Exodus 6

Introduction

Exodus 6 follows directly from Moses' discouraged complaint at the end of chapter 5, where Pharaoh's response to the initial demand for release was to increase Israel's workload. Moses had cried out, "Lord, why have you brought harm to this people?" (Exodus 5:22). Now God answers — not with a rebuke, but with a sweeping revelation of his identity and his intentions. The chapter contains one of the most theologically dense speeches in the Pentateuch: God reveals the fuller significance of the name YHWH, recounts his covenant faithfulness to the patriarchs, and issues seven "I will" declarations that lay out the entire program of redemption from Egypt to the promised land. The speech is framed by the self-identifying formula "I am the LORD" — appearing at the beginning, middle, and end — a threefold reminder that what God promises, God himself guarantees.

Yet the chapter is also marked by failure and frustration. Israel cannot hear the good news because of their crushed spirit and harsh slavery. Moses, rejected by his own people, protests that Pharaoh will certainly not listen to a man of "uncircumcised lips." Sandwiched between these twin refusals is an unexpected genealogy — a register of the tribes of Reuben, Simeon, and Levi — that pauses the narrative to establish exactly who Moses and Aaron are. The genealogy is not a digression; it is an identity card, proving that the men God has commissioned descend from Levi through Kohath through Amram, and that Aaron's priestly lineage extends to Eleazar and Phinehas. The chapter ends where it began: God commanding, Moses protesting, and the reader poised for the confrontation with Pharaoh that will unfold in chapter 7.

God Promises Deliverance (vv. 1-8)

Notes

• עַתָּה תִרְאֶה ("Now you will see") — God's opening word to Moses is a direct response to the complaint at the end of Exodus 5. Moses had said, "You have not delivered your people at all" (Exodus 5:23). God replies: "Now you will see." The word עַתָּה ("now") marks a turning point — the time of waiting is over, and the time of action has begun.

• בְּיָד חֲזָקָה ("by a strong hand") — This phrase appears twice in v. 1, creating an emphatic parallelism. The "strong hand" belongs to God, but its effect is described from Pharaoh's perspective: Pharaoh will send them out and drive them away. The same phrase becomes a recurring motif throughout the exodus narrative (Exodus 13:9, Deuteronomy 4:34, Deuteronomy 26:8).

• אֲנִי יְהוָה ("I am the LORD") — This self-identification formula occurs three times in this speech: at the beginning (v. 2), the middle (v. 6), and the end (v. 8). It frames the entire revelation. In the ancient Near East, a sovereign's self-identification carried the weight of an oath — "I am the LORD" means "I stake my own identity on what follows." The formula also appears in the prologue to the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:2) and saturates the holiness code of Leviticus (Leviticus 18:5-6).

• בְּאֵל שַׁדָּי ("as El Shaddai / God Almighty") — This is one of the most discussed verses in the Pentateuch. God says he appeared to the patriarchs as אֵל שַׁדָּי but "by my name YHWH I did not make myself known to them." The difficulty is that the name YHWH does appear in Genesis — the patriarchs use it, and the narrator uses it freely. Several solutions have been proposed: (1) The patriarchs knew the name YHWH as a label but did not experience its full meaning — the meaning of YHWH as the covenant-keeping, redeeming God who acts powerfully in history. Under this reading, נוֹדַעְתִּי ("I made myself known") refers not to the pronunciation of the name but to the experiential revelation of its content. (2) The statement is rhetorical or comparative — "I appeared as El Shaddai, but by my name YHWH I was not [fully] known to them." (3) The question mark belongs on the sentence: "And by my name YHWH did I not make myself known to them?" — reading it as a rhetorical question rather than a denial. The first interpretation is the most widely held among evangelical scholars: the patriarchs knew the name, but the exodus generation will know what the name means — the God who keeps covenant, who hears groaning, who remembers promises, and who acts with power.

• The etymology of שַׁדָּי is itself debated. It may derive from שָׁדַד ("to overpower"), from the Akkadian shadu ("mountain"), or from שֶׁ + דַּי ("the one who is sufficient"). In patriarchal contexts, El Shaddai is associated with fertility blessings and covenant promises (Genesis 17:1, Genesis 28:3, Genesis 35:11, Genesis 48:3).

• אֶרֶץ מְגֻרֵיהֶם ("the land of their sojournings") — The noun מָגוּר ("sojourning, residence as a foreigner") is from the same root as גֵּר ("sojourner, alien"). The patriarchs lived in Canaan but never owned it — they were resident aliens in the very land promised to them. The irony is deliberate: God gave them a promise of land but not the land itself. Now, in Egypt, their descendants are slaves who own nothing. The gap between promise and fulfillment is the space in which faith must operate.

• The seven "I will" statements in vv. 6-8 form the theological backbone of this chapter and arguably of the entire exodus narrative. They are: (1) וְהוֹצֵאתִי — "I will bring you out"; (2) וְהִצַּלְתִּי — "I will rescue you"; (3) וְגָאַלְתִּי — "I will redeem you"; (4) וְלָקַחְתִּי — "I will take you"; (5) וְהָיִיתִי — "I will be [your God]"; (6) וְהֵבֵאתִי — "I will bring you in"; (7) וְנָתַתִּי — "I will give it [to you]." These seven promises trace the full arc of redemption: liberation from slavery, deliverance from oppression, redemption through divine power, adoption as God's people, covenant relationship, entrance into the promised land, and inheritance of that land. Jewish tradition associates the first four of these promises with the four cups of wine at the Passover Seder.

• וְגָאַלְתִּי ("I will redeem you") — The verb גָּאַל is a legal term from Israel's kinship system. The גֹּאֵל ("redeemer, kinsman-redeemer") was the family member obligated to buy back a relative from slavery, avenge a relative's death, or reclaim family property (Leviticus 25:25, Ruth 4:1-6). By using this word, God declares himself Israel's nearest kin — their family redeemer. The concept is later extended to God's redemption of Israel from Babylonian exile (Isaiah 41:14, Isaiah 43:1) and ultimately underlies the New Testament theology of redemption through Christ.

• בִּזְרוֹעַ נְטוּיָה ("with an outstretched arm") — An anthropomorphic image of divine power. The "outstretched arm" becomes a standard epithet for God's deliverance in Deuteronomy (Deuteronomy 4:34, Deuteronomy 5:15, Deuteronomy 26:8). In Egyptian royal inscriptions, the pharaoh's "strong arm" was a symbol of military might. God appropriates the imagery: it is not Pharaoh's arm that is mighty, but the LORD's.

• וְלָקַחְתִּי אֶתְכֶם לִי לְעָם וְהָיִיתִי לָכֶם לֵאלֹהִים ("I will take you as my people, and I will be your God") — This is the covenant formula, the most concise expression of the covenant relationship in the Hebrew Bible. It appears at Sinai (Exodus 19:5-6), in the prophets (Jeremiah 31:33, Ezekiel 36:28), and in the new creation (Revelation 21:3). The language of "taking" (לָקַח) is the same verb used for taking a wife in marriage — the covenant between God and Israel is described with the intimacy of a marriage bond.

• נָשָׂאתִי אֶת יָדִי ("I lifted my hand") — This idiom means "I swore an oath." Raising the hand was the physical gesture of oath-taking (Genesis 14:22, Deuteronomy 32:40). The translation "I swore" captures the meaning, but I have retained "I lifted my hand" to preserve the concrete imagery of the Hebrew. The oath refers to God's covenant promises to Abraham (Genesis 15:18-21), Isaac (Genesis 26:3), and Jacob (Genesis 35:12).

• מוֹרָשָׁה ("a possession, an inheritance") — This word occurs only rarely in the Hebrew Bible and denotes a permanent, hereditary possession. It is stronger than a simple gift — it is an inheritance that belongs to the family in perpetuity. The land is not a temporary grant; it is Israel's lasting heritage from God.

Interpretations

The meaning of v. 3 — "by my name YHWH I did not make myself known to them" — has been a significant point of discussion. Critical scholars have traditionally understood this verse as evidence that the name YHWH was introduced at the time of Moses and that its presence in Genesis reflects a later editorial hand (the "J" or Yahwist source). Conservative scholars, by contrast, argue that the name was known earlier but that its full significance — as the God who redeems, delivers, and keeps covenant promises across generations — was only revealed through the exodus events. The distinction is between knowing a name and knowing what the name means experientially. Both readings take the text seriously, but they proceed from different assumptions about the composition of the Pentateuch.

Israel's Broken Spirit and Moses' Reluctance (vv. 9-13)

Notes

• מִקֹּצֶר רוּחַ ("because of shortness of spirit") — This is a striking Hebrew idiom. קֹצֶר means "shortness" (from קָצַר, "to be short, to cut short"), and רוּחַ means "spirit, breath, wind." Together they describe a spirit that has been cut short — crushed, constricted, unable to expand with hope. The BSB renders it "broken spirit," the ESV "broken spirit," and the KJV "anguish of spirit." I have kept the more literal "shortness of spirit" because it conveys the physical sensation of suffocation that the Hebrew intends — these are people who cannot breathe under the weight of their slavery, let alone hear words of hope. The word רוּחַ is the same word for the Spirit of God that hovered over the waters in Genesis 1:2 — but here the human spirit is so compressed by suffering that it cannot receive the divine word.

• עֲרַל שְׂפָתָיִם ("uncircumcised of lips") — This is Moses' self-description, and it is one of the most vivid metaphors in the Hebrew Bible. עָרֵל means "uncircumcised" — the foreskin as a covering that blocks or obstructs. Applied to lips, it means lips that are blocked, sealed, ineffective — unable to speak persuasively. The same metaphor is applied to ears in Jeremiah 6:10 ("their ears are uncircumcised, they cannot listen") and to the heart in Deuteronomy 10:16 and Jeremiah 4:4 ("circumcise the foreskin of your heart"). The concept is that circumcision removes a barrier, opening what was closed. Moses' complaint is not primarily about a speech impediment (as in Exodus 4:10) but about his inadequacy as a spokesman — if even Israel will not listen, how can he be God's mouthpiece to Pharaoh? The a fortiori argument (Hebrew קַל וָחֹמֶר, "light and heavy") is: if the lesser audience rejected the message, the greater audience certainly will.

• וַיְצַוֵּם ("and he gave them a charge") — God's response to Moses' protest is not to remove the objection but to issue a command. The verb צָוָה ("to command, to charge") carries the weight of a military commission. God charges both Moses and Aaron — this is the first time in the chapter that Aaron is mentioned alongside Moses — with a dual mission: to Israel and to Pharaoh. The commission is not contingent on the audience's receptiveness. God does not say "if they will listen"; he says "bring them out."

Genealogy of Reuben, Simeon, and Levi (vv. 14-25)

Notes

• The placement of this genealogy is surprising — it interrupts the narrative at a moment of tension. Moses has just protested his inadequacy, and the reader expects God's response. Instead, the text pauses to identify Moses and Aaron by their tribal lineage. The genealogy serves a literary and theological purpose: it establishes credentials. Before the confrontation with Pharaoh unfolds in earnest, the reader must know exactly who these men are. The genealogy begins with Reuben and Simeon (the first and second sons of Jacob) and then expands only the line of Levi (the third son), narrowing through Kohath to Amram to Aaron and Moses. The structure is a funnel: all Israel narrows to one family.

• רָאשֵׁי בֵית אֲבֹתָם ("the heads of their fathers' houses") — The בֵּית אָב ("father's house") was the basic social unit in ancient Israel, a multi-generational household of related families. The "heads" were the clan leaders. By beginning with this phrase, the genealogy signals that it is not a complete tribal register but a selective listing of ancestral leaders, focused on tracing one particular line.

• דֹּדָתוֹ ("his father's sister" / "his aunt") — Amram married Jochebed, his father's sister — a union that was later prohibited by Mosaic law (Leviticus 18:12, Leviticus 20:19). This detail confirms that the genealogy reflects a period before the Sinai legislation. The name יוֹכֶבֶד ("Jochebed") is significant: it appears to be a compound of יוֹ (a shortened form of YHWH) and כָּבוֹד ("glory"), meaning "YHWH is glory" or "the glory of YHWH." If so, it is one of the earliest personal names in the Bible to contain the divine name YHWH, which is noteworthy given the discussion of the divine name in v. 3.

• אֱלִישֶׁבַע ("Elisheba") — Aaron's wife. The name means "my God is an oath" or "my God is abundance" (from אֵל + שֶׁבַע). She was the daughter of Amminadab and the sister of Nahshon. Nahshon later became the leader of the tribe of Judah during the wilderness period (Numbers 2:3) and appears in the genealogy of David (Ruth 4:20) and of Jesus (Matthew 1:4). Aaron's marriage thus linked the tribe of Levi to the tribe of Judah — the priestly line to the royal line.

• Aaron's four sons — Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar — will all figure prominently in subsequent narrative. Nadab and Abihu will die before the LORD when they offer "strange fire" (Leviticus 10:1-2). Eleazar will succeed Aaron as high priest (Numbers 20:25-28), and his son פִּינְחָס ("Phinehas") will be known for his zealous act at Baal Peor (Numbers 25:7-13), for which God grants him a "covenant of peace" — a perpetual priesthood.

• קֹרַח ("Korah") — Korah the son of Izhar was Moses and Aaron's cousin (Izhar and Amram were brothers, both sons of Kohath). Korah will later lead a rebellion against Moses and Aaron, challenging their exclusive authority (Numbers 16). Yet the "sons of Korah" later became a guild of temple musicians — several psalms are attributed to them (Psalms 42, 44-49, 84-85, 87-88). From the line of rebellion comes a line of worship.

• The ages given — Levi 137 years, Kohath 133 years, Amram 137 years — are remarkably long but follow the declining lifespans that characterize the post-patriarchal period. These numbers also figure into attempts to calculate the duration of Israel's sojourn in Egypt. If one adds the generations linearly (Kohath entered Egypt with Jacob, per Genesis 46:11), the numbers yield a period considerably shorter than the 430 years mentioned in Exodus 12:40. This has led scholars to suggest that the genealogy is selective — listing representative figures rather than every generation — or that the 430 years encompasses the entire patriarchal sojourn from Abraham onward (as the LXX and Galatians 3:17 suggest).

Moses and Aaron Commissioned (vv. 26-30)

Notes

• הוּא אַהֲרֹן וּמֹשֶׁה ... הוּא מֹשֶׁה וְאַהֲרֹן — The order of the names reverses between v. 26 and v. 27. In v. 26, "Aaron and Moses" follows the genealogical order (Aaron was the elder brother). In v. 27, "Moses and Aaron" follows the order of importance in the narrative — Moses is the primary agent, Aaron is his spokesman. The reversal is deliberate: the genealogy establishes birth order; the commission establishes calling. The emphatic pronoun הוּא ("this is the one," "he is the one") functions as a spotlight — after the genealogical interlude, the narrator re-identifies the protagonists: these are the very men.

• עַל צִבְאֹתָם ("by their hosts/divisions") — The word צָבָא means "army, host, military division." Israel is to leave Egypt not as a scattered band of refugees but as an organized host — a people with structure and order. The word is used for the heavenly host (the army of stars and angels) and for Israel's tribal military organization in Numbers. The exodus is portrayed not as an escape but as a military campaign led by the LORD.

• Verses 28-30 serve as a resumptive repetition — a literary technique in Hebrew narrative where the text, after a digression (here, the genealogy of vv. 14-25), returns to the point where it left off by partially restating the situation. The repetition of "I am the LORD" (v. 29) and Moses' protest about his "uncircumcised lips" (v. 30) picks up directly from vv. 10-12. The narrative is now ready to move forward into Exodus 7, where God will answer Moses' protest by appointing Aaron as his prophet.

• אֵת כָּל אֲשֶׁר אֲנִי דֹּבֵר אֵלֶיךָ ("all that I am speaking to you") — The present participle דֹּבֵר ("speaking") rather than a past tense is significant. God is not only referring to what he has already said but to an ongoing communication — "everything I am speaking to you," an open-ended commission. Moses is to relay not a single message but a continuing stream of divine speech. This prepares for the extended dialogue with Pharaoh across the plague narratives.

• The chapter ends on a note of unresolved tension. Moses' protest in v. 30 is identical in substance to his protest in v. 12 — the genealogy has changed nothing about his self-assessment. The resolution comes only in Exodus 7:1-2, where God tells Moses, "I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron will be your prophet." Moses' inadequacy is not removed; it is bypassed through a partner. The pattern is consistent with Scripture's larger theme that God's power is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).