tg(s), and other versions. The usage is a collective sg, and best rendered in English by pl., as above. Greenberg (Understanding Exodus, 20) thinks the usage a device to call attention to the designation, in v 9, of Israel as \u05e2\u05b7\u05dd \u201ca people.\u201d
\n10.b. Reading (\u05d4\u05b5\u05dd=) \u05d2\u05b7\u05bc\u05dd \u05d4\u05db\u05bc\u05d0 \u201cindeed they could\u201d as an emphatic coordinate clause.
\n11.a. LXX \u03c0\u03cc\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u1f40\u03c7\u03c5\u03c1\u1f70\u03c2 \u201cfortified cities.\u201d
\n11.b. LXX adds \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03a9\u03bd, \u1f25 \u1f10\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03bd \u1f29\u03bb\u03b9\u03bf\u03cd\u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03b9\u03c2 \u201cand On, that is, Heliopolis.\u201d See Comment below.
\n12.a. \u05e4\u05e8\u05e5 \u201cburst out, break through.\u201d LXX \u1f34\u03c3\u03c7\u03c5\u03bf\u03bd \u03c3\u03c6\u03cc\u03b4\u03c1\u03b1 \u03c3\u03c6\u03cc\u03b4\u03c1\u03b1 \u201cgrew exceedingly, exceedingly strong.\u201d Vg multiplicabantur \u201cbecame great.\u201d
\n12.b. LXX Vg, Tg. Onk. add this subject, left unstated by MT.
\n14.a. Lit., \u201cwith harsh severity.\u201d
\nForm\/Structure\/Setting
\nThese seven verses are made a unity by their reference to a common subject, the new situation of Israel in Egypt with the accession of a new dynasty of Egyptian rulers. Vv 8\u201312 may safely be considered a unit, probably from the Yahwist. Vv 13\u201314 present a somewhat intensified version of the narrative of the Israelites\u2019 forced labor, generally assigned to the Priestly source.
\nThe two parts of this section can easily be separated on stylistic grounds, as for example, by the use of singular pronouns and verbs in vv 9\u201312, in reference to the collective singular \u05e2\u05b7\u05dd \u201cpeople,\u201d and by the use of plural pronouns and verbs in vv 13\u201314.
\nYet there is more here than two parallel accounts of the same events. Vv 13\u201314 take the hardship of Israel\u2019s forced labor to a more severe level, dramatizing the need of Israel, and thus increasing the reader\u2019s concern that something must be done. This intensification is certainly not coincidental, and it is even possible that these verses were composed for just such a purpose. Whether that be so or not, these two sections set together present a dramatic and sequentially developed unity.
\nComment
\n8 The action of the first two chapters of the Book of Exodus is dependent upon two historical events, introduced in the order of their importance in the first two sections of chapter one. The first of these is the miraculous multiplication of Jacob\/Israel\u2019s descendants, mentioned first in 1:7. The second is the rise to power of \u201ca new king\u201d (1:8) which needs to be understood, in Egyptian terms, as the rise of a new dynasty. The text specifies quite explicitly, by the use of the verb \u05d9\u05d3\u05e2 \u201cknow,\u201d that this new \u201cking\u201d had no experience of Joseph. Much more than mere acquaintance is meant, for this verb refers to experiential knowledge of the most intimate kind. It is used to describe long-term and deep relationships (e.g., Gen 29:5, 2 Sam 7:20), as a euphemism for sexual intercourse between husband and wife (e.g., Gen 4:1; 1 Sam 1:19), and to refer to the communion between humankind and God that produces a reorientation of life in men and women (e.g., Ezek 24:27; Isa 1:3).
\nThe writer refers to the radically changed situation, the drastic rearrangement that comes not when one king succeeds another king of the same family and with similar policies, but with the rise of a new succession of kings bringing an inevitable set of changes, some real and consequential, and some cosmetic, giving only the appearance of difference. Thus does he add to his reference to \u201ca new king\u201d the important qualification, \u201cone with no experience of Joseph.\u201d This new king is the first king of a new dynasty, and thus a king who has no obligation to respect, or even to inform himself of, any commitments to a non-native group within the territory of his reign.
\n9 The rise of a new dynasty at just the time when Jacob\/Israel\u2019s progeny had become so numerous brings together the two events that create the context of the early chapters of Exodus. The new king is faced, as every new king always is, with a series of problems, some of which were unnoticed by his predecessors, or were viewed as assets rather than as problems (Gen 47:6). Among the problems of this new king is the large and incredibly prolific colony of foreigners in the delta region, a territory unfashionable to his predecessors, but the very corner of the kingdom in his plans. Thus he must deal with this people and find justification for doing so.
\nThe new king chooses fear as his justifying motive. While it is perhaps a possibility that the \u201csons of Israel\u201d in the delta may outnumber their Egyptian overlords at the beginning of a relocation there of Egyptian power, the likelier explanation is that the king of Egypt is reported as justifying his severe forced-labor policies by recourse to scare tactics. V 9 does not say \u201ctoo many and too mighty\u201d (rsv), \u201cnumerous and so stronger,\u201d that is, numerous enough to pose an obvious threat.
\n10 This sense is supported by the king\u2019s immediate proposal of a solution. The text reads \u05d4\u05b8\u05d1\u05b8\u05d4 \u201cgive, permit\u201d (BDB, 396), plus the hithpael imperfect of \u05d7\u05db\u05dd \u201cwe make ourselves act wisely,\u201d to give a tactfully posed suggestion, \u201cMy advice is that we outsmart.\u2026\u201d
\nThis advice is made urgent not only by the fear that the sons of Israel might join forces with potential invaders (a curious fear if they were already literally more numerous than the Egyptians), but also by the still greater fear that \u201cthey might even go up from the land.\u201d This latter possibility became of course a reality, and when it did, it was reported in what is standard rhetoric for the exodus, \u05d0\u05b7\u05e8\u05b7\u05e5 + \u05de\u05b4\u05df + \u05e2\u05dc\u05d4 \u201cgo up + from + land\u201d (Exod 13:18). \u201cLand\u201d or \u201cthe land\u201d as the king uses it here means \u201cEgyptian territory,\u201d as the usage in 13:18 shows.
\n11 The specific territory the king has in mind is indicated not only by the accounts in Genesis of Israel\u2019s settlement in Goshen (chap. 47), but especially by the designation of the supply-cities Pithom and Ra\u02d3amses in the MT, to which LXX adds \u201cOn, which is Heliopolis.\u201d These cities were all in the delta region, and all were associated with the vigorous building and rebuilding projects of the Nineteenth Dynasty.
\nIt is in this note in v 11 that the new king is called \u201cPharaoh\u201d for the first time in the ongoing narrative of the Book of Exodus. The Hebrew term \u05e4\u05b7\u05bc\u05e8\u05b0\u05e2\u05b9\u05d4 is a transliteration of the Egyptian word Pr-\u02d33, which referred originally to the royal palace or the king\u2019s court, but came by the time of Akhenaten to be used also as a respectful royal title, and eventually, by the Nineteenth Dynasty, to be used as it is here (Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar, 75).
\n12 That the Pharaoh\u2019s propaganda campaign worked is suggested by the graphic use of the verb \u05e7\u05db\u05e5 at the end of v 12; the root means \u201cfeel loathing or abhorrence for.\u201d Though MT does not state the subject, the Egyptians are clearly intended and are specifically added as the subject in an array of versions.
\n13\u201314 The climax of the confrontation of the new king and the incredibly expanded family of Jacob\/Israel is the subjection of that family to slave labor. This climax is colorfully presented in the two-verse extension, from the Priestly source, of the narrative of oppression. The \u201chard labor\u201d of v 11 becomes the motif of this paragraph and is five times multiplied with \u201ctoil unremitting,\u201d \u201clives utterly bitter,\u201d \u201cbackbreaking (lit., \u201csevere\u201d) slavery,\u201d \u201ctoil \u2026 forced,\u201d and \u201cwork without relief.\u201d This chorus of labor is even further augmented by a specification of expanded duties: to the making of bricks and the mixing of mortar is added every imaginable field-task, as a filler for any possible spare moments. Plaut (Judaism 27 [1978] 45\u201346) has surveyed the midrash on Israel\u2019s hard labor in Egypt and suggests that the Egyptian oppression deliberately \u201creduced a proud people to willing serfs, cogs in the machine of state,\u201d and that Moses was able to persuade only \u201cone fiftieth\u201d of Israel to depart their slavery.
\nExplanation
\nAs the opening section of the Book of Exodus establishes continuity with the theological history of the fathers and describes their descendants\u2019 situation in the intervening years, so this second section focuses upon two radical changes in that situation as a means of moving the narrative forward to its major goal, the advent of God and the birth of his people.
\nThe first change, described in the closing verse of the first section, is followed immediately by the second change, introduced in the first verse of the second section. God himself is responsible for the first change, and his wonderful multiplication of the family of Jacob\/Israel is only the beginning of the fulfillment of half of his promise to the fathers. The second change, at least under the aegis of his authority, will function as a needed catalyst for the fulfillment of the second half of that promise. Like their descendants many years later in Babylon, descendants who began the process of bringing together the canonical Book of Exodus, these people of Israel in Egypt would be reluctant to leave Egypt without good cause.
\nSo the writer tells us about a new dynasty, one that introduced for the benefit of its own grandiose purpose repressive policies that made life in Egypt unbearable for the sons of Israel. This was done with the excuse of keeping under control this foreign people, and in an attempt to discourage their child-bearing.
\nThe Pharaoh\u2019s \u201coutsmarting\u201d of the people of Israel happens also to have provided a cheap source of labor for his renovation of the Nile delta. The importance of this theme to the narrative\u2019s purpose is made clear by the paragraph (vv 13\u201314) piling up descriptions of the indescribable and inhumane extent of the forced toil. We are not only given to know that some relief must come, we are compelled to long for it, even as we abhor such treatment of human beings.
\nYet locked away in the middle of this narrative is the assurance that the growth of this people, now the major reason for their misery, cannot be stemmed (v 12). God is in it, and he is bringing his own purpose inexorably to fulfillment. No Pharaoh, and not even the people of Israel themselves, can alter this growth. Thus the situation is bound to grow more terrible still, for God will not go back on his promise, and a new Pharaoh cannot afford to be wrong.
\nThe Pharaoh\u2019s Genocide (1:15\u201322)
\nBibliography
\nAlbright, W. F. \u201cNorthwest-Semitic Names in a List of Egyptian Slaves from the Eighteenth Century b.c.\u201d JAOS 74 (1954) 222\u201333. Auvray, P. Initiation \u00e0 l\u2019h\u00e9breu biblique. Paris: Descl\u00e9e, 1955. Bott\u00e9ro, J. Le probl\u00e8me des Habiru \u00e0 la 4e recontre assyriologique internationale. Cahiers de la Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 Asiatique XII. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1954. Brongers, H. A., and A. S. van der Woude. \u201cWat Is De Betekenis van \u0100ban\u0101y\u00eem in Exodus 1:16?\u201d NedTTs 20 (1965\u20131966) 241\u201354. Cohen, A. \u201cStudies in Hebrew Lexicography.\u201d AJSL 40 (1924) 153\u201385. Driver, G. R. \u201cHebrew Mothers.\u201d ZAW 67 (1955) 246\u201348. Exum, J. C. \u201c \u2018You shall let every daughter live\u2019: A Study of Exodus 1:8\u20132:10.\u201d Semeia 28 (1983) 63\u201382. Lewy, J. \u201cOrigin and Signification of the Biblical Term \u2018Hebrew\u2019,\u201d HUCA 28 (1957) 1\u201313. Tsevat, M. \u201cSome Biblical Notes.\u201d HUCA 24 (1952\u201353) 107\u201314. Wolff, H. W. \u201cThe Elohistic Fragments in the Pentateuch.\u201d The Vitality of Old Testament Traditions. W. Brueggemann and H. W. Wolff, eds. Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1975. 41\u201382, 138\u201340.
\nTranslation
\n15 Still not satisfied, the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah (\u201cFair One\u201d), and the second of whom was named Puah (\u201cFragrant One\u201d), 16 \u201cIn your midwifery to the Hebrew women, take care to determine the sex of the infant: if it is a son, kill him instantly; if however it is a daughter, she may live.\u201d17 But the midwives believed in God, and they would not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do. Rather did they help the male children live. 18 For this reason the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, \u201cOn what authority have you done such a thing, that you would permit the male children to live?\u201d 19 Thinking fast, the midwives said to Pharaoh, \u201cWe couldn\u2019t help it, because unlike Egyptian women, the Hebrew women are robust\u2014in fact, before the midwife can get to them, they have already delivered their babies!\u201d20 Thus did God favor the midwives. And the people of Israel became more numerous still and so, increasingly, very strong. 21 Because the midwives believed in God, he provided them families.22 The Pharaoh\u2019s next move was to command the whole of his people thus: \u201cEvery son born to the Hebrews you must pitch into the river Nile; every daughter may be permitted to live.\u201d
\nNotes
\n15.a. The verb \u201csaid\u201d is preceded by the special waw, to give what Auvray (L\u2019hebreu biblique, 54\u201355, \u00b6 80\u201382) calls \u201cle mode cons\u00e9cutif.\u201d This narrative consecution is shown in this context by the phrase \u201cStill not satisfied.\u201d
\n16.a. MT \u05db\u05e8\u05ea\u05dc \u05d4\u05d0\u05d1\u05e0\u05d9\u05dd \u201cand you look upon the stones.\u201d LXX and related versions (cf. Vg) have \u03ba\u03b1\u03af \u03c9\u0323\u03c2 \u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2 \u03c4\u1ff7 \u03c4\u03af\u03ba\u03c4\u03b5\u03c9 \u201cwhen they are about to drop the child,\u201d an interpretive paraphrase.
\n16.b. \u201cInstantly\u201d is a suggestion of the context and the special waw.
\n17.a. The verb is \u05d9\u05e8\u05d0 \u201cfear,\u201d in the sense of \u201creverence, hold in respectful awe.\u201d It is used frequently in the OT to describe the reverence for God that governs life and action.
\n18.a. SamPent \u05e4\u05e8\u05e2\u05d4 \u201cPharaoh.\u201d
\n19.a. A suggestion of the continuity of the narrative indicated by the special waw.
\n19.b. Lit., \u201cfull of life,\u201d \u05d7\u05b8\u05d9\u05d5\u05b9\u05b9\u05ea Driver, ZAW 67 (1955) 247\u201348, suggests the pointing \u05d7\u05b8\u05d9\u05b9\u05d5\u05b9\u05b9\u05ea and translates \u201cprolific.\u201d
\n20.a. \u201cOf Israel\u201d is not in MT, but the context justifies the addition, for clarity. SamPent, some other ancient versions read the verb \u05e8\u05d1\u05d1 as a pl..
\n22.a. \u201cTo the Hebrews\u201d is an addition of LXX, SamPent, Tg. Onk., Tg. Ps.-J..
\nForm\/Structure\/Setting
\nThere is considerable variance of opinion among source critics concerning which verses in this section are to be attributed to the Yahwist, and which to the Elohist. Most recent critics favor the Elohist as the author of all (Hyatt, 56) or most of the section (excepting v 22; Childs, 7, incorrectly says Noth assigns vv 15\u201320 to J, but Noth, 23, states that vv 15\u201321 are \u201cto be taken as a fragment of E\u201d); most older critics tend to divide the narrative between J and E, with E predominating. Fohrer (\u00dcberlieferung, 11\u201317, 124\u201325) assigns vv 15\u201321 parenthetically to his early Nomadic source (N) and sees it as having been added to Exodus during its redaction.
\nThe evidence for separating this section into such component strands is very thin, however, and clues for speculation about its earlier \u201cnomadic\u201d or \u201clay\u201d origin are sheer guesswork. It is far simpler and probably no less accurate to think of the section as an EJ amalgam bound together by the single subject of the Pharaoh\u2019s genocide. Even if the reference to death by drowning in v 22 once involved a separate version of the means of genocide, it functions now as a sequential step, replacing the unsuccessful plan employing the midwives. (Cf. Schmidt, 16\u201321, 45\u201346).
\nComment
\n15\u201319 The failure of the Pharaoh\u2019s plan to control the strength and growth of the children of Israel by a savage workload is made clear not by a direct statement but by his move to a secretive but murderous \u201cplan B,\u201d and following further failure, to a still more drastic and violent \u201cplan C.\u201d
\nEssential to plan B is the cooperation of the midwives, who are not only pointedly called \u201cHebrew,\u201d but are given \u201cperfectly good Northwest-Semitic names of women from the first half of the second millennium\u201d b.c. (Albright, JAOS 74 [1954] 233). No reason is given to justify the Pharaoh\u2019s expectations of these midwives. Perhaps the summons by so powerful a figure was calculated to frighten the women. There is no good evidence for making them out to be Egyptian, as some have done (Rudolph, Elohist, 3, or Greenberg, Hab\/piru, 26\u201327), and the unlikeliness of the Pharaoh\u2019s plan is shown by the midwives\u2019 sparing of the Hebrew boys and their witty excuse when confronted with their failure.
\n17\u201318 Still more to the point is the midwives\u2019 belief in God, whose will was for them thus far more important than any orders a Pharaoh could give. Not surprisingly, they not only refused to obey the Pharaoh\u2019s command, but they also worked against it. \u05d5\u05b7\u05ea\u05b0\u05bc\u05d7\u05b7\u05d9\u05b7\u05b9\u05d9\u05df\u05b8 \u05d0\u05b7\u05ea \u05be\u05d4\u05b7\u05d9\u05b0\u05dc\u05b8\u05d3\u05b4\u05d9\u05dd \u201cRather they helped the male children live\u201d suggests, at least, a redoubled effort to help the little boys survive the dangers of birth. It is against such a context of the survival of the male babies, and perhaps even a decline in the usual infant mortality, that the second summons of the Pharaoh and his outraged accusation (\u05de\u05b7\u05d3\u05bc\u05d5\u05bc\u05e2\u05b7 \u201cJust why \u2026\u201d or \u201cOn what account \u2026\u201d) must be understood. And this defiance of the Pharaoh by the midwives, as secret as the plan of Pharaoh that they were frustrating, is the basis of God\u2019s doing good to them (v 20), and making \u201chouses,\u201d establishing families for them (v 21). Wolff (Vitality 73\u201374) treats the midwives\u2019 \u201cfear\u201d of God, and God\u2019s consequent blessing upon them, as typical of the Elohist\u2019s primary theological motif. Exum (Semeia 28 [1983] 70\u201382) suggests that the story of the midwives is part of a marked focus on women at the beginning of Exodus.
\nThe key word of the Pharaoh\u2019s instruction to the midwives, apart from his order of genocide, is \u05d0\u05b8\u05d1\u05b0\u05e0\u05b8\u05d9\u05b4\u05dd, literally, \u201cstones\u201d (see n. 16.a). This word occurs in the OT only here and in Jer 18:3, where it refers to stones, apparently a pair of them, employed by a potter at his craft. Despite many ingenious interpretations, the most frequent of which is \u201cbirthstool\u201d (see especially the elaborate theory of Cassuto, 14, and the dialogue of Brongers and van der Woude, NedTTs 20 [1965\u201366] 247\u201349, 252\u201354); the best translation remains \u201cstones,\u201d as a euphemism for \u201ctesticles.\u201d The root of the noun is certainly \u201cstone,\u201d and its form is clearly dual, thus signifying a pair. Given the point of Pharaoh\u2019s instruction, the determination of the sex of the infant at the moment of birth, the term is best understood as a euphemism, in use to this day, for the male genitalia (cf. Cohen, AJSL 40 [1924] 157\u201359; and Tsevat, HUCA 24 [1952\u201353] 109\u201310, who proposes, in part on the basis of the text of Isa 65:3 in 1QIs, \u201cthe female sex organs\u201d).
\n19 The quick reply of the midwives to Pharaoh\u2019s question is tinged with wit. Not only are the Hebrew women \u201crobust,\u201d delivering and caring for their babies themselves with a minimum of bother and self-indulgence\u2014the Egyptian women are just the opposite. The suggestion is that these Hebrew midwives attended both Hebrew and Egyptian births, or at the very least that the Hebrew women were more vigorous and healthy than any of the women of the Pharaoh\u2019s experience.
\nIt is in this section that the word \u05e2\u05b4\u05d1\u05b0\u05e8\u05b4\u05d9 \u201cHebrew\u201d is used for the first time (vv 15 and 16) in reference to the family of Jacob\/Israel. The term is employed in the narrative of the oppression only as a somewhat derisive epithet intelligible to the Egyptians, one the Israelites would not use among themselves.
\n20\u201322 The reference in v 20 to the continuing multiplication of the people of Israel seems almost certainly to be an interruption of the statement regarding God\u2019s favor towards the believing midwives, though it is a logical one, giving the inevitable conclusion to the failure of the Pharaoh\u2019s plan B. A more logical sequence would place this statement between vv 21 and 22, but logic is only rarely an editorial virture.
\n22 Thus plan C must be brought into play\u2014genocide by the drowning of the male infants, the deed to be carried out not by Hebrew functionaries whose loyalty is suspect, but by the entire Egyptian populace (\u05db\u05b8\u05bc\u05dc\u05be\u05e2\u05b7\u05de\u05bc\u05d5\u05b9\u05b9) of Pharaoh\u2019s land. Such a policy, if practiced, would in time have reduced the Hebrew work force, but would also have ended the population explosion and, in due course, would have exterminated the family of Jacob\/Israel entirely.
\nThe difference in the three plans of the Pharaoh, especially as regards the results of plan A vis-\u00e0-vis plans B and C, has led some commentators to propose differing traditions of a single plan of Pharaoh for the Israelites. While this is at least possible, the three \u201cplans\u201d are presented in sequence in MT, and are therefore best read that way, with genocide by drowning being the \u201cultimate\u201d solution, put into effect when other plans have failed. This third move of the Pharaoh, introduced so abruptly and stated without elaboration, thus becomes both the climax of the narrative of the oppression and the catalyst for the arrival of the delivering hero, Moses.
\nExplanation
\nThe key to an understanding of these narratives of the Pharaoh\u2019s attempts at genocide is theological, as is the purpose for which they have been brought into sequence. As vv 7, 9, 12, and 20b make plain, what is taking place in the family of Jacob\/Israel is of God. The promise to the fathers is in view, both the half that is well on the way to fulfillment and the half that is yet to come to pass.
\nThe larger context of the narrative, from Gen 12 forward to this point, confirms such a purpose, and the account of the midwives makes it unmistakably clear. Before this section, God has not been mentioned once in Exodus. Here he is mentioned twice as the object of the midwives\u2019 faith and once as the establisher of blessing upon them. Just as Abraham\u2019s faith was reckoned to him as righteousness (Gen 15:6), so the midwives\u2019 reverence for God, insuring the protection of his purpose in Israel, became a means of blessing for them.
\nAs the first two plans of Pharaoh have been brought to defeat, so also is the ominous third plan, and for that matter, any further plans as well. God is responsible for the growth of Israel in Egypt, and therefore no plan and no force can succeed in ending or even slowing that growth. As fearful as the shocking plan C is, we can be certain that it, too, will not work.
\nAny speculation about how many midwives are represented by Shiphrah and Puah, or how many pregnant Israelite women there were if there were but two midwives is, of course, irrelevant. The midwives, their number, and their professional activity are not the point here. What is the point is the midwives\u2019 faith and its effects for Israel and for the midwives themselves.
\nIndeed, this sequence functions to assure us that God is present in Egypt and that his purpose there is certain. The question with which the first chapter of Exodus leaves us is not \u201cIf?\u201d but \u201cHow?\u201d
\nThe Birth of a Deliverer (2:1\u201310)
\nBibliography
\nBarth\u00e9lemy, D., et al. Preliminary and Interim Report on the Hebrew Old Testament Text Project: The Pentateuch. London: United Bible Societies, 1974. Childs, B. S. \u201cThe Birth of Moses.\u201d JBL 84 (1965) 109\u201322. Cornelius, F. \u201cMoses urkundlich.\u201d ZAW 78 (1966) 75\u201378. Exum, J. C. \u201c \u2018You shall let every daughter live\u2019: A Study of Exodus 1:8\u20132:10.\u201d Semeia 28 (1983) 63\u201382. Feilchenfeldt, W. \u201cDie Entpers\u00f6nlichung Moses in der Bible und ihre Bedeutung.\u201d ZAW 64 (1952) 156\u201378. Griffiths, J. G. \u201cThe Egyptian Derivation of the Name Moses.\u201d JNES 12 (1953) 225\u201331. Meek, T. J. Hebrew Origins. TB 69. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1960. Porter, J. R. Moses and Monarchy. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1963. Redford, D. B. \u201cThe Literary Motif of the Exposed Child.\u201d Numen 14 (1967) 209\u201328. Widengren, G. \u201cWhat Do We Know About Moses?\u201d Proclamation and Presence. Ed. John I Durham and J. R. Porter. Macon, GA: Mercer Univ. Press, new corr. ed., 1983.21\u201347.
\nTranslation
\n1 Coincident with these events a man of the family of Levi had taken to wife a young woman who was also Levite. 2 The wife became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a healthy child, she hid him as one would hide a treasure, for a three-month period. 3 Then, when she was no longer able to hide him away, she got for him a papyrus-reed container, waterproofed it with far and pitch, put the boy into it, and put it into the reeds at the edge of the river Nile. 4 Next, his sister took up a position some distance away, to learn what would happen to him.
\n5 Meanwhile, Pharaoh\u2019s daughter came down to bathe beside the river Nile. Her attendants strolled along the river\u2019s banks. When the princess saw the container in the middle of the reeds, she sent her handmaiden down to fetch it. 6 When she opened it, she saw him, the little boy. Understandably, the lad was weeping, and her heart went out to him. She said, \u201cThis boy is a Hebrew child!\u201d
\n7 Just then, his sister called out to Pharaoh\u2019s daughter, \u201cShall I go and summon for you a wet nurse from among the Hebrew women to suckle the lad for you?\u201d
\n8 Pharaoh\u2019s daughter answered her, \u201cGo.\u201d So the girl went and summoned the mother of the boy, 9 and Pharaoh\u2019s daughter said to her, \u201cTake this child with you and suckle him for me. In return, I will pay you a wage.\u201d So it was that the woman took the little boy and suckled him.
\n10 Thus did the boy grow. His mother brought him frequently to the daughter of the Pharaoh, to whom he was as a son, and she called his name \u201cMoses.\u201d \u201cBecause,\u201d as she put it, \u201cI pulled him from the water.\u201d
\nNotes
\n1.a. Special waw with impf. of \u05d4\u05dc\u05da, \u201cgo, walk\u201d; \u201cAnd so he went, a man.\u2026\u201d
\n1.b. The man\u2019s name is given, in 6:20, as Amram (\u201cHigh Father\u201d or \u201cExalted People\u201d). See Noth, Personennamen, 77\u201378, 145\u201346.
\n1.c. \u05d1\u05b7\u05bc\u05ea \u201cdaughter.\u201d
\n2.a. \u05e6\u05e4\u05df means \u201chide\u201d in the sense of treasuring and protecting something of great value.
\n3.a. LXX \u1f21 \u03bc\u03ae\u03c4\u03b7\u03c1 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 SamPent \u05d0\u05de\u05d5 \u201chis mother.\u201d
\n4.a. She is first named, if the same sister is intended, in 15:20, 21: Miriam (\u201cFatty\u201d from \u05de\u05e8\u05d0, or \u201cLoved\u201d from an Egyptian root).
\n4.b. SamPent appears to have the correct hithp form, \u05d5\u05ea\u05ea\u05d9\u05e6\u05d1; cf. GKC \u00a7 71.
\n5.a. Lit., \u201cWhen she.\u201d \u201cThe princess,\u201d suggested by the context, is added for clarity.
\n6.a. So reads MT, with an obj pronom suff on the verb \u201csee\u201d plus the definite dir obj \u05d0\u05b6\u05d4 \u05d4\u05b7\u05d9\u05b6\u05bc\u05dc\u05b6\u05d3 \u201cthe male child.\u201d It is a nice stylistic touch, and should not be omitted, as it often has been, in both ancient and modern translations. Cf. Barth\u00e9lemy, Preliminary and Interim Report, 89\u201390.
\n6.b. \u05d5\u05b0\u05d4\u05b4\u05e0\u05b5\u05bc\u05d4 \u201cand behold,\u201d
\n6.c. LXX adds \u1f10\u03bd \u03c4\u1fc7 \u03b8\u03af\u03b2\u03b5\u03b9 \u201cin the plaited basket.\u201d
\n7.a. \u05d0\u05bc\u05e9\u05b8\u05bc\u05c1\u05d4 \u05de\u05b5\u05d9\u05e0\u05b6\u05e7\u05b6\u05ea \u201ca woman (or wife), a suckle-giving one.\u201d
\n8.a. Her name is given, in 6:20, as Jochebed, either Heb. \u201cYah is honor\u201d (Meek, Hebrew Origins, 97) or, as Noth (Personennamen, 111\u201312) suggests, a name of foreign origin.
\n10.a. Lit., \u201cshe,\u201d but this pronoun clearly refers to the boy\u2019s mother.
\n10.b. The Heb. verb \u05de\u05e9\u05c1\u05d4 \u201cdraw out, pull from,\u201d is used here, apparently because of its assonance with the name Moses: \u05de\u05e9\u05b6\u05c1\u05d4\u05be\u05de\u05b8\u05e9\u05b8\u05c1\u05d4. For the more likely derivation, see Comment below.
\nForm\/Structure\/Setting
\nThere is no substantial reason to consider this section in its present form the product of more than one source (as Fohrer does, \u00dcberlieferung, 18\u201319, 124). Commentators have generally argued instead about which source should be designated, the Yahwist (e.g., Beer, 12) or the Elohist (e.g., Childs, 7\u20138). As Hyatt (63) suggests, this narrative seems more nearly the style of J than of E; but there is no determining evidence.
\nThe more important consideration here is the nature of this account and its connections with the sequences which precede and follow it. Since the work of Hugo Gressmann (Mose und seine Zeit, 1913), scholars have been fascinated with the obvious similarities between Exod 2:1\u201310 and the Legend of Sargon of Akkad (ANET3), who was also set afloat on a river in a reed and pitch container, rescued (though by a water-drawer, not a princess) and nurtured, and who became in time a mighty hero and king.
\nBrevard Childs (JBL 84 [1965] 109\u201322) has described this section as a \u201crags to riches\u201d adaptation, by the circle of the wise men, of a child-exposure motif commonly known in the Ancient Near East. Indeed, D. B. Redford has collected some thirty-two accounts incorporating this motif in the ANE and in the Greco-Roman world.
\nAs intriguing as these parallels certainly are, however, too strict a dependence upon them as Vorlagen must be avoided. There can be no question, certainly, of any exposure of the infant Moses. For one thing, there is not even a suggestion here of the divine rescuer so essential in the exposure-of-the-infant-hero motif. For another, the exposure of Moses by a Hebrew woman, and by his own mother at that, would turn a positive story, in this context, into negative nonsense.
\nThe form of the story of the birth of Moses is dictated not by an ANE literary type any more than by historical memories, but by the larger theological purpose governing Exod 1 and 2, the sequence dealing with the persecution and the deliverer. While elements of the kind of folk-tale represented by the Sargon legend may well have provided stimulus for the author of this sequence (principally the reed container on the river and its fortuitous discovery by a sympathetic sponsor), his concern was to link the deliverer with the persecution in a dramatic and memorable way. That he did so with no direct mention of God, without bothering with details of name or consistency (vv 1\u20132 vis-\u00e0-vis v 4), and with some fun at the expense of the Egyptians, shows both his skill and his real intention. Indeed, the following section (2:11\u201315) functions in very much the same way.
\nThe purpose of the three narratives of chap. 2 is to present us with an exceptional deliverer, exceptionally prepared, in the setting of a persecution precipitated by God\u2019s fulfillment of the first half of his promise, and in anticipation of his fulfillment of the second half of that promise. By three entirely different devices, these narratives perform a connecting and transitional function. As subsequent sections are to show, God is at no time far from the scene, whether he is mentioned or not.
\nComment
\n1 The Levitical ancestry of Moses is pointedly mentioned as having come to him from both his parents, who are said by the priestly source in 6:20 to be nephew and aunt (see n. 6:20.c). Since no other names apart from that of Moses himself are mentioned in Exod 2, this double authentication of Moses\u2019 priestly descent, in a non-priestly layer at that, is important. It is an anticipatory clue to both the stature of Moses and the sacerdotal nature of his leadership as Israel\u2019s first great sacral hero (see Porter, Moses and Monarchy, 7\u201328).
\nThough vv 1\u20132 do not report as much, the impression is that Moses was the first child born to the Levitical couple, an impression that is complicated by the appearance of an older sister in vv 4 and 7, and of a brother older by three years, Aaron, in later chapters (4:14, 7:7). The first of these two inconsistencies is created only by an impression upon which the text is completely silent; the second is based on information provided by the priestly Aaron-traditions, which have the purpose of pushing Aaron forward.
\n2\u20134 The fact that the infant was seen by his mother to be \u05d8\u05d5\u05b9\u05d1 \u201cgood,\u201d that is, healthy, gave her all the more resolve to protect him from the Pharaoh\u2019s condemnation of drowning, and so she hid him away quite tenderly with the stealth and care a treasure would demand. When, with the passage of three months, the little boy had grown too active and too noisy to be hidden at home any longer, his mother very cleverly decided to hide her son in the one place no Egyptian would bother to look: in the river Nile itself, exactly where Hebrew boy-babies were supposed to be cast.
\nWith the sparkle of shrewdness that typifies the relationship of the Israelites with their Egyptian neighbors (as opposed to the cruel force of Egyptian bureaucracy) all through the Book of Exodus, Moses\u2019 mother thus may be said to have obeyed the Pharaoh\u2019s grim command. But she did so with the all-important provision of a papyrus-reed container, carefully waterproofed with \u201chot tar and pitch.\u201d This ark (\u05ea\u05b5\u05bc\u05d1\u05b8\u05d4, the same word used for Noah\u2019s ship, Gen 7, 8, 9) is not a means of exposure but a lovingly made means of salvation, over which a careful watch was to be kept from a distance. Moses\u2019 sister is the one guardian mentioned, but others would certainly be assumed, as well as periodic stealthy feedings of the baby and relocations of the container.
\n5\u20137 There is no suggestion that the container and its precious cargo was deliberately placed where the Egyptian princess and her party would find it. The implication is that discovery was not a part of the plan, for an Egyptian discovery certainly put the baby in harm\u2019s way. The suspense of the discovery is that it was unintended and dangerous. The delight of the discovery is the totally unexpected way it turned out. The climax of the discovery is the quick and bold action of the little boy\u2019s sister, who comes forward (with a convenient offer to find a wet nurse) when she sees the princess\u2019s reaction to her brother\u2019s tears. The involvement of women as the determinative characters throughout this narrative has been emphasized by Exum (Semeia 28 [1983] 74\u201382).
\n8\u20139 Thus a second time the shrewdness of Jacob\/Israel\u2019s house sparkles, for suddenly Moses\u2019 mother is delivered from a terrible prison of fear to the security of being paid to nurse and nurture her own son. The medium of death thus becomes for Moses the medium of life. His life is moved from danger to privilege. And delivered from a condemnation to grinding slavery, Moses enjoys the best of both worlds possible to him. It is a supreme use of irony as a teaching tool, the effectiveness of which is made clear by the fact that none of us, having read this account, has ever forgotten it.
\n10 The name \u201cMoses\u201d is the Hebrew equivalent of the Egyptian noun ms \u201cboy-child,\u201d from the verb msi\u02be \u201cbear, give birth.\u201d This word appears also in Egyptian names, as for example Ptahmose, Tuthmosis, Ahmose, and Harmose. Moses\u2019 name, thus transliterated from Egyptian, may very well be a memory, perhaps the most important and best-preserved memory, of the Egyptian backdrop of the oppression (Griffiths, JNES 12 [1953] 225, 229\u201331). The writer of the OT account did not know this. Otherwise, he would not have invented an etymology based on assonance and turned a princess of Egypt into a Hebrew speaker. His case is better made by the facts about Moses\u2019 name, of which he was unaware.
\nExplanation
\nAt center, Exod 2:1\u201310 presents the story of the birth of God\u2019s deliverer, Moses. He is born into peril created by the growth to threatening numbers of the sons of Jacob\/Israel, a growth that fulfills God\u2019s promise, part one, and makes urgent the fulfillment of God\u2019s promise, part two. He is born a sufferer of the very oppression from which he is to deliver Israel, and he is under its ban of death from the moment of his birth.
\nThat his birth is a turning point toward an unseen better future is made clear by the incredible narrative of the first months of his life. To begin with, he survives undetected for three of those months, despite the constant Egyptian surveillance commanded by the Pharaoh (1:22). Then he is spared by being cast onto the very Nile that was to drown him, is treated with maternal kindness by the daughter of the very king who had condemned him and to whose descendants he would become nemesis, and is assigned as a responsibility with pay to the one woman in all the world who most wanted the best for him, his own mother.
\nThe omission of any reference to God in these verses is surely intentional. The author is involving his reader in the conclusion of faith which such a narrative must inevitably suggest. And in doing so, he has Moses in Egypt, in the oppression and out of it at the same time, of the descendancy of Jacob and of the privilege of Egypt, and hence on a collision course that will catapult him\u2014where? The answer to that question, toward which this entire narrative moves, is not long in coming.
\nAdulthood, Revolt and Flight of the Deliverer (2:11\u201315)
\nBibliography
\nChilds, B. S. \u201cMoses\u2019 Slaying in the Theology of the Two Testaments.\u201d Biblical Theology in Crisis. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1970. 164\u201383. Vaux, R. de. \u201cSur l\u2019origine k\u00e9nite ou madianite du Yahvisme.\u201d Eretz-Israel 9. W. F. Albright vol. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1969. 28\u201332.
\nTranslation
\n11 The days flew by, and Moses grew up. He went out one day among his brethren, and saw at first hand their oppressive labors. Indeed, he saw an Egyptian man striking a Hebrew man, one from among his brethren. 12 So he looked all around, and when he saw nobody, he struck the Egyptian, fatally, and hid his body in the sand.
\n13 The next day, he went out again and came upon two Hebrew men scuffling. He said to the one in the wrong, \u201cWhy are you striking your companion?\u201d 14 This man said, \u201cWho set you as a prince among men and a judge over us? Are you to kill me, say, as you killed that Egyptian?\u201d This struck fear into Moses, for he realized that the deed was actually known.
\n15 Then Pharaoh heard about this deed, and so put Moses under a death sentence. Moses thus fled from Pharaoh\u2019s jurisdiction, traveling to the land of Midian, and camping there by a well.
\nNotes
\n11.a. Lit., \u201cAnd so in those days it was.\u2026\u201d
\n11.b. The verb \u05e8\u05d0\u05d4 \u201csee,\u201d plus special waw. The same construction is used also in the next sentence, where the meaning is obviously an \u201ceye-witness\u201d experience.
\n13.a. \u05d5\u05b0\u05d4\u05b4\u05e0\u05b5\u05bc\u05d4 \u201cand behold.\u201d
\n14.a. MT reads \u05d5\u05d9\u05d0\u05de\u05e8 \u201cAnd so he said.\u201d \u201cThis man\u201d is supplied for clarity.
\n14.b. \u05dc\u05b0\u05d0\u05bc\u05d9\u05e9\u05c1 \u05e9\u05b7\u05c2\u05e8 is \u201cfor a man-prince,\u201d and is to be taken, along with \u201cjudge,\u201d as sarcasm, perhaps reflecting an opinion of Moses\u2019 lack of status.
\n14.c. \u05d0\u05b9\u05de\u05b5\u05e8 \u201csay\u201d is a qal act ptcp following qal inf constr of \u05d4\u05e8\u05d2 \u201ckill\u201d plus obj suff, \u201cme,\u201d plus independent subj pronoun, \u201cyou.\u201d This ptcp is to be taken parenthetically, as above; the \u201cyou\u201d is the subject of \u05d4\u05e8\u05d2.
\n14.d. LXX adds \u1f10\u03c7\u03b8\u1f72\u03c2 \u201cyesterday\u201d to this question, as does Acts 7:28.
\n14.e. \u201cAnd so Moses was afraid.\u201d
\n14.f. Lit., \u201cAnd he said, \u2018Indeed the deed is known.\u2019 \u201d LXX has Moses say \u0395\u1f30 \u03bf\u1f55\u03c4\u03c9\u03c2 \u201cif so,\u201d implying uncertainty about whether the deed is known.
\n15.a. So Syr. LXX has \u1fa0\u0314\u0301\u03ba\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd \u201cwithdrew.\u201d MT reads \u05d5\u05d9\u05e9\u05c1\u05d1 \u201csettled in.\u201d
\n15.b. The verb \u05d9\u05e9\u05c1\u05d1 \u201cstay, settle down,\u201d here obviously \u201ccamp,\u201d since Moses\u2019 stay at the oasis was a short one.
\nForm\/Structure\/Setting
\nThis section, a logical continuation of the one preceding it, is also from the same author. The writer here proceeds to move quickly to the involvement of Moses in the plight of the people, his people, whom he is to deliver.
\nAs has been noted already (see Form\/Structure\/Setting on 2:1\u201310), the main concern here is to present the sequence on the persecution and the deliverer. This concern is a product of the overarching theological purpose linked to God\u2019s promise to the fathers and its continuing fulfillment. Thus the writer jumps without a single comment from Moses\u2019 infancy and his escape from death in the river Nile to his headlong and impulsive involvement in the plight of his people. We are brought from the first appearance of the deliverer, at his birth, to his espousal in adulthood of his people\u2019s agony, in medias res.
\nAll that lay between these two events, a period set by tradition as around 40 years in length (42 years according to Jubilees 47:1 and 48:1, 40 years according to Acts 7:23\u201324), as intriguing as it would be to us, is an encumbrance to this writer, and so he omits whatever he knew of it. With the tenacity to the main subject so typical of biblical narrative, he comes directly to Moses\u2019 identification with his people, and thence to Moses\u2019 flight to the place of his final preparation.
\nComment
\n11 The eagerness of the writer to communicate Moses\u2019 identification with his people\u2019s plight is shown both by the repetition of the phrase \u201camong his brethren\u201d and also by the pointed use of the uncomfortable word \u201cHebrew\u201d (see Comment on 1:19) with the word \u201cEgyptian.\u201d That Moses is not ignorant of his ancestry is made plain by his going out to his people and by his sympathy for their situation. By the use of \u201cHebrew man\u201d (v 11) and \u201ctwo Hebrew men\u201d (v 13), the writer may intend to suggest Moses\u2019 awkwardness in relation to his own people, because of his association with the Egyptians.
\nThe term \u05e1\u05b4\u05d1\u05b0\u05dc\u05b9\u05ea \u201chard, oppressive labors\u201d is exactly the term used in 1:11 to describe the slave-labor of the Israelites, and, coupled with \u05d5\u05b7\u05d9\u05b7\u05b9\u05bc\u05e8\u05d0\u05d1\u05b0\u05bc \u201cand he saw into,\u201d indicates Moses\u2019 firsthand exposure to the oppression at its worst.
\n12\u201313 The same verb, \u05e0\u05d1\u05d4 \u201cstrike,\u201d is used of the Egyptian hitting the Hebrew in v 11, of Moses hitting the Egyptian in v 12, and of the Hebrew man hitting his companion in v 13. In each case, the verb is in the hiphil stem, and it is best translated by the same English verb. The sense in each instance is probably of a series of blows rather than a single death-dealing blow (Greenberg, Understanding Exodus, 45). The point is that there is in the text no suggestion that Moses meant to kill the Egyptian, any more than that the Egyptian or the Hebrew man was attempting to kill his adversary.
\n13\u201314 No reason is given for Moses\u2019 identification of one of the Hebrew combatants as \u201cin the wrong,\u201d \u05e8\u05b8\u05e9\u05b8\u05c1\u05e2, literally, \u201cthe guilty or wicked one\u201d (Childs, Biblical Theology, 165, refers to the word as \u201cthe technical legal term,\u201d but the usage here appears to be more general). The assumption is that the man was the aggressor without obvious justification for being so; hence Moses\u2019 interfering \u201cWhy?\u201d The quick response Moses gets, apparently from both the Hebrew men (\u201cover us\u201d), underscores in graphic terms his lack of status. The Egyptians do not regard him as one of them (2:6), and he has killed an Egyptian in defense of his own people. But he is unlike his people, for he is not a slave with them. They resent his high-handed interference in their affairs, and perhaps they fear being punished for his crime. Thus they snarl, \u201cWho made you, only a man, into a prince and a judge over us?\u201d
\n15 Moses is now alone, cut off from Egyptian hospitality and his own people alike, and the impossibility of his situation in Egypt is deftly spotlighted by the Pharaoh\u2019s death sentence in the territory of his authority (\u201cand so Moses fled from Pharaoh\u2019s presence\u201d). The deliverer has but a single, unavoidable option: he must flee to a land beyond the Pharaoh\u2019s control.
\nThe land to which Moses flees is Midian, the geographic location of which is very vague, both in the OT and outside it (de Vaux, Eretz Israel, 29). The biblical Midianites, presented as relations of the sons of Jacob\/Israel (see Comment on 2:22), appear in various locales, from northeast of the Dead Sea (Num 22 and 25, Judg 6\u20138) to the desert of Paran southwest of the Dead Sea (1 Kgs 11:14\u201320), in the vicinity of Kadesh-Barnea (Num 13), to various locales in the Sinai peninsula and beyond it (Ptolemy placed Midian along the eastern shore of the Gulf of Akabah; see MBA, map 48, and Hyatt, 66\u201367).
\nThe Midianites are clearly described in the OT as nomads, and the variety of places in which they turn up affirms this description. It is thus misleading to fix their territory precisely. The narrator\u2019s purpose in designating Midian as the land of Moses\u2019 retreat is after all not geographic but theological (see Explanation, 2:16\u201322).
\nExplanation
\nSo Moses comes to the inevitable conflict: Egyptian ways against \u201cHebrew\u201d ways, the ways of the rulers against the ways of the ruled, oppression for Moses in the freedom of Egypt, and freedom for Moses only in the oppression of the Israelites. By this conflict, Moses is catapulted to the land of Midian, a strange new land (2:22) which is yet somehow an old familiar land, for in that land the God of Moses\u2019 father, the God of the patriarchal fathers (3:6), is worshiped.
\nWith this section of his narrative, the redactor has achieved two important purposes: (1) the association of Moses with the agony of his people and (2) the removal of Moses to the land of his final preparation for his work as deliverer, the land of Midian. To that preparation he now turns immediately, and with the beginning of that preparation, he turns also to the beginning of an answer to the question \u201cWhy the land of Midian?\u201d
\nThe Deliverer Finds Home (2:16\u201322)
\nBibliography
\nAlbright, W. F. \u201cJethro, Hobab and Reuel in Early Hebrew Tradition.\u201d CBQ 25 (1963) 1\u201311. Coats, G. W. \u201cMoses in Midian.\u201d JBL 92 (1973) 3\u201310. Gunneweg, H. J. \u201cMose in Midian.\u201d ZTK 61 (1964) 1\u20139. Widengren, G. \u201cWhat Do We Know About Moses?\u201d Proclamation and Presence. Ed. John I Durham and J. R. Porter. Macon, GA: Mercer Univ. Press, new corr. ed., 1983. 21\u201347.
\nTranslation
\n16 There was a Midianite priest who had seven daughters, and they came regularly to this well, drew water, and refilled the troughs so that their father\u2019s flock might drink. 17 Unfortunately, rough herdsmen also came and usually forced the girls and their sheep back. This time, however, Moses stood up for them, took up their cause, and watered their flock.
\n18 The girls came to Reuel (\u201cCompanion of God\u201d), their father, and he asked them in surprise, \u201cWhy have you come so early today?\u201d 19 They replied, \u201cAn Egyptian man rescued us from the bullying of the herdsmen, and also drew all the water for us and gave the flock their drink.\u201d 20 He immediately asked his daughters, \u201cWhere is he? What is this? You have forsaken such a man? Invite him to a meal!\u201d
\n21 Moses was of course delighted to live with such a man, and Reuel in turn gave Moses Zipporah (\u201cLittle Bird\u201d), his daughter, as wife. 22 In time, she gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom (\u201cStranger There\u201d), because he said, \u201cA stranger have I been in a land foreign to me.\u201d
\nNotes
\n16.a. This continuity is shown by the context and the special waw.
\n16.b. Not in MT; added for clarity.
\n17.a. See n. 16.a.
\n17.b. The verb is hiph of \u05d9\u05e9\u05c1\u05e2 \u201csave, rescue\u201d and in the OT is frequently used of God saving his people from their enemies, as in Deut 20:4.
\n18.a. Surprise is implied by the question itself, \u05de\u05b7\u05d3\u05bc\u05d5\u05bc\u05e2\u05b7 \u201cwhy?\u201d (cf. Comment on 1:18) and the reference to the girls\u2019 early return.
\n18.b. Lit., \u201chastened (piel of \u05de\u05d4\u05e8) to come (inf constr, \u05d1\u05d5\u05d0).\u201d
\n19.a. \u201cFrom the hand, power\u201d of the shepherds.
\n19.b. The construction is the emphatic \u05d3\u05b7\u05bc\u05d4\u05b9 \u05d3\u05b8\u05dc\u05b8\u05d4, qal inf abs plus qal pf of \u05d3\u05dc\u05d4 \u201cdraw water,\u201d thus \u201cvigorously drew\u201d or, as above, \u201cdrew all.\u2026\u201d
\n20.a. Lit., \u201cCall to him, that he may eat bread.\u201d
\n21.a. MT reads \u201che.\u201d \u201cReuel,\u201d plainly intended, is supplied for clarity.
\n21.b. An addition of the SamPent (see von Gall, 116, Sec. 3 of apparatus) and LXX.
\n22.a. LXX adds \u1f10\u03bd \u03b3\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03c1\u1f76 \u03b4\u1f72 \u03bb\u03b1\u03b2\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c3\u03b1 \u201cshe received in her belly,\u201d i.e., \u201cbecame pregnant.\u201d
\n22.b. MT reads \u201che.\u201d
\n22.c. \u05d2\u05b5\u05bc\u05e8 ger \u201cstranger,\u201d so that Gershom\u2019s name is also given an etymology based on assonance. See Comment below, and note the rhetorical link to Gen 23:4.
\nForm\/Structure\/Setting
\nWith this third section in the sequence on the deliverer, the narrative moves to the place of Moses\u2019 final preparation for his grand task. In style as in vocabulary, this section is like the two that immediately precede it (cf. Beer, 21, and Schmidt, 79\u201390). As has already been noted, these three sections function as three parts of what is in effect a single narrative. Part one addresses the deliverer\u2019s birth into the peril of oppression; part two, the deliverer\u2019s identification with his people under oppression; and part three, his discovery of home where he never had been before. Binding the three parts together is the overarching theme of the preparation of the deliverer for his task, itself based, as are the themes of multiplication and oppression, upon the theological foundation of the promise of God to the fathers.
\nCommentators have often proposed that this \u201cMidianite\u201d section, along with vv 11\u201315 that lead so inevitably to it, was composed primarily to get Moses to the area of his experience of theophany and call (Noth, 30\u201335). Coats (JBL 92 [1975] 9\u201310) has argued that the original point of these verses was an explanation of a Moses-Midianite connection through marriage. There is surely something in this suggestion, but more still may be involved. Geography is not the concern, since the Midianites appear to have had no fixed territory (see Comment on 2:15) and since the mountain of God was clearly some distance away from the Midianite camp (see Comment on 3:1). Nor can relationship alone, specifically the marriage of Moses into a branch of the Midianite family, be the subject, despite the obvious importance of an early and friendly connection of Israel with Midian.
\nThe point, rather, is a theological one, as the writer neatly hints in his very important summary interpretation in v 22. With the Midianites (not \u201cin Midian,\u201d as an area), Moses is for the first time in his life at home; for the first time in his life, he is not a foreigner. V 19, with its amusing report of the daughters\u2019 flustered first impression of Moses, stands in playful and meaningful contrast with vv 21\u201322, which present not \u201can Egyptian man,\u201d but a member of the family: by choice, by fatherly (and priestly) acceptance, by marriage, and by the birth of a child.
\nAnd why has all this come about? Because of God\u2019s purpose, to be sure, but for a more specific reason still: Moses is at home in the author\u2019s view because he has come at last to a people who worship the God of his fathers. The Moses-Midian connection is theological. Suggested deftly in this climactic section of the narrative of chap. 2, that connection will be affirmed in chaps. 3\u20134 and 18.
\nComment
\n16 The priesthood of Moses\u2019 Midianite father-in-law is an important detail, and so it is established at the very first mention of the Midianites. Indeed, his priestly vocation is more clearly remembered than his name. For while Moses\u2019 father-in-law is consistently said to be a priest of Midian, his name is variously given as Reuel (v 18), a name assigned also to the father of Moses\u2019 father-in-law in Num 10:29; Jethro (\u201cHis Abundance,\u201d 3:1; 18:1, 2, and throughout the chapter); Jether (\u201cAbundance, Preeminence\u201d) and Jethro in a single verse (4:18; Jether is apparently a textual slip in MT); and Hobab (\u201cLoving, Embracing One,\u201d Num 10:29; Judg 4:11).
\nThis confusion is variously explained as reflective of separate sources (Johnson, \u201cJethro,\u201d IDB 2:896); as indicative of textual misunderstandings (Noth, Pentateuchal Traditions, 183\u201384), or a mispointing of \u05d7\u05ea\u05da, giving \u201cfather-in-law\u201d instead of a correct \u201cson-in-law\u201d (Albright, CBQ 25 [1963] 7); as the result of a mistranslation, \u201cfather-in-law\u201d for \u201cbrother-in-law\u201d (Moore, Judges, ICC [Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1895] 32\u201333); and as the taking of a clan-name, Reuel, to be a proper name (Albright, CBQ 25 [1963] 5\u20136) or as the use of two or more names for the same individual (Greenberg, Understanding Exodus, 47). None of these solutions is entirely satisfactory, and we are thus left with unexplained confusion in the transmission of the name of Moses\u2019 father-in-law (cf. Widengren, Proclamation and Presence, 28\u201330), though with no doubt about his priestly role. The name most frequently given to him is Jethro. Indeed, apart from v 18 here, Jethro is the sole name assigned him in the Book of Exodus.
\n18\u201319 The seven daughters of this priest are depicted as being so excited by the gallant behavior of Moses at the well that they quite forget their manners and rush home to tell of their adventure without an appropriate response to their champion. They describe Moses to their father as \u05d0\u05b4\u05d9\u05e9\u05c1 \u05de\u05b4\u05e6\u05b0\u05e8\u05b4\u05d9 \u201can Egyptian man.\u201d There is no justification for the frequent assertion that they knew Moses to be Egyptian by his clothing. What the daughters say is rather the writer\u2019s attempt to link the two contexts of his narrative, and, as has been noted already, to contrast what Moses has seemed to be, to his own people in Egypt, for example (2:14), with what he really is.
\n20 Jethro\u2019s response to his daughters is a delightfully witty and realistic narrative touch. Three questions in quick succession depict his incredulity, his astonishment, and his shocked disappointment. Then, as though catching his breath, he barks out a command to the daughters to do what they should have done, with no need for prompting from him.
\n21\u201322 The narrator leaps from Jethro\u2019s invitation, presumably delivered by his daughters, through Moses\u2019 settlement, marriage, and fatherhood, to Moses\u2019 retrospective interpretation of it all in the naming of his son. He establishes immediately Moses\u2019 great pleasure or eager delight (\u05d9\u05d0\u05dc) in settling down and in remaining to live (\u05d9\u05e9\u05c1\u05d1) with such a man. He demonstrates Jethro\u2019s sharing of that delight as he gives Moses his daughter Zipporah in marriage. The explanation Moses gives for the name of his firstborn son then summarizes what is taking place.
\nThis name, Gershom, occurs elsewhere in the OT (e.g., Judg 18:30; 1 Chr 6:1; Ezra 8:2) and is probably derived from \u05d2\u05e8\u05e9\u05c1 \u201cdrive, cast out\u201d (BDB, 176\u201377), signifying \u201cone driven out or thrust forth.\u201d The writer, however, has given us a pun and has explained Gershom\u2019s name as he did Moses\u2019 name (see Comment on 2:10), on the basis of assonance of the name with a word that carries the meaning he has in mind. Gershom is thus explained as though it were a compound of \u05d2\u05b5\u05bc\u05e8 \u201cstranger\u201d (from \u05d2\u05d5\u05e8 \u201csojourn, linger in one\u2019s travels\u201d) plus \u05e9\u05b8\u05c1\u05dd \u201cthere, thither.\u201d
\nThe fact that this etymology is probably an incorrect one in no way lessens, however, its value as a key to the intention of the narrative sequence of Exod 2. Indeed, the manner in which such an explanation is given in the service of the writer\u2019s point adds to its usefulness for understanding this text far beyond the value of any correct derivation of Gershom\u2019s name. It is at least possible that the narrator knew the derivation from \u05d2\u05e8\u05e9\u05c1 (Cassuto, 26, thinks he \u201cundoubtedly knew full well\u201d). Whether he did or not, his real concern is theological assertion, and his choice of the event of Moses\u2019 most complete integration into his Midianite family as the setting for this assertion is an inspired one.
\nSo the narrator declares that an invitation to dinner became in turn a visit, a sojourn, a settlement delightful to all parties, involving marriage and then the commingling of blood in the union of childbirth. And at that special moment, Moses gave to the child, a son, the significant summary name \u201cGershom,\u201d the meaning of which, like the meaning of the name of Moses himself, the author is not content to leave to our speculation. His point is far too important.
\nSo the name is connected with \u201cstranger\u201d and \u201cthere,\u201d and an explanation that connects it with both Moses\u2019 past and his new situation is given. The foreign land to which Moses refers must be understood to be Egypt, not Midian, as the commentators generally say. The statement of Moses is \u201ca stranger I have been,\u201d \u05d4\u05b8\u05d9\u05b4\u05d9\u05ea\u05b4\u05d9, not \u201ca stranger I am,\u201d \u05be\u05b6\u05d4\u05b0\u05b4\u05d9\u05b6\u05d4. Egypt, the place of Moses\u2019 birth, has never been his home, any more than it has been the home of any of the Israelites. There, Moses was a stranger, no matter how familiar to him were that land and the ways of its people. Here, Moses is at home, no matter how unfamiliar to him may be this land and the ways of its people. There, he had been rejected by the Egyptians and even by his kinsmen. Here, he had been received into the innermost circle of a people who had never seen him before. Moses, who had been all his life a stranger there, was here a stranger no longer.
\nIs it any wonder that Moses should want such a homecoming for his people, foreigners there in Egypt?
\nExplanation
\nWith this third and climactic section of the narrative of Exod 2, we are brought to the threshold of the real subject of the Book of Exodus. Having prepared Moses in Egypt, having introduced him there to the agony of his people, having removed him to the land of his final preparation for his work as deliverer, the narrator begins to answer the question \u201cWhy Midian?\u201d with an assertion placed in the mouth of Moses himself.
\nMidian, because Midian is home. A loving family is there\u2014a wife and a son, a son whose name both sums up Moses\u2019 life to this point and augurs, by his past-oriented explanation, a new and better future. Moses in Egypt was a nonperson, a foreigner without status; here in Midian, where he belongs, and always has belonged, he is at home.
\nBut immediately another question rises: what makes this place the place of belonging? Moses\u2019 assertion comes at first glance from the warmth of his domestic happiness. But suddenly we are confronted with a larger context. What has brought about the amazing welcome, the total at-homeness, the \u201ceager delight\u201d of Moses to dwell with this clan among whom Jethro ministers as priest?
\nThe answer to these questions, of course, is to be given fully in Exod 3. Moses has come to a people who not only worship the God of the fathers, but are free to do so. Thus he is at home, because this God is his God. And as this God is also his people\u2019s God, Moses is soon to be directed to bring them to a place where they can worship him freely too. For such a narrative we now stand fully prepared.
\nA Postscript on the Oppression (2:23\u201325)
\nBibliography
\nSchottroff, W. \u201cGedenken\u201d im Alten Orient und im Alten Testament. WMANT 15. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1964. Thomas, D. W. \u201cA Note on \u05d5\u05b7\u05d9\u05b5\u05bc\u05d3\u05b7\u05e2 \u05d0\u05b1\u05d4\u05b4\u05b9\u05d9\u05dd in Exod. II.25.\u201d JTS 49 (1948) 143\u201344.
\nTranslation
\n23 Now while these many days were passing, the king of Egypt died. And the sons of Israel moaned from the agony of their labor and cried out in need. Thus did their cry for help go up to God from the agony of their labor. 24 And so of course God heard their groaning, and also remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. 25 God saw the sons of Israel, and so God knew, by experience.
\nNotes
\n2:23.a. This phrase, \u05de\u05b4\u05df\u05be \u05d4\u05b8\u05e2\u05b2\u05d1\u05b9\u05d3\u05b8\u05d4, lit., \u201cfrom the labor,\u201d occurs twice in this verse.
\n25.a. BHS suggests the loss of a word or words here, and notes the addition of \u201chis afflicted condition,\u201d by Tg..
\n25.b. LXX reads \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f10\u03b3\u03bd\u03ce\u03c3\u03b8\u03b7 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c2 \u201cand so he became known to them\u201d instead of \u201cand so \u02d3Elohim knew.\u2026\u201d The verb is \u05d9\u05d3\u05e2 \u201cknow experientially,\u201d and MT makes perfect sense as it stands.
\nForm\/Structure\/Setting
\nThese three verses function in the present sequence of the text of the Book of Exodus as a kind of postscript to the narrative introducing the deliverer, Moses. The redactor thought such a postscript necessary, apparently, because of the length of that narrative sequence and its single preoccupation. He located the postscript here because of the reference in v 22 to Egypt, the land in which Moses had been a stranger, and because of the call narrative which continues the story of Moses with such special emphasis upon his role as the deliverer.
\nThe postscript appears to have come from the Priestly source, with the exception of its very first sentence, usually assigned to the Yahwist (see Noth, Pentateuchal Traditions, 30) and sometimes connected with 4:19\u201320 (Schmidt, 88\u201389). This first sentence is an attempt to connect the preparation of the deliverer with the calling of the deliverer by revealing that the king who sought his life was no longer a reason for him to stay away from Egypt. The sentences that follow refer both backward and forward to the terrible oppression of the sons of Israel and, still further backward and forward, to the promise to the fathers and to the fulfillment of that promise through Moses.
\nThus whatever the sources of this three-verse postscript, its present form is dictated by what precedes and follows it, and it serves quite effectively as a transition.
\nComment
\n23 The reference in v 22 to Egypt as the land strange to Moses, in which he had lived as a foreigner, is further confirmed by the placement of this postscript, with its references to the death of the king of Egypt who had condemned Moses and the multiplied suffering of the people of Israel in oppressive servitude. The latter is graphically depicted by a piling up of terms for their agony and their cries of distress: \u05d4\u05b8\u05e2\u05b2\u05d3\u05b8\u05b9\u05d4 \u201cagonized labor, forced servitude\u201d (v 23b, twice); \u05d0\u05d1\u05d7 \u201cgroan, sigh in grief\u201d (v 23b); \u05e9\u05b7\u05c1\u05d5\u05b0\u05e2\u05b8\u05d4 \u201ccry, call out,\u201d (v 23b); \u05e0\u05b0\u05d0\u05b8\u05e7\u05b8\u05d4 \u201ccry for help\u201d (v 23b); \u05d6\u05e2\u05e7 \u201cgroaning\u201d (v 24).
\n24\u201325 These assorted cries, moans, sighs and protests were of course directed to God, as Deut 26:7 (where the verb is \u05e6\u05e2\u05e7 \u201ccry,\u201d a parallel of \u05d6\u05e2\u05e7) expressly says, and as God\u2019s hearing of the crying and as his seeing of the sons of Israel and his experiencing of their suffering shows. D. Winton Thomas (JTS 49 [1948] 143\u201344) rendered the verbs \u05e9\u05c1\u05de\u05e2 \u201chear\u201d\u2014\u05e8\u05d0\u05d4 \u201csee\u201d\u2014\u05d9\u05d3\u05e2 \u201cknow\u201d in this context so: \u201chear-favorably\u201d\u2014\u201clook with kindness\u201d\u2014\u201ccared for, kept in mind,\u201d especially in view of the occurrence of the second two in Ps 31:7 [8].
\nMost significant of all is the specific reference in v 24b to the covenant promise to the fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This covenant promise has been implicit throughout these first two introductory and transitional chapters of the Book of Exodus, and here, at the most appropriate possible point, it is mentioned outright, with each of the patriarchal fathers pointedly named. Just as these two chapters are begun with the names of the descendants of the fathers, in and through which the first part of the covenant-promise has been fulfilled, so they are closed with the names of the fathers themselves, a reminder that God remembers the whole of his promise. Thus is the fulfillment of the second part of the promise anticipated by a reference to the fathers to whom it was made.
\nExplanation
\nThis brief postscript serves as the concluding bracket of an introductory sequence of transitional narratives. The opening bracket is 1:1\u20137, the listing of the names of the sons of Israel, whose father, grandfather, and great-grandfather are named here. In between these two brackets are the narratives of the rise of the new dynasty, the genocidal plans of the new Pharaoh, and the birth, adulthood, revolt, flight, and homecoming of the deliverer.
\nJust as the opening bracket provides a look at past, present, and future, so also does this closing bracket: the past is the promise to the three great fathers; the present is the death of the king of Egypt and the continuation of the oppression, with no letup, under his successor; the future is the next step, implied in the important assertion that God remembered (v 24; cf. Schottroff, \u201cGedenken,\u201d 202\u201317). Although this postscript must certainly interrupt the sequential narrative flow of the story of the book of Exodus, it does so with a telling emphasis upon what that story is all about.
\nII. The Call of the Deliverer, His Commission, and His Obedience (3:1\u20137:7)
\n3:1\u201312Theophany and Call (3:1\u201312)
\nBibliography
\nAlt, A. \u201cThe God of the Fathers.\u201d Essays on Old Testament History and Religion. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1966. 3\u201377. Baker, J. \u201cMoses and the Burning Bush.\u201d ExpTim 76 (1964\u20131965) 307\u20138. Besters, A. \u201cL\u2019expression \u2018fils d\u2019Israel\u2019 en Ex.\u201d, I\u2013XIV. RB 74 (1967) 321\u201355. Davies, G. I. \u201cHagar, El-He\u01e7ra and the Location of Mount Sinai.\u201d VT 22 (1972) 152\u201363. Freedman, D. N. \u201cThe Burning Bush.\u201d Bib 50 (1969) 245\u201346. Habel, N. \u201cThe Form and Significance of the Call Narratives.\u201d ZAW 77 (1965) 297\u2013323. Hoffner, H. A. \u201cThe Hittites and Hurrians.\u201d Peoples of Old Testament Times. Ed. D. J. Wiseman. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973. 197\u2013228. Hyatt, J. P. \u201cYHWH as \u2018the God of My Father.\u2019 \u201d VT 5 (1955) 130\u201336. Jeremias, J. Theophanie. WMANT 10. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1965. Kuntz, J. K. The Self-Revelation of God. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1967. Liverani, M. \u201cThe Amorites.\u201d Peoples of Old Testament Times. Ed. D. J. Wiseman. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973. 100\u2013133. Millard, A. R. \u201cThe Canaanites.\u201d Peoples of Old Testament Times. Ed. D.J. Wiseman. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973. 29\u201352. Muilenburg, J. \u201cThe Linguistic and Rhetorical usages of the Particle \u05db\u05b4\u05d9 in the Old Testament.\u201d HUCA 32 (1961) 135\u201360. Oesterley, W. O. E. \u201cThe Burning Bush.\u201d ExpTim 18 (1906\u20131907) 510\u201312. Preuss, H. D. \u201c \u2018Ich will mit dir sein.\u2019 \u201d ZAW 80 (1968) 139\u201373. Rad, G. von. \u201cBeobachtungen an der Moseerz\u00e4hlung.\u201d EvT 31 (1971) 579\u201388. Richter, W. Die sogennanten vorprophetischen Berufungsl ichte. Eine literaturwissenschaftliche Studie zu 1 Sam 9, 110, 16, Ex 3f. und Ri 6, 11b\u201317. FRLANT 101. G\u00f6ttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1970. Skipwith, G. H. \u201cThe Burning Bush and the Garden of Eden: a Study in Comparative Mythology.\u201d JQR 10 (orig. ser., 1898) 489\u2013502. Smith, W. R. The Religion of the Semites. New York: The Meridian Library, 1956. Tournay, R. \u201cLe nom. du \u2018buisson ardent.\u2019 \u201d VT 7 (1957) 410\u201313. Wiseman, D. J. \u201cIntroduction: Peoples and Nations.\u201d Peoples of Old Testament Times. Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1973. xv\u2013xxi. Young, E. J. \u201cThe Call of Moses.\u201d WTJ 29 (1966\u20131967) 117\u201335 and 30 (1967\u20131968) 1\u201323. Zimmerli, W. \u201cThe Form-Criticism and Tradition-History of the Prophetic Call Narratives.\u201d Ezekiel 1. Hermeneia. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979. 97\u2013100. \u2014\u2014\u2014. \u201cIch bin Jahwe.\u201d Gottes Offenbarung. Munich: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1969. 11\u201340. Also in I Am Yahweh. Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1983. 1\u201328. \u2014\u2014\u2014. Old Testament Theology in Outline. Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1978.
\nTranslation
\n1 And Moses was grazing the flock of Jethro (\u201cHis Abundance\u201d) his wife\u2019s father, a priest of Midian, driving the flock well into the wilderness, when he came to the mountain of God, Horeb (\u201cDesolate Waste\u201d). 2 Suddenly there appeared to him the messenger of Yahweh in a blaze of fire from the middle of a thornbush. He looked in amazement: the thornbush, enveloped in the flame, was still the thornbush\u2014none of it was destroyed! 3 So Moses said, \u201cI have got to go over and take a look at this unusual sight! Why is the thornbush not burning up?\u201d
\n4 Yahweh saw that he had gone over to look, and so God called out to him from the middle of the thornbush, saying, \u201cMoses! Moses!\u201d He replied, \u201cI am here.\u201d
\n5 Then he said, \u201cDo not approach here! Slip your sandals off your feet, because the place on which you are standing is holy ground!\u201d 6 Next he said, \u201cI am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.\u201d Thus Moses covered his face, because he feared to look toward this God.
\n7 Yahweh then said, \u201cI have seen clearly the humiliation of my people in Egypt, and I have heard their cry of distress at the pressure of their work-bosses. Indeed I know their pain. 8 Thus I have come down to snatch them from the power of the Egyptians and to bring them forth from that land to a good and roomy land, to a land gushing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 9 Take note now: the distress-cry of the sons of Israel has reached me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians are squeezing them. 10 So go now\u2014and I will send you forth to Pharaoh, and you will bring my people, the sons of Israel, out from Egypt.\u201d
\n11 But Moses answered God, \u201cWho am I, that I am to go along to Pharaoh, that I am to bring the sons of Israel forth out of Egypt?\u201d 12 He immediately replied, \u201cThe point is, I AM with you. The proof of this fact, that I have sent you forth, will be plain in this sign: in your bringing the people forth from Egypt, you all shall become servants of God on this very mountain.\u201d
\nNotes
\n1.a. \u05d0\u05b7\u05d7\u05b7\u05e8, lit., \u201cbehind.\u201d
\n1.b. LXX omits \u201cof God.\u201d
\n1.c. \u05d7\u05b9\u05e8\u05b5\u05d1\u05b8\u05d4 \u201cHoreb-ward,\u201d so possibly \u201cin the direction of Horeb.\u201d
\n2.a. \u201cAnd he looked and behold.\u2026\u201d
\n4.a. SamPent reads \u05d0\u05dc\u05d4\u05d9\u05dd \u201cGod\u201d here. LXX here agrees with MT, but also reads \u03ba\u03cd\u03c1\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2 (= Yahweh) with \u201ccalled out\u201d later in the verse, where MT has \u05d0\u05bf\u05d4\u05b4\u05b9\u05d9\u05dd \u201cGod.\u201d Vg does not employ a 2d subj and so reads Dominus vocavit \u201cthe Lord called out.\u201d
\n6.a. MT is sg, as LXX. Some versions have the more usual \u201cfathers,\u201d as e.g., SamPent (followed by neb) and Acts 7:32. see Comment below.
\n6.b. \u05e0\u05d1\u05d8 can mean \u201cgaze,\u201d almost \u201cgawk.\u201d
\n6.c. Lit., \u201cthe God\u201d; also in v 12. \u05d0\u05bf\u05d4\u05b4\u05b9\u05d9\u05dd with the def art occurs many times in the OT, nearly 30x in Exodus, generally to signify the God of Israel (cf. BDB, 43\u201344, \u00b63, and Mandelkern, 1:89\u201391).
\n7.a. \u05e8\u05b8\u05d0\u05b9\u05d4 \u05e8\u05b8\u05d0\u05b4\u05d9\u05ea\u05b4\u05d9, lit., \u201cLooking I have looked.\u201d
\n8.a. \u05d9\u05e8\u05d4 \u201cdescend, go down\u201d from a height is the same verb used of God in Gen 11:5, 7. SamPent gives the verb a cohortative form.
\n8.b. The phrase is used nearly 20\u00d7 in the OT to suggest the plenty of Canaan as the land of promise.
\n8.c. SamPent \u05d4\u05d2\u05e8\u05d2\u05e9\u05d9 and LXX add \u0393\u03b5\u03c1\u03b3\u03b5\u03c3\u03b1\u03af\u03c9\u03bd \u201cthe Girgashites\u201d here and in v 17.
\n10.a. So LXX, Vg, SamPent. MT has the impv. form \u05d4\u05d5\u05e6\u05d0 \u201cbring.\u201d
\n11.a. Reading the independent pers pronoun \u05d0\u05b8\u05e0\u05b9\u05db\u05b4\u05d9 \u201cI\u201d as emphatic with the two 1st pers verb forms that follow.
\n12.a. LXX adds \u1f45 \u03b8\u03b5\u1f40\u03c2 \u039c\u03c9\u03c5\u03c3\u03b5\u1fd6 \u03bb\u03ad\u03b3\u03c9\u03bd \u201cGod [spoke] to Moses, saying.\u201d
\n12.b. \u05db\u05b4\u05bc\u05d9 lit., \u201cfor, because.\u201d See Muilenburg, HUCA 32 (1961) 135\u201349.
\n12.c. On \u05d0\u05b6\u05d4\u05b0\u05d9\u05b6\u05d4 \u201cI am\u201d cf. v 14, and see Comment below.
\n12.d. Emphasis on the subj is made clear by the use of \u05d0\u05b8\u05e0\u05b9\u05db\u05b4\u05d9 \u201cI\u201d in addition to the pronoun \u201cI\u201d with the verb.
\n12.e. Lit., \u201cAnd this will be for you the sign that I.\u2026\u201d
\n12.f. See n. 6.c.
\nForm\/Structure\/Setting
\nThese verses have for a long time been recognized generally as an amalgam of theophany and call narrative from the Yahwist and the Elohist (Beer, 12; Noth, Pentateuchal Traditions, 30 and 36; Fohrer, \u00dcberlieferung, 124; for a more complex reanalysis, see Fuss, Deuteronomistische Pentateuchredaktion, 21\u201399), albeit an amalgam with some obvious seams. In v 4, for example, both Yahweh and Elohim occur in successive clauses of the same sentence. At the end of v 1, most of which can be assigned to the Yahwist, Horeb, the Elohist\u2019s name for the mount of the theophany, is used.
\nWhat is more important than the analysis of this section into its constituent sources, however, is an understanding of the text in its present sequence. Why was a composite made, and why does the section bring together theophany and call?
\nThese questions are best answered in reverse order. Theophany and call are brought together in the narrative dealing with Moses for the same reason they are brought together in the narrative dealing with Israel at Sinai. Theophany describes the advent of God\u2019s presence; call describes the opportunity of response to that Presence. Theophany provides both stimulus and authority for response; response, despite a choice, is virtually inevitable following theophany.
\nThis pattern is repeated at a number of places in the OT, usually with certain characteristic elaborations, and it has been studied in detail, most notably by Zimmerli, Habel, and Richter. These studies have generally approached the theophany-call sequence from the perspective of the call, however, particularly that of the prophets. Zimmerli (Ezekiel 1, 97\u2013100), for example, sees two forms of call narrative: a Jeremiah-Moses type, involving divine manifestation to the person called, the reluctance of that person, and an answer to the reluctance in promises and signs; and a Micaiah-Isaiah type involving a vision of God enthroned and announcing his word to his heavenly council. Zimmerli (100) applies this second type to the account of the call of Saul\/Paul in Acts 9, 22, and 26 in a fascinating manner.
\nHabel analyzes the form in still greater detail, dividing it into such components as divine confrontation, introductory word, commission, objection, reassurance, and sign (ZAW 77 [1965] 298\u2013316). He notes, quite correctly, that it has \u201ca significant pre-prophetic history\u201d (305). This history Habel then connects somewhat vaguely to a form employed by \u201cambassadors or messengers on a special mission\u201d (322\u201323).
\nAs instructive as these analyses are, however, they are too rigidly conceived in relation to the call and message components of the theophany-call sequence and too closely connected to prophetic traditions. Fuller attention is needed upon a much broader Presence-response pattern, of which the theophany-call sequence of Exodus 3\u20134 and 19\u201324 is a basic and often-reflected manifestation.
\nIndeed, the experience of Moses in 3:1\u201312 is an exact foreshadowing of the experience of Israel, first in Egypt, then in the deprivation of the wilderness, and finally at Sinai. In each of these narratives, the Presence-response pattern is fundamental. In the climactic narrative of the Book of Exodus (perhaps also the climactic narrative of the entire OT), chaps. 19:1\u201320:20 and 24:1\u201311, this pattern is the shaping factor. It is at least possible that such a pattern, which is basic in the oldest traditions of Israel\u2019s relationship with God (i.e., the exodus-Sinai experience and in the patriarchal narratives), basic in the great confessions of worship preserved in the Psalms, basic in the experience and in the proclamation of the prophets, basic in the theological presuppositions of the great historiographers, and basic even in the catechetical didacticism of the wise teachers, is the seminal point-of-origin for the call-narratives of the OT.
\nThe section at hand thus presents theophany and call together because each inevitably presupposes and suggests the other. Both were undoubtedly present in the narratives of the Yahwist and the Elohist, as in every other narrative dealing with Moses and the exodus, as a fundamental stratum. At few points could this pattern more appropriately surface than in the account of Moses\u2019 own experience of Presence and response. The redactor labored to produce a composite of the sources at his disposal that would make this basic assertion as plain as possible.
\nComment
\n1 At the beginning of the account of the most momentous experience of his life, Moses is presented not only as not seeking such an experience, but as totally oblivious even to the possibility of the confrontation that is to follow. That he may have had some preparation for such an experience is strongly suggested by the pointed and hardly necessary reference to Jethro\u2019s vocation as a priest (see below on 18:1\u201312). But Moses\u2019 concern was the sustenance of his father-in-law\u2019s flock. That he was in charge of this flock and clearly at some considerable distance from Jethro\u2019s camp is yet another indication of Moses\u2019 complete integration into his Midianite family, for the family\u2019s flock was the family\u2019s capital.
\nAs Tg. Onk. suggests, Moses appears to have been ranging far in search of grazing. He had driven the sheep well into the wilderness, perhaps even \u201cbeyond\u201d or \u201cbehind\u201d his customary routes. The whole impression is of a completely new and strange and distant place, one outside familiar Midianite territory. There is no hint that Jethro knew of this mountain of God, or indeed that anyone else, ever before, had experienced it as such. That the urgent point of this passage is theology and not geography is made clear by the fact that neither here nor anywhere else in the OT is the location of the mountain preserved or, for that matter, even considered important (cf. Zenger, Israel am Sinai, 118\u201326). The sole geographic inference in this passage is that the mountain was beyond the customary Midianite grazing area; rsv\u2019s \u201cto the west side of the wilderness\u201d is misleading.
\n2\u20133 The messenger of Yahweh, \u05de\u05b7\u05dc\u05b0\u05d0\u05b7\u05da\u05b0 \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4, is not an \u201cangel\u201d in the sense in which \u201cangel\u201d is now generally understood. As often in the OT (Gen 18, Judg 6), there is in this passage a fluid interchange between symbol, representative, and God himself. In the composite form of the present text, Moses sees the symbol (\u201ca blaze of fire\u201d) and hears Yahweh (vv 4\u20136, 7\u201310, 12). Only we are told that Yahweh\u2019s messenger appeared to him. For the redactor, there was no inconsistency: the addition of Elohim (v 4) to the messenger, the fire, and Yahweh of v 2 simply provided four designations of the same and single reality.
\nThe blaze of fire that attracted Moses\u2019 attention is of course the theophanic fire, one of the recurring symbols of God\u2019s advent in the OT (Exod 19; Ps 18; cf. Jeremias, Theophanie, 56\u201366, Kuntz, Self-Revelation, 138\u201347). This is why the bush is not consumed, as Moses quickly discovers. The endless conjectures about the nature of the bush (Smith, Religion, 193\u201394; Skipwith, JQR 10 [1898] 489\u2013502) are pointless. As Tournay has shown (VT 7[1957] 410\u201313), no specific identification of \u05e1\u05b0\u05e0\u05b6\u05d4 \u201cthornbush\u201d can be made. What is important is the nature of the fire as theophanic fire (and not St. Elmo\u2019s fire or volcanic gases; Gressmann, Mose und seine Zeit, 26\u201329). The bush itself is mentioned only once more in the OT, in Deut 33:16, a text that may mark the start of exaggeration of the role of the bush by referring to the \u201cgood will of the one dwelling in the thornbush.\u201d But the fire is mentioned, directly and indirectly, no less than five times in vv 2 and 3 alone: \u201cblaze of fire\u201d\u2014\u201cenveloped in flame\u201d\u2014\u201cnot destroyed\u201d (literally, \u201cnot eaten up\u201d)\u2014\u201cunusual sight\u201d\u2014\u201cnot burning up.\u201d
\n4\u20135 When Moses moves closer for a look at this remarkable fire, Yahweh, awaiting such an inevitable reaction, calls out to him \u05de\u05b4\u05ea\u05bc\u05d5\u05b9\u05da\u05b0 \u05d4\u05b7\u05e1\u05b0\u05bc\u05e0\u05b6\u05d4 \u201cfrom the middle of the thornbush,\u201d the same phrase precisely as in v 2, there locating \u201cthe flame of fire.\u201d In addition, the verb forbidding too close an approach by Moses, \u05e7\u05e8\u05d1 \u201capproach,\u201d is frequently used in the OT as a technical term to describe an approach to the Presence of God in worship, or to seek an oracle. Finally, in the ultimate certification of a theophanic site, a place where God is present, Moses is told that he stands now on holy ground, and so must remove his shoes in reverence.
\n6 Upon the basis of such a careful delineation of the nature of Moses\u2019 experience as a theophanic encounter, the God who is manifesting himself is also identified with equal precision. That such an identification should be thought necessary indicates not so much the narrator\u2019s acknowledgement that there was more than one possibility as it indicates their concern that there be no doubt in the reader\u2019s mind about the identity of the God who spoke to Moses. This is made plain by the exactitude with which the identification is made. Moses is told first that he is being addressed by \u201cthe God of his father.\u201d The word \u201cfather\u201d is pointedly singular (cf. Gen 26:24; 31:5; 43:23; Exod 15:2; 18:4) despite the various (and unjustified) attempts to make it plural. What Moses is told must therefore be understood as a means of connecting the speaking deity with the faith of Moses\u2019 family in Egypt. Then Moses is told that this God who addresses him is also the God of the three great patriarchal fathers\u2014Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob\/Israel himself\u2014a linking of the speaking deity with the faith of Moses\u2019 people, the sons of Israel.
\nThat Moses understood these connections is made clear by his reaction. Where before he continued, albeit in awe, to gaze at the bush, he now covered his face, afraid to stare at God, who is referred to, in view of the revelation of his identity, as \u05d4\u05b8\u05d0\u05b1\u05dc\u05b9\u05d4\u05b4\u05bd\u05d9\u05dd \u201cthe God.\u201d As Alt (Essays, 10\u201315) long ago pointed out, this passage and others like it are conscious attempts to identify Yahweh and the God (or gods; Essays, 54\u201361) of the fathers as one and the same. The accuracy of this suggestion is affirmed by Moses\u2019 immediate response once he understands that the deity appearing to him in the theophanic fire is his own God, the god of his father and the God of the fathers.
\n7\u20139 The theophany thus having been described, the call is introduced, first with a review of the plight of the sons of Israel in Egypt. Yahweh states that he has watched the oppression of Israel for a long time and has heard the people\u2019s cry of distress. The language of 2:25 is picked up by v 7; Yahweh knows the extent of Israel\u2019s need, and the moment for his action on the matter has arrived. The urgency of the need is matched by the power of Yahweh\u2019s expression; he has \u201ccome down,\u201d that is, from the place of his dwelling above the heavens to this place of his appearance to Moses, and he is about \u201cto snatch\u201d his people forth from the grip of Egyptian power. This verb, \u05e0\u05e6\u05dc, means \u201cto tear away from, to snatch forth,\u201d often in the OT with overtones of violence in rescue.
\nFurther, this snatching forth will be from a place of restriction and deprivation to a place wide and free, a place of plenty. The rhetoric of the promised fertile land, \u201ca land gushing with milk and honey,\u201d is used, and then this land is identified by a list of six peoples (to which list LXX and SamPent add, after Perizzites, \u201cGirgashites\u201d). The Canaanites, the Hittites, and the Amorites were major forces in OT history (see Millard, Peoples, 29\u201352; Hoffner, Peoples, 197\u2013228; Liverani, Peoples, 100\u2013133). The other three peoples listed and the seventh people added by some versions are minor groups known mostly from the OT (Wiseman, Peoples, xv\u2013xvi), unless \u201cHivites\u201d is an ethnic term for \u201cHurrian\u201d (Speiser, \u201cHurrians,\u201d IDB 2:665).
\nIn the context of Yahweh\u2019s speech in vv 7\u201310, these names are probably intended as designations of a set of geographic boundaries, roughly demarcating a series of external and internal territorial limits. It is now clear that such lists are far more than the general and semiarbitrary lists they have too often been taken to be, but our knowledge of the peoples involved is too incomplete to enable us to understand all that the lists may imply (cf. Wiseman, Peoples, xv\u2013xxi, and Speiser, \u201cMan, Ethnic Divisions,\u201d IDB 3:235\u201342).
\n10 The need of Israel reviewed, and his intention stated, Yahweh comes to the point of both his theophany and his address: the call of Moses to be his agent of deliverance. Moses is to go to Egypt, confront the Pharaoh, and bring forth Yahweh\u2019s people, specifically and poignantly called \u201cthe sons of Israel\u201d (note Besters\u2019 theory that this usage is a source-critical clue, RB 74 [1967] 326\u201333).
\nWith this call stated, there is begun in this narrative a brilliant and very significant presentation and explanation of the tetragrammaton, the OT\u2019s unique name for the coming and calling God. The vehicle for this narrative sequence is a series of protests from Moses that he should not be the agent of deliverance. The heart of the sequence is a series of double entendre plays on the verb \u05d4\u05d9\u05d4 \u201cto be,\u201d from which God\u2019s special name is derived. Coupled with this series is an emphatic usage of the first common singular pronoun \u201cI,\u201d a deft reference to the theological rhetoric of God\u2019s self-declaratory phrase, \u201cI am Yahweh,\u201d so often and so effectively repeated throughout the OT (see especially the studies of Zimmerli, Gottes Offenbarung, 11\u201324, and Outline, 17\u201321).
\n11\u201312 In these verses, the presentation of the tetragrammaton is only introduced. Moses objects, \u05de\u05b4\u05d9 \u05d0\u05b8\u05e0\u05b9\u05db\u05b4\u05d9 \u201cWho am I, \u2026 that I \u2026 that I \u2026?\u201d and God answers, \u05e9\u05b4\u05bc\u05c2\u05d9 \u05d0\u05b6\u05d4\u05b0\u05d9\u05b6\u05d4 \u05e2\u05b4\u05de\u05b8\u05bc\u05da\u05b0 \u201cthe point is, I AM with you.\u201d Who Moses is is not the question; it is rather, who is with Moses? H. D. Preuss has argued persuasively (ZAW 80 [1968] 141\u201345, 153\u201355, 171\u201373) that \u201cI will be with you\u201d is an important, and perhaps an original, theological formula arising from \u201ca nomadic groundstructure of Israelite thought and religious devotion.\u201d If Preuss is correct, God\u2019s answer to Moses here reflects an extensive and widespread pattern of theological rhetoric, since this phrase, in some form, occurs almost a hundred times in the OT.
\nMoses\u2019 emphatic \u201cI\u201d is echoed by God\u2019s emphatic \u201cI,\u201d which is immediately reinforced by \u05db\u05b4\u05bc\u05a5\u05d9 \u05d0\u05b8\u05e0\u05b9\u05db\u05b4\u0596\u05d9 \u05e9\u05b0\u05c1\u05dc\u05b7\u05d7\u05b0\u05ea\u05b4\u05bc\u0591\u05d9\u05da\u05b8, literally, \u201cthat I have sent you forth.\u201d The most important word in the sequence is \u05d0\u05b6\u05bd\u05d4\u05b0\u05d9\u05b6\u05a3\u05d4, translated above I AM. This word will occur again, twice, in the all-important explanation of v 14.
\nThe theophany and call section is closed with a second very important point. God gives a sign in proof of his promised Presence with Moses: when he brings the people forth from Egypt, they shall all, together with Moses, serve him at this very same mountain, this place of advent, call, and promise. This point anticipates (1) Moses\u2019 urgent need to bring the sons of Israel to Horeb\/Sinai; (2) the guidance of Yahweh through the wilderness; and (3) above all, the theophany and call to covenant of chaps. 19\u201320 and 24. What Moses has experienced here, Israel will experience here.
\nExplanation
\nExodus 3:1\u201312 anticipates the two most important sequences in the Book of Exodus. It provides first of all, and most immediately, the introductory context for the revelation of the tetragrammaton and the only explanation of this unique divine name to be found in the OT. It also looks forward, however, to the experience of the sons of Israel at Horeb\/Sinai, an experience parallel to the experience there of Moses.
\nAppropriately, therefore, this section establishes first of all the certainty of the Presence of God in the fire of theophany, in the auditory experience of the identifying and calling word of God, and in the certification of the place as a holy place by virtue of the appearance there of God. This certainty, in turn, establishes the authority for the call of Moses, namely, that God is to be with him in the mission he is to undertake, just as he is with him at this special moment at Horeb\/Sinai. And the linking of this experience of Moses with the experience the sons of Israel are yet to have is cleverly made by the sign that is promised as the proof of God\u2019s Presence, namely, that the sons of Israel, along with Moses, shall worship God together at this very same mountain.
\nAt an earlier stage in its development, this narrative was probably much briefer and so stood even more obviously as a prelude to the revelation of the special name of God. Its expansion confirms its essential purpose, however, both in the somewhat repetitious statements of Yahweh about the plight of the Israelites and also in the cleverly framed play on the verb \u201cto be\u201d and the pronoun \u201cI,\u201d which specifically point to the tetragrammaton and the theological rhetoric surrounding it.
\nFrom the next section (3:13\u201322) forward, much of the narrative of the Book of Exodus is in one way or another a proof of the claim of God\u2019s special name. This section, introducing that name, gives us a first glimpse, from several angles, of the essential point of that claim: He is here, really here.
\nThe Name of God and Its Meaning (3:13\u201322)
\nBibliography
\nAbba, R. \u201cThe Divine Name Yahweh.\u201d JBL 80 (1961) 320\u201328. Albrektson, B. \u201cOn the Syntax of \u05d0\u05d4\u05d9\u05d4 \u05d0\u05e9\u05e8 \u05d0\u05d4\u05d9\u05d4 in Exodus 3:14.\u201d Words and Meanings. Ed. P. R. Ackroyd and B. Lindars. Cambridge: University Press, 1968. 15\u201328. Albright, W. F. \u201cContributions to Biblical Archaeology and Philology: 2. The Divine Name.\u201d JBL 43 (1924) 370\u201378. Alt, A. \u201cEin \u00e4gyptisches Gegenst\u00fcck zu Ex. 3:14.\u201d ZAW 17 (1940\u201341) 159\u201360. Arnold, W. R. \u201cThe Divine Name in Exodus iii. 14.\u201d JBL 24 (1905) 107\u201365. Brownlee, W. H. \u201cThe Ineffable Name of God.\u201d BASOR 226 (1977) 39\u201346. Childs, B. S. Memory and Tradition in Israel. SBT 37. London: SCM Press, 1962. Coats, G. W. \u201cDespoiling the Egyptians.\u201d VT 18 (1968) 450\u201357. Cross, F. M., Jr. \u201cYahweh and the God of the Patriarchs.\u201d HTR 55 (1962) 225\u201359. Eissfeldt, O. \u201cNeue Zeugnisse f\u00fcr die Aussprache des Tetragramms als Jahwe.\u201d ZAW 53 (1935) 59\u201376. Freedman, D. N. \u201cThe Name of the God of Moses.\u201d JBL 79 (1960) 151\u201356. Goitein, S. D. \u201cYHWH the Passionate: the Monotheistic Meaning and Origin of the Name YHWH.\u201d VT 6 (1956) 1\u20139. Herrmann, S. \u201cDie ahtestamentliche Gottesname.\u201d EvT 26 (1966) 281\u201393. Hyatt, J. P. \u201cWas Yahweh Originally a Creator Deity?\u201d JBL 86 (1967) 369\u201377. Labuschagne, C. J. \u201cThe Particles \u05d4\u05b5\u05d5 and \u05d4\u05b4\u05e0\u05b5\u05bc\u05d4.\u201d OTS 18 (1973) 1\u201314. MacLaurin, E. C. B. \u201cYHWH. The Origin of the Tetragrammaton.\u201d VT 12 (1962) 439\u201363. McCarthy, D. J. \u201cExod 3:14: History, Philology and Theology.\u201d CBQ 40 (1978) 311\u201322. Mowinckel, S. \u201cThe Name of the God of Moses.\u201d HUCA 32 (1961) 121\u201333. Murtonen, A. A Philological and Literary Treatise on the Old Testament Divine Names \u05d0\u05dc, \u05d0\u05dc\u05d5\u05d4, \u05d0\u05dc\u05d4\u05d9\u05dd, and \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seuran Kirjapainon Oy., 1952. 43\u201392. Obermann, J. \u201cThe Divine Name YHWH in the Light of Recent Discoveries.\u201d JBL 68 (1949) 301\u201323. Radday, Y. T. \u201cThe Spoils of Egypt.\u201d ASTI 12 (1983) 125\u201347. Sandreel, S. \u201cThe Haggada within Scripture.\u201d JBL 80 (1961) 105\u201322. Schild, E. \u201cOn Exodus iii 14\u2014\u2018I Am That I Am.\u2019 \u201d VT 4 (1954) 296\u2013302. Terrien, S. The Elusive Presence. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1978. Vaux, R. de. \u201cThe Revelation of the Divine name YHWH.\u201d Proclamation and Presence. eds. John I Durham and J. R. Porter. Richmond: John Knox Press, 1970. 48\u201375. Vriezen, T. C. \u201c\u02beEhje \u02beA\u0161er \u02beEhje.\u201d Festschrift Alfred Bertholet. T\u00fcbingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1950. 498\u2013512. Williams, A. L. \u201cThe Tetragrammaton: Jahweh, Name or Surrogate?\u201d ZAW 54 (1936) 262\u201369. Zimmerli, W. \u201cIch bin Jahwe,\u201d \u201cErkenntnis Gottes nach dem Buche Ezechiel,\u201d \u201cDas Wort des g\u00f6ttlichen Selbsterweises (Erweiswort), eine prophetische Gattung.\u201d Gottes Offenbarung. Munich: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1969. 11\u201340, 41\u2013119, 120\u201332. Also in I Am Yahweh. Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1982. 1\u201328, 29\u201398, 99\u2013110.
\nTranslation
\n13 Then Moses asked God, \u201cSuppose I come to the sons of Israel, and I say to them, \u2018The God of your fathers has sent me forth to you,\u2019 and they ask me, \u2018What can He do?\u2019 \u2014What am I to say to them?\u201d 14 Thus it was that God answered Moses, \u201cI AM the One Who Always Is.\u201d He went on: \u201cThus shall you say to the sons of Israel, \u2018I AM has sent me forth to you.\u2019 \u201d
\n15 God said still more to Moses: \u201cSpeak thus to the sons of Israel: \u2018Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob has sent me forth to you.\u2019 This is my name from now on, and this is to bring me to mind generation after generation. 16 Go and bring together the wise old leaders of Israel, and tell them, \u2018Yahweh the God of your fathers appeared to me, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to say, \u201cI have paid close attention to you and to what has been done to you in Egypt, 17 and I say I will bring you up from the humiliation of the Egyptians to the land of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, to a land gushing with milk and honey.\u201d \u2019
\n18 \u201cThey will listen to your report. Then you go, along with the wise old leaders of Israel, to the king of Egypt; and all of you tell him, \u2018Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, has encountered us, and in result, we must ask you please to let us go three days\u2019 distance into the wilderness, so we may offer sacrifice to Yahweh, our God.\u2019
\n19 \u201cNow I know very well that the king of Egypt will not give you permission to go, not even under the pressure of a strong hand. 20 So I will stretch out my hand, and I will strike Egypt with an arraynote of my extraordinary deeds that I will accomplish right in Egyptian territory. After that, the Pharaoh will drive you out! 21 I will further make this people so likable in the opinion of the Egyptians that when you do go forth, you will not go forth in poverty: 22 every housewife will ask from her Egyptian neighbor and from any guest in her home articles of silver and articles of gold and garments, and you shall dress your sons and your daughters in them\u2014in such a manner you will pick the Egyptians clean.\u201d
\nNotes
\n13.a. Lit., \u201csaid to,\u201d with special waw.
\n13.b. \u05d4\u05b4\u05e0\u05b5\u05bc\u05d4 \u201cbehold.\u201d Cf. Labuschagne, OTS 18 (1973) 8\u20139.
\n13.c. This question, \u05de\u05b7\u05d4\u05be\u05e9\u05bc\u05c1\u05de\u05d5\u05b9, is lit. \u201cWhat is his name?\u201d But much more than identity is involved. See Comment below.
\n14.a. \u201cI am the Ising One.\u201d See Comment below. Cf. LXX \u1f18\u03b3\u03ce \u03b5\u1f30\u03bc\u03b9 \u1f41 \u1f64\u03bd and Vg ego sum qui sum.
\n14.b. \u05d0\u05b6\u05d4\u05b0\u05d9\u05b6\u05d4 \u201cI am\u201d as in v 12; see Comment above. LXX \u1f48 \u1f64\u03bd; Vg qui est.
\n15.a. Special waw, showing continuity, plus \u05e2\u05d5\u05b9\u05d3 \u201cstill, yet.\u201d
\n16.a. Some versions, including SamPent, add \u05d1\u05d5\u05b9\u05d9 \u201cthe sons of\u201d before \u05d9\u05e9\u05e8\u05d0\u05dc \u201cIsrael.\u201d
\n16.b. LXX repeats \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03b8\u03b5\u1f78\u03c2 \u201cand the God of\u201d before \u0399\u03c3\u03b1\u03b1\u03ba \u201cIsaac\u201d and \u0399\u03b1\u03ba\u03c9\u03b2 \u201cJacob,\u201d as in v 15 and often in the OT. So also Vg.
\n16.c. \u05e4\u05b8\u05bc\u05e7\u05b9\u05d3 \u05e4\u05bc\u05e7\u05b7\u05d3\u05b0\u05ea\u05b4\u05bc\u05d9 \u201cobserving I have observed.\u201d
\n17.a. See n. 8.c.
\n18.a. Lit., \u201cto your voice.\u201d
\n18.b. MT has a pl. verb, thus referring to Moses and the elders telling Pharaoh. Vg and some LXX mss have a sg verb, obviously in reference to Moses alone.
\n18.c. \u05e7\u05e8\u05d4 \u201cencounter, meet\u201d; LXX, SamPent, Vg read as from \u05e7\u05e8\u05d0 \u201ccall, summon.\u201d
\n18.d. Cohortative of the verb \u05d4\u05dc\u05d3 \u201cgo\u201d plus the particle of entreaty, \u05e0\u05b8\u05d0 \u201cplease\u201d (GKC \u00b6 108).
\n19.a. Emphatic usage, \u05d0\u05b2\u05e0\u05b4\u05d9 \u201cI\u201d plus 1st pers verb form, \u05d9\u05b8\u05d3\u05b7\u05e2\u05b0\u05ea\u05b4\u05bc\u05d9 \u201cI know.\u201d
\n19.b. There is no need to alter MT, as many ancient versions (LXX, SamPent, Vg) and modern translations have done. \u201cAnd not by a strong hand\u201d makes perfect sense, especially when read with the following verse.
\n20.a. \u05d1\u05b0\u05bc\u05db\u05b9\u05dc \u201cwith all.\u201d
\n20.b. \u05d1\u05b0\u05bc\u05e7\u05b4\u05e8\u05b0\u05d1\u05bc\u05d5\u05b9 \u201cin the middle of it.\u201d
\n20.c. \u201cHe.\u201d \u201cThe Pharaoh\u201d is added from the context, for clarity.
\n22.a. Added from the context for clarity. SamPent reads \u05e8\u05e2\u05d5\u05ea\u05d4 \u05d5\u05b0\u05d0\u05dc \u05de\u05d0\u05e9 \u05de\u05d0\u05ea \u05e8\u05e2\u05d4\u05d5 \u05d5\u05d0\u05e9\u05d4 \u05de\u05d0\u05ea \u201cAnd a man will ask of his neighbor, a woman (or wife) from her neighbor.\u201d
\n22.b. The meaning, apparently, is a request for the loan of these valuable objects, as \u05e0\u05e6\u05dc \u201cpick bare\u201d implies. Compare 12:36\u201337. BDB (981) even translates \u05e9\u05c1\u05d0\u05dc as \u201cborrow.\u201d
\n22.c. \u201cIn them\u201d is added for clarity, from the context.
\n22.d. \u05e0\u05e6\u05dc \u201cplunder, strip, pick bare.\u201d This verb, here in the piel stem, is used in the hiph stem in v 8 in reference to Yahweh\u2019s snatching forth of the Israelites from the Egyptians\u2019 power. Radday (ASTI 12 [1983] 142\u201345), in an attempt to remove any notion of stealing from this passage, makes the unlikely proposal that \u05e0\u05e6\u05dc in Exod 3:22 and 12:36 means \u201cfree, deliver,\u201d and that Israel was freeing Egypt from shame and hatred.
\nForm\/Structure\/Setting
\nThese verses, like the preceding section, are an amalgam of EJ source material, with a unity superseding that of either narrative in its original form. Despite the differing presuppositions of the two sources, the two have been forged into a single sequence with a theological point of its own.
\nThe Yahwist records the introduction of the tetragrammaton to the human family early in the primeval history, in the third generation from Adam, the time of Enosh (Gen 4:26), and he uses the special name throughout his narrative. The Elohist, on the other hand, has this name introduced first only to Moses, in his experience of theophany and call at Sinai\/Horeb. Yet despite these differences, which are by no means obscured in the composite of Exod 3, the new narrative has an integrity all its own and an impact which since we do not have the original narratives, we may at least imagine, to surpass that of either source by itself.
\nFor this reason, the complicated and subjective attempts to separate Exod 3 into its constituent sources, attempts that have been prodded by ingenious theories into many blind alleys, are best set aside in favor of the amalgam of the text at hand. This is especially important here because the composite account, by its synthetic form, is a far more significant key to the intention of the Book of Exodus than the separate sources could ever be, even if we could reconstruct them completely.
\nThe motif of authority is determinative in the composite here, just as theophany and call determine the form of the first section of this chapter. To that end, originally separate material on the revelation and explanation of God\u2019s special name has been combined with material describing Yahweh\u2019s commission of Moses (vv 13\u201315). That commission has been expanded beyond a report of theophany and call (v 16), in the composite form recorded in Exod 3, to include the themes of exodus-deliverance (vv 17, 20), worship service at Sinai\/Horeb (v 18), confrontation of a vacillating Pharaoh (vv 19\u201320), the mighty wonders that prove the presence and the supreme power of Yahweh (v 20), and the enrichment of Israel at the Egyptians\u2019 expense (vv 21\u201322).
\nThese verses are variously assigned by the source critics, not only because of the alternation of the names for God, but also because of this array of themes and the repetitive and somewhat choppy manner in which they are introduced. Beer (12), for example, assigns vv 13\u201315 to E, E1 and Es, 16\u201320 to J2, and 21\u201322 to J1; Fohrer (\u00dcberlieferung, 125) gives vv 13\u201315 to E, 16\u201320 to J, and 21\u201322 to N (his \u201cNomadic\u201d source); and Noth (Pentateuchal Traditions, 267), proposes vv 13\u201315 to be from E and vv 16\u201322, from J. The obvious conclusion of such divisions, that the section before us is a composite, is completely accurate. But once again, why was the composite made, and what is its binding emphasis? What gives the section its form?
\nThe answer to these questions can be given in a single word: authority. The essential question of Moses after the theophany and call will become the essential question of Israel after their own call in Egypt, as indeed after their own experience of theophany and invitation (Presence and response again) at Sinai\/Horeb. Is it possible? How can it be? Who can do it? What proof do we have? These are versions of a single question, the answer to which gives this section its form. The array of motifs brought together here answers, in one way or another, this central and fundamental inquiry, singled out quite accurately as the one that humankind must always ask. The redactor\u2019s composite is nothing short of brilliant.
\nComment
\n13 Moses\u2019 first question following the confrontation of theophany and call was \u201cWho am I?\u201d (v 11). When God by-passed this question with the more important information that he intended to be present with Moses (v 12), Moses turned then to his second question, \u201cWho are you?\u201d The continuity of this sequence is plain not only in its logic, but also in its reference to the God of the fathers and in the terse summary of the call. Moses says, in effect, \u201cIf I address the sons of Israel in your name, since my lack of status is well known to them, they will understandably want to know about you.\u201d
\nSo they will ask, \u05de\u05b7\u05d4\u05e9\u05bf\u05c1\u05de\u05d5\u05b9, literally, \u201cWhat is his name?\u201d This question has little to do, however, with identity, just as Moses\u2019 parallel question in v 11 can have little to do with identity. Moses himself was satisfied by the identification \u201cthe God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob\u201d (v 6). That identification is linked specifically with Moses\u2019 family in Egypt, and the clear assumption of this whole narrative is that such an identification would be understandable also to the sons of Israel in bondage there.
\nThe question of the origins of Yahwism and the beliefs and practices of Israel in Egypt are really quite beside the point here. This text is supremely a theological text, one of the most theological texts in the entire Bible, and long discourses on the relative influence of patriarchal faith or Kenite practices miss the point. The terrible situation of the Israelites in Egypt, described in such pained terms over and over again in the first three chapters of Exodus, provides a dramatic setting for an important statement about the God of the fathers, who is now to become the God of Israel.
\nThe God of the fathers, in various times and places and under various conditions, had proved himself to the fathers. But Egypt and the bondage there present a new situation. Egypt is a world power. The Israelites in slavery are in no way the peers of their oppressors, as the fathers had been the peers of their neighbors and even their enemies. Indeed, the plight of the Israelites in Egypt is entirely unparalleled in the history of the fathers, who had to contend with local groups, local rulers, and local gods. The Egyptians possessed, or were possessed by, an extensive pantheon of gods exerting a cooperative lordship over every aspect of life and granting international influence to Egyptian power. Indeed, the Pharaoh himself, the king whom Moses was to confront and whom Israel was to defy, claimed divine descent.
\nIt is against such a setting, so carefully provided in the repeated references to the agonized suffering of the Israelites, that the question Moses raises has to be interpreted. The question also must be interpreted in the light of the larger significance of the Hebrew word \u05e9\u05b5\u05c1\u05dd \u201cname.\u201d This word, according to BDB (1028), is a \u201cdesignation of God, specific, of Yahweh \u2026; = his reputation, fame \u2026; especially as embodying the (revealed) character of Yahweh.\u201d
\nWhat Moses asks, then, has to do with whether God can accomplish what he is promising. What is there in his reputation (see Num 6:27; Deut 12:5, 11; 16:2\u20136; Pss 8:1, 74:7; Amos 5:8, 9:5\u20136; Jer 33:2) that lends credibility to the claim in his call? How, suddenly, can he be expected to deal with a host of powerful Egyptian deities against whom, across so many years, he has apparently won no victory for his people? The Israelites in Egypt, oppressed savagely across many years and crying out with no letup to their God, have every reason to want to know, \u201cWhat can He do? \u201c\u2014or perhaps better, \u201cWhat can He do?\u201d
\n14 Only an understanding of the meaning of the question of v 13 in its setting makes the much-discussed answer to it clear. The answer Moses receives is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a name. It is an assertion of authority, a confession of an essential reality, and thus an entirely appropriate response to the question Moses poses.
\nThe range of interpretations of this response, from ancient to modern times, is nearly endless, as such survey articles as the ones by Arnold, Vriezen, MacLaurin, de Vaux, and Brownlee show. Some proposals, that the response is meant to be vague and evasive (Beer, 29; MacLaurin, VT 12 [1962] 460\u201362; Terrien, Elusive Presence, 119), for example, or a sly joke (Sandmel, JBL 80 [1961] 113\u201314) miss entirely the reason for the response as well as for the question that elicits it. Other proposals, which involve an alteration of the text as it stands (Arnold, JBL 24 [1905] 162\u201363; Obermann, JBL 68 [1949] 306\u20139, 318\u201323; Albright, JBL 43 [1924] 370\u201378), are unjustified. Not even the change of the person of the pronoun of the second \u05d4\u05b0\u05d9\u05b6\u05d4 \u201cI AM\u201d from a first to a third person pronoun (so LXX in ancient times; Schild, VT 4 [1954] 302, in contemporary times) is justified.
\nWhen Moses poses the question of the probability, even the possibility of the realization of the prospect God is holding out for the sons of Israel, oppressed as they are in Egypt, he is given an answer both profound and specifically to the point. That answer must be read not only in the context of the three-verse segment (vv 13\u201315) in which it is nestled, but in the context of the remainder of Exod 3, and indeed the remainder of the narrative sequence of the entire book, anticipated in 3:16\u201322.
\n\u05d0\u05b6\u05d4\u05b0\u05d9\u05b6\u05d4 \u05d0\u05b2\u05e9\u05b6\u05c1\u05e8 \u05d0\u05b6\u05d4\u05b0\u05d9\u05b6\u05d4 \u201cI AM that I AM,\u201d replies God. The verbs are first person common qal imperfects of the verb \u05d4\u05d9\u05d4 \u201cto be,\u201d connoting continuing, unfinished action: \u201cI am being that I am being,\u201d or \u201cI am the Is-ing One,\u201d that is, \u201cthe One Who Always Is.\u201d Not conceptual being, being in the abstract, but active being, is the intent of this reply. It is a reply that suggests that it is inappropriate to refer to God as \u201cwas\u201d or as \u201cwill be,\u201d for the reality of this active existence can be suggested only by the present: \u201cis\u201d or \u201cis-ing,\u201d \u201cAlways Is,\u201d or \u201cAm.\u201d
\nA strong supportive argument for taking this answer quite literally is provided by the \u05d0\u05b6\u05d4\u05b0\u05d9\u05b6\u05d4 that anticipates it in v 12, and by the \u05d0\u05b6\u05d4\u05b0\u05d9\u05b6\u05d4 that immediately follows it in v 14. God has answered Moses\u2019 protest of his own inadequacy with the assertion \u05d0\u05b6\u05d4\u05b0\u05d9\u05b6\u05d4 \u05e2\u05b4\u05de\u05b8\u05bc\u05da\u05b0 \u201cI AM with you.\u201d He now answers Moses\u2019 question about the authority for the command of exodus with the declaration \u05d0\u05b2\u05e9\u05b6\u05e8 \u05d0\u05b6\u05d4\u05b0\u05d9\u05b6\u05d4 \u05d0\u05b6\u05d4\u05b0\u05d9\u05b6\u05d4 \u201cI AM always I AM,\u201d and then says immediately to Moses that he must tell the sons of Israel \u05d0\u05b6\u05d4\u05b0\u05d9\u05b6\u05d4 \u05e9\u05b0\u05c1\u05dc\u05b8\u05d7\u05b7\u05e0\u05b4\u05d9 \u05d0\u05b2\u05dc\u05b5\u05d9\u05db\u05b6\u05dd \u201cI AM has sent me forth to you.\u201d
\nA further argument for such a reading, a very extensive one, is provided by the manner in which the Book of Exodus develops the narrative of Advent and Response, as well as by the extensive rhetoric of which the tetragrammaton is the center: \u201cI am Yahweh\u201d (intriguingly posed by de Vaux, Proclamation and Presence, 70\u201371, as the equivalent, and more proper version, of \u05d0\u05b6\u05d4\u05b0\u05d9\u05b6\u05d4 \u05d0\u05b2\u05e9\u05b6\u05c1\u05e8 \u05d0\u05b6\u05d4\u05b0\u05d9\u05b6\u05d4), \u201cI am Yahweh your God,\u201d \u201cI am He,\u201d \u201cI am first, also I am last\u201d (cf. Zimmerli, Gottes Offenbarung, 11\u201317, 98\u2013107, 120\u201332; Abba, JBL 80 [1961] 324\u201328). The high point of this rhetoric is reached in Isa 52:6, \u201cIndeed will my people know from experience my name (\u05e9\u05b5\u05c1\u05e1) in that day, indeed, for I am He, the One who speaks out \u2018Here I am!\u2019 \u201d
\n15 Upon the foundation laid by this declaration, \u05d0\u05b6\u05d4\u05b0\u05d9\u05b6\u05d4 \u201cI AM,\u201d repeated four times in succession (v 12, once; v 14, three times), the special name of God, \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4 \u201cYahweh,\u201d is revealed. This multiplication of the verb from which the name is drawn adds impact to the redactor\u2019s confessional point. As McCarthy (CBQ 40[1978] 316) has suggested, \u201cthe spell of the repetition\u201d itself establishes the connection between \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4 and \u05d4\u05d9\u05d4.
\nFar more than a simple connection is in view here, however. The repetition of these \u201cI AM\u201d verbs, as awkward as it may appear, is entirely intentional. The redactor\u2019s point is just too important to be missed, and so he has labored to make it obvious: Yahweh Is. However absent he may have seemed to the oppressed Israelites in Egypt, as to the later generations for whom the Book of Exodus was compiled, Yahweh Is, and his Is-ness means Presence. That is true here and in chaps. 19\u201320 and 33\u201334, the other major chapters on Presence in which the special name \u201cYahweh\u201d is emphasized (see below on 20:2 and 33:18\u201334:9) and with which this chapter and chap. 4 must be read. This God who is present, this God who Is, this Yahweh, is one and the same as the God of the fathers (see above Comment on v 6).
\nThus the name \u201cYahweh,\u201d defined in terms of active being or Presence (cf. Abba, JBL 80 [1961] 326\u201328), is the name by which God is to be known henceforth forever. It is to be his \u05d6\u05b5\u05db\u05b6\u05e8 \u201cremembrance,\u201d literally, that which is to make his Presence a reality to the generations to come. The significance of the use of this term in the verse establishing for Israel Yahweh as God\u2019s name in perpetuity must not be overlooked. Schottroff (\u201cGedenken,\u201d 291\u201399) has described the use of \u05d6\u05b5\u05db\u05b6\u05e8 as a synonym for \u05e9\u05c1\u05dd \u201cname\u201d and has noted also that in cultic contexts \u05d6\u05b5\u05db\u05b6\u05e8 is equivalent to the name of Yahweh pronounced, proclaimed out loud (cf. Childs, Memory and Tradition, 70\u201373). Of an array of passages that have a bearing on this point, especially important are Exod 33:19; 34:6\u20138; Num 6:22\u201327; and Ps 111:4, which reads \u05dc\u05e0\u05e4\u05dc\u05d0\u05d4\u05d9\u05d5 \u05d6\u05db\u05e8 \u05e2\u05e9\u05b9\u05d4 \u201cRemembrance (bringing Yahweh to mind by pronouncing his special name?) creates his extraordinary deeds.\u201d
\n16\u201317 V 16 again makes the all-important connection of Yahweh with the God of the fathers and uses niphal of \u05e8\u05d0\u05d4 \u201cto see,\u201d as did v 2, to describe the theophany, here as the appearance of Yahweh, there as the appearance of Yahweh\u2019s messenger. The two are understood as one and the same (see Comment on 3:2\u20133). \u201cI have seen clearly,\u201d v 7, becomes \u201cI have paid close attention\u201d here, and v 17 is very close to v 8.
\n18 To the Pharaoh, Yahweh is to be identified as \u201cYahweh, the God of the Hebrews\u201d (see Comment on 1:19); Moses and the elders are to call him \u201cYahweh, our God.\u201d This contrast is a skillful anticipation of the dramatic contrast between the respective situations of the Egyptians and the Israelites during the sequence of Yahweh\u2019s mighty acts and the Pharaoh\u2019s progressively changed attitude towards Yahweh. In this speech, the first reference is made to a journey of three days\u2019 distance for the purpose of sacrifice to Yahweh. The reference is not of course to Horeb\/Sinai nor to any other appointed place; possibly, only a general destination beyond the border of the delta region is intended (see Comment on 13:17\u201314:4).
\n19\u201320 The first reference to the proof of Yahweh\u2019s Presence in Egypt is made in vv 19\u201320, in which Yahweh reports that he knows even as he commands Moses and the elders to ask the Pharaoh\u2019s permission to make a religious journey that such a request will be denied. The Pharaoh will have no thought of granting such a wish and could not even be forced to do so by any power men could muster. Thus will Yahweh bring his power into action and will strike (\u05e0\u05db\u05d4 as in 2:12, 13) Egypt with a series of extraordinary deeds. The term \u05e0\u05b4\u05e4\u05b0\u05dc\u05b8\u05d0\u05d5\u05b9\u05ea \u201cextraordinary deeds\u201d is a key word in the theological rhetoric of the proof of Yahweh\u2019s Presence (note its use in Ps 111:4, cited above). This will be done, moreover, not in territory identified with Yahweh, but \u05d1\u05b0\u05bc\u05e7\u05b4\u05e8\u05b0\u05d1\u05bc\u05d5\u05b9 \u201cin its midst,\u201d in Egypt\u2019s \u201cown backyard.\u201d And the result of this display of power will be not just the desired permission; the Pharaoh will \u201churl\u201d or \u201cdrive\u201d (piel \u05e9\u05c1\u05dc\u05d7) them out in his eagerness to be rid of them and their God. It is a marvelous summary of the whole \u201cplague\u201d sequence.
\n21\u201322 Finally in this anticipatory section, the theme of the plundering of the Egyptians is introduced. It also functions as a description of Yahweh\u2019s triumph over Egypt and everything Egyptian, and it has been appended here by the compiler of this narrative, admittedly in a somewhat awkward manner (Fohrer, \u00dcberlieferung, 29\u201330, 82; Coats, VT 18 [1968] 450\u2013451), to complete the introduction of major themes related to the proof of Yahweh\u2019s Presence. Like the other themes on this subject, it is treated more fully at the appropriate spot in the narrative sequence (11:2\u20133 and 12:35\u201336). To have omitted it here would have meant a break in an otherwise consistent pattern.
\nExplanation
\nJust as the amalgam of 3:1\u201312 presents the related narratives of theophany and call, so the amalgam of 3:13\u201322 presents the related narratives on the revelation of the special name of God and the explanation, with illustrations, of the meaning of that name. These two sections, along with 4:1\u201317, constitute a unit on Moses\u2019 experience of theophany, call, and commission, to which yet another unit on the same subject has been added to the narrative of Exodus at a later point (6:2\u20137:7). Vv 1\u201312 record God\u2019s advent and call, and they close with the promise to Moses of God\u2019s Presence. Vv 13\u201322 follow the direction of this introduction and stress the truth of this promise in the most fundamental way, by tying it to the unique and special name of God, Yahweh.
\nThis name is not given until it has been explained, in a logical response to the question Moses asks (albeit on behalf of the sons of Israel in Egypt). The question raises the issue of authority. The reply asserts that authority in terms of an active Presence, \u201cIs-ing.\u201d The name Yahweh, in effect the equivalent of that reply, is then given.
\nThis name is twice stated to be the equivalent of \u201cGod of the Fathers,\u201d guaranteeing a continuity of the most ancient religious traditions of the sons of Israel. And then the authority upon which the promise of Presence has been made, explained in the repeated use of the verb \u05d0\u05b6\u05d4\u05b0\u05d9\u05b6\u05d4 \u201cI AM\u201d and symbolized, even made present and real by the name \u201cYahweh,\u201d is illustrated by the introduction of the themes that will provide in the narrative to come the proof of Yahweh\u2019s active Presence. These themes are (1) the request for permission to worship; (2) confrontation with Pharaoh; (3) the series of extraordinary deeds in Egypt, the unlikeliest of places for such deeds by a \u201cforeign\u201d God; (4) the plundering of a marvelously gullible Egyptian populace; and (5) the sum of them all, the exodus itself.
\nWith the name \u201cYahweh\u201d revealed and explained and with the proof of this explanation illustrated, at least in prospect, Moses can have no further question about God\u2019s authority. The narrative deals next with Moses\u2019 own authority, and how that is to be made clear.
\nThe Signs of Moses\u2019 Authority (4:1\u20139)
\nBibliography
\nGross, H. \u201cDer Glaube an Mose nach Exodus (4.14.19),\u201d Wort-Gebot-Glaube. Ed. J. J. Stamm, E. Jenni, H. J. Stoebe. ATANT 59. Z\u00fcrich: Zwingli Verlag, 1970. 57\u201365. Gunkel, H. Genesis, 7th ed. G\u00f6ttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1966. Hulse, E. V. \u201cThe Nature of Biblical \u2018Leprosy\u2019 and the Use of Alternative Medical Terms in Modern Translations of the Bible\u201d PEQ 107 (1975) 87\u2013105. Pfeiffer, E. \u201cGlaube im Alten Testament\u201d ZAW 71 (1959) 151\u201364. Sawyer, J. F. A. \u201cA Note on the Etymology of \u1e62\u0101ra\u02d3at.\u201d VT 26 (1976) 241\u201345.
\nTranslation
\n1 But Moses replied, saying, \u201cLook here, they won\u2019t trust me, and they won\u2019t pay attention to my report, for they will say, \u2018Yahweh has not appeared to you\u2019 \u201d 2 So Yahweh said to him, \u201cWhat is that in your hand?\u201d He responded, \u201cA staff.\u201d 3 Then Yahweh said, \u201cThrow it down onto the ground.\u201d He threw it down onto the ground, and it turned into a serpent! Moses ran away from it.
\n4 Then Yahweh said to Moses, \u201cReach out your hand and catch it by the tail.\u201d So he reached out his hand and snatched it, and it turned into a staff again, right in his palm! 5 \u201cOn this account, they will believe that Yahweh, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob has appeared to you.\u201d
\n6 Once more, Yahweh spoke to him: \u201cJust place your hand against your chest, inside your garment.\u201d He placed his hand against his chest, inside his garment, then withdrew it, and look!\u2014his hand, infected with a skin disease, was peeling and flaking! 7 When Yahweh said, \u201cReturn your hand to your chest, inside your garment,\u201d he did so, then withdrew it, and look!\u2014it was healthy again, as the rest of his flesh.
\n8 \u201cIf it happens that they will not trust you, and be convinced by the evidence of the first sign, they may trust the evidence of the following sign. 9 If it happens that they have no trust in either of these two signs and they will not be convinced by your report, then dip up some water from the Nile and pour it onto the dry earth: the water that you dip up from the Nile will turn into blood on the dry earth.\u201d
\nNotes
\n1.a. LXX has \u1f41 \u03b8\u03b5\u03cc\u03c2 \u201cGod\u201d instead of \u039a\u03cd\u03c1\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2 \u201cLord\u201d = \u201cYahweh,\u201d and adds \u201cwhat am I to say to them?\u201d at the end of this sentence.
\n2.a. \u05de\u05b7\u05d8\u05b6\u05d4 \u201cstaff\u201d comes from \u05e0\u05d8\u05d4 \u201cstretch out, extend,\u201d and can even mean a tree limb or other stick used as a walking staff and shepherd\u2019s tool.
\n3.a. MT reads simply \u201che.\u201d As the reference is clearly to Yahweh, this name is added for clarity.
\n3.b. \u05d5\u05b7\u05d9\u05b0\u05d4\u05b4\u05d9, \u201cand it was, became.\u201d
\n4.a. The verb is qal of \u05d0\u05d7\u05d6 \u201ctake hold of, grasp, take possession of\u201d (cf. 2 Sam 6:6, in reference to Uzzah \u201ccatching\u201d the unsteady ark, or 1 Kgs 6:6 and 10, in reference to timbers \u201ccatching hold,\u201d that is, being supported by a wall.
\n4.b. The verb is hiph of \u05d7\u05d6\u05e7 \u201cseize violently, snatch, grab cautiously\u201d (cf. 1 Sam 17:35, in reference to David grabbing a bear or a lion \u201cby his whiskers\u201d [probably = \u201chis bottom jaw\u201d], or Deut 22:25, in reference to an attacker seizing a young woman).
\n4.c. See n. 3.b.
\n5.a. \u05dc\u05de\u05e2\u05df here is the equivalent of \u201cin the face of such evidence.\u201d
\n5.b. \u201cYahweh\u201d is not in LXX.
\n6.a. Special waw with the verb, plus \u05e2\u05d5\u05b9\u05d3 \u201cagain, still.\u201d
\n6.b. \u05d4\u05b8\u05d1\u05b5\u05d0\u05be\u05e0\u05b8\u05d0 hiph \u05d1\u05d5\u05d0 \u201cbring in, bring near, put\u201d + particle of entreaty \u05e0\u05b8\u05d0 \u201cplease\u201d: \u201cDo bring near\u201d or \u201cNow put.\u201d
\n6.c. \u05d7\u05d9\u05e7 lit. means \u201cbosom,\u201d but with the connotation of an emotion in one\u2019s breast or an object against one\u2019s chest, inside and hidden by the folds of a garment.
\n6.d. \u05e6\u05e8\u05e2\u05ea (the form in this verse is \u05de\u05b0\u05e6\u05b9\u05e8\u05b7\u05e2\u05b7\u05ea, a pual ptcp of \u05e6\u05e8\u05e2 has generally been translated \u201cleprosy,\u201d but the symptoms described in Lev 13 and 14 do not fit Hansen\u2019s disease, the leprosy of our day. \u05e6\u05e8\u05e2\u05ea appears rather to have been a general term, descriptive of a variety of skin diseases and disorders. See Sawyer, VT 26 (1976) 245. LXX omits.
\n6.e. MT reads \u05db\u05b7\u05bc\u05e9\u05b8\u05bc\u05c1\u05dc\u05b6\u05d2, lit., \u201cas the snow,\u201d to which most translators add \u201cwhite.\u201d Hulse (PEQ 107 [1975] 92\u201393, 103) has shown, however, that the comparison with snow refers not to whiteness, which is after all not mentioned in this text (as, for example, in Isa 1:18), but to the flaking of peeling skin, as with psoriasis and related skin diseases.
\n7.a. See n. 3.a.
\n7.b. The phrase \u201cyour [his] hand to your [his] chest, inside your [his] garment\u201d is repeated, in full, three times in this verse, twice with \u201creturn,\u201d once with \u201cwithdraw.\u201d The second and third occurrences are compressed above to \u201che did so, then withdrew it,\u201d though it should be noted that the almost tedious repetition would add to the drama and suspense of the \u201csign.\u201d
\n8.a. \u05d5\u05b0\u05d4\u05b8\u05d9\u05b8\u05d4 \u05d0\u05b4\u05dd\u05be\u05dc\u05b9\u05d0, lit., \u201cand it is, if not.\u201d
\n8.b. The verb is hiph of \u05d0\u05de\u05d5 \u201cbelieve, trust.\u201d I have translated the same verb \u201cbelieve\u201d in v 5; it occurs once in v 1, three times in vv 8, 9. On the meaning of this verb followed by \u05dc\u05b0 as in vv 1, 8, 9 here, see Pfeiffer, ZAW 71 (1959) 153\u201356.
\n8.c. Lit., \u201cif they will not hear the voice of the first sign.\u2026\u201d
\n9.a. See n. 3.b.
\nForm\/Structure\/Setting
\nThese verses are generally attributed to the Yahwist (though Fohrer, \u00dcberlieferung, 29\u201330, assigns them to his Nomadic source) and regarded as coming from a single hand. There is little reason to doubt that they are a unity, at least, but the section they comprise can only be understood in relation to the larger sequence of which it is an integral part.
\nAs theophany and call (3:1\u201312) have been followed by assertion and illustration of God\u2019s authority (3:13\u201322), so now the compiler addresses the question of Moses\u2019 authority and how that authority is to be made credible. When Moses disavowed his own adequacy for the task to which God was calling him (3:11), God promised to be present with him (3:12). Then Moses logically asked what that Presence would mean (3:13), and God explained, giving him the special name symbolizing that explanation with its every pronunciation (3:14), and relating the new name to the earlier designation, the God of the Fathers (3:15).
\nNext God commanded Moses to get on with his task (3:16\u201317), assuring him that the leaders of the Israelites would hear him out (3:18), and even sketching out the sequence of events that would then unfold (3:19\u201322) by which the divine authority and Presence would be further established. It is this assurance, mentioned so briefly at the beginning of 3:18 and so easily passed by, that becomes the formative point of departure for the first section of chap. 4. God said, \u201cThey will listen to your report\u201d (3:18a), and then proceeded to give his explanation and his illustrations. As if to shut out all this proof, Moses seizes upon the assurance and doubts it entirely: \u201cLook here, they won\u2019t believe me [or trust me], and they won\u2019t pay attention [listen] to my report!\u201d (4:1ab).
\nWith that startling denial of an assertion God himself has made, the frame of this section is set. God must show Moses that the elders will hear him, and why. And this he proceeds to do by the introduction of three signs, intended to convince any skeptic, including of course even Moses himself, who is presented here as the first of the skeptics.
\nThe point of this section is Moses\u2019 authority, and its form is dictated by the gathering of the signs of that authority, as an answer to Moses\u2019 protest that he will not be believed.
\nComment
\n1 The hiphil of \u05d0\u05de\u05df \u201ctrust,\u201d which occurs five times in this section (vv 1, 5, 8, 9), is a key to the issue posed by the section. As Weiser (\u201c\u03c0\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03b5\u03cd\u03c9,\u201d TDNT 6:186\u201390) has shown, it involves more than mere acceptance of fact and includes overtones of confidence built on relationship (cf. also Pfeiffer, ZAW 71 [1959] 162\u201364). What Moses must report to the Israelites in Egypt will have to be accepted or rejected by them on subjective grounds, as they obviously will have had no opportunity to share or even to verify the experiences of theophany and commission Moses will describe to them. Their belief of his report must therefore be based on trust, on a confidence in the reporter which gains acceptance for his report. Such a trust, Moses objects, they will not have. His status with his own people was questionable to begin with (see Comment on 3:11\u201312). A fugitive with a clouded reputation, he had left Egypt under sentence of death, and he had been away for a long time. How could they trust him? Thus how could they believe him?
\nThe answer to these questions, of course, is a negative one. Incredible reports based solely upon the claims of men are not to be accepted. Indeed, hiphil occurrences of \u05d0\u05de\u05df \u201ctrust\u201d which do not in some way involve God are generally negative and are set in a context of skepticism (cf. Jepsen, TDOT 1:300\u2013303). This is exactly the point of this sequence on the authority of Moses\u2019 claims. Moses has a strong argument. The people will not believe him, for they have no basis for trusting him.
\n2 Even Yahweh acknowledges the validity of Moses\u2019 claim, for he provides Moses with three signs of authority, each of them a divinely empowered wonder. And so the point is made: it is not by any authority of Moses that what is taking place will be made effective, but through the authority of God himself, an authority that Moses merely reports and represents. The real hero of this call and commission is not Moses, but God. And the trust that will produce belief must be placed not in Moses, but in God. Moses is but the medium of the message (though compare Gross, Wort-Gebot-Glaube, 57\u201365, for the interesting theory of a \u201cdouble-predication: \u2018Servant-God\u2019 \u201d).
\n3\u20134 The first authenticating sign, the staff changed into a serpent, is a variation of the ancient staff-and-serpent symbolism most widely known to us in the Aesculapian insignia, on which the serpent twines around the staff. Quite widely in the ANE, the serpent was a symbol of special wisdom, fertility, and healing. In Egypt in particular, serpents were worshipped. This latter point is worth noting in view of the fact that this sign occurs in the OT only in connection with the exodus from Egypt.
\nThe word used for serpent is \u05e0\u05b8\u05d7\u05b8\u05e9\u05c1 (though compare the different usage of 7:9), which Bodenheimer (\u201cSerpent,\u201d IDB 4:289) says was a general term applied to all serpents, all of which were probably considered poisonous and therefore dangerous. Moses certainly considered the staff-become-serpent menacing, since he fled from it. Indeed, the narrator has delightfully suggested Moses\u2019 fear by his use of verbs in v 4: Yahweh tells Moses to \u201ctake hold of\u201d the snake\u2019s tail with his hand, a hold which leaves him almost completely vulnerable to the snake\u2019s fangs. Moses, with understandable apprehension, does what most of us would do under such circumstances: instead of \u201ctaking hold of\u201d the serpent\u2019s tail, he \u201csnatched at it,\u201d \u201cgrabbed it cautiously,\u201d and no doubt with gritting teeth. Without being directly mentioned at all, the relief of Moses when the snake became a staff again is made almost palpable by this clever use of verbs.
\n5\u20137 This sign alone, says Yahweh, will bring the Israelites to a trusting belief in the report of Moses. But without rejoinder from Moses, Yahweh moves immediately to the second sign, the sign of the hand instantly diseased and instantly healed. Unlike the sign of the staff, which is repeated by Moses and Aaron before Pharaoh and his court (7:8\u201313), this sign does not turn up again in the narrative of the Book of Exodus. A variation of it appears in Num 12:9\u201315, where Miriam is punished by Yahweh for rebelling, along with Aaron, against the authority of Moses, and that reference may explain the omission of this sign from the narratives of Moses\u2019 experience with the elders and with Pharaoh.
\nThe diseases of the skin designated by the general term \u05e6\u05e8\u05e2\u05ea are closely connected in the OT with the judgment-touching of Yahweh (see the \u201cTorah on \u05e6\u05e8\u05e2\u05ea,\u201d Lev 13 and 14; 2 Kgs 5:19\u201327; 15:4\u20135; 2 Chr 26:16\u201321). While Moses\u2019 experience here appears to be only a sign, though perhaps with overtones of judgment for disbelief and continued resistance, Miriam\u2019s infection in Num 12 (see Hulse, PEQ 107 [1975] 93), both much more extensive and longer lasting, is clearly a judgment of Yahweh. That narrative and the general association of \u05e6\u05e8\u05e2\u05ea \u201cskin disease\u201d with divine judgment may have eliminated an account of the infection of Moses, even as a sign, in the presence of Pharaoh and his court, particularly as Moses came more and more to be revered as the hero of early Israelite faith.
\nIt is this religious connotation of the \u05e6\u05e8\u05e2\u05ea skin disorders, and the fact that they and the opprobrium of judgment they carried were potentially infectious upon the slightest, even secondary, tactile contact, that made them so fearful. The infected person was pronounced unclean (\u05d8\u05de\u05d0), and his uncleanness was considered so contagious that he was required to identify himself by dress and by cry and to dwell in seclusion (Lev 13:45\u201346). Anyone reading the account of this second sign would be horrified not only at the thought of the great Moses being so afflicted, but would shudder once at the thought of his infected hand and twice at the command that such a hand should be placed against the unprotected chest inside one\u2019s garments. Again, the sense of relief, this time at the report of Moses\u2019 hand being restored to health, would be palpable.
\n8\u20139 But Yahweh has yet a third authenticating sign to present. Allowing for the possibility that the first and then even the second of the signs may be inadequate, Yahweh gives instructions for a sign which will turn out to be the first of the ten mighty acts, the changing of water from the River Nile into blood. Of the three signs given to Moses, this one remains unperformed as a sign of Moses\u2019 authority. It is presented here as a sign upon which Moses can depend if the first two signs do not convince Moses\u2019 audience in Egypt, named in 3:15, though not in chap. 4, as \u201cthe sons of Israel.\u201d
\nThe word \u05d0\u05d5\u05b9\u05ea \u201csign\u201d refers in theological contexts to something resulting from an act of God and designed to demonstrate far more than the effect or phenomenon produced by the \u201csign\u201d itself (see Gunkel, Genesis, 150, on the \u201csign\u201d of the rainbow, Gen 9:12\u201317). The word is often used in connection with the exodus, and in particular in reference to the so-called \u201cplagues,\u201d which are more accurately called \u201cproving acts.\u201d
\nThe purpose of the first two signs, which are performed first for Moses\u2019 own benefit, is to establish Moses\u2019 credibility as God\u2019s messenger and deliverer. They are what Helfmeyer (\u201c\u05d0\u05d5\u05b9\u05ea\u201d, TDOT 1:176\u201379, 183\u201385) has called \u201cfaith signs,\u201d signs designed to \u201cestablish\u201d Moses\u2019 \u201clegitimacy\u2019 as one sent from God\u201d and to \u201cguarantee the reliability of the message with which he is sent to the Israelites\u201d (171). But they are more, still: these two signs lead to the third, not performed here, and not specifically called a \u201csign\u201d in Exod 4. That sign, like the two that precede it here and the nine that are to follow it in Egypt, is to a single end: the proof of the powerful Presence of God.
\nExplanation
\nWith God\u2019s authority having been explained to Moses in 3:13\u201322, the theme of Moses\u2019 authority and how it is to be symbolized is broached in this section. But the real subject is still God\u2019s authority. For what Moses is able to do, he is enabled to do by God. The staff is Moses\u2019 staff, but what happens to the staff is clearly from Yahweh. The hand is Moses\u2019 hand, but what happens to that hand is also clearly from Yahweh. The water in the River Nile, which Yahweh will use to his purpose, also belongs to Yahweh, and what happens to it is the work of his power.
\nFollowing closely upon the account of Yahweh\u2019s theophany and call, and the revelation of God\u2019s special name and the explanation and illustration of its meaning, there comes this section introducing virtually the whole of the remaining narrative of the Book of Exodus. Israel must believe Moses as Moses must believe Yahweh. As Moses is to be the medium of the message to Israel, so Israel is to be the medium of the message to the world (19:4\u20136). And the message? It is that God Is, and so is actively present in a world that belongs to him.
\nMoses\u2019 protest that the Israelites will not believe is a summary of one side of the remaining narrative of Exodus. The other side is summarized by Yahweh\u2019s signs, established to make sure that Israel will believe. From this point forward, every line of the narrative of the Book of Exodus is in one way or another a development of these two sides, which are held in a marvelous tension, right to the narrative\u2019s very end. The doubt\/fear\/rebellion of Moses\/the Pharaoh\/the Egyptians\/Israel becomes the occasion for Yahweh\u2019s proving\/redeeming\/judging\/forgiving action. And the reality of his Presence is established again and again.
\nThe Mouth of Moses (4:10\u201317)
\nBibliography
\nAnderson, B. W. \u201cTranslator\u2019s Supplement: Analytical Outline of the Pentateuch,\u201d in M. Noth, A History of Pentateuchal Traditions. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1972. 261\u201376. Beegle, D. M. Moses, the Servant of Yahweh. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1972. Cody, A. A History of the Old Testament Priesthood. AnBib 35. Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1969. Habel, N. \u201cThe Form and Significance of the Call Narratives.\u201d ZAW 77 (1965) 297\u2013323. Lachs, S. T. \u201cExodus IV 11: Evidence for an Emendation.\u201d VT 26 (1976) 249\u201350. North, F. S. \u201cAaron\u2019s Rise in Prestige.\u201d ZAW 66 (1954) 191\u201399. Noth, M. Die Israelitischen Personnennamen in Rahmen der gemeinsemitischen Namengebung. BWANT III, 10. Stuttgart: Verlag W. Kohlhammer, 1928. Porter, J. R. Moses and Monarchy. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1963. Speier, S. \u201c\u05e4\u05e7\u05d7 Ex. IV 11.\u201d VT 10 (1960) 347. Westhal, G. \u201cAaron und die Aaroniden.\u201d ZAW 26 (1906) 201\u201330. Widengren, G. \u201cWhat Do We Know About Moses?\u201d Proclamation and Presence. New corr. ed. John I. Durham and J. R. Porter. Macon: Mercer University Press, 1983. 21\u201347.
\nTranslation
\n10 Yet Moses said to Yahweh, \u201cPardon, Lord, I am no man of words\u2014I never have been, nor have I become so, in spite of all you have said to your servant\u2014for I am heavy of lip and thick of tongue.\u201d 11 So Yahweh said to him, \u201cWho put a mouth on a man? Who makes him mute or deaf or able to see or blind? Is it not I, Yahweh? 12 Now get going, and I AM with your mouth, and I will instruct you as to what you must speak.\u201d 13 Thus Moses then said, \u201cPardon, Lord; please send anybody you want to send.\u201d
\n14 Then Yahweh was vexed with Moses, and so he said, \u201cIs there not Aaron, your brother, the Levite? I know that he is an eloquent speaker\u2014and look! Here he is, coming out to meet you, and he will be delighted to see you. 15 You will speak to him, and put the words into his mouth. And I AM with your mouth and with his mouth, and I will instruct you both as to what you are to do. 16 He will speak in your behalf to the people, and so it will work out that he will be as a mouth to you, and you will be as a god to him.
\n17 \u201cThis staff you will hold firmly in your hand, and with it you shall do the signs.\u201d
\nNotes
\n10.a. \u05d1\u05d9 \u05d0\u05d3\u05e0\u05d9 \u201cPardon, Lord.\u201d Vg omits \u201cto Yahweh\u201d and reads simply ait Moyses: obsecro Domine \u201cMoses said, \u2018I pray, Lord\u2019.\u201d LXX has \u039a\u03cd\u03c1\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2 \u201cLord\u201d in both places.
\n10.b. There is here an important threefold repetition of \u05d2\u05dd which following the negative \u05dc\u05d0 means \u201cneither\/nor\u201d; lit., \u201cneither from yesterday (= heretofore) nor from day before yesterday (= the recent past) nor from now (= the present).\u201d
\n11.a. Lit., \u201crender, set.\u201d The verb is \u05e9\u05c2\u05d5\u05dd\/\u05e9\u05c2\u05d9\u05dd as in Yahweh\u2019s first question.
\n11.b. LXX and minuscule codices have \u201cI God.\u201d Some other LXX mss read \u201cI Yahweh (\u039a\u03cd\u03c1\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2) God.\u201d
\n12.a. The usage is emphatic: \u05d0\u05e0\u05db\u05d9 \u201cI\u201d in addition to the first common singular verb.
\n12.b. Piel \u05d3\u05d1\u05e8 \u201cspeak,\u201d without the frequent \u05d0\u05de\u05e8 \u201csay\u201d clause following, and following hiph \u05d9\u05e8\u05d4 \u201cinstruct,\u201d taken here as a true intensive.
\n13.a. Lit., \u201che said.\u201d \u201cMoses\u201d is added for clarity.
\n13.b. Lit., \u201csend, please, by a hand you will send.\u201d
\n14.a. The name \u201cAaron\u201d apparently has no Heb. meaning (Widengren, Proclamation and Presence, 31). It seems to be a foreign name, perhaps Egyptian in derivation (Noth, Personennamen, 63).
\n15.a. See n. 12.a.
\n15.b. The verb, \u05e2\u05e9\u05c2\u05d4 \u201cdo, make,\u201d has a \u201cparagogic\u201d or emphatic \u05df (GKC 47m; cf. S. R. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text and the Topography of the Books of Samuel, 2d ed. [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913] 30\u201331), thus \u201care to do,\u201d in the sense of a specific command. Masora magna lists (Weil, 47\u201348, no. 396) 14 occurrences of this form of \u05e2\u05e9\u05c2\u05d4 in the OT, including one more in Exodus (20:23).
\n16.a. Emphatic usage, with independent pers pronoun plus the subj pronoun with the verb form.
\n16.b. \u05d5\u05b0\u05d4\u05b8\u05d9\u05b8\u05d4 \u201cand it will be, will come to pass.\u201d
\nForm\/Structure\/Setting
\nThis section is a somewhat uneasy composite dealing with a further protest by Moses of his inadequacy for the task to which God has called him. Since his first and general confession of inadequacy (3:11) has been answered by God\u2019s promise to be with him (3:12), and since his questions about both God\u2019s authority (3:13) and his own authority (4:1) have been fully answered (3:14\u201322; 4:2\u20139), Moses turns to a more specific personal complaint: he is a poor speaker (4:10).
\nThis complaint becomes for the redactor the basis for two answers from Yahweh, one which asserts again the promise of his equipping Presence (vv 11\u201312) and one which introduces Aaron as Moses\u2019 spokesman (vv 14\u201316). These two answers do not complement one another, though some translations attempt to link them by paraphrasing v 13 (rsv, Childs, 49). Then to confuse the sequence further, a kind of postscript (v 17) again mentioning the staff is added. This time, the staff is presented as the symbol of God\u2019s Presence with Moses, first of all in the hands of Aaron (7:8\u201312, 19\u201321, 8:1\u20132 [5\u20136]), then in the hands of Moses (9:22\u201326; 10:13\u201315; 14:15\u201318; 17:5\u20136).
\nThe assignment of these verses to the usual sources offers no help, since the absence of clear source-critical clues further confuses the issue. Beer (12) and Fohrer (\u00dcberlieferung, 124) assign these verses to E, for example, but Hyatt (71) and Anderson-Noth (Pentateuchal Traditions, 267) to J, except for v 17, which they give to E. Most commentators refer to the \u201csecondary\u201d nature of vv 13\u201316.
\nWhat we have in spite of all these difficulties is the form of the text as it has come to us, and in a purposeful order that must be considered a part of the implication of this section as it stands. Even though it is very likely that the Aaron verses represent a subsequent layer inserted into the narrative as a part of a much later pro-Aaron campaign, the sequence of the narrative as it stands is significant also.
\nThe oldest version of this protest of Moses may have ended with Moses\u2019 acquiescence following the additional strong reassertion of Yahweh\u2019s promise of Presence. Such an answer by Moses which recognizes also that Yahweh is at the center of all these events is suggested, at least, by v 13, and is hardly the surly or diffident reply it has been made out to be.
\nThe Aaron verses were perhaps added to this older material because they too provide a solution to Moses\u2019 further protest, and at that a similar kind of answer. Aaron is pointedly called not just Moses\u2019 brother, but the Levite (v 14)\u2014that is to say, he is both set apart for and is a symbol of Yahweh\u2019s real Presence. The emphasis here, as in vv 11\u201312, is upon Yahweh\u2019s being with Moses\u2019 mouth and Aaron\u2019s mouth. Indeed, the wording of vv 12 and 15 on this point is identical.
\nFinally, the postscript about the staff (v 17) may have been included both as a means of reasserting the authority of Moses granted by Yahweh\u2019s Presence and also as a glance forward to what is to come when this staff is wielded by both Moses and Aaron.
\nThus two apparently (and originally) different answers to one question are in the present composite spliced into what amounts to a single answer in two versions.
\nComment
\n10 Moses\u2019 protest that he is not a \u201cman of words\u201d is keyed both to what Yahweh has asked him to do and to the larger contexts of prophetic (Beegle, Moses, 76\u201380) and perhaps even royal (Porter, Moses and Monarchy, 8\u201311) symbolism. What Moses is to undertake involves above all a persuasive communication of what has happened to him and is about to happen to the sons of Israel, to the elders, the people, and to Pharaoh and the Egyptians. Moses claims inadequacy in speech, and his claim is wittily, perhaps even disrespectfully comprehensive: his condition, he says, is one of long standing, persistent right up to the moment of this confrontation with Yahweh, and still just as much in evidence. One almost has the impression that Moses is producing a last and best excuse, playing a trump card, pushing his argument as far as it will go. In effect, he says, \u201cYou are indeed all that you claim. But I am the same old Moses, \u2018heavy-lipped and thick-tongued.\u2019 \u201d Literally, Moses claims to have a heavy (\u05db\u05d1\u05d3) mouth and a heavy tongue.
\nThis claim of inadequacy is a recurring one in OT passages having to do with God\u2019s call and commission (cf., e.g., Judg 6:14\u201315; 1 Sam 10:20\u201324; 1 Kgs 3:5\u20139; Isa 6:5\u20138; Jer 1:4\u201310; see also Habel, ZAW 77 [1965] 316\u201323). Whatever its connection to prophetic and royal traditions of the word and the messenger, its more important rootage is in the OT pattern of the weak become strong, the least become great, the mean become mighty, the last become first (cf., e.g, Judg 6:11\u201324; 1 Sam 16:1\u201313; 17:19\u201354; Amos 7:14\u201315; Isa 6:1\u201313; Jer 1:4\u201319; and even Isa 52:13\u201353:12). This pattern is a metaphor of theological assertion in the Bible, and everywhere it occurs, its fundamental message is the same: God\u2019s word, God\u2019s rule, God\u2019s teaching, God\u2019s deliverance come not from man, no matter who that man may be, but from God. Even the election of Israel makes this point. Indeed that election is probably the most convincing of all the occurrences of the pattern.
\n11\u201312 Yahweh\u2019s answer to Moses\u2019 protest shows the protest to be not only invalid, but irrelevant. Once more (3:12, 14\u201315), Yahweh declares to Moses the promise of the Presence that makes all the difference: \u05e2\u05dd\u05be\u05e4\u05d9\u05d3 \u05d0\u05d4\u05d9\u05d4 \u201cI AM with your mouth.\u201d This same declaration is repeated in the Aaron-section (vv 14\u201316) with regard to both Moses\u2019 mouth and Aaron\u2019s mouth (v 15). Indeed, it is the important motif that makes the two answers to Moses\u2019 complaint one answer. What Moses and Aaron are to say and how they are to say it, in the accomplishment of Yahweh\u2019s purpose, will be to Yahweh\u2019s credit, not theirs. At the crucial moments he will be with them, working out his purpose.
\nThis underlying theme is, of course, the key to v 11. Yahweh has made the mouth of man, and Yahweh withholds or gives the ability to communicate. \u05d0\u05dc\u05dd \u201cmute\u201d literally means \u201ctongue-tied,\u201d that is, able to understand but not able to speak, which is what Moses is claiming about himself. With this condition deafness is compared, and parallel to this pair is set their visual counterpart, \u05e4\u05e7\u05d7 literally, \u201chaving open eyes\u201d (but perhaps not using them?), and the opposite, blindness (cf. Speier, VT 10 [1960] 347). There is thus no need to consider \u05e4\u05b4\u05bc\u05e7\u05b5\u05bc\u05d7\u05b7 \u201cseeing\u201d out of place in this sequence and in need of emendation (as, e.g., to \u05e4\u05b4\u05bc\u05e1\u05b5\u05bc\u05d7\u05b7 \u201clame\u201d; Lachs, VT 26 [1976] 249\u201350). The sequence is carefully designed, with Moses\u2019 protest as a point of departure, to declare yet again that Yahweh will be present with Moses and will see that both Moses\u2019 mouth and his own plan work properly.
\n13 Thus to Yahweh\u2019s repeated and emphatic assertion of Presence, \u201cI AM with (or I will take care of) your mouth,\u201d and his promise to teach or reveal to (hiphil of \u05d9\u05e8\u05d4) Moses what he is to speak, Moses replies with deferential resignation, \u201cSorry, Lord\u2014pray send whomever you want to send.\u201d This verse makes perfect sense as it stands if it is taken as a response to vv 11\u201312 instead of as a transition to vv 14\u201316, which supply a similar response, though one adding Aaron to the narrative. This addition is the contribution of a later hand, and its insertion here and elsewhere creates a variety of problems of sequence, not least of which is the problem of who owns and who wields the staff symbolizing God\u2019s power.
\n14\u201317 The difference in the role of Aaron in the narrative portions of the Book of Exodus and in the texts that are concerned primarily with cultic matters, in the Books of Leviticus and Numbers as well as Exodus, is well known and much studied (cf. Cody, OT Priesthood, 146\u201374). It has occasioned a series of theories, dealing with the triumph of an Aaronide priesthood over an earlier Zadokite priesthood (North, ZAW 66 [1954] 191\u201399); the early role of the Aaronides as the keepers of a calf-cult at Bethel (Mauch, \u201cAaron,\u201d IDB 1:1\u20132); the difference between a tribe of Levi and a levitical priesthood (Westphal, ZAW 26 [1906] 227\u201330); and even the \u201ctwo Aarons\u201d of the Bible, Aaron the \u201cco-leader\u201d and Aaron the preeminent priest (Rivkin, \u201cAaron, Aaronides,\u201d IDBSup, 1\u20133).
\nA theory generally accepted in most of this research concerning Aaron is that a wide recognition of Aaron as the priest par excellence came late in OT history, certainly after the Exile, but far enough ahead of the final formation of the books of the tetrateuch to permit the insertion of pro-Aaron material at selected appropriate points. The section at hand presents such a point, though one at which the role of Aaron is promoted not exclusively, but in association with and clearly secondary to that of Moses.
\nThus Aaron is presented as Moses\u2019 brother; he is expressly called \u05d4\u05dc\u05d5\u05d9 \u201cthe Levite\u201d in a manner suggesting more than mere tribal ancestry; and he is promised, as Moses is, Yahweh\u2019s Presence with his mouth and Yahweh\u2019s instruction as to what he is to speak. Even so, in order that Moses\u2019 own preeminence not be compromised, Aaron is put in a relationship to him clearly similar to the relationship Moses has to Yahweh: Moses will speak to Aaron, and put the message into his mouth; Yahweh will be with both mouths, instruct both servants; and Aaron\u2019s speaking will be for Moses\u2014he will function as Moses\u2019 mouth, and Moses will be as a god (or God: \u05dc\u05d0\u05dc\u05d4\u05d9\u05dd) to him. It is a remarkable struggle with the tension between the two figures, and one that leaves no doubt about Aaron\u2019s submission to Moses, just as the preceding paragraph leaves no doubt about Moses\u2019 submission to Yahweh.
\nThe resolution of the Moses-Aaron tension helped to locate this passage here instead of somewhere else, and made possible, perhaps even necessary, the assertion of Yahweh\u2019s Presence. The postscript about the staff, which may originally have come after what is now v 13, stands as an ambiguous conclusion to the expanded section, and is equally applicable to both Moses and Aaron as wielders of the staff symbolizing Yahweh\u2019s power.
\nExplanation
\nWhat this section comes finally to say to us about the mouth of Moses is that Yahweh who made it and who makes it work will be present with it and will instruct its speaking. Even when Aaron speaks as Moses\u2019 mouth, this will no less be so. Moses\u2019 specific reference to a particular weakness is beside the point, irrelevant to the subject.
\nThat subject is Yahweh and Yahweh\u2019s Presence. Moses\u2019 lack of eloquence, or for that matter, Aaron\u2019s abundance of it, are not the point. Yahweh, the \u201cI AM,\u201d is with Moses and with Moses\u2019 mouth, with Aaron\u2019s mouth, and he will also be with the sons of Israel in Egypt as with the Pharaoh and his people, to see his purpose brought to fulfillment.
\nThe mouth of Moses may well be heavy and clumsy, slow and halting in speech. It would not matter if it were dumb altogether, and Aaron\u2019s mouth, as well. Yahweh will be there, and Yahweh will take responsibility for both the message and the messengers. The staff in the hands of Moses and Aaron is a symbol of this powerful Presence.
\nThe Deliverer Goes to Egypt (4:18\u201331)
\nBibliography
\nAuerbach, E. Moses. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1975. Beltz, W. \u201cReligionsgeschichtliche Marginalie zu Ex. 4:24\u201326.\u201d ZAW 87 (1975) 209\u201311. Dumbrell, W. \u201cExodus 4:24\u201326: A Textual Re-examination\u201d HTR 65 (1972) 285\u201390. Durham, J. I \u05e9\u05b8\u05c1\u05dc\u05d5\u05b9\u05dd and the Presence of God\u201d Proclamation and Presence. New corr. ed. Ed. J. I Durham and J. R. Porter. Macon: Mercer University Press, 1983. 272\u201393. Gunkel, H. \u201c\u00dcber die Beschneidung im A. T.\u201d Archiv f\u00fcr Papyrusforschung II. 1 (1902) 13\u201321. Hehn, J. \u201cDer \u2018Blutsbr\u00e4utigam\u2019 Ex 4:24\u201326.\u201d ZAW 50 (1932) 1\u20138. Junker, H. \u201cDer Blutbr\u00e4utigam.\u201d Alttestamentliche Studien. BBB 1. Bonn: Peter Hanstein Verlag, 1950. 120\u201328. Kosmala, H. \u201cThe \u2018Bloody Husband.\u2019 \u201d VT 12 (1962) 14\u201328. Meyer, E. Die Israeliten und ihre Nachbarst\u00e4mme. Halle: Verlag von Max Niemeyer, 1906. Mitchell, T. C. \u201cThe Meaning of the Noun H\u0326TN in the Old Testament.\u201d VT 19 (1969) 93\u2013112. Morgenstern, J. \u201cThe \u2018Bloody Husband\u2019 (?) (Exod. 4:24\u201326) Once Again.\u201d HUCA 34 (1963) 35\u201370. Pedersen, J. \u201cPassahfest und Passahlegende.\u201d ZAW 52 (1934) 161\u201375. Rost, L. \u201cWeidewechsel und Altisraelitischer Festkalendar.\u201d ZDPV 66 (1943) 205\u201315. Sasson, J. M. \u201cCircumcision in the Ancient Near East.\u201d JBL 85 (1966) 473\u201376. Schmid, H. \u201cMose, Der Blutbr\u00e4utigam.\u201d Judaica 21 (1965) 113\u201318. Vermes, G. \u201cBaptism and Jewish Exegesis: New Light from Ancient Sources.\u201d NTS 4 (1958) 308\u201319. Vriezen, T. C. An Outline of Old Testament Theology. Boston: Charles T. Branford Co., 1958. Wellhausen, J. Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel. New York: Meridian Books, 1957.
\nTranslation
\n18 So Moses went back to Jethro, his father-in-law, and said to him, \u201cGive me leave to return, please, to my brethren who are in Egypt, that I may see if they are still alive.\u201d Jethro replied to Moses, \u201cGo, with my blessing!\u201d
\n19 Then Yahweh said to Moses in Midian, \u201cGet back to Egypt, for all the men who sought your life are dead.\u201d 20 Thus Moses took his wife and his sons and seated them upon the ass. And he returned to the land of Egypt. And Moses carried in his hand the staff of God. 21 So Yahweh said to Moses, \u201cWhen you go back to Egypt, take seriously all the wondrous deeds that I have given you power to do, and do them in the presence of Pharaoh. And I will make his heart obstinate, and he will not send out the people. 22 So you say to Pharaoh, \u2018Thus says Yahweh, \u201cMy son, my firstborn, is Israel; 23 and I say to you, send out my son, that he may worship me. Should you refuse to send him out, beware: I will kill your son, your firstborn!\u201d \u2019 \u201d
\n24 And it happened en route, at the lodging place, that Yahweh encountered him and sought to put him to death. 25 So Zipporah seized a flintknife and cut off the foreskin of her son and touched his genitals, saying as she did so, \u201cFor a bridegroom of blood you are to me!\u201d
\n26 Thus did he sink back from him. At that point, she said \u201ca bridegroom of blood,\u201d with reference to the circumcision.
\n27 ThenYahweh said to Aaron, \u201cGo to meet Moses in the direction of the wilderness.\u201d So he went and thus met him at the mountain of God, and he kissed him. 28 Moses reported to Aaron all the words of Yahweh that he had sent him, and all the signs that he had commanded him.
\n29 Next Moses went, and Aaron, and they brought together all the wise old leaders of the sons of Israel. 30 Then Aaron spoke all the words that Yahweh had spoken to Moses, and did the signs before the very eyes of the people, 31 So the people believed. And they understood that Yahweh had observed the sons of Israel, and that he had seen their humiliation. Thus did they bow down and worship.
\nNotes
\n18.a. MT has \u05d9\u05ea\u05e8 \u201cJether\u201d here, but the more usual \u05d9\u05ea\u05e8\u05d5 \u201cJethro\u201d later in this verse. \u201cJether\u201d occurs nowhere else, and seems to be a textual variation. LXX, SamPent, and Vg have the usual word for Jethro. See Comment on 2:16.
\n18.b. Lit., \u201cGo, with fulfillment.\u201d The word is \u05e9\u05c1\u05dc\u05d5\u05dd, which means \u201ccompletion, peace,\u201d in the sense of achieving God\u2019s purpose, and implies, in such contexts, the blessing of the Presence of God. See Durham, Proclamation and Presence, 277\u201393.
\n19.a. See Form\/Structure\/Setting on 2:16\u201322.
\n20.a. There is almost certainly a gap here, as both this sentence and the next appear to belong to separate contexts, and pose together a non sequitur.
\n21.a. Lit., \u201clook at,\u201d so \u201cconsider.\u201d The verb is \u05e8\u05d0\u05d4 (BDB, 907 \u00a7 7a).
\n21.b. \u05d4\u05de\u05d5\u05e4\u05ea\u05d9\u05dd \u201cportents, wonders,\u201d a stronger term than \u05d0\u05d5\u05b9\u05ea\u05d5\u05b9\u05ea \u201csigns.\u201d
\n21.c. This statement is not to be taken in an adversative, but a complementary sense. Both Moses and Yahweh have a part to play in the events to take place in Egypt, and their actions are interlocked, not in opposition. See Comment below.
\n23.a. LXX has \u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u03bb\u03b1\u03cc\u03bd \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u201cmy people\u201d instead of \u201cmy son.\u201d See MT at 5:1.
\n23.b. \u05d4\u05e0\u05d4 \u201cbehold, look out!\u201d
\n23.c. The reference to Pharaoh\u2019s son, his firstborn, is precisely (and deliberately) parallel to the reference to Israel as Yahweh\u2019s son, his firstborn.
\n24.a. \u05d5\u05b7\u05d9\u05b0\u05d4\u05b4\u05d9 lit., \u201cand so it was.\u201d
\n24.b. \u201cLodging-place\u201d is definite, probably in reference to a specific location, identified perhaps in the original setting of vv 24\u201326.
\n24.c. LXX reads \u1f04\u03b3\u03b3\u03b5\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2 \u03ba\u03c5\u03c1\u03af\u03bf\u03c5 \u201cangel of the Lord (= Yahweh)\u201d instead of \u201cYahweh,\u201d a reading followed by Tg. Onk. Aquila has \u1f41 \u03b8\u03b5\u03cc\u03c2 \u201cGod.\u201d
\n24.d. \u05e4\u05d2\u05e9\u05c1 \u201cencounter,\u201d a synonym of \u05e4\u05d2\u05e2 (see Exod 5:3), implies, as that verb does, a meeting or encounter of consequence.
\n25.a. The general assumption is that this 3d pers masc. pronoun and the one appended to the verb \u201cencountered\u201d have Moses as their antecedent, because of the context of the passage and the reference to Zipporah. Moses is nowhere named in vv 24\u201326, however, and the pronouns are ambiguous in view of the presence of a second male.
\n25.b. Lit., \u201cfeet,\u201d here used as a euphemism for the genitals, as in Isa 6:2; 7:20; Ezek 16:25, Deut 28:57.
\n25.c. LXX, taking \u201cfeet\u201d literally, has Zipporah falling in supplication \u03c0\u03c1\u1f78\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u1f7a \u03c0\u03cc\u03b4\u03b1\u03c2 \u201cat the feet\u201d (there is no \u201chis\u201d as in MT, though the context here and a similar usage in Esth 8:3 would suggest Yahweh\u2019s \u201cfeet\u201d), and then saying, \u1f1c\u03c3\u03c4\u03b7 \u03c4\u1f78 \u03b1\u1fd6\u03bc\u03b1 \u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2 \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03b9\u03c4\u03bf\u03bc\u1fc6\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03c0\u03b1\u03b9\u03b4\u03af\u03bf\u03c5 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u201cIt stands, the blood of my son\u2019s circumcision.\u201d See Kosmala, VT 12 (1962) 27\u201328.
\n26.a. SamPent reads \u05de\u05de\u05e0\u05d4 \u201cfrom her.\u201d
\n26.b. LXX repeats here the statement of Zipporah at the end of v 25, though LXX omits v 26 altogether.
\n27.a. Once again, a non sequitur. This verse would seem to fit better before v 14.
\n28.a. there is no need to introduce here an idea of words of commission, or to insert a \u201cwith which,\u201d as rsv does. The text says plainly what it means; the words Moses has are Yahweh\u2019s message, not his. See Comment on 4:11\u201312.
\n28.b. Syr, Tg. Ps.-J. add \u201cto do, perform,\u201d but to do so disrupts the balance of the statement and is in any case unnecessary.
\n29.a. SamPent, Syr. have a pl. verb.
\n31.a. On \u05d0\u05de\u05df \u201cbelieve\u201d see n. 4:8.b above. SamPent and Syr. read this verb as pl..
\n31.b. Lit., \u201cheard,\u201d \u05e9\u05c1\u05de\u05e2 here meaning \u201crealized.\u201d LXX reads \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f10\u03c7\u03ac\u03c1\u03b7 \u201cand were joyful.\u201d
\n31.c. \u05e4\u05e7\u05d3 \u201cvisit, attend to, inspect with care.\u201d Cf. 3:16.
\nForm\/Structure\/Setting
\nAs in the preceding section, so here too we are faced with a somewhat disjointed composite. It includes (1) what appears to be the beginning of a conclusion to Yahweh\u2019s command in v 12, one that stops short of the journey to Egypt (v 18); (2) yet another command by Yahweh that Moses return to Egypt, this time with information about conditions there, a brief report of the return, a repetition of some of the instructions given already, and further details about what Moses is to say to the Pharaoh, with a hint, at least, of what he can expect in return (vv 8:19\u201323); (3) a strange narrative of fearsome difficulty in the journey (vv 24\u201326); (4) a report of the wilderness rendezvous with Aaron (vv 27\u201328); and (5) an account of the arrival of Moses and Aaron in Egypt, with the first response of the sons of Israel to their report (vv 29\u201331).
\nThe general theme binding this somewhat wide range of material together is the return to Egypt of Moses the deliverer. That theme functions as a kind of nucleus around which a series of narratives, originally separate, has been loosely gathered. The allocation of these narratives to the tetrateuchal sources from which they may be assumed to have come offers little help for an understanding of the form or purpose of this sequence as it stands in the received text. To begin with, such an allocation is both difficult and tentative, as the widely variant opinions of the source critics indicate (for example: Beer [12] J1: 18b\u201326, 30b, 31a; J2: 18a, 29, 31b; E and E1: 27, 28, 30a; Hyatt [84\u201385] J: 19\u201320a, 22\u201326, 29\u201331; E: 18, 20b, 21, 27\u201328; Fohrer [\u00dcberlieferung 124] J: 18, 19, 31b; E: 20b\u201323, 27\u201328, 30a; N: 19\u201320a, 24\u201326, 30b\u201331a). Further, this kind of division of the text, though it may isolate discrepancies of sequence, fragments still more an already loose unity, and so winds up raising more questions than it answers. Whatever their context of origin, these narrative fragments have been brought together in one place, and the resultant sequence must claim our first consideration.
\nWhy have we such a sequence, in which the obvious is mixed with the strange, in which points made previously are made over again, and from which details we are curious to have are omitted altogether? For example: Did Moses\u2019 family accompany him to Egypt or not? Why did Yahweh \u201cattack\u201d Moses on that journey, and who touched whom where with what? Why is this kind of information left out, while other information is repeated? Given the nature of the biblical narrative as canonical scripture, we cannot assume any part of it, however obscure, to be in the text without purpose.
\nThe section at hand is best understood as a collection of narrative bits and pieces connected with Moses\u2019 return to Egypt. The compiler has brought these together in a transitional sequence, the primary purpose of which is first to move Moses from Sinai\/Horeb back to his home in Midian and then to the community of the Israelites in the Egyptian Delta. That sequence has been augmented by the repetition of details given already, the statement of new but related details, material connected with circumcision, and material connected with Aaron.
\nThe basic purpose of the section is to move Moses from Sinai to Egypt. And to that end, the compiler has brought together narrative fragments that can be connected somehow with that transition. It is possible that these fragments were all that he had and that their discontinuity dictates the form of their presentation. This is one of the loosest sequences in the entire Book of Exodus.
\nComment
\n18\u201319 Finally persuaded that he himself must return to Egypt to deliver Yahweh\u2019s message and present Yahweh\u2019s deeds of deliverance to Israel in bondage, Moses logically goes home to Jethro\u2019s camp, there to ask permission for the journey. Moses\u2019 coming to Jethro with this request is an important indication of his identification with his Midianite home. Moses\u2019 reference to his \u201cbrethren who are in Egypt\u201d is an important indication of his memory of his roots. And Moses\u2019 stated reason for going, \u201cthat I may see whether they are still alive,\u201d is a clue both to the passage of time and to the severity of the Egyptian oppression. In view of the narrative of chap. 18, it seems curious that Moses is not reported having shared with Jethro his real mission in Egypt and, for that matter, that Jethro is satisfied with such a general explanation for so undoubtedly hazardous a trip proposed so suddenly. We can only guess, again in view of 18:9\u201312, whether the blessing Jethro utters upon Moses and his journey suggests a fuller knowledge of Yahweh and his plan than the text of v 18 here suggests.
\nThe additional command of Yahweh to Moses to return to Egypt does not logically follow the meeting with Jethro, and it may well be a part of an original sequence of command and persuasion (cf. 3:10, 16\u201318; 4:8\u20139, 12, 15\u201317). It is justified here by the information that those who formerly sought Moses\u2019 life (because of his capital crime?) are now dead (cf. 2:15, 23).
\n20 The three statements of v 20 represent three entirely separate narrative strands, each of them connected with the return to Egypt, but each of them concerned with a separate aspect of that return: the care and location of Moses\u2019 family, the return itself, and the bringing to Egypt of the increasingly important \u201cstaff of God.\u201d
\nThe reference to Moses\u2019 placing his wife and sons upon an ass has frequently been taken, along with the statement of vv 24\u201326, as an indication that he took his family with him for a part of the journey to Egypt. As they are never mentioned in Egypt or at any point on the return trip to Sinai, and as they are clearly in Jethro\u2019s care when Moses returns to Midianite territory (18:2\u20136), this assumption has little support, none in fact beyond the statement of v 24. Only once in Exodus is a second son of Moses named (18:4; elsewhere in the OT only by the Chronicler: 1 Chr 23:15, 17), and in view of 2:22 and 4:25, the reference in v 20 to \u201csons\u201d may well be premature, a reflection of the later narrative of 18:2\u20134. The sentence in v 20, even in the light of vv 24\u201326, may imply no more than that Moses took leave of his wife and one son at the outset of his dangerous journey to Egypt.
\nThe return itself, as is indicated by a singular pronominal subject, involves Moses alone. This reference in v 20 is probably the most ancient statement of the return. In view of the ambiguity of v 29 and the apparent insertion of Aaron\u2019s name, it may be better to say that this is the only specific reference to the return itself.
\nThe staff, which began as Moses\u2019 tool of shepherdry (4:2), becomes in v 20 what it is to be for the remainder of the Book of Exodus, the staff of God. This reference to Moses carrying it \u201cin his hand\u201d to Egypt is an important linking of the \u201csigns\u201d at Sinai to the \u201csigns and wonders\u201d in Egypt, the greatest of which, of course, are the ten mighty acts, only anticipated in Yahweh\u2019s dialogue with Moses at Sinai.
\n21\u201323 This reference to the staff, though separate from what precedes and follows it, provides a point of departure for a section that deftly moves from the signs at Sinai to the wondrous deeds in Egypt and anticipates not only the need for them (proof of Yahweh\u2019s powerful Presence, called for by the Pharaoh\u2019s divinely induced obstinacy) but the last and most awesome of them.
\nMoses is told to take these \u201cwondrous deeds\u201d seriously, just as Yahweh clearly does. Heretofore called \u05d0\u05d5\u05ea\u05d5\u05ea \u201csigns\u201d (vv 8, 9, 17) and \u05e0\u05e4\u05dc\u05d0\u05d5\u05ea \u201cextraordinary deeds\u201d (3:20), these proving actions are now called \u05de\u05d5\u05e4\u05ea\u05d9\u05dd \u201cwondrous deeds\u201d for the first time (cf. 7:3, 9; 11:9, 10). Moses is then told, in a marvelous summary of both the purpose and range of the signs and the mighty acts, that Yahweh will be working through both him and the Pharaoh to establish irrevocably the powerful reality of his Presence. Through Moses, Yahweh will work the wondrous deeds in the very presence of Pharaoh. Through Pharaoh he will multiply the number of the deeds, prolong their sequence, and heighten their impact by postponing the moment of Pharaoh\u2019s unqualified belief (v 21). This statement anticipates what has frequently been called the \u201chardening of the heart\u201d motif, a dramatic device by which the mighty-act narratives of chaps. 7\u201312 are moved forward (see further Comment below).
\nThe proving deeds themselves are bracketed (1) by the reference to what Moses has been empowered to do before Pharaoh at the outset of the sequence (the signs, then the first of the so-called \u201cplagues,\u201d v 21); and (2) by the reference to what Yahweh will himself do to the Pharaoh at the close of the sequence (the death of the firstborn, v 23). In a brilliant pairing of the themes of Israel\u2019s election and the ultimate defeat of the Egyptian oppressors, Israel is declared to be Yahweh\u2019s own firstborn son (v 22), and Pharaoh\u2019s firstborn son is threatened with death, should Pharaoh be disobedient to Yahweh\u2019s request (v 23). Inserted between these two great themes, there is a glimmer of the exodus itself in the request that Yahweh\u2019s son be sent out, so that he might worship his divine father (v 23). Israel is lovingly called \u201cmy son, my firstborn,\u201d and the Pharaoh\u2019s son, in an exact parallel, is poignantly called \u201cyour son, your firstborn.\u201d
\nThe theory of Noth (Pentateuchal Traditions, 66\u201370)\u2014that the death of Egypt\u2019s firstborn, itself an outgrowth of Passover legendry, was the point of departure for the development of the \u201cplague\u201d narratives, a kind of \u201cfirst\u201d plague which remained, as the narratives grew, the last and most important of the plagues\u2014is neither proved nor disproved by v 23. The death of the firstborn is mentioned here because it is the final of the mighty acts, just as the \u201cwondrous deeds\u201d Moses is to perform are mentioned as the logical beginning of the entire sequence. Vv 22\u201323 are an ingeniously compact preview of election, exodus, and triumphant proof-of-Presence.
\n24\u201326 These verses are among the most difficult in the Book of Exodus, not in terms of their translation, which is quite straightforward, but in terms of their meaning and their location in this particular context. From ancient (see the review of Vermes, NTS 4 [1958] 309\u201318) to modern times (see the review of Morgenstern, HUCA 34 [1963] 35\u201346), a wide range of interpretations, both fanciful and plausible, has emerged. Some of these have involved the alteration of the text, without justification, to support a given interpretation. Others have imposed wildly improbable theories designed to explain the difficulties of the passage. Most of them have been aided and abetted by the ambiguity of subject and object in the section. Moses can only be assumed to be one of the actors, since he is never mentioned by name; and the antecedents of the subject and object pronouns are far from clear. The interpreter is further blocked by the problem of the meaning and application of the obscure phrase \u201cbridegroom of blood,\u201d which appears in both v 25 and v 26.
\nThus Moses is said to have had no part at all in this narrative (Kosmala, VT 12 [1962] 18\u201325, who thinks it a Midianite narrative; cf. Schmid, Judaica 21 [1965] 115\u201318) or at most only the part of \u201ca passive and helpless witness\u201d (Morgenstern, HUCA 34 [1963] 66\u201370, who thinks it \u201ca part of the Kenite Code\u201d). Zipporah is said (Meyer, Israeliten, 59; Gressmann, Mose und seine Zeit, 55\u201361) to have moved to avert (1) a fatal attack on Moses by a demon, later displaced by Yahweh, demanding the right of first intercourse with a virgin wife on the wedding night; or (2) an attack upon Gershom (Fohrer, \u00dcberlieferung 45\u201348, Cassuto, 59\u201361) because he had not been circumcised; or (3) even an attack upon Moses (Hyatt, 87) for the same reason. The passage is said to be the most ancient description of circumcision in the Bible (Beltz, ZAW 87 [1975] 209\u201310]; an etiology for circumcision (Beer, 39; Auerbach, Moses, 49); and a justification for the change of circumcision from a rite performed on adult males just before marriage to one performed on boys soon after birth (Gunkel, Archiv f\u00fcr Papyrusforschung 2\/1 [1902] 17\u201318) or even at puberty (Buber, Moses [Oxford: East and West Library, 1946], 56; Wellhausen, Prolegomena, 340\u201341). Vriezen (Outline, 155, n.5), following a suggestion of Beer (39), even thinks of the narrative as one in which Yahweh is not an enemy, but one who \u201cthwarts\u201d Moses to give him \u201chis means of grace (circumcision as a protective sign of the Covenant).\u201d Hehn (ZAW 50 [1932] 4\u20138) argued that the different reading of LXX in vv 25 and 26 arose from a different Hebrew Vorlage, and Junker (Studien, 122\u201328), that the LXX translator understood the Hebrew original differently on the basis of his view of the significance of circumcision; Dumbrell has contended (HTR 65 [1972] 288\u201390) that the LXX translator consciously altered a Hebrew original he found difficult, either for theological or linguistic reasons.
\nGiven the strangeness and ambiguity of these three verses, such differing and imaginative interpretations are likely to be multiplied, with even stranger and more ambiguous results. Yet what can be said of the passage as it stands in Exodus, and, just as important, where it stands in Exodus? To begin with, the main point of this brief narrative is clearly circumcision, and at that, a specific circumcision. Childs (100\u2013101) is quite correct to argue that the etiology of circumcision in Israel, often offered as the reason for the inclusion of this section, is not in view here. And whatever \u201cdemonic\u201d roots this narrative may once have had, if indeed there ever were such, are now completely absent. Yahweh is plainly named as the one who meets his male quarry with intentions the narrator viewed as deadly. One could wish this quarry had been as clearly indicated as is the attacker.
\nWhatever the narrative\u2019s origin and whatever its original context and its meaning in that context, these verses must be understood now in their present context. The editor who assembled the sequence of which they are nearly the middle component must have understood them as both adding to that sequence and as gaining specific clarity from it. That being so, it is hardly reasonable to claim that anyone except Moses is the object of Yahweh\u2019s encountering action. Moses is the center of Yahweh\u2019s concern everywhere else in the section, even in the intrusive verses involving Aaron. The sudden emergence to the forefront of Moses\u2019 son would make no sense whatever in such a sequence.
\nThe reason for this attack, as the redactor\u2019s explanatory note in v 26b makes clear, is that Moses had not previously been circumcised. The difficulty of such a conclusion for the later generations of Jewish scholars, who proved themselves capable of contending that Moses, along with other great OT heroes, was born circumcised (Vermes, NTS 4 [1958] 314\u201315), has made it difficult also for a great many Christian scholars. But no other explanation of this passage in this context answers more questions than it raises.
\nSasson (JBL 85 [1966] 473\u201374) has pointed out convincingly that Egyptian circumcision was not only performed on adults, but was, by comparison with Hebrew circumcision, merely a partial circumcision. Indeed, he contends (475\u201376) that circumcision may well have come to Egypt from North Syria, where it was practiced early in the third millenium b.c. For whatever reasons, the compiler who set vv 24\u201326 in their present context had apparently reached a conclusion confirmed by these facts. Perhaps he combined the abnormal circumstances by which the infant Moses had to be hidden away at birth with some knowledge of the Egyptian practice and even a belief that the circumcision of infant boys was a late development in Israel\u2019s life. Quite possibly, he too was searching for some reason for Yahweh\u2019s serious encounter. Whatever the case, he clearly believed that Moses was uncircumcised and that Yahweh determined to stop him en route to Egypt for that reason.
\nZipporah, the only person available to perform the rite, seizes the mandatory flint cutting tool (Josh 5:2\u20139; cf. Sasson, JBL 85 [1966] 474) and circumcises not Moses, who would have been temporarily incapacitated by the surgery (cf. Gen 34:18\u201331) at a crucial time when he could no longer delay his journey, but her son. For the child, who was not to make the journey to Egypt in any case, the effects of the circumcision would be less problematic. To transfer the effect of the rite, Zipporah touched the severed foreskin of her son to the genitals of Moses, intoning as she did so the ancient formula recalling circumcision as a premarital rite: \u201cFor a bridegroom of blood you are to me!\u201d This ancient phrase, as Mitchell [VT 19 [1969] 94\u2013105, 111\u201312) has demonstrated, is a phrase of marital relationship\u2014and it was already old enough at the time of the compilation of this sequence to require a specific comment by the redactor that the context of reference for the phrase was circumcision (v 26b). The final establishment of circumcision as the crucial point of these verses is of course that Zipporah\u2019s action worked and that Yahweh thus \u201cfell back\u201d or \u201cbacked off\u201d from Moses.
\nThe point at issue in vv 24\u201326 is thus that Moses had not been circumcised or, at best, had received only the partial circumcision of the Egyptians, referred to in Josh 5:9 as a \u201cdisgrace\u201d or \u201creproach\u201d (\u05d7\u05e8\u05e4\u05d4). A comparable memory for the compiler of this section may indeed have been the one recorded now in Josh 5:2\u20139, which reports the circumcision of all those born in the wilderness following the exodus who had not been circumcised and so had to be before the crossing of the Jordan for the conquest and settlement of the promised land.
\nAt the beginning of Moses\u2019 special mission for Yahweh, this omission, or perhaps this \u201cEgyptian disgrace,\u201d had to be remedied. Vv 24\u201326 pose the problem and describe its immediate and surely temporary remedy. The language of v 24, \u201csought to put him to death,\u201d may reflect an earlier layer of the story, but here it describes the seriousness of the crisis and indicates dramatically that Yahweh is still very much in charge. The language may be compared to the language of the account of the testing of Abraham\u2019s faith (Gen 22:2) or of the struggle of Jacob at Jabbok (Gen 32:22\u201332). Zipporah\u2019s reaction to the crisis is a vicarious circumcision of Moses to prevent his being painfully crippled at the beginning of the most important undertaking of his life. And what Zipporah says is the ritual statement which accompanied the premarital circumcision as a declaration to a young man\u2019s in-laws that he was of an age appropriate for marriage. The \u201cbridegroom of blood\u201d of circumcision was being prepared to become a bridegroom of a bride. Perhaps there was a similar ritual statement in the wedding ceremony. To the redactor who included this narrative in Exod 4, this ritual phrase was already arcane enough to require the explanation he appended at v 26b.
\n27\u201328 The instruction of Yahweh to Aaron would of course seem to fit the narrative sequence of the Book of Exodus better at an earlier point in chap. 4, before v 14, as would the account of the meeting of Moses and Aaron. The Aaron-references are intrusive to the Exodus narrative and are the work of one of the latest of the editorial hands. These verses are added here in the Moses-to-Egypt collection to make it also an Aaron-to-Egypt collection, one which makes Aaron party to both the words of Yahweh and the signs of his Presence, even though Aaron receives both the words and the report of the signs from Moses, who is clearly, after Yahweh, the primary figure.
\n29\u201330 The final section of this loosely knit sequence describes the first meeting of Moses (and the added Aaron) with both the leaders of Israel and the people themselves. Nothing is said of the trip from the wilderness of Midian to the delta of Egypt apart from the brief statement in v 20 that Moses made the journey. In view of what we have been told already, it is almost startling to discover Aaron not only speaking the words Moses has given him from Yahweh, but also performing the signs (\u05d0\u05d5\u05b9\u05ea\u05d5\u05b9\u05ea v 30). These statements, too, belong to the pro-Aaron insertions.
\n31 The conclusion to the \u201cDeliverer to Egypt\u201d section is a conclusion as well to the \u201ccredibility of Moses\u201d motif that threads through the whole of chap. 4 (vv 1, 5, 8\u20139, 15, 17, 21, 23) and a further amplification of the \u201cproof of Presence\u201d motif that was introduced in 3:19\u201320 and is to become the crucial center of the mighty-act narratives of chaps. 7\u201312. The people, whom Moses had declared would not believe, now believe (v 31). But their belief is based not on Moses, but upon Yahweh\u2019s words and Yahweh\u2019s signs, as it should be. This is made dramatically plain by Israel\u2019s reaction\u2014they understand Yahweh to have observed their plight sympathetically and to have learned of their oppression at first hand. Thus the people do not acclaim Moses (or Aaron), or celebrate his (their) presence. Neither Moses nor Aaron is even mentioned, for they should not be. Unlike their modern counterparts, who either worship or denigrate the messenger and idolize but ignore the message, the Israelites bowed down and worshiped neither the messengers nor the message, but Yahweh.
\nExplanation
\nThus at last Moses obeys the call and commission of Yahweh. The point of this collection of narrative threads concerning the deliverer\u2019s return to Egypt is precisely that obedience. Though they restate motifs introduced already and anticipate others yet to be introduced, and though they include some strange and ambiguous references, the overall impulse of these narrative bits and pieces is the return of Moses, and secondarily, of Aaron, to Egypt and the oppressive bondage of Israel there.
\nAfter the excitement and drama of the theophany of Yahweh, his call and commission of Moses, his revelation of his unique name, and the tension filled dialogue between Yahweh intent on his purpose and Moses afraid and reluctant to go, this account of Moses\u2019 obedience and the actual return to Egypt seems both anticlimactic and pallid. But we must not forget in our curiosity about the details of the story that this is first of all a theological account, and that all other considerations must remain secondary, if indeed they are included at all.
\nExod 4:18\u201331 is a transitional section, one designed to move the action of the theological account of the birth of Yahweh\u2019s people from one great arena, Sinai, to another, Egypt, in a declaratory preparation for the great act of deliverance that will bring the action back to Sinai again for its great climax. To accomplish this purpose, the compiler of this section has brought together every reference to the return to Egypt available to him, altogether at least seven of them, and then has described a first appearance of Moses before the elders and the people of Israel, a meeting that results in the people\u2019s belief in Yahweh\u2019s Presence with them and their worship of him.
\nThough the people are to have doubts again, doubts that can be removed only by signs and mighty acts and powerful words far beyond Moses\u2019 first presentation, their initial belief is a confirmation of Yahweh\u2019s prediction (vv 5, 8\u20139) over against all Moses\u2019 misgivings. V 31 thus constitutes a positive conclusion to the narrative of chaps. 3\u20134, just as vv 21\u201323 anticipate the doubts and the proofs that are yet to come. Above all, v 31 ends a sequence that began with Yahweh present with Moses by a report that the people to whom Moses had come believed, following his presentation to them, that Yahweh was present also with them. This belief led then, as it would later, to their worship.
\nThe First Confrontation with Pharaoh: Moses and Aaron (5:1\u201314)
\nBibliography
\nDaiches, S. \u201cThe Meaning of \u05e2\u05dd \u05d4\u05d0\u05e8\u05e5 in the Old Testament.\u201d JTS 30 (1929) 245\u201349. McCarthy, D. J. \u201cPlagues and Sea of Reeds: Exodus 5:1\u201314.\u201d JBL 85 (1966) 137\u201358. Nims, C. F. \u201cBricks without Straw?\u201d BA 13 (1950) 22\u201328. Rost, L. \u201cDie Bezeichnungen f\u00fcr Land und Volk im Alten Testament.\u201d Das Kleine Credo und Andere Studien Zum Alten Testament. Heidelberg: Quelle & Meyer, 1965. 76\u2013101. Vaux, R. de. Ancient Israel. London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1961. Westerman, C. Basic Forms of Prophetic Speech. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1967. Zeitlin, S. \u201cThe Am haarez.\u201d JQR 23 (1932) 45\u201361.
\nTranslation
\n1 After this, then, Moses and Aaron came and said to Pharaoh, \u201cThus says Yahweh, God of Israel, \u2018Send out my people, so that they may make a pilgrimage to me in the wilderness.\u2019 \u201d 2 But Pharaoh replied, \u201cWho is Yahweh, that I should pay attention to his voice, and so send out Israel? I have no knowledge of Yahweh, and Israel, I am not about to send out!\u201d 3 Thus did they respond, \u201cThe God of the Hebrews has come upon us unexpectedly\u2014please let us make a three-day journey into the wilderness, and offer sacrifice to Yahweh our God, that he might not send disaster upon us, by plague or by sword.\u201d
\n4 Then the king of Egypt said to them, \u201cWhy, Moses and Aaron, do you distractthe people from their work? Get on with your heavy duties!\u201d 5 Pharaoh further said, \u201cLook here, these peasants are now a horde, and you are causing them to neglect their heavy duties.\u201d
\n6 So Pharaoh that very day gave orders to the work-bosses over the people, and to their section-leaders as well, specifying: 7 \u201cYou are not to keep gathering straw to give to the people for brick-making as you have done up to now. They can go and gather straw for themselves. 8 And the quota of bricks which they have produced up to now you shall hold as a requirement over them\u2014you are not to reduce it, because they are loafing! Indeed they have pled, \u2018Let us go to sacrifice to our God.\u2019 9 Let the labor be heavy upon such men, and they will have their hands full, and perhaps they will not pay attention to false reports!\u201d
\n10 Thus the work-bosses of the people and their section-leaders went out and said to the people, \u201cThus says Pharaoh, \u2018I am through providing you straw, 11 You go get straw for yourselves, wherever you find it\u2014for your slave labor will not be lightened one bit!\u2019 \u201d 12 So the people scattered into the whole of the land of Egypt to gather wind-blown stubble for straw, 13 And the work-bosses pressed hard, saying, \u201cFinish your work on schedule, just as when the straw was in hand.\u201d 14 And the section leaders of the sons of Israel, set in authority over them by Pharaoh\u2019s work-bosses, were whipped and questioned, \u201cWhy have you not completed your assigned limit of brick-making, as you have done up until yesterday and today?\u201d
\nNotes
\n1.a. The verb \u05d7\u05d2\u05d2 emphasizes a religious journey to an appointed place more than it signifies a \u201cfeast.\u201d
\n2.a. LXX has \u1f10\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03bd \u201cis he\u201d instead of \u201cYahweh,\u201d though GA has \u03b8\u03b5\u03cc\u03c2 \u201cGod.\u201d
\n2.b. \u05d5\u05d2\u05dd \u201cand moreover.\u201d
\n3.a. \u05e7\u05e8\u05d0 \u201cencounter, befall\u201d; BDB (897) note: Niph. \u201cmeet unexpectedly.\u201d
\n3.b. LXX does not have Yahweh (\u03ba\u03cd\u03c1\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2).
\n3.c. \u05e4\u05d2\u05e2, lit., \u201cfall upon, encounter, assail.\u201d
\n4.a. \u05e4\u05e8\u05e2, hiph, \u201ccause to refrain\u201d; SamPent reads \u05e4\u05e8\u05d3 \u201cseparate,\u201d to mean \u201ckeep the people from their work.\u201d
\n4.b. \u05e1\u05d1\u05dc\u05d5\u05ea \u201cheavy duties\u201d; cf. Comment on 2:11.
\n5.a. \u05e2\u05dd \u05d4\u05d0\u05e8\u05e5 lit., \u201cthe people of the land\u201d (cf. de Vaux, (Ancient Israel, 71), \u201cthe common people\u201d).
\n5.b. SamPent reads \u201cLook here, they are of greater number than the people of the land.\u201d
\n5.c. The verb is hiph of \u05e9\u05c1\u05d1\u05ea \u201ccause to stop their work.\u201d
\n6.a. Qal active ptcp from \u05e0\u05d2\u05e9\u05c2 \u201cpress, drive, oppress.\u201d
\n6.b. \u05e9\u05c1\u05d8\u05e8 \u201corganizer, sub-official, minor authority.\u201d
\n7.a. \u05ea\u05b9\u05d0\u05e1\u05e4\u05d5\u05bc\u05da, generally translated as from \u05d9\u05e1\u05e3 \u201cadd to, increase,\u201d with inf following, as here, \u201cto do something again or more.\u201d The expected form would however be \u05ea\u05b9\u05e1\u05b4\u05d9\u05e4\u05d5\u05bc\u05da (so SamPent \u05ea\u05d5\u05e1\u05d9\u05e4\u05d5\u05da). The form in MT appears to be confused with \u05d0\u05e1\u05e3 \u201cgather, collect and bring, take away.\u201d The Masora Magna (Weil, 52, no. 430) lists four occurrences of \u05ea\u05b9\u05e1\u05b4\u05e4\u05d5\u05bc\u05da in the OT, only one of which, this one, is written with \u05d0. This \u05d0 is either a scribal slip, or the form should be taken as from \u05d0\u05e1\u05e3 and pointed \u05ea\u05b6\u05d0\u05b1\u05e1\u05b9\u05e4\u05d5\u05bc\u05da, qal impf. That reading has been followed in the translation above.
\n7.b. \u201cAs yesterday and the day before.\u201d
\n7.c. Emphasis indicated by the independent pers pronoun \u05d4\u05b5\u05dd plus the 3d pers pl. pronoun ending on the verbs.
\n8.a. \u201cYou shall place, set it upon them.\u201d
\n8.b. \u05e6\u05e2\u05e7 \u201ccry, call out (in distress),\u201d here in a participial form.
\n9.a. Lit., \u201cthe men.\u201d
\n9.b. \u05d5\u05d9\u05e2\u05e9\u05c2\u05d5\u05be\u05d1\u05d4 \u201cand they will do it,\u201d = \u201cbe busy with it.\u201d Several versions, including LXX and Syr., read this verb \u05d5\u05d9\u05e9\u05c1\u05e2\u05d5 from \u05e9\u05c1\u05e2\u05d4 \u201cregard, gaze with interest, pay attention to,\u201d the same as the final verb in this verse.
\n9.c. The negative particle is \u05d0\u05dc, \u201cdenying \u2026 not objectively as a fact (like \u05dc\u05d0, \u03bf\u1f50), but subjectively, as a wish (like \u03bc\u03ae),\u201d (BDB, 39). SamPent has \u05dc\u05d0 instead of \u05d0\u05dc.
\n10.a. LXX reads here as at the beginning of v 13, \u05d0\u05d5\u05e5 \u201cpress hard, rush.\u201d
\n12.a. Hiph \u05e4\u05d5\u05e5 \u201cscatter.\u201d There is no need to read this verb as a passive, as for example rsv does, BDB, 807.
\n12.b. Both the verb and the noun are derived from a root, \u05e7\u05e9\u05c1\u05e9\u05c1, which appears to signify \u201cdried-out chaff, worthless stubble, trash.\u201d
\n13.a. Lit., \u201cA day\u2019s thing in its day.\u201d
\n13.b. SamPent adds \u05e0\u05ea\u05df \u05dc\u05d1\u05e1 \u201cwas given to you.\u201d
\n14.a. The verb \u05db\u05bb\u05d4 \u201cwhip\u201d is that used in 2:11, 12, 13, to refer to the blows of an Egyptian, Moses, and a Hebrew; see Comment on 2:11\u201313.
\n14.b. The term here is \u05d7\u05e7 \u201csomething prescribed, assigned task,\u201d rather than \u05de\u05ea\u05db\u05e0\u05ea \u201cquota, measurement,\u201d as in v 8.
\n14.c. MT reads \u05db\u05ea\u05de\u05d5\u05dc \u05e9\u05dc\u05e9\u05dd \u05d2\u05dd\u05be\u05ea\u05de\u05d5\u05dc \u05d2\u05dd\u05be\u05d4\u05d9\u05d5\u05dd, lit. \u201cas yesterday and the day before, both yesterday and the day (= today).\u201d \u201cBoth yesterday\u201d is omitted by LXX, but SamPent has the full sequence.
\nForm\/Structure\/Setting
\nExod 5:1\u20136:1 deals by and large with a single subject, albeit from two perspectives. That subject is the confrontation between Israel in Egyptian bondage and the one Egyptian who exercises an ultimate control over that bondage, the Pharaoh of Egypt. The two perspectives are: (1) that of the interceding people, represented by Moses (and Aaron) and then their sectionleaders, and (2) that of the Pharaoh, who refuses to grant any concessions and uses his position of force ruthlessly.
\nSource-critics have generally assigned most of this chapter to the Yahwist, though a notable exception to this position is Fohrer (\u00dcberlieferung, 55\u201358, 124), who gives about a fourth of the verses to the Elohist, and lists vv 22\u201323 as from an early layer of tradition common to both J and E. There has been some speculation (e.g., Noth, 53) about the variant titles \u201cPharaoh\u201d (vv 1, 2, 5, 6, etc.) and \u201cthe king of Egypt\u201d (v 4), and some talk of doublets (so Hyatt, 89: v 3 = vv 1\u20132, v 5 = v 4; cf. Noth, 52\u201353), but it is clear that this chapter is for the most part a unity that extends through 6:1. It is also clear that the compositor of this sequence of verses has gone to some trouble to present a single narrative with rising tension, one that introduces (cf. McCarthy, JBL 85 [1966] 140\u201342) the great proof-of-Presence sequence of the ten mighty acts of Yahweh by getting things off to a difficult start.
\nMoses, accompanied by Aaron, delivers Yahweh\u2019s message (3:18) to Pharaoh with straightforward boldness (v 1). Well might he have expected, as do we, an immediate permission for Israel to make the requested pilgrimage. But not so\u2014the Pharaoh is blasphemously sarcastic in his refusal and moves immediately to make the position of the sons of Israel more difficult still. Moses is taken aback, so much so that he is lost in the shuffle of commands and counter-pleas that follow, and appears again only at the end of the sequence, and lamely, as unwilling or not permitted to confront the Pharaoh again and as the butt of the people\u2019s resentment at their newest difficulties. Only when he echoes to Yahweh their complaint to him do we receive the key to the form of this entire sequence. With a subtle change of the agent of Israel\u2019s difficulty (cf. v 21 with vv 22\u201323), Moses anticipates the reply of God (6:1) which makes the reasons for this curious beginning plain.
\nIt is not Moses, it is not Israel, it is not Pharaoh who has the authority to bring deliverance. Only Yahweh has that authority, as is now, at long last, about to be made irrevocably clear. Exod 5:1\u20136:1 is the fleshing out of 3:18\u201320, and at once the prologue to the proof-of-Presence sequence of 7:8\u201312:36 (McCarthy, JBL 85 [1966] 149, 155\u201356, argues that 5:1\u20136:1 is introductory to a sequence continued in 7:8\u201310:27 plus 14:1\u201331). Moses seems ineffective here not because he was absent from the most ancient layer of tradition, as Noth argues (Pentateuchal Traditions, 71, 156\u201375), but because the Pharaoh and the Egyptians and even the people of Israel must be seen as entirely doubtful about Yahweh and the prospect of any exodus from Egypt. For that matter, Yahweh seems ineffective too, until the very end of the section.
\nThus the form of 5:1\u20136:1 is set by its purpose, the preparation of the reader for the great sequence to follow, a sequence that now begins at 7:8 but originally must immediately have followed what is now 5:1\u20136:1 (see Form\/Structure\/Setting on 7:8\u201313). The division of this section into two parts, 5:1\u201314 and 5:15\u20136:1, is made according to the two major stages of the first confrontation with Pharaoh, the stage in which it is initiated by Moses and the stage in which it is intensified by the complaints of the section-leaders. This is a division for convenience of what amounts to a single section into two complementary parts.
\nComment
\n1 Moses\u2019 first approach to the Pharaoh is authoritative and direct, and begun (as he was instructed in 4:22) with the messenger formula (\u201cThus says Yahweh \u2026\u201d) so well-known in the prophetic books of the OT (see Westermann, Basic Forms, 98\u2013106). His request is in accord with the command of 3:18, and stated more specifically than the instruction of 4:23, the primary purpose of which was the introduction of the contrasting themes of Israel\u2019s election and the death of the first born of Egypt. There is no mention here of a three-day journey; the request is for permission to undertake a religious pilgrimage, at the command of Yahweh.
\nThe almost arrogant confidence of this approach is as deliberate as it is dramatic. It graphically presents a Moses euphoric over the quick success of his presentation to the Israelites, and it sets up the context for the Pharaoh\u2019s shattering and sarcastic reply and the devastating and extensive lesson he must be taught in result. This sequence is sensitively and realistically written, to introduce a conflict that is not only inevitable but is also the pivotal didactic instrument of the entire sequence, 5:1\u20136:1, 7:8\u201312:36. This is what a confident Moses, naively hopeful of a quick success, would have said in a first interview with a Pharaoh, and this is how a Pharaoh would have replied. We are drawn into the drama by the brilliance of its presentation, quite apart from the message within it.
\n2\u20133 Pharaoh must consider the command absurd. He has no experience of any Yahweh, thus no reason to pay any mind to what he says, and of all the actions he is likely to undertake, sending out Israel is not one of them. This king of Egypt is presented as a no-nonsense ruler, completely sure of himself, whose time is being wasted.
\nThe first result of Pharaoh\u2019s decisive and unyielding response, however, is the demoralization of Moses and Aaron. Whatever the original reference of v 3, if in fact the verse is older than its present context, it has been marvelously woven into this sequence as the chagrined reply of the erstwhile deliverer and his assistant. They are outclassed and overwhelmed by this Pharaoh: since he knows no Yahweh, they now refer to \u201cthe God of the Hebrews\u201d (see Comment on 1:19); apologetically they explain that the command to pilgrimage was quite unexpected; they return to the three-day limit for the trip; and they plead fear of Yahweh\u2019s reprisal, which would of course mean a loss to Pharaoh greater than the loss of three days\u2019 work. There is no hint now of any command; their confidence is gone, and they are begging favors from a powerful superior.
\n4\u20135 The section continues in much the same vein. Pharaoh accuses Moses and Aaron of \u201cdistracting\u201d the people, causing them to neglect duties that he admits are \u201cheavy,\u201d even \u201coppressive,\u201d but which they must \u201cget on with.\u201d He refers to the people as \u05e2\u05dd \u05d4\u05d0\u05e8\u05e5, literally, \u201cthe people of the land.\u201d This phrase is variously interpreted as referring to farmers (Zeitlin, JQR 23 [1932] 45\u201346, \u201cin the early tannaitic literature\u201d), the free occupants of a specific territory (Rost, Das Kleine Credo, 89\u201393), \u201cthe owners of the land, \u2026 the leaders, the representatives of the people\u201d (Daiches, JTS 30 [1929] 245). In the Judaism of the first century a.d. and following, the phrase was used to refer with disdain to the uneducated, the \u201ccommon\u201d people (by an evolution traced in detail by Zeitlin), and that usage has often affected its translation in the OT.
\nThe fact that only some such translation makes sense in the text of v 5, where the \u05e2\u05dd \u05d4\u05d0\u05e8\u05e5 can hardly be \u201clanded gentry,\u201d has led many commentators (so Beer, 38; Childs, 105) to prefer the reading of the Samaritan Pentateuch, which inserts \u05de\u05da \u201cfrom\u201d before \u05e2\u05dd \u201cpeople,\u201d thus making the Egyptians the people of the land, whom the Israelites have come to outnumber (literally, are \u201cmore numerous than\u201d). Such a reading, however, is misleading\u2014the Israelites, despite their miraculous multiplication, are not likely to have outnumbered their Egyptian oppressors (see Comment on 1:8). Nor is this reading necessary. The Pharaoh\u2019s speech reeks with sarcasm, and \u05e2\u05dd \u05d4\u05d0\u05e8\u05e5 has been given to him here just as \u201cHebrew women\u201d has in 1:16, as a phrase of derision. Thus MT should be taken as correct, and \u05e2\u05dd \u05d4\u05d0\u05e8\u05e5 should be read in the sense it came to have, a sense always implicit, \u201cland-people, working people,\u201d and so, in the translation above, \u201cpeasants.\u201d
\n6\u20139 The severity of the Pharaoh\u2019s take-charge position is further emphasized by his immediate order down through the ranks to the sons of Israel at the bottom of all the echelons of command. They must have too much time on their hands if they can plan a religious pilgrimage; that time can be removed by an expansion of their responsibility. This logic is consonant with that of 1:9\u201311, whereby Pharaoh sought to control the Israelite birth rate by giving the Israelites a wearying work load. Of course, neither plan can succeed, for the longing for a pilgrimage, like the astonishing increase in population, is from Yahweh.
\nThe expansion of responsibility involves the denial to the Israelites of an important raw material of their Egyptian brick-making, \u05ea\u05d1\u05df \u201cchopped straw.\u201d This is not to be taken to mean, as it sometimes has been (see the survey of Nims, BA 13 [1950] 22\u201323), that they were now to make bricks without any straw. As the text plainly says, this order increased the heavy work of Israel: they were strictly commanded to make the usual daily quota of bricks, while gathering for themselves the straw necessary to their task wherever they could find it (vv 7 and 10\u201311). This essential ingredient had previously been provided them. The people\u2019s obedience of this command makes plain what an additional burden it was: they \u201cscattered\u201d over \u201cthe whole of the land of Egypt\u201d in their search, and they had to make do not with \u05ea\u05d1\u05df, the chopped straw prepared for the purpose of brick-making (see Nims, BA 13 [1950] 24\u201327), but with \u05e7\u05e9\u05c1, trashy stubble blown about by the wind (v 12).
\n10\u201314 The bureaucracy by which Pharaoh\u2019s order is carried out is realistic both in organization and operation. Egyptian \u05d2\u05bb\u05e9\u05c2\u05d9\u05dd \u201cwork-bosses\u201d and Hebrew \u05e9\u05c1\u05d8\u05e8\u05d9\u05dd \u201csection-leaders\u201d receive the order (vv 6\u20139) and pass it along to the people (vv 10\u201311). The work-bosses press the section-leaders, who press their people. And when the quota is not met, these section-leaders, given their authority by the Egyptian work-bosses, are whipped and interrogated (v 14). Thus was set in motion the protest which worked its way back through this bureaucratic sieve to Pharaoh, the account of which continues this chapter.
\nExplanation
\nThe first confrontation with the Pharaoh of Egypt is not to be understood in isolation from 7:8\u201312:36, the sequence of Yahweh\u2019s ten mighty and proving acts to which it is introductory. This account is wonderfully written to depict a powerful Pharaoh impervious to any human challenge or plea and immovable by any force save one.
\nMoses and Aaron are no match for him. Their obvious embarrassment, so skillfully suggested by the contrast between vv 1 and 3, and by vv 20\u201323 to come, is a part of the design of the passage. The bureaucracy, at both its Egyptian and its Hebrew levels, is totally submissive to him, whatever his unreasonable commands. This fact is cleverly presented by the rapid passing of the command and the immediate attempt to fulfill it, without protest, until it proves impossible.
\nAnd as for Yahweh, this Pharaoh knows nothing about him and does not care to. As the chapter unfolds, we find ourselves longing to see such a ruler educated from such ignorance and humbled in the process. And thus is the writer\u2019s point made, his purpose achieved. This Pharaoh, so unreasonable with men and so stingy with straw, is about to be shown up before Yahweh as no more than a man of straw.
\nThe First Confrontation with Pharaoh: Israel\u2019s Protest (5:15\u20136:1)
\nBibliography
\nErman, A. Life in Ancient Egypt. London: Macmillan and Co., 1894. McCarthy, D. J. \u201cPlagues and Sea of Reeds: Exodus 5\u201314.\u201d JBL 85 (1966) 137\u201358.
\nTranslation
\n15 So the section-leaders of the sons of Israel came and protested to Pharaoh, saying, \u201cWhy have you thus punished your servants? 16 Straw is not provided your servants, yet, \u2018Bricks!\u2019 they say to us; \u2018make them!\u2019 And just look: your servants are whipped, but you and your people are at fault.\u201d 17 Pharaoh shouted, \u201cLazy is what you are, lazy you are indeed, saying, \u2018Let us go; let us offer sacrifice to Yahweh,\u2019 18 Now go get to work! Straw will not be provided you, and you will produce the full measure of bricks!\u201d
\n19 Now the section-leaders of the sons of Israel saw themselves in a difficult spot, having to say, \u201cYou are not to reduce your daily output of bricks.\u201d 20 Thus they hurried to confront Moses and Aaron, who stood waiting to meet them as they left their encounter with Pharaoh. 21 They said to them, \u201cYahweh consider you both and make a judgment, inasmuch as you have made us disgusting in the opinion of Pharaoh and in the opinion of his advisers, giving them a good excuse to massacre us.\u201d
\n22 So Moses turned on Yahweh and said, \u201cLord, why have you done harm to this people? Why have you sent me here for this? 23 From the minute I came to Pharaoh to deliver your message, he has hurt this people, and you have not even begun to rescue your people!\u201d 6:1 But Yahweh answered Moses, \u201cYou are now about to see what I am doing to Pharaoh, because with a forceful hand, he will send them forth, and with a forceful hand, he will drive them from his land.\u201d
\nNotes
\n15.a. Lit., \u201ccried out, made a clamor,\u201d \u05e6\u05e2\u05e7.
\n15.b. \u05ea\u05e2\u05e9\u05c2\u05d4 \u05db\u05d4 \u201cdone thus,\u201d which in the context = \u201cpunished.\u201d
\n16.a. \u05d5\u05d4\u05e0\u05d4 \u201cand behold.\u201d
\n16.b. See n. 5:14.a.
\n16.c. MT has \u05d5\u05b0\u05d7\u05b8\u05d8\u05b8\u05d0\u05ea \u05e2\u05b7\u05de\u05b6\u05bc\u05da\u05b8, \u201cand you sin (or are at fault), your people,\u201d reading the verb form as qal pf, 2d pers fem. sg The pointing \u05d5\u05b0\u05d7\u05b8\u05d8\u05b8\u05d0\u05ea\u05b8 would give a 2d pers masc. form, more appropriate to the masc. \u05e2\u05b7\u05dd, but still difficult, because of the 2d pers. LXX and Syr. take the verb thus, reading Pharaoh as its subj, and \u201cyour people\u201d as its obj, to give \u1f00\u03b4\u03b9\u03ba\u03ae\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u201cyou are harming [sinning against] your people\u201d (by depriving them of needed bricks).; Cassuto (71) suggests amusingly that the section-leaders meant \u05d5\u05b0\u05d4\u05b8\u05d8\u05b8\u05d0\u05ea\u05b8 \u05d0\u05b7\u05ea\u05b8\u05bc\u05d4 (\u201cyou are to blame\u201d for the shortfall of bricks), but lost their nerve, swallowed the end of the verb, and added \u05e2\u05b7\u05de\u05b6\u05bc\u05da\u05b8 \u201cyour people.\u201d The text as it stands does not make sense in a literal reading, but the sense of the section-leaders\u2019 complaint is reasonably clear: they have had to take the punishment for a shortfall in brick production which is the fault of Pharaoh and those who have carried out his order to end the supply of chopped straw and to require the Israelite brickmakers to provide their own straw. I propose above therefore the reading \u05d5\u05b0\u05d4\u05b8\u05d8\u05b8\u05d0\u05ea\u05b8 \u05d5\u05b0\u05e2\u05b7\u05de\u05b6\u05bc\u05d3\u05b8 \u201cbut you and your people are at fault.\u201d
\n17.a. \u201cPharaoh\u201d is added, for clarity. So Syr., which reads \u201cThus Pharaoh said to them,.\u2026\u201d
\n17.b. The verb is \u05d0\u05de\u05e8 \u201csay,\u201d thus, lit., \u201csaid, replied.\u201d The reading above is an attempt to render this verb with special waw in the context of what the Pharaoh could only consider an insolent protest.
\n17.c. The emphasis on \u05e0\u05e8\u05e4\u05d9\u05e1 \u201cidle, lazy,\u201d in its two occurrences in this verse is shown by its position at the first of both the clauses in which it occurs.
\n17.d. LXX, Tg. Ps.-J. add \u03c4\u1ff7 \u03b8\u03b5\u1ff7 \u1f21\u03bc\u1ff6\u03bd \u201cour God.\u201d
\n18.a. Lit., \u201cgive,\u201d \u05e0\u05ea\u05df.
\n18.b. \u05ea\u05db\u05df \u201cmeasure,\u201d by comparison with the related term \u05de\u05ea\u05db\u05e0\u05ea \u201cquota,\u201d of v 8 (both words are derived from \u05ea\u05db\u05df \u201cmeasure, regulate\u201d), and with \u05d7\u05e7 \u201cassigned limit,\u201d of v 14.
\n19.a. \u05ea\u05e8\u05e2, lit., \u201cin evil, calamity, harm\u2019s way.\u201d
\n19.b. \u05dc\u05b5\u05d0\u05de\u05b9\u05e8\u2014this qal inf constr means lit. \u201cto say.\u201d It is often taken to refer to what was said to the section-leaders by Pharaoh and his advisers (so neb, jb). Though the absence of any pronouns makes the infinitive ambiguous, it is certainly not a passive inf, \u201cwere told.\u201d It is better therefore to read the inf as referring to what the section-leaders must now say to their own people. This is what has put them into a difficult spot.
\n19.c. SamPent reads \u05d9\u05d2\u05ea\u05e2 to give \u201cyour daily output is not to be reduced.\u201d
\n20.a. The verb is \u05e4\u05d2\u05e2 \u201cencounter, fall upon, attack,\u201d here with special waw and followed by the sign of the def obj before Moses and before Aaron.
\n21.a. Lit., \u201cmade our fragrance stink,\u201d so, \u201cmade us persona non grata.\u201d
\n21.b. \u05e2\u05b2\u05d1\u05b8\u05d3\u05b8\u05d9\u05d5, lit., \u201chis servants,\u201d the same term the section-leaders use of themselves in vv 15\u201317, but here obviously in a different sense.
\n21.c. Lit., \u201cto give a sword into their hand to kill us.\u201d SamPent has \u05d9\u05d3\u05d5 \u201chis hand.\u201d
\n22.a. Or turned \u05d0\u05b6\u05dc \u201ctoward.\u201d For \u05d0\u05b6\u05dc as \u201cagainst\u201d or \u201cupon,\u201d see BDB, 40 \u00b6 4, and the references cited there.
\n22.b. LXX adds \u03b4\u03ad\u03bf\u03bc\u03b1\u03b9 \u201cI pray\u201d after \u201cLord.\u201d
\n22.c. Or, \u201cWhy now have you sent me here?\u201d See BDB, 261 \u00b6 e.
\n23.a. Lit., \u201cto speak (piel of \u05d3\u05d1\u05e8) in your name (or authority\u2014\u05e9\u05c1\u05dd).\u201d
\n23.b. Hiph of \u05e8\u05e2\u05e2 \u201ccause harm to, do injury, hurt.\u201d
\n6:1.a. SamPent reads this \u05e2\u05ea\u05d4 \u201cnow\u201d as \u05d0\u05ea\u05d4 \u201cyou\u201d to give an emphasis on Moses as the one who is to see. The reading of MT is preferable, however, and better suited to the context.
\n6:1.b. \u05d0\u05b6\u05e2\u05b1\u05e9\u05b6\u05c2\u05d4, qal impf. of \u05e2\u05e9\u05c2\u05d4, \u201cdo, make,\u201d generally translated here as a future, is better read as present. The process of defeating the Pharaoh and proving Yahweh\u2019s Presence is already well under way.
\n6:1.c. LXX reads rather \u1f10\u03bd \u03b2\u03c1\u03b1\u03c7\u03af\u03bf\u03bd\u03b9 \u1f51\u03c6\u03b7\u03bb\u1ff3 \u201cwith arm raised up.\u201d
\nForm\/Structure\/Setting
\n5:15\u20136:1 form the conclusion to the section introducing the proof-of-Presence sequence of 7:8\u201312:36. For a discussion of the form of this introductory unit, see Form\/Structure\/Setting on 5:1\u201314.
\nComment
\n15 The \u201csection-leaders of the sons of Israel,\u201d themselves apparently Israelites given minor supervisory responsibility by the Egyptian work-bosses (Erman, Life in Ancient Egypt, 123\u201329), found themselves caught in the middle between the impossible orders given them by their Egyptian superiors and their own people who were unable to keep up their brick quotas and gather the straw necessary to their task. When they were whipped for a failure they had no power to prevent and interrogated about a command they knew could not be kept, they felt unjustly handled, and they took their protest straight to Pharaoh himself.
\nThe bluntness of their approach to Pharaoh is a parallel to the bold first approach of Moses and Aaron, and a continuation of the brilliant presentation of this narrative. It is pointless to debate whether such minor officials could have had access to a Pharaoh, and whether, with such access, they would so have addressed so august a leader (McNeile, 32; Hyatt, 91). Such considerations miss entirely the point of this carefully composed introduction, which has to do with the kind of king the Pharaoh is, as a device for declaring the kind of God Yahweh is. The purpose of this account is to present an impossible Pharaoh, a powerful and absolute ruler against whom no man can stand, whose will no group of men can successfully deny. No men, and no group of men can resist him\u2014but Yahweh?
\n16\u201318 When the section-leaders recount their plight and present their unquestionably just case, topped off with the frank assertion that the real reason for the disruption of the brick supply is the order of Pharaoh and the enforcement of that order by the work-bosses, the Pharaoh will not brook their complaints. He accuses them of laziness (as he accused the people in v 8; the same word, \u05e0\u05e8\u05e4\u05d9\u05dd \u201clazy,\u201d is used three times in vv 8 and 17), and he reaffirms his order; the usual number of bricks must be produced, without an on-site supply of straw (v 18). Pharaoh will hear them no further, and the section leaders withdraw in frustration and dismay, as did Moses and Aaron.
\n19\u201321 It is at this point, indeed, that the two approaches of the first confrontation of Pharaoh are drawn together, for the demoralized section-leaders seek out the demoralized Moses and Aaron. There is little basis for the conjecture that two separate confrontations are apparent in this narrative, or that the Moses\/Aaron confrontation with which the chapter begins is superimposed upon a real confrontation led by representatives of the sons of Israel (Hyatt, 89, and especially Noth, 52\u201356). The sequence as it now stands clearly presents the two approaches as successive levels of a single request and its issue, as the words and reactions of the involved parties and then above all the rendezvous of the section-leaders with Moses and Aaron (vv 20\u201321) show.
\nThe fact that Moses and Aaron did not return to Pharaoh to present the complaint caused by their original request is a further indication of the severity of their failure, an indication augmented by the section-leaders\u2019 rush to confront Moses and Aaron after their own rebuff by Pharaoh. The obvious intent of the section-leaders\u2019 visit to Pharaoh was to undo the harm brought upon Israel, and themselves in particular, by the intercession of Moses and Aaron. Their first move following their own failure, quite naturally, was to turn on Moses and Aaron, who are reported to be waiting to meet them, no doubt with some hopes concerning their mission.
\nIf there were such hopes, they were dashed immediately and conclusively. The section-leaders fix the blame for their plight, and their people\u2019s, squarely on Moses and Aaron, and they ask Yahweh himself to render upon them a studied judgment for having brought them from a difficult but secure enslavement to a situation in which their very lives are in jeopardy (v 21). This complaint, though its reference to \u201cmassacre,\u201d given the Pharaoh\u2019s words and his own best interest, appears to be a dramatic exaggeration, unites the failure of the two levels of approach to Pharaoh and recalls Moses\u2019 complaints and questions at the flaming bush, especially the question about Yahweh\u2019s ability or authority to carry out his claim (see 3:11\u20134:17, and the treatment of those verses above).
\n22\u201323 Thus did Moses \u201cturn on\u201d Yahweh, with words that reflect not only the section-leaders\u2019 disappointment and frustration, but his own. As Moses has been accused of bringing the sons of Israel into still deeper difficulty, so now he accuses Yahweh, who had prompted him to confront the Pharaoh and who had even told him what to say (3:18 and 5:1), of doing harm (v 22) instead of the good he had promised. Moses\u2019 mission, from his first effort to fulfill it, had provoked the Pharaoh to hurt the people, and the promised exodus is farther than ever from reality. Not only has Yahweh not begun it, he has made its very possibility more remote than ever (v 23).
\nThere is in these words of Moses a subtle shift of the responsibility for the new trouble of Israel. Even the section-leaders, whose suffering has been greatest, blame Moses and Aaron for their new troubles: \u201cyou (plural, \u05d4\u05d1\u05d0\u05e9\u05c1\u05ea\u05dd) have made us disgusting\u201d (v 21). But Moses blames Yahweh: \u201cyou have done harm, you have sent, following your message Pharaoh has hurt, you have not even begun to rescue\u201d (\u05e0\u05e6\u05dc, hiphil infinitive absolute plus hiphil perfect, second masculine singular). In this masterful way, we are brought to the point of what seems to be a narrative of the complete and abject failure of Yahweh\u2019s plan to rescue his firstborn, Israel, from the bondage of Egypt.
\n6:1 The whole of chap. 5 must be read indeed in the light of the response of Yahweh to Moses\u2019 fearful and angry protest. What Moses thinks has not begun has indeed begun, as he is now soon to see; Yahweh\u2019s work on Pharaoh is already under way. It began with the confrontation by Moses himself, to which Pharaoh responded with such sarcastic arrogance. What Yahweh is doing to Pharaoh will be all the more plain to Moses and to Israel because of the \u201ccomplete\u201d and \u201cfinal\u201d refusal Pharaoh has made to Yahweh\u2019s command, delivered by Moses.
\nWhat has happened, though Moses has not realized it, is of Yahweh. The Pharaoh\u2019s recalcitrance is but one ingredient in Yahweh\u2019s plan, and one which he will amplify for his purpose (4:21; 7:3\u20135; 9:12; 10:1\u20132; and so on). What Yahweh is doing to Pharaoh will cause him, in due course, to reverse his refusal, as his ignorance about Yahweh will have been remedied. Though he has declared he will not send Israel out (5:2), he will do so, with a hand of force; in fact, he will drive them forth with that hand of force (cf. 3:19\u201320).
\n6:1, the final verse of the narrative that begins at 5:1, thus explains the sequence that has preceded it and connects it, as the prologue it is (McCarthy, JBL 85 [1966] 137\u201342), to the proof-of-Presence sequence by which Yahweh demonstrates his Presence in 7:8\u201312:36. What has appeared to Moses and the Israelites as a serious deterioration of an already bad situation has been instead a careful preparation for what is to come, an anticipation of the hardening-of-the-mind-of-Pharaoh motif, against which the all-controlling and powerful Presence of Yahweh will be seen in dramatic relief. The dispirited Moses and the people of Israel, not to mention the Pharaoh of Egypt and all his people, are now about to see what Yahweh is doing already.
\nExplanation
\nThe first confrontation with Pharaoh, in both of its levels (5:1\u201314, Moses and Aaron; 5:15\u201321, the section-leaders of Israel), is shown by the interpretation given it in 5:22\u20136:1 to be an introduction of what is to come. In the present arrangement of the text of Exodus, the flow of the proof-of-Presence sequence is interrupted by the insertion of 6:2\u20137:7, a parallel account of the call and commission of Moses. At an earlier stage in the evolution of the Book of Exodus, however, the prologue now contained in 5:1\u20136:1 must have been followed immediately by the narrative of the sequential mighty acts proving Yahweh\u2019s Presence, a narrative intensified by the vacillation of an increasingly weakening Pharaoh, whose mind must finally be \u201chardened\u201d by Yahweh so that the \u201cproofs\u201d may be carried through to their climax.
\nThe manner in which the major themes of 7:8\u201312:36 are all anticipated in this prologue, and indeed the presentation in it of the dramatic structure of the proof-of-Presence sequence, a commanding Yahweh and a resisting Pharaoh, make the connection between the two plain. And equally clear in 5:1\u20136:1 is the entirely subsidiary role Moses always has in relation to Yahweh. Here, Moses and Aaron fail to accomplish what they had hoped to bring about; at the end, the experience threatens to undo Moses until Yahweh assures him that he is already at work. So also in 7:8\u201312:36 whatever Moses says or does, and Aaron too for that matter, the source of every accomplishment and the authority for every word that counts is always and only Yahweh.
\nFrom the outset, the essential purpose of this narrative is to make plain the real and active Presence of the incomparable Yahweh. In the lengthy sequence begun by 5:1\u20136:1, the medium of this declaration is a contest between Yahweh and the ruler of the nation supreme in the Near East, the nation that holds Yahweh\u2019s special people in a laborious bondage. This contest becomes the fundamental didactic device of Part One of the Book of Exodus, Israel in Egypt (1:1\u201313:16).
\nThe Covenant Promise to the Fathers and Yahweh\u2019s Rescue (6:2\u201313)
\nBibliography
\nAlbright, W. F. From the Stone Age to Christianity. 2d ed. Garden City, NJ: Doubleday and Co., 1957. 246\u201349. Cross, F. M. \u201cYahweh and the God of the Patriarchs.\u201d HTR 55 (1962) 225\u201359. Elliger, K. \u201cIch bin der Herr\u2014euer Gott.\u201d Kleine Schriften zum Alten Testament. TB\u00dc 32. Munich: Chr Kaiser Verlag, 1966. 211\u201331. Johnson, A. R. \u201cThe Primary Meaning of \u05d2\u05d0\u05dc.\u201d Congress Volume: Copenhagen, 1953. VTSup 1. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1953. 67\u201377. Labuschagne, C. J. \u201cThe Emphasizing Particle Gam and Its Connotations.\u201d Studia Biblica et Semitica. Wageningen: H. Veenman and Sons, 1966. 193\u2013203. Lehmann, M. R. \u201cBiblical Oaths.\u201d ZAW 81 (1969) 74\u201392. Lohfink, N. \u201cDie priesterschriftliche Abwertung der Tradition von der Offenbarung des Jahwenamens an Mose.\u201d Bib 49 (1968) 1\u20138. MacLaurin, E. C. B. \u201cShaddai.\u201d AbrN 3 (1961\u20131962) 99\u2013118. McCarthy, D. J. \u201cPlagues and Sea of Reeds: Exodus 5\u201314.\u201d JBL 85 (1966) 137\u201358. Mowinckel, S. \u201cThe Name of the God of Moses.\u201d HUCA 32 (1961) 121\u201333. Ogden, G. S. \u201cMoses and Cyrus: Literary Affinities between the Priestly Presentation of Moses in Exodus vi\u2013viii and the Cyrus Song in Isaiah xliv 24\u2013xlv 13.\u201d VT 28 (1978) 195\u2013203. Oliva, M. \u201cRevelaci\u00f3n del nombre de Yahweh en la \u2018Historia sacerdotal\u2019: Ex 6, 2\u20138.\u201d Bib 52 (1971) 1\u201319. Rendtorff, R. \u201cThe concept of Revelation.\u201d Revelation as History. Ed. W. Pannenberg. New York: Macmillan, 1968. 25\u201353. Sandrael, S. \u201cGenesis 4:26b.\u201d HUCA 32 (1961) 19\u201329. Ska, J. L. \u201cLa place d\u2019Ex 6:2\u20138 dans la narration de l\u2019exode.\u201d ZAW 94 (1982) 530\u201348. Sramre, J. J. Erl\u00f6sen und Vergeben im Alten Testament. Bern: A. Francke Verlag, 1940. Wilson, R. D. \u201cCritical Note on Exodus VI 3.\u201d PTR 22 (1924) 108\u201319. Wireruer, J. F. \u201cTradition Reinterpreted in Ex 6, 2\u20137, 7.\u201d Augustinianum 7 (1967) 407\u201318. Zimmerli, W. \u201cIch bin Jahwe\u201d; \u201cErkenntnis Gottes nach dem Buche Ezechiel\u201d; \u201cDas Wort des g\u00f6ttlichen Selbsterweises (Erweiswort), eine prophetische Gattung.\u201d Gottes Offenbarung. Munich: Kaiser Verlag, 1968. 11\u201340, 41\u2013119, 120\u201332. Also in I am Yahweh. Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1982. 1\u201328, 29\u201398, 99\u2013110.
\nTranslation
\n2 Then did God speak to Moses, saying to him, \u201cI am Yahweh. 3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as \u2018God All-Powerful,\u2019 and my name Yahweh I did not reveal to them. 4 Indeed, I set up my covenant with them, to give to them the land of Canaan, the land of their wanderings, in which they dwelled as foreigners.
\n5 \u201cI have myself heard the groaning of the sons of Israel whom the Egyptians have forced into slavery, and so I have remembered my covenant. 6 Therefore say to the sons of Israel, \u2018I am Yahweh. And I will bring you forth from the crush of the oppressive labors of the Egyptians, and I will snatch you forth from slavery to them, and I will act as your rescuing kinsman, with arm stretched out and with great deeds of vindication. 7 I will single you out as a people for myself, and I will be for you God, and you will know by experience that I am Yahweh your God, the one who has brought you forth from the crush of the oppressive labors of the Egyptians. 8 I will bring you to the land which I swore with hand raised up to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you as an inherited possession. I am Yahweh.\u2019 \u201d
\n9 So Moses repeated these words to the sons of Israel. But they paid no attention to Moses, because they were dispirited and worn out by the severity of their slavery.
\n10 Again Yahweh spoke to Moses, to say. 11 \u201cGo, speak to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and he will send forth the sons of Israel from his land.\u201d 12 So Moses spoke to Yahweh\u2019s face, saying, \u201cNow look\u2014the sons of Israel paid no attention to me. How is Pharaoh going to pay attention to me, especially with my stumbling speech?\u201d 13 Thus Yahweh spoke to Moses and to Aaron, and ordered them, concerning the sons of Israel and concerning Pharaoh, king of Egypt, to bring forth the sons of Israel from the land of Egypt.
\nNotes
\n2.a. A number of versions, including SamPent and Vg, read \u201cYahweh\u201d here. A Cairo Geniza fragment has \u201cElohim\u201d twice.
\n3.a. MT has \u05d1\u05b0\u05bc, lit., \u201cin,\u201d in this phrase = \u201cin the person of.\u201d
\n3.b. For \u05d0\u05b5\u05dc \u05e9\u05b8\u05c1\u05d3\u05b8\u05bc\u05d9 \u201cGod All-Powerful,\u201d see Gen 17:1; 28:3; 35:11; 48:3, all verses usually assigned to P; and 43:14, usually assigned to J. LXX reads \u03b8\u03b5\u1f78\u03c2 \u1f65\u03bd \u03b1\u03bd\u0313\u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u201cas their God.\u201d
\n3.c. On niph of \u05d9\u05d3\u05e2 \u201cknow,\u201d see Comment on 1:8. LXX has \u03bf\u1f50\u03ba \u1f10\u03b4\u03ae\u03bb\u03c9\u03c3\u03b1, Vg non indicavi which mean \u201cI did not disclose.\u201d
\n4.a. \u05d2\u05d5\u05e8 \u201csojourn, dwell,\u201d as an outsider, a transient, even for a long period of time.
\n5.a. This emphasis is shown by the use of the independent pers pronoun \u05d0\u05e0\u05d9 \u201cI\u201d plus the 1st pers common form of \u05e9\u05c1\u05de\u05e2 \u201chear,\u201d and also by the use of \u05d2\u05dd \u201calso,\u201d introductory particle the \u201cprimary function\u201d of which is emphasis (so Labuschagne, Studia Biblica 194; BDB, 169).
\n6.a. LXX has \u03b2\u03ac\u03b4\u03b9\u03b6\u03b5 \u03b5\u1f30\u03c0\u03cc\u03bd \u201cGo, speak.\u2026\u201d
\n6.b. Lit., \u201cfrom underneath.\u201d
\n6.c. \u201cFrom their slavery.\u201d
\n6.d. The verb is \u05d2\u05d0\u05dc \u201credeem,\u201d which as Johnson (VTSup 1:76) and others (Ringgren, TDOT 2:351\u201352, 354) have shown, involves protection, redemption by one obligated through relational ties.
\n6.e. See n. 7:4.c and Comment on 7:4.
\n7.a. \u05dc\u05e7\u05d7 \u201ctake, receive, take in marriage, select, choose,\u201d followed by \u05d0\u05ea\u05db\u05dd \u201cyou,\u201d dir obj; and \u05dc\u05d9 \u05dc\u05e2\u05dd \u201cfor myself for a people.\u201d
\n7.b. Qal of \u05d9\u05d3\u05e2 \u201cknow.\u201d
\n8.a. \u05de\u05d5\u05e8\u05e9\u05c1\u05d4, from \u05d9\u05e8\u05e9\u05c1, \u201ctake possession of, inherit, claim as a right.\u201d
\n9.a. Lit., \u201cso Moses spoke thus\u201d with special waw.
\n9.b. Lit., \u201cthey did not hear Moses from [on account of] shortness of spirit and from [on account of] hard slavery.\u201d
\n11.a. \u05d5\u05b4\u05d9\u05e9\u05b7\u05c1\u05dc\u05b7\u05bc\u05d7, a 3d masc. sg piel impf. of \u05e9\u05c1\u05dc\u05d7 \u201csend\u201d with a conjunctive waw, generally translated as a subordinate clause, and often as an inf (so rsv, neb); here lit. as a coordinate result clause, a translation affirmed by the following verse.
\n12.a. So lit., \u05dc\u05e4\u05e0\u05d9 \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4 \u201cto Yahweh\u2019s face\u201d can also mean \u201cin Yahweh\u2019s Presence,\u201d but it surely signifies more than rsv\u2019s oversimple \u201cto the Lord.\u201d
\n12.b. \u05d4\u05df \u201cbehold.\u201d
\n12.c. \u201cAnd I, uncircumcised of lips.\u201d
\n13.a. LXX omits \u201cconcerning \u2026 and,\u201d to read just \u201cordered them concerning Pharaoh.\u2026\u201d
\nForm\/Structure\/Setting
\nThe sequence at hand is the first part of an extended section of material (6:2\u20137:13) widely acknowledged to have come from the Priestly source. Indeed, it is the first consequential section from this source to this point in the text of the Book of Exodus, and it is itself a composite, a block of narrative presenting several episodes, into which an extended genealogy (6:14\u201325) has been set with some care.
\nApart from the narrative of the ten mighty acts in 7:8\u201312:36, itself the most carefully wrought composite sequence in the Book of Exodus, the material from the Priestly source stands for the most part in extended sections like this one (see especially chaps. 25\u201331 and 35\u201340). This fact and the generally obvious manner in which the Priestly material is inserted elsewhere, along with the assumption from the days of Wellhausen forward that P is the latest and last of the sources, have led source-critics to suppose an assembly of pentateuchal, or more recently, tetrateuchal books by Priestly hands.
\nSuch a supposition is, however, a considerable simplification of a very complex process. There is in the Priestly material both early and late content, narrative and cultic and legal literature from virtually the full range of the literary history of the OT. The present sequence alone is sufficient to indicate that the Priestly material is in itself composite in nature, by the manner in which the genealogical list of 6:14\u201325 is inserted into a narrative which is then adjusted because of the insertion. Of the three tetrateuchal \u201csources,\u201d J, E, and P, P is much less a \u201csource\u201d than it is a collection of material from a wide range of periods, reflecting a number of continuing priestly concerns.
\nThe manner in which this Priestly material appears in the final form of the text of Exodus suggests not so much a \u201csource\u201d assembled late in the growth of the material incorporated into the book as it does a parallel collection of materials. Such a collection was probably begun as early as the collections of J and E, was extant and growing alongside them and then beyond them, and was incorporated into the tetrateuchal books more obviously and more en bloc form as a parallel account, rather than as a supplementary account. There was thus no attempt by the redactor(s) who put together the sequence of Exodus to reconcile differences in detail any more than there was an attempt to homogenize style and vocabulary. The unity of these separate layers of material was, like the purpose that brought them together, theological. And the key to an understanding of their message and the manner in which they work lies finally not in literary approaches, as helpful to the process of study as they may be, but in the theological impulse of the text in the form in which we have it, not in a form in which we can only suppose that text to have existed.
\nExod 6:2\u20137:13 is the block of Priestly material concerned with (1) the revelation of the special name \u201cYahweh\u201d (6:2\u20134); (2) the covenant-promise to the fathers being brought to fulfillment in the exodus (6:5\u20138); (3) the oppression of Israel (6:5\u20136, 9); (4) the call of Moses and Aaron (6:6a, 10\u201313, 26\u201327); (5) the genealogy of Moses and Aaron (6:14\u201325); (6) the anticipation of the sequence of the mighty acts and the hardening-of-the-mind motif (6:28\u20137:7); and (7) a prologue to the mighty acts in the rod and snake miracle (7:8\u201313), a prologue that belongs more to what follows than to what precedes it, but is by origin a part of the Priestly collection. Indeed McCarthy (JBL 85 [1966] 142\u201356) has argued cleverly, if not entirely convincingly, that 7:8\u201310:27 forms with 5:1\u20136:1 and 14:1\u201331 a composite literary complex separate from 6:2\u20137:7, 11:1\u201312:42, each with \u201cits own characteristic phrases and its own conception of the why and the how of the exodus.\u201d
\n6:2\u201313 must be seen as an integral part of one of three large sections of Priestly material in the Book of Exodus, and as the beginning of a narrative recording a parallel version of the revelation of the tetragrammaton, and of the call and commission of Moses and Aaron. It is not an account that can be said to supplement the account of Exod 3, 4, and 5. For one thing, it is far briefer, and for another, it reflects an entirely different emphasis. The theophany, so dramatic an element of that account, is altogether missing here, as is an explanation of the special name \u201cYahweh.\u201d The long dialogue between Yahweh and Moses, the important vehicle of Yahweh\u2019s revelation in that account, is compressed to the barest minimum here, and there is no reference at all to any signs of Moses\u2019 authority. And Aaron, so clearly an addition to the earlier narrative, is more carefully integrated here, especially by the addition of the genealogy appended to this section and interrupting the narrative sequence. Indeed, this interruption necessitates the inclusion of a recapitulation (vv 26\u201330) of the narrative preceding the genealogy (especially vv 10\u201313).
\nThe form of this section is dictated in part by the larger sequence of which it is the initial component and in part by its purpose. It was not composed to record a second call and commission of Moses, dwelling now in Egypt and depressed by the failure of the first confrontation of the Pharaoh. Ska (ZAW 94 [1982] 537\u201348) has proposed that 6:2\u20138 presents a new start for God\u2019s liberation of Israel after Moses\u2019 initial failure. There is no basis for the often repeated claim of commentators (e.g., Beer, 43, who refers to \u201cthe new theophany\u201d; Noth, 59; Hyatt, 93) that this call took place in Egypt, in contrast to an earlier one in Midian or at Sinai. The reference in v 28 is too far removed from the narrative of vv 2\u201313 to be of help, and the context of chap. 5 does not necessarily apply to this narrative.
\nNo location is specified for the events of vv 2\u201313, as details of place, time, and sequence are irrelevant to this writer\u2019s purpose. He is concerned to identify Yahweh as the God of the patriarchal fathers, just as 3:6, 13, 15, 16 do, and to make plain that the covenant made with those fathers is not only still in effect, but about to be brought to fulfillment (cf. Ska, ZAW 94 [1982] 544). His statement of the authority of this covenant is the self-proclamatory formula, \u201cI am Yahweh,\u201d repeated four times (vv 2, 6, 7, 8) in this passage. And his central concern is to link that covenant to the exodus about to take place. Nothing that does not serve this purpose, in the necessary context of the oppression in Egypt, is included. Thus the narrative is pared to its barest essentials.
\nComment
\nThere is no inference in vv 2\u201313 of a theophany. We are told only that Yahweh spoke to Moses twice (vv 2\u20138, 10\u201311) to Moses and Aaron once (v 13), and that Moses spoke with some agitation to Yahweh once (v 12).
\n2 It is not absolutely clear that the self-declaration \u05d0\u05e0\u05d9 \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4 \u201cI am Yahweh\u201d in v 2 is the initial revelation of the tetragrammaton. V 3 indicates only that the special name was not revealed to the fathers. As from this point forward the Priestly materials take great care to use the name \u201cYahweh,\u201d however, the general assumption is that this passage contains the report in the Priestly materials of the revelation of the tetragrammaton. The most that can be said with any certainty is that this sequence is as near to such a report as we get in the Priestly materials of the tetrateuch.
\nThis ambiguity may however be intentional. More important to the purpose of this section, at least as it stands now, is the presentation of the autokerygmatic formula, \u05d0\u05e0\u05d9 \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4 \u201cI am Yahweh,\u201d in particular because of its close connection with the covenant. Both the revelation and the explanation of the special name Yahweh were reported in chap. 3. The compiler of the Book of Exodus was here concerned, therefore, with something else; it is even possible that he may have omitted a fuller account in the Priestly materials of the moment of revelation, so carefully presented in the JE amalgam of chap. 3.
\nBoth Zimmerli and Elliger have made special studies of the phrase \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4 \u05d0\u05e0\u05d9 in its various forms. Zimmerli (Gottes Offenbarung, 14) calls it a \u201cself-presentation formula,\u201d and even goes so far as to say (20), \u201cAll that Yahweh had to say and to declare to his people appears to be a development of the fundamental assertion: \u2018I am Yahweh.\u2019 \u201d He contends, indeed, that the usage of this formula in this passage, in the Priestly literature elsewhere in the Pentateuch, and in the Holiness Code suggests that the formula may be primarily a Priestly formula (12\u201324).
\nElliger (Kleine Schriften, 213\u201316) speaks of \u05d0\u05e0\u05d9 \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4 as a \u201cprimary formula,\u201d a \u201cself-declaratory formula,\u201d a \u201choliness or sublimeness formula\u201d to which \u05d0\u05dc\u05d4\u05d9\u05da \u201cyour God\u201d may be added to create a \u201csaving-history or grace-formula,\u201d the first, Law (Gesetz), the second, Gospel (Evangelium), as for example in Lev 18\u201320. He sees both \u201cself-attestation formulas\u201d as connected in a special way with Yahweh\u2019s deeds of power on behalf of his people, whether in deeds of power against non-Israelites, or in acts of deliverance or even punishment for those Yahweh has claimed as his own (227\u201331). The range of use of these formulas in the OT suggests to Elliger that the fundamental meaning common to all the occurrences was accented in different ways in varied contexts and that finally it is not possible to trace the formula to a single point of origin (230\u201331, and especially n. 59, containing Elliger\u2019s reaction to Zimmerli\u2019s article \u201cIch bin Jahwe\u201d).
\nZimmerli has also analyzed in some detail the occurrences of the \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4 \u05d0\u05e0\u05d9 formula in what he calls the \u201cproof-saying\u201d (Gottes Offenbarung, 120\u201332), particularly in the repeated occurrences of the \u201crecognition-formula,\u201d \u201cthat they (you) may know that I am Yahweh\u201d in the Book of Ezekiel (42\u201354), and he has concluded that Yahweh\u2019s deeds are held up as proof that he is and does what is claimed in his special name.
\nThe \u05d0\u05e0\u05d9 \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4 \u201cI am Yahweh\u201d formula occurs outside chap. 6 at a number of points in Exodus note for example: 7:15, 17;, 8:18[22]; 10:2; 12:12; 14:4;, 18; 15:26; 16:12; 20:2; 29:46; 31:3. In the prologue to the ten commandments (20:2) it serves as a kind of justifying reason for the statement of the commandments and for obedience to them. And it is in the context of that usage that the four occurrences of the formula here (vv 2, 6, 7, 8) may best be understood. The special name \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4 \u201cYahweh\u201d is defined, in its only explanation in the entire OT, as an assertion of the reality of the active existence of Israel\u2019s God (3:13\u201314). \u05d0\u05e0\u05d9 \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4 is above all a confession of authority, the authority of the real and effective Presence of Yahweh who rescues, sustains, calls, and, on the basis of all that, expects a positive response from humankind. As such, the formula is a basic element in the theological rhetoric connected with the special name \u201cYahweh,\u201d which is a confession in and of itself.
\nThe revelation of Exod 6:2\u201313, therefore, is not the revelation of a theophany, either in Egypt or at Sinai. Nor is it, necessarily, even a first revelation of the tetragrammaton, the presentation of what Mowinckel (HUCA 32 [1961] 121) called \u201can unhistorical theological theory of P\u2019s.\u201d The keys to this passage are precisely (1) the fourfold occurrence of the autoconfessional phrase \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4 \u05d0\u05e0\u05d9; (2) the repeated references to the covenant relationship (vv 4, 5, 6, 7, 8); and (3) the four references to the forthcoming mighty acts in Israel\u2019s behalf, including above all the exodus itself (vv 6, 7, 11, 13. referred to in retrospect in the parallel of 20:2; cf. Wimmer, Augustinianum 7 [1967] 414\u201316).
\nThe redactor who set these lines into their present context was not concerned with theophany. Indeed he was only a little concerned with the call of Moses and either less concerned, or not concerned at all, with the moment of the revelation of the tetragrammaton. His interest was in a special relationship, as old as the patriarchal fathers, as real as Israel\u2019s need in bondage, whether Egyptian or Assyrian or Babylonian or, for that matter, even Greek or Roman bondage, and as guaranteed as Israel\u2019s response to the active Presence of God could make it. The authority for the relationship, first, last, from past through future, was Yahweh who Is. The demonstration of that authority was his mighty deeds, hinted at here, and shortly to be described in detail. And the purpose of the relationship lay ahead, in a promised land in which Israel would come to be something special in the purpose of the God who Is, Yahweh.
\n3 The reference to \u05d0\u05b5\u05dc \u05e9\u05b7\u05c1\u05d3\u05b8\u05bc\u05d9 El Shaddai \u201cGod All-Powerful\u201d as a name of God used by the patriarchal fathers is continuous with the narrative of 264\u201317, also generally acknowledged as a product of the Priestly circle (Gunkel, Genesis, 264\u201367; von Rad, Genesis, rev. ed., OTL [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1972], 197\u201399), and, like the passage at hand, a sequence intimately connected with the covenant between Yahweh El Shaddai and Israel. In both passages, El Shaddai is given as a name by which Yahweh was known to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
\nThe biblical occurrences of the name Shaddai have been carefully surveyed by MacLaurin (AbrN 3 [1961\u201362] 99\u2013112), who has concluded that \u201cShaddai\u2019s primary character is one of power and military prowess\u201d (103), and that for \u201cthe Hebrews,\u201d his \u201cpredominant characteristic\u201d was his covenant-making with men (102). The meaning of the name is still uncertain, despite considerable work. The theory of Albright (Stone Age, 246\u201349) that the name has to do with mountain(s), to which Cross (HTR 55 [1962] 244\u201350) has added that the mountain so referred to is \u201cthe cosmic mountain, the Weltberg,\u201d has been widely accepted. Equally convincing, however, is the connection of the name with power and strength (cf. MacLaurin, AbrN 3 [1961\u201362] 108\u201315; Wilson, PTR 22 [1924] 113\u201314).
\nWhat is of greater import here is the identification of Yahweh with the God of the patriarchs, whatever the name or names by which they called him, and the connection of the covenant made with them in the rescue and resettlement of their descendants, which is about to take place. Lohfink (Bib 49 [1968] 1\u20138) has argued that the roots of the covenant lie in the traditions about a covenant with Abraham, and that the Priestly writers sought to deemphasize the tradition of the revelation of the name of Yahweh to Moses as the crucial covenantal foundation. Too much has been made (Rendtorff, Revelation as History, 29\u201333) of P\u2019s unveiling of the tetragrammaton here as something new, the opening of a higher stage in Israel\u2019s theological development, in part because of too strict a pressing of parallels between this sequence on Moses\u2019 call and commission and the earlier one in chaps. 3 and 4. There is not here, as in that passage (pace Childs, 114\u201316) a discussion of the meaning of the special name \u201cYahweh.\u201d Following the equation of Yahweh and El Shaddai in vv 2\u20133, an equation made necessary by the emphasis the Priestly writers consider essential, this sequence moves immediately to the emphasis on Yahweh\u2019s covenant and what its fulfillment means to Israel in Egypt.
\nIt may therefore be more accurate to think of the Priestly writers as following their own and different emphasis, producing a parallel sequence never intended to match the sequence in chaps. 3 and 4, and not so much deemphasizing another line of approach or departing from it as taking up their own special concern, Yahweh\u2019s fulfillment of his covenant promises, no doubt seen by them as a convincing basis for Israel\u2019s fulfillment of their promises in covenant. Not the least of the merits of such a view is the elimination of the supposed \u201cconflicts\u201d of Gen 4:26 and Exod 3:13\u201314 with the present passage (Sandmel, HUCA 32 [1961] 19\u201329). Each facet of the account of God\u2019s revelation of himself may thus be permitted to reflect the light of man\u2019s perception of his Presence in its own distinct way. We should always keep in mind the diversity of our own perceptions of God and not demand of the biblical thinkers a unanimity of experience and a logicality of expression we ourselves cannot demonstrate.
\n4\u20135 Thus by reference to the covenant with the fathers the Priestly narrative introduces a sequence begun by the Yahwist with the theophany of the flaming bush, including in the process the important historical memory that the fathers honored Yahweh by other names. Three essential details are then quickly noted: (1) the covenant included a promise of land; (2) that land was the land of their transient life, between the river-basin of Mesopotamia and the river-basin of Egypt; and (3) the oppression by the Egyptians, which necessitates the next stage in the fulfillment of the covenant, has served also as a reminder of it.
\n6\u20138 As Yahweh\u2019s name, describing his nature as an active, present God, has served as a declaration of the authority Moses sought during his experience of call at Sinai (3:13\u201317), so now that name, as part of the self-proclamatory assertion \u201cI am Yahweh,\u201d serves as the guarantee of the promise of deliverance, which it precedes (v 6) and concludes (v 8; cf. Oliva, Bib 52 [1971] 2\u20135, 13\u201319, and Ogden, VT 28 [1978] 198\u201399). The covenant Yahweh has made is stressed not only by the reference to the deliverance about to take place (\u201cbring you forth \u2026 snatch you forth\u201d), but also by Yahweh\u2019s claim that he is to act as \u201ca rescuing kinsman\u201d (a usage which, as Stamm, Erl\u00f6sen und Vergeben, 36\u201339 notes, is also connected with the patriarchal fathers), and by his \u201csingling them out\u201d for himself to be their God (cf. 19:5).
\nThis rescue will mean more than mere deliverance, however, for it will be a rescue that will teach Israel by experience the truth of the claim made in the name \u201cYahweh\u201d and in the statement \u201cI am Yahweh.\u201d The deliverance will be followed, further, by the fulfillment of the second major part of the covenant-promise, the gift of the land of Canaan, the land of wandering existence for the fathers, now to be a homeland for the descendants, and so an inheritance of the promise. That promise, indeed, Yahweh swore\u2014\u201cI lifted my hand to give \u2026,\u201d apparently an example, by effect and by symbol if the statement is to be taken literally, of what Lehmann (ZAW 81 [1969] 83\u201384) has described as an oath based on blessing. And the authority for the fulfillment of the promise, again, is \u201cI am Yahweh.\u201d
\n9\u201313 With no more than a laconic note that Moses reported these powerful words of Yahweh, we are told that the sons of Israel were simply too dejected and worn out by the slavery they had had to endure to take any notice of Moses or the words he quoted. Such a notice seems strange indeed until it is seen as the transition to what follows: Yahweh now commands Moses to address the Pharaoh himself, so that he will respond (vv 10\u201311), and Moses objects (v 12).
\nThis is Moses\u2019 only protest in this Priestly account of his commission, and it focuses upon the unlikeliness of success for such a petition, and only secondarily on his limitation as a speaker. But this too is a transitional verse. Yahweh\u2019s next word to Moses is a word also to Aaron, who appears in this sequence for the first time, and it is not a word of explanation or comfort or further revelation: it is a command. They are to get on with bringing forth the sons of Israel from the land of Egypt.
\nExplanation
\nThe interpretation of Exod 6:2\u201313 has often been deflected by too close a connection with chaps. 4 and 5. In both passages, it is true, the call and commission of Moses provide a framework for a narrative that has to do with what Yahweh has promised and what Yahweh is about to do, with both promise and action founded on the kind of God Yahweh is.
\nBut there the correspondence ends, for the most part. The essential features of chaps 3 and 4, theophany in relation to call, the revelation and explanation of the special name \u201cYahweh,\u201d the signs of Moses\u2019 authority, the provision of a \u201cmouth\u201d for Moses, and the movement of Moses from Midian to Egypt, are either lacking altogether or are present only by inference in 6:2\u201313. Whether any of these subjects was dealt with in sections from the Priestly source which have been omitted from the composite of the final text of Exodus is a moot question. They are not present now, and 6:2\u201313 as it stands is clearly concerned with another, if parallel, emphasis.
\nThat emphasis, so essential a part of the Priestly conception of the relationship of Israel and Yahweh, is the covenant. What Yahweh has done and is doing and what Israel is doing and must do might be said to be the fundamental theme of the three substantial Priestly sections of the Book of Exodus. Here, at the beginning of the first of those sections, that double motif is sounded clearly and dramatically. It is sounded by a reference to the promise of Yahweh to the fathers, who knew him by other names. It is sounded by a reference to the land of the fathers\u2019 sojourning now about to become the possession by inheritance of their descendants. It is sounded by a reference to the deliverance about to take place, a rescue made as necessary by Yahweh\u2019s obligation as a redeeming kinsman as by the dire need of the people of Israel. It is sounded by an anticipation of the election of the Israelites to a new status as the people of God, soon to take place at Sinai. And it is sounded in the justifying and authorizing self-confession of the \u201cI am Yahweh\u201d sentence, repeated four times in a sequence of five verses.
\nThe appropriateness of such a beginning to the first lengthy sequence of Priestly material in Exodus may be seen not only in the persistent emphasis throughout the Priestly literature upon what Israel is to become because Yahweh is what he is. It may be seen also in the sequences to follow in the Book of Exodus as a whole, so often preoccupied, in one way or another, with that same theme. Thus the genealogy of Moses and Aaron, the anticipation of the mighty acts, and above all the instructions pursuant to the personnel, the symbols, and the implements of Israel\u2019s worship are all tied to this theme. But so also are the proof-of-Presence narratives, the Sinai theophany and covenant accounts, and the climactic account of Israel\u2019s first disobedience and the renewal of the covenant.
\nIsrael is indeed called to a covenant of being because Yahweh Is. That covenant was anticipated by the covenant with the fathers. It is about to be made possible by a deliverance and a gift of land made necessary by the covenant with the fathers. And for the Priestly narrators, its continuance, once it has been made, is a matter of primary obligation tied to Israel\u2019s very existence as a people.
\nThe Genealogy of Aaron and Moses (6:14\u201327)
\nBibliography
\nCody, A. A History of Old Testament Priesthood. AnBib 25. Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1969. Gray, G. B. Studies in Hebrew Proper Names. London: Adam and Charles Black, 1896. Liver, J. \u201cKorah, Dathan and Abiram.\u201d Studies in the Bible. Scripta Hierosolymitana 8. Ed. Chaim Rabin. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1961. 189\u2013217. M\u00f6hlenbrink, K. \u201cDie Levitischen Uberlieferungen des Alten Testaments.\u201d ZAW 52 (1934) 184\u2013231. North, F. S. \u201cAaron\u2019s Rise in Prestige.\u201d ZAW 66 (1954) 191\u201399. Westphal, G. \u201cAaron und die Aaroniden.\u201d ZAW 26 (1906) 201\u201330.
\nTranslation
\n14 These are the heads of their fathers\u2019 families: the sons of Reuben, Israel\u2019s first born, are Chanoch (\u201cTrained\u201d or \u201cDedicated\u201d) and Pallu (\u201cExtraordinary\u201d), Chetsron (\u201cVillage-Dweller\u201d) and Karmi (\u201cMy Vinekeeper\u201d). These are the family-divisions of Reuben. 15 And the sons of Simeon are Yemuel (? \u201cEl\u2019s Sea\u201d) and Yamin (\u201cRight Hand\u201d) and Ohad (?) and Yachin (\u201cHe Makes Firm\u201d) and Tsochar (\u201cTawny Skin\u201d) and Shaul (\u201cAsked For, Prayer\u2019s Answer\u201d), son of the Canaanite woman. These are the family-divisions of Simeon. 16 And these are the names of the sons of Levi, by their successive generations: Gershon (\u201cCast-Out\u201d or \u201cDriven Off\u201d) and Qehat (? \u201cBlunt One\u201d) and Merari (\u201cBitter One\u201d). Levi lived one hundred and thirty-seven years.
\n17 The sons of Gershon are Libni (? \u201cMy Whiteness\u201d) and Shimei (\u201cMy Report\u201d) by their successive generations. 18 And the sons of Qehat are Amram (\u201cExalted People\u201d) and Yitshar (\u201cFirst Oil\u201d) and Chebron (\u201cUniter\u201d) and Uzziel (\u201cMy Might Is El\u201d). Qehat lived one hundred and thirty-three years, 19 And the sons of Merari are Machli (\u201cMarrow to Me\u201d) and Mushi (? \u201cMy Feeling\u201d or \u201cMy Departure\u201d). These are the family-divisions of Levi, by their successive generations.
\n20 Now Amram married Yochebed (\u201cYahweh\u2019s Honor\u201d), his aunt, and in time, she gave birth to Aaron and to Moses. Amram lived one hundred and thirty-seven years. 21 And the sons of Yitshar are Qorach (\u201cBaldy\u201d) and Nepheg (\u201cClumsy\u201d or \u201cIdle\u201d) and Zikri (\u201cMy Remembrance\u201d). 22 And the sons of Uzziel are Mishael (\u201cWho Is That Is God?\u201d) and Eltsaphan (\u201cGod Has Treasured\u201d) and Sitri (\u201cMy Hiding Place\u201d).
\n23 Now Aaron married Elisheva (\u201cMy God Is Seven\u201d = \u201cCompletion,\u201d or \u201cMy God Is Sworn\u201d = \u201cBound by His Oath\u201d), Aminadab\u2019s (\u201cMy People Is Generous\u201d) daughter, Nachshon\u2019s (\u201cSnake\u201d) sister, and in time, she gave birth to Nadav (\u201cGenerous\u201d) and to Abihu (\u201cMy Father Is He\u201d), to Eleazar (\u201cGod Has Aided\u201d) and to Itamar (\u201cRegion of Palms\u201d).
\n24 And Qorach\u2019s sons are Assir (\u201cCaptive\u201d) and Elqanah (\u201cGod Has Created\u201d) and Abiasaph (\u201cMy Father Has Gathered Together\u201d). These are the family-divisions of the Qorachites.
\n25 And Eleazar, Aaron\u2019s son, married one of Putiel\u2019s (?) daughters, and in time, she gave birth to Pinchas (\u201cMouth of?.\u201d). These are the heads of the Levitical fathers\u2019 family divisions. 26 This is the Aaron and the Moses to whom Yahweh said, \u201cBring forth the sons of Israel from the land of Egypt by their organized divisions.\u201d 27 They were the ones who spoke to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, to bring forth the sons of Israel from Egypt, this very Moses and Aaron.
\nNotes
\n14.a. \u05e8\u05d0\u05e9\u05c1 refers to the male in charge of a family or clan, usually the oldest living father, lit., as in contemporary usage, the \u201chead of the household.\u201d
\n14.b. The translations suggested for this and the other names that occur for the first time in Exodus in this genealogy are based on the apparent etymology of the names, and are tentative.
\n14.c. \u05de\u05e9\u05c1\u05e4\u05d7\u05d4 designates a technical subdivision of a tribe into the clans that make it up, theoretically by family branches.
\n15.a. LXX reads \u0399\u03b5\u03bc\u03b9\u03b7\u03bb \u201cJemiel.\u201d
\n15.b. SamPent has \u05e6\u05d4\u05e8, perhaps \u201cBright Light.\u201d
\n17.a. LXX transliterates this name \u0393\u03b5\u03b4\u03c3\u03c9\u03bd \u201cGedson.\u201d
\n18.a. See n. 2:1.b.
\n18.b. LXX has \u1f11\u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u03c4\u03c1\u03b9\u03ac\u03ba\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1 \u201cone hundred and thirty.\u201d
\n20.a. Lit., \u201ctook, selected \u2026 to himself for a wife.\u201d
\n20.b. On the difficulty of the spelling of this name, see Widengren, Proclamation and Presence, 34\u201335. Noth, Personennamen, 111, doubts that it should be connected with Yahweh, and proposes instead a possible Egyptian origin.
\n20.c. MT here has \u05d3\u05d3\u05ea\u05d5 \u201chis aunt.\u201d Num 26:59 notes that Yochebed was a daughter of Levi, born in Egypt, thus indicating that Amram married his father\u2019s sister, his grandfather\u2019s daughter. LXX reads here, instead of \u201chis aunt,\u201d \u201cdaughter of the brother of his father,\u201d but reads Num 26:59 as MT does.
\n20.d. Some mss of SamPent and LXX add Maptara \u201cMiriam\u201d here, in accord with Num 26:59.
\n20.e. SamPent has \u201cone hundred and thirty-six years,\u201d as do some LXX and Old Latin mss. Noth (Personennamen, 227) includes this name in his list of names reflecting bodily weakness or indolence.
\n22.a. This name is missing from the basic text of LXX and from the Old Latin text.
\n22.b. SamPent \u05d0\u05dc\u05d9\u05e6\u05e4\u05df and Syr. read Elitsaphan, \u201cMy God Has Treasured,\u201d as does Num 3:30.
\n23.a. Noth (Personennamen, 230) and Gray (Proper Names, 91) list this name in their respective lists of names derived from animals.
\n24.a. SamPent has \u05d0\u05d1\u05d9\u05e1\u05e3, apparently the \u05d0\u05b6\u05d1\u05b4\u05d9\u05b8\u05e1\u05b8\u05e3 \u201cEbiasaph\u201d of 1 Chr 6:8, 22 and 9:19.
\n25.a. Noth (Personennaraen, 63) considered this name a hybrid form built on an Egyptian word plus a Hebrew word (\u05d0\u05b6\u05dc). Masora parva indicates that the name occurs nowhere else in the OT. Hyatt (96) translates it \u201che whom El gave.\u201d
\n25.b. BDB (810) proposes an Egyptian name, \u201cPe-nehasi, the negro.\u201d Hyatt (96) reads \u201cthe Nubian.\u201d
\n26.a. \u05e2\u05dc\u05be\u05e6\u05d1\u05d0\u05ea\u05dd \u201caccording to their armies or hosts\u201d is a technical term of organization, primarily, in the OT, for military purposes. Here, the reference seems to be to a logistical apportionment of the sons of Israel by tribal and clan subdivision.
\n27.a. SamPent has \u05de\u05d0\u05e8\u05e5 \u05de\u05e6\u05e8\u05d9\u05dd \u201cfrom the land of Egypt\u201d as do some LXX mss.
\n27.b. LXX reads \u0391\u03b1\u03c1\u03c9\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03af \u039c\u03c9\u03c5\u03c3\u1fc6\u03c2 \u201cAaron and Moses.\u201d
\nForm\/Structure\/Setting
\nThe form of this section is dictated in part by the setting in which it occurs (see Form\/Structure\/Setting on 6:2\u201313) and in part by its purpose, which is to trace the ancestry, primarily of Aaron and then (of necessity) of Moses back to the immediate family of Jacob\/Israel. The section has been carefully woven into the narrative from the Priestly circle, beginning at the first mention of Aaron (v 13), and ending with both a justification for its inclusion (vv 26\u201327) and a partially verbatim recapitulation of the narrative account at the point of its interruption (vv 28\u201330).
\nThe concern of the section is obviously genealogical, and it is thus reflective of the well-known interest of the Priestly circle in what Robert North (\u201cTheology of the Chronicler,\u201d JBL 82 [1963] 370\u201372) has called \u201clegitimacy,\u201d that is, having the right people in the right place at the right time. But the care with which this sequence is inserted into the narrative, the point at which it is located, and above all the manner in which it is focused, by and large on one person, Aaron, make it by form what must be called an adapted genealogy, the intention of which is the legitimation of Aaron.
\nThis purpose accounts for the lopsidedness of the section and for its inclusion of a series of names that occur in only a few places, or even nowhere else in the OT, but are nevertheless somehow important to the special position of Aaron. It also accounts for what appears to be a partial listing, both of the twelve tribes named in Exod 1:1\u20135, and also of the generations of two of the three trives mentioned in vv 14\u201316 of this section.
\nThus this sequence is best thought of not as \u201ca great secondary insertion\u201d (Noth, 58), but as a piece specially composed, albeit perhaps from fuller genealogical lists (cf. M\u00f6hlenbrink, ZAW 52 [1934] 187\u201397), for the single purpose of authenticating Aaron, and for this specific spot in this particular narrative. In any setting other than one presenting Aaron as a leader of special importance, it would make little sense.
\nComment
\n14\u201316 This genealogical list begins at the same point in the pre-history of the people of Israel and with the same order in listing the sons of Jacob\/Israel as does the list at the beginning of the Book of Exodus (see also Gen 49). Reuben, the firstborn, and four sons of his first generation, then Simeon and six sons of his first generation, then Levi and three sons of his first generation, are all listed. Of Reuben and Simeon and their ten sons no more is said here. The ten sons are listed in the genealogy of Gen 46 (see vv 9\u201310); eight of them (excepting Ohad and Tsochar) are listed in the genealogy of Num 26 (see vv 5, 6, 8, 12, 13), and seven of them (excepting the two absent from Num 26, plus Yachin) are listed in the genealogy of the Chronicler (see 1 Chr 4:24\u2014and note the additional sons of Simeon listed there\u2014and 5:3). These first two sons of Jacob\/Israel and the beginnings of their descendancy are included at the beginning of a genealogy of an important segment of the descendancy of Levi to place the family of Levi in its appropriate position of honor in the tribal biography. Levi is described as the third-born son of Jacob\/Israel by Leah, the first wife to bear him children (see Gen 35:22b\u201326, and cf. Cassuto, 84\u201385).
\n17\u201325 The sons of the three sons of Levi\u2019s first generation are next listed (though compare Num 26:57\u201358, which suggests a different descendancy; see Liver, Studies, 211\u201314), the eight grandsons of Levi. Of their descendants, only the two sons of Amram, the three sons of Yitshar, and the three sons of Uzziel are mentioned. Of these eight great-grandsons of Levi, two (Nepheg and Zikri) are not otherwise mentioned in the OT (though there are other persons so named). Aaron is mentioned before Moses as a son of Amram, and Aaron\u2019s wife, four of his sons and one of his grandsons are named, though none of Moses\u2019 family is mentioned. Finally, three sons of Qorach, Aaron\u2019s cousin, are named, one of whom (Elqanah) is not mentioned again in the OT.
\nThe reason for the inclusion of the line of Aaron through the beginning of the second generation beyond him is obvious enough, since Aaron is the reason for this adapted genealogy in the first place. The reason for the inclusion of the first generation of his cousin Qorach is not so clear (note M\u00f6hlenbrink, ZAW 52 [1934] 221\u201322). Since Qorach led, or was at least involved in a rebellion against Moses\u2019 authority (Num 16:1\u201335), his three obscure sons may be listed here alongside Aaron\u2019s two famous (Eleazar and Itamar; see Westphal, ZAW 26 [1906] 222\u201325) and two infamous (Nadav and Abihu) sons by way of comparison complimentary to Aaron. As Cody (Priesthood, 161\u201365, 170\u201374) has shown, in the later genealogies (e.g., 1 Chr 6:1\u201315 [16\u201330]), Aaron and his priestly line are separated from the line of Qehat, though Qorach is not. At some point in the development of the Priestly genealogy, and for some reason, there emerged an effort to discredit Qorach and his sons, an effort intriguingly connected by Jacob Liver (Studies, 208\u201314) with a Levitical revolt against the power of an entrenched priestly group in Jerusalem in the time of Solomon or \u201ceven\u201d David. Though the listing of vv 14\u201325 here predates (M\u00f6hlenbrink, ZAW 52 [1934] 205\u201311) that attempt, the sons of Qorach are even here not the important line.
\nApart from the note that Simeon\u2019s son Shaul was born of a Canaanite woman (v 15), a detail included probably because of its peculiarity, the only women mentioned in this genealogy are, significantly, Aaron\u2019s mother (v 20), Aaron\u2019s wife (v 23), and Aaron\u2019s daughter-in-law, the wife of Eleazar (v 25). Marriage to the sister of one\u2019s father is expressly forbidden by Lev 18:12, but a desire to provide a pure Levitical line for Moses and Aaron has apparently overridden (or even preceded) that stricture in the marriage of Amram to Yochebed. Aaron\u2019s wife is from the tribe of Judah (Num 1:7), and her brother is mentioned because of his significant leadership in that tribe (Num 2:3\u20134, 7:12\u201317, 10:14).
\n26\u201327 This preoccupation of the genealogy with Aaron and those connected with him in varying ways is pointedly reflected in the reversal of the usual and expected order of the names \u201cMoses and Aaron\u201d to \u201cAaron and Moses\u201d in v 26, as in the LXX\u2019s translation of v 27, and so perhaps in the Hebrew Vorlage of that verse. That Moses is included in this genealogy at all is almost certainly the result of the connection to him of Aaron in another and probably still earlier attempt to promote Aaron as the preeminent Levite (Westphal, ZAW 26 [1906] 230). At this stage in the development of the Book of Exodus, Moses would surely have needed no legitimation. Not so Aaron, whose role was still being debated as the tetrateuchal books reached final form (cf. F. S. North, ZAW 66 [1954] 191\u201399).
\nThus the Priestly writers assembled and wove into the text of their first extended sequence in the Book of Exodus a carefully drawn justification of Aaron as a figure of great importance to the events taking place in Egypt. The fact that even here Aaron appears as an add-on figure makes all the more clear the secondary nature of the Aaron traditions. It also explains why he is such a here-and-there character in the Book of Exodus, and why he of all persons can be presented both as the custodian of the revelation concerned with Israel\u2019s worship and also as a leading figure in Israel\u2019s first great apostasy and their first breaking of Yahweh\u2019s covenant expectations (see Comment on 32:1\u20136, 21\u201332).
\nThe function of vv 26\u201327 is a statement of the purpose of the genealogy, and this function is served in an emphatic fashion: \u201cThis is the Aaron and the Moses \u2026 this very Moses and Aaron.\u201d They are the two to whom Yahweh spoke (the reference, of course, is to v 13, since everywhere else so far Yahweh has spoken to Moses alone about the exodus), and they are the two who were to approach both the people of Israel and the Pharaoh.
\nExplanation
\nThe purpose of the genealogy of 6:14\u201325 is thus the authentication of Aaron as nobly descended from Jacob\/Israel through his third son, Levi, and thus as a worthy partner for Moses in the momentous negotiations about to take place in Egypt. Vv 26\u201327, which make this purpose clear, are stretched a bit, necessarily so, to include Moses, but Moses\u2019 position was in no jeopardy, and the priestly circle, by the thoroughness with which it seeks to push Aaron forward here, reveals that Aaron\u2019s position was in some jeopardy, at least at the point at which this genealogy was composed.
\nEven so, the larger frame of reference, the Book of Exodus as it stands before us, must be kept constantly in view as any smaller segment is considered. From that perspective, this genealogy may be seen as an attempt to set both Aaron and Moses firmly within the special descendancy of Jacob\/Israel\u2019s third son, Levi, the ancestor of the line of those who handle holy things and mediate Yahweh\u2019s words of expectation and judgment. While the original purpose of the passage may have been legitimation, its purpose in its present setting is the celebration of the descendancy of the promise.
\nA Preview of the Proof-of-Presence Sequence (6:28\u20137:7)
\nBibliography
\nCazelles, H., Gelin, A. et al. Mo\u00efe, l\u2019homme de l\u2019alliance. Paris: Descl\u00e9e & Cie, 1955. Daiches, D. Moses: The Man and His Vision. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1975.
\nTranslation
\n28 Now when Yahweh spoke to Moses in the land of Egypt, 29 Yahweh spoke to Moses to say, \u201cI am Yahweh. Speak to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, everything that I speak to you.\u201d 30 So Moses said to Yahweh\u2019s face, \u201cNow, look\u2014I am a clumsy speaker: just how is Pharaoh going to pay attention to me?\u201d
\n7:1 So Yahweh said to Moses, \u201cYou must understand that I will make you a god so far as Pharaoh is concerned, and Aaron your brother will be your prophet. 2 You are to speak all that I order you to speak, and Aaron your brother is to speak to Pharaoh, and he will send forth the sons of Israel from his land. 3 At the same time, I will make Pharaoh stubborn-minded, then pile up signs and wondrous deeds in the land of Egypt; 4 Pharaoh will pay no attention to you, and thus will I set my hand against Egypt, and I will bring forth my organized divisions, my people the sons of Israel, from the land of Egypt with great deeds of vindication. 5 So shall the Egyptians know by experience that I am Yahweh, when I stretch forth my hand against Egypt and bring forth the sons of Israel from the midst of them.\u201d
\n6 Thus Moses and Aaron set about doing as Yahweh ordered them; they did it to the letter. 7 Moses was eighty and Aaron was eighty-three when they spoke to Pharaoh.
\nNotes
\n30.a. Vv 29 and 30 are a recapitulation, following the genealogy (6:14\u201325) and its justification (6:27\u201328), of vv 11 and 12. This phrase is repeated verbatim; see n. 6:12.b.
\n1.a. The impv. \u05e8\u05b0\u05d0\u05b5\u05d4 lit. means \u201csee here,\u201d \u201clook now,\u201d as in the contemporary use of this verb, urging the perception or understanding of a given point or situation.
\n1.b. Lit., \u201cI give you, a god, to Pharaoh.\u201d
\n2.a. Emphasis is shown by the use of the independent personal pronoun \u05d0\u05ea\u05d4, doubling the \u201cyou\u201d of the verb form \u05ea\u05d3\u05d1\u05e8 \u201cyou speak.\u201d \u201cTo speak\u201d is added following the verb \u201corder\u201d for clarity of flow in the translation.
\n3.a. Lit., \u05d5\u05d0\u05e0\u05d9 is \u201cand I\u201d or even \u201cthen I.\u201d The narrative of the events these verses anticipate makes abundantly plain, however, that the negotiations of Moses and Aaron, the stiffening of Pharaoh\u2019s resolve, and Yahweh\u2019s mighty deeds belong together as coordinate actions, not in line as sequential events.
\n3.b. Emphasis is again shown by the addition of the independent personal pronoun, and the emphatic usage parallels and complements that of v 2: \u201cYou are to speak, \u2026 I will make Pharaoh.\u2026\u201d
\n3.c. Lit., \u201cheart\u201d is the obj of this verb (\u05e7\u05e9\u05c1\u05d4 \u201cbe hard\u201d), as it is also of the hiph of \u05d7\u05d6\u05e7 \u201cmake obstinate,\u201d of 4:21; but as is well known, \u05dc\u05d1 refers to \u201cheart\u201d as the center of reason and intelligence, in contemporary usage, \u201cmind,\u201d and not to \u201cheart\u201d as the center of the emotions.
\n3.d. Hiph of \u05e8\u05d1\u05d4 means \u201cincrease greatly, multiply,\u201d the number of something.
\n4.a. Or \u201cpower, strength,\u201d \u05d9\u05d3.
\n4.b. The same term as in 6:26; see n. 6:26.a.
\n4.c. \u05e9\u05c1\u05e4\u05d8\u05d9\u05dd, from \u05e9\u05c1\u05e4\u05d8 \u201cto judge,\u201d and of God especially, \u201cto give vindicating judgment,\u201d in the Psalms particularly, often as he comes in theophany. SamPent reads \u05d1\u05de\u05e9\u05c1\u05e4\u05d8\u05d9\u05dd, perhaps a slight tempering of MT, which is therefore preferable.
\n5.a. LXX \u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03c2 \u03bf\u1f31 \u0391\u1f30\u03b3\u03cd\u03c0\u03c4\u03b9\u03bf\u03b9 and SamPent \u05db\u05dc \u05de\u05e6\u05e8\u05d9\u05dd read \u201call Egypt\u201d; Barth\u00e9lemy (Preliminary and Interim Report, 97\u201398) advocates \u201cEgypt\u201d as a collective subj with the pl. verb. \u05de\u05b4\u05e6\u05b0\u05e8\u05b8\u05d9\u05b4\u05dd can be translated either way, however, and \u201cEgyptians\u201d gives a smoother reading, because of the second occurrence of this proper name later in the verse.
\n5.b. SamPent adds \u05e2\u05de\u05d9 \u201cmy people\u201d at this point.
\n6.a. Lit., \u201cyes (indeed) they did.\u201d
\nForm\/Structure\/Setting
\nThese verses are an integral part of the large composite from the priestly circle, 6:2\u20137:13, described more fully above. They function, indeed, as a kind of conclusion to this composite, with its concentration upon the impending rescue of Yahweh, guaranteed by his covenant-promise to the fathers, to be announced by his special servants Moses and Aaron, but to be brought about by his own active involvement.
\nVv 28\u201330 pick up and continue the narrative sequence of the composite, following the interruption the genealogy justifying Aaron as an equal partner with Moses. 7:1\u20135 then provides (through the vehicle of Yahweh\u2019s response to the question of Moses raised first in 6:12, then repeated in 6:30) what amounts to a theological explanation of the entire sequence of the mighty acts which will bring the promise of deliverance to reality. This response of Yahweh reaches back to the covenant promise to the fathers through Moses\u2019 involvement (and Aaron\u2019s) in bringing that promise to fulfillment (vv 1\u20132) and reaches forward to the exodus through Yahweh\u2019s explanation of how he will bring about that exodus and prove his Presence in Egypt at the same time. 7:6\u20137 concludes the section and the larger priestly composite with a laconic statement that Moses and Aaron carried out their orders exactly and with a note as to their ages at the time.
\nThe connection of 6:28\u20137:7 with what precedes it in the composite is shown not only by the continuation of the narrative with which the composite begins (6:2\u201313), but even more by the amplification of the theme of Yahweh\u2019s self-declaration to the sons of Israel (6:6\u20138) to include also his self-declaration to Pharaoh and to Egypt (7:3\u20135). And the connection of this preview of what is to come with what follows it, in the prologue to the mighty-act sequence (7:8\u201313), is shown by the introduction there of what is anticipated here.
\nComment
\n28\u201330 The question of Moses as to whether the Pharaoh of Egypt can be expected to pay any attention to him is another variation of the motif reflected in 3:11\u201312, 13\u201314, 19\u201320; 4:1, 8\u20139, 10\u201312; and 5:22\u20136:1. And the only reasonable answer to this question here, as in its earlier forms (\u201cWho am I?\u201d 3:11; \u201cthey won\u2019t trust me,\u201d 4:1; \u201cI am heavy of lip and thick of tongue,\u201d 4:10; \u201cWhy have you sent me here for this?\u201d 5:22), is a negative one. It is not Moses who will make things happen in Egypt, or who will be trusted to bring powerful deliverance, or whose own eloquence or lack of eloquence will matter at all, or whose coming to Pharaoh will inspire respect and receive attention. The determining Presence will be Yahweh\u2019s.
\nThis theme so permeates all the sequences in which Moses is significantly involved in the Book of Exodus that one can only suppose it to be a deliberate reflection of a specific and theological emphasis upon Yahweh as the only prime mover in the narratives of revelation and deliverance, and even of the offering of covenant. We have allowed centuries of the glorification of Moses (surveyed in detail by Cazelles, Gelin, et al., Mo\u00efse, l\u2019homme de l\u2019alliance, and more briefly by Daiches, Moses, 233\u201356), begun even in the biblical period, to color overmuch our interpretation of the Exodus narratives. We need to note with more precision the amount of attention really given to Moses, how flawed a hero he actually is, how often his involvement is a kind of springboard for an emphasis on the activity of real consequence\u2014the activity of Yahweh\u2014and how at every crucial point, the presence of Moses is either forgotten or at least obscured by the Presence of Yahweh.
\n7:1\u20135 Thus a question of Moses is once again an opening for an assertion of Yahweh that makes clear that Moses (and this time, Aaron as well) is but an instrument of God\u2019s activity. By the technique used so effectively in the Book of Job, Moses\u2019 question is not really answered\u2014not as he has asked it. Instead, Moses is given a new perspective on what is about to happen. Getting Pharaoh\u2019s attention is not his task; he is ordered rather to speak what Yahweh speaks. Yahweh has plans of his own for getting and holding Pharaoh\u2019s attention.
\nThat Moses is to be a god to Pharaoh will be Yahweh\u2019s doing, not his, and Yahweh will bring that about through a combination of word and deed, both originating in himself. Moses is to speak what Yahweh speaks, and Aaron, in turn, is to communicate that message to Pharaoh. Then Yahweh will act, and lest the Pharaoh pay too much attention too soon and come prematurely to less than an unquestioning belief, he will harden the Pharaoh\u2019s resistance so that he will pay no attention to Moses and so bring about Yahweh\u2019s rescue of the Israelites in such manner as to provoke even the Egyptians to belief. Moses is entirely right to suppose the Pharaoh will be indifferent to him. But that is not a problem of any consequence: Yahweh is concerned to bring the Pharaoh to an experiential knowledge of his powerful Presence, not of Moses\u2019 truthfulness or Aaron\u2019s eloquence.
\nThe assertion that Moses is to be made a god (\u05d0\u05dc\u05d4\u05d9\u05dd) to Pharaoh, and that Aaron will function as his prophet (\u05e0\u05d1\u05d9\u05d0 \u201cspokesman,\u201d Hyatt, 101) is to be understood as a credit to Yahweh and not to Moses or to Aaron. What is to bring this about is described in vv 2\u20135: Moses is to speak what Yahweh speaks, and Yahweh will act in accord with his own speaking. Thus Moses will appear to Pharaoh as no one else ever has, \u201cgiven,\u201d as he will be, as \u201ca god\u201d to Pharaoh by Yahweh\u2019s words, words delivered by Moses with Aaron\u2019s help, and confirmed by Yahweh\u2019s deeds.
\nOnce again, as in 4:21 and 6:1, Yahweh makes it clear that both Moses (and in this passage also Aaron) and Pharaoh are to be instruments in the proof of his Presence. Moses is ordered to speak to Pharaoh (through Aaron and with Aaron\u2019s help) what Yahweh has spoken to him, and Pharaoh will be made stubborn-minded, so that the mighty deeds of proof may be multiplied and their impact heightened (cf. Greenberg, Understanding Exodus, 138\u201340). Of the three verbs used with Yahweh as subject in the presentation of the \u201chardening-of-the-heart\u201d motif, two are used only once: hiphil of \u05e7\u05e9\u05c1\u05d4 \u201cmake hard, severe, stubborn\u201d in v 3 here, and hiphil of \u05db\u05d1\u05d3 \u201cmake heavy, insensitive, unresponsive\u201d in 10:1. Moses, Yahweh says emphatically (\u201cyou\u201d v 2), is to do his part by speaking what he is ordered to speak; Yahweh will see that Pharaoh does his part by making his mind stubborn, an assertion also made emphatically and set forth as an action that is to parallel Moses\u2019 speaking (\u201cAt the same time, I,\u201d v 3).
\nThus Yahweh is orchestrating, in a combination of opposing and unlikely forces, a deliverance that will above all be a proof of his active Presence. A reluctant Moses, an unbelieving Pharaoh, a crushed and dispirited Israel, a proud and ruling Egyptian people, a non-nation against the greatest of nations, are brought together, and the opposing sides are set still more firmly in their respective ways, so that the proof of Yahweh\u2019s Presence, which is to turn everything upside down, may be established irrevocably. Even as Moses and Aaron speak Yahweh\u2019s words of command to Pharaoh, Yahweh will increase Pharaoh\u2019s resistance, thus creating an impasse.
\nHis preparation made, Yahweh will then \u201cpile up\u201d in the land of the impasse \u201csigns and wondrous deeds,\u201d which are to function as convincing proofs and palpable reminders (Helfmeyer, \u201c\u05d0\u05d5\u05b9\u05ea,\u201d TDOT 1:168\u201370), the telling climax of which will be the exodus itself, brought about \u201cwith great deeds of vindication.\u201d The specific allusion of this term, \u05e9\u05c1\u05e4\u05d8\u05d9\u05dd \u201cvindication,\u201d is probably the death of Egypt\u2019s firstborn, as its use in 12:12 and Num 33:4 confirms. But its repeated use (ten times) in the Book of Ezekiel to refer to a variety of Yahweh\u2019s judgments (see Ezek 14:21) may suggest that it is inclusive of all the mighty deeds in Egypt and perhaps also of the rescue of Israel and the defeat of Egypt at the sea. Zimmerli (Ezekiel 1, Hermeneia [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979], 315) calls the term \u201ca word characteristic of Ezekiel and P,\u201d and its primary use in reference to acts of Yahweh give \u05e9\u05c1\u05e4\u05d8\u05d9\u05dd the sense of \u201cproving and vindicating deeds\u201d suggested in the Translation above and at 6:6.
\nThe climax of all this preparation, and of this entire sequence of Yahweh\u2019s word followed by Yahweh\u2019s deed, is in its own way an ultimate vindication, for with the bringing forth of the Israelites from \u201cthe midst\u201d of Egypt, that is, from a position entirely favorable to Egyptian power, the Egyptians will know by experience (as the Israelites will, 6:6\u20137) that \u201cI am Yahweh.\u201d (See Comment on 6:2; Helfmeyer, TDOT 1:171.)
\n6\u20137 The brief report that Moses and Aaron did exactly as Yahweh had ordered is a reference to the first confrontation with Pharaoh, reported in detail in 5:1\u20135, a passage that reflects, along with its sequels in 5:6\u20139 and 5:10\u201321, the motif of the resistance of Pharaoh and the resultant early failure of Israel\u2019s cause, whether pled by Moses and Aaron or by the Hebrew section-leaders. And the added note about the relative ages of Moses and Aaron when they began their negotiations with Pharaoh, though it fits the information given by Deut 34:7, as Noth (61) points out, and though it conforms to the tradition that Aaron was the elder brother (note the order of the names in 6:20), serves above all to conclude this compilation from the Priestly circle, begun at 6:2, with a moving dignity. Moses and Aaron have earned the right to some respect by virtue of their survival to the age of experienced wisdom.
\nExplanation
\nIn a remarkable way, 6:28\u20137:7 sums up the narrative of the Book of Exodus from 5:1 forward and previews the narrative to come through 13:16 at least, and perhaps even through chaps 14 and 15. This section is above all a theological explanation for the sequence of the mighty acts as a proof-of-Presence sequence. It answers in advance of their raising the questions of why Yahweh did the mighty deeds, of how the Pharaoh could hold out so long, of why there was a \u201cpiling up\u201d of signs and wondrous deeds. As at so many other points in the biblical narrative (Gen 22:1, for example, or Job 1 and 2), we are told what is going to happen and what the event means before it unfolds.
\nBut the section also makes unquestionably clear, immediately following the genealogy documenting the importance of Aaron and the preceding section describing (albeit more indirectly than directly) Moses\u2019 call and commission, exactly the position of Moses and Aaron in all that is about to unfold. They are God\u2019s servants, the medium of his preparatory word, but what they are, they are by his action. What is about to be accomplished, therefore, he will accomplish. Not only is the Pharaoh justified to pay them no attention, the attention Yahweh begins to attract will at first be deflected so that the lesson to be taught may be driven home with all the greater impact. Yahweh\u2019s sovereignty is such that he will bring not merely Moses and Aaron but Pharaoh, the Egyptians, and even the natural world into the process of the lesson he is about to teach and the work he is about to do.
\nIt is difficult indeed to conclude that such a section has fallen into the text of the Book of Exodus at precisely the appropriate point by the coincidental shuffle of a redactor\u2019s snippets. Exod 6:28\u20137:7, in this location, is a case in point for the importance of the text of the Book of Exodus in the form in which we have it\u2014admittedly a compilation, but one put together with great care and in a manner that can tell us much about the meaning of the whole as well as of its parts.<\/p>\n