Exodus 3-4 CRF – An Emphatic Translation of Exodus 3-4a
Exodus 3-4a is mostly made up of a dialogue between Yahweh and Moses. There is a lot of wordplay in these verses, especially concerning the divine name and the verb “to be” (see my sermon on Exodus 3:1-15). One of the things I did not get time to bring forward in the sermon is the use of emphatic pronouns in the text.
First, a brief Hebrew lesson. The Hebrew language can form a pronoun in two main ways (pronouns are words that refer to nouns – I, he, she, it…). A pronoun can be attached to a word. The phrase, “I will be with you” in Ex 3:12, though five words in English, is only two words in Hebrew: “I-will-be” / “with-you.”
The other way pronouns appear in Hebrew are separated from the word, similar to the way we do pronouns in English. “I have sent you” in Ex 3:12 is two words: the pronoun “I” and the word “I-have-sent-you.” Yes, you read that right. When the pronoun is detached from a word, it means the sentence actually has two pronouns – the independent pronoun and the inseparable pronoun that is attached to the main word. The Hebrew language never really needs an independent, standalone pronoun. So when it does appear, it’s a way of emphasizing the pronoun itself (in English, when we want to emphasize something, we typically italicize the word). You can translate that phrase in Ex 3:12, “I myself have sent you.” The meaning here is, “I myself, and no other person, have sent you.”
These independent pronouns are prolific in the dialogue between Moses and Yahweh. It would be a bit awkward to bring every one forward in their correct emphasis into English, but hearing the text with the pronouns emphasized has quite the impact on the reader. There is a definite interplay between God Himself and Moses himself.
Below, I have taken the ESV translation as a base text, and have tweaked the text or added in emphatic pronouns as they are represented in the Hebrew. The places where the independent pronouns are found right next to an attached pronoun will be underlined and italicized. Though there are a few pronouns sprinkled throughout chapter 3, the fun starts in 4:10, and this will give you a good taste for the emphasis in the text:
10 But Moses said to the LORD, “Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue.”
11 Then the LORD said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD?
12 Now therefore go, and I myself will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak.”
13 But he said, “Oh, my Lord, please send someone else.”
14 Then the anger of the LORD was kindled against Moses and he said, “Is there not Aaron, your brother, the Levite? I know that he himself can speak well. Behold, he is coming out to meet you, and when he sees you, he will be glad in his heart.
15 You shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth, and I myself will be with your mouth and with his mouth and will teach you both what to do.
16 He himself shall speak for you to the people, and he himself shall be your mouth, and you yourself shall be as God to him.
As you can see, God takes Moses’s “I” and emphatically demolishes his self-centered argument. It is not Moses’s “I” which is important, but the “I AM” that will be with Moses.
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