Exodus 6 commentary

EXODUS 6 COMME TARY
EDITED BY GLE PEASE
1 Then the Lord said to Moses, “ ow you will see
what I will do to Pharaoh: Because of my mighty
hand he will let them go; because of my mighty
hand he will drive them out of his country.”
CLARKE, "With a strong hand - ‫חזקה‬ ‫יד‬ yad chazakah, the same verb which we
translate to harden; see Clarke on Exo_4:21 (note). The strong hand here means
sovereign power, suddenly and forcibly applied. God purposed to manifest his sovereign
power in the sight of Pharaoh and the Egyptians; in consequence of which Pharaoh
would manifest his power and authority as sovereign of Egypt, in dismissing and
thrusting out the people. See Exo_12:31-33.
GILL, "Then the Lord said unto Moses,.... In answer to the questions put to him,
and the expostulations made with him:
now shalt thou see what I will do to Pharaoh: in inflicting punishments on him:
for with a strong hand shall he let them go; being forced to it by the mighty hand of God
upon him; and it is by some rendered, "because of a strong hand" (s); so Jarchi; for this
is not to be understood of the hand of Pharaoh, but of the hand of God:
and with a strong hand shall he drive them out of his land: not only be willing
that they should go, but be urgent upon them to be gone, Exo_12:33.
HE RY, "Here, I. God silences Moses's complaints with the assurance of success in
this negotiation, repeating the promise made him in Exo_3:20, After that, he will let you
go. When Moses was at his wit's end, wishing he had staid in Midian, rather than have
come to Egypt to make bad worse - when he was quite at a loss what to do - Then the
Lord said unto Moses, for the quieting of his mind, “Now shalt thou see what I will do to
Pharaoh (Exo_6:1); now that the affair has come to a crisis, things are as bad as they can
be, Pharaoh is in the height of pride and Israel in the depth of misery, now is my time to
appear.” See Psa_12:5, Now will I arise. Note, Man's extremity is God's opportunity of
helping and saving. Moses had been expecting what God would do; but now he shall see

what he will do, shall see his day at length, Job_24:1. Moses had been trying what he
could do, and could effect nothing. “Well,” says God, “now thou shalt see what I will do;
let me alone to deal with this proud man,” Job_40:12, Job_40:13. Note, Then the
deliverance of God's church will be accomplished, when God takes the work into his own
hands. With a strong hand, that is, being forced to it by a strong hand, he shall let them
go. Note, As some are brought to their duty by the strong hand of God's grace, who are
made willing in the day of his power, so others by the strong hand of his justice, breaking
those that would not bend.
JAMISO , "Exo_6:1-13. Renewal of the Promise.
the Lord said unto Moses — The Lord, who is long-suffering and indulgent to the
errors and infirmities of His people, made allowance for the mortification of Moses as
the result of this first interview and cheered him with the assurance of a speedy and
successful termination to his embassy.
K&D 1-6, "Equipment of Moses and Aaron as Messengers of Jehovah. - Exo_6:1. In
reply to the complaining inquiry of Moses, Jehovah promised him the deliverance of
Israel by a strong hand (cf. Exo_3:19), by which Pharaoh would be compelled to let
Israel go, and even to drive them out of his land. Moses did not receive any direct answer
to the question, “Why hast Thou so evil-entreated this people?” He was to gather this
first of all from his own experience as the leader of Israel. For the words were strictly
applicable here: “What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter” (Joh_
13:7). If, even after the miraculous deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt and their
glorious march through the desert, in which they had received so many proofs of the
omnipotence and mercy of their God, they repeatedly rebelled against the guidance of
God, and were not content with the manna provided by the Lord, but lusted after the
fishes, leeks, and onions of Egypt (Num 11); it is certain that in such a state of mind as
this, they would never have been willing to leave Egypt and enter into a covenant with
Jehovah, without a very great increase in the oppression they endured in Egypt. - The
brief but comprehensive promise was still further explained by the Lord (Exo_6:2-9),
and Moses was instructed and authorized to carry out the divine purposes in concert
with Aaron (Exo_6:10-13, Exo_6:28-30; Exo_7:1-6). The genealogy of the two
messengers is then introduced into the midst of these instructions (Exo_6:14-27); and
the age of Moses is given at the close (Exo_7:7). This section does not contain a different
account of the calling of Moses, taken from some other source than the previous one; it
rather presupposes Exo 3-5, and completes the account commenced in Exo 3 of the
equipment of Moses and Aaron as the executors of the divine will with regard to Pharaoh
and Israel. For the fact that the first visit paid by Moses and Aaron to Pharaoh was
simply intended to bring out the attitude of Pharaoh towards the purposes of Jehovah,
and to show the necessity for the great judgments of God, is distinctly expressed in the
words, “Now shalt thou see what I will do to Pharaoh.” But before these judgments
commenced, Jehovah announced to Moses (Exo_6:2), and through him to the people,
that henceforth He would manifest Himself to them in a much more glorious manner
than to the patriarchs, namely, as Jehovah; whereas to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, He
had only appeared as El Shaddai. The words, “By My name Jehovah was I now known to
them,” do not mean, however, that the patriarchs were altogether ignorant of the name
Jehovah. This is obvious from the significant use of that name, which was not an
unmeaning sound, but a real expression of the divine nature, and still more from the
unmistakeable connection between the explanation given by God here and Gen_17:1.

When the establishment of the covenant commenced, as described in Gen 15, with the
institution of the covenant sign of circumcision and the promise of the birth of Isaac,
Jehovah said to Abram, “I am El Shaddai, God Almighty,” and from that time forward
manifested Himself to Abram and his wife as the Almighty, in the birth of Isaac, which
took place apart altogether from the powers of nature, and also in the preservation,
guidance, and multiplication of his seed. It was in His attribute as El Shaddai that God
had revealed His nature to the patriarchs; but now He was about to reveal Himself to
Israel as Jehovah, as the absolute Being working with unbounded freedom in the
performance of His promises. For not only had He established His covenant with the
fathers (Exo_6:4), but He had also heard the groaning of the children of Israel, and
remembered His covenant (Exo_6:5; ‫ם‬ַ‫ג‬ְ‫ו‬ - ‫ם‬ַ‫ג‬ְ‫,ו‬ not only - but also). The divine promise
not only commences in Exo_6:2, but concludes at Exo_6:8, with the emphatic
expression, “I Jehovah,” to show that the work of Israel's redemption resided in the
power of the name Jehovah. In Exo_6:4 the covenant promises of Gen_17:7-8; Gen_
26:3; Gen_35:11-12, are all brought together; and in Exo_6:5 we have a repetition of
Exo_2:24, with the emphatically repeated ‫י‬ִ‫נ‬ ֲ‫א‬ (I). On the ground of the erection of His
covenant on the one hand, and, what was irreconcilable with that covenant, the bondage
of Israel on the other, Jehovah was not about to redeem Israel from its sufferings and
make it His own nation. This assurance, which God would carry out by the manifestation
of His nature as expressed in the name Jehovah, contained three distinct elements: (a)
the deliverance of Israel from the bondage of Egypt, which, because so utterly different
from all outward appearances, is described in three parallel clauses: bringing them out
from under the burdens of the Egyptians; saving them from their bondage; and
redeeming them with a stretched-out arm and with great judgments; - (b) the adoption
of Israel as the nation of God; - (c) the guidance of Israel into the land promised to the
fathers (Exo_6:6-8). ‫ה‬ָ‫טוּי‬ְ‫נ‬ ַ‫ּוע‬‫ר‬ְ‫,ז‬ a stretched-out arm, is most appropriately connected with
‫ים‬ ִ‫ּל‬‫ד‬ְ ‫ים‬ ִ‫ט‬ ָ‫פ‬ ְ‫,שׁ‬ great judgments; for God raises, stretches out His arm, when He proceeds in
judgment to smite the rebellious. These expressions repeat with greater emphasis the
“strong hand” of Exo_6:1, and are frequently connected with it in the rhetorical language
of Deuteronomy (e.g., Deu_4:34; Deu_5:15; Deu_7:19). The “great judgments” were the
plagues, the judgments of God, by which Pharaoh was to be compelled to let Israel go.
CALVI , "1.Then the Lord said unto Moses. Moses was indeed unworthy of
receiving so kind and gentle a reply from God; but the Father of all goodness of His
infinite mercy pardoned both the sins of Moses and of the people, that He might
effect the deliverance which he had determined. Yet He adduces nothing new, but
repeats and confirms His former declaration, that Pharaoh would not obey until
forcibly compelled to do so. The expression, “thou shalt see,” is a tacit reproof of his
immoderate impatience, in not waiting for the result of the promise. The reason is
then added why God is unwilling that His people should be spontaneously dismissed
by the tyrant, viz., because He wished the work of their liberation to be conspicuous.
We must remark the strength of the words “drive them out;” as if He had said, that
when Pharaoh had been subdued, and routed in the contest, he would not only
consent, but would consider it a great blessing, for the people to depart as quickly as
possible. The sum is, that he, who today refuses to let you depart, will not only set
you free, but will even expel you from his kingdom.

BE SO , "Exodus 6:1. ow shalt thou see what I will do — Here we have a
striking proof of God’s long-suffering. Instead of severely reproving Moses for his
impatience, as manifested at the close of the preceding chapter, and his injurious
complaints, he condescends to give him fresh assurances of his power and his
determination to deliver the Israelites. With a strong hand — That is, being forced
to it with a strong hand, or by those terrible judgments which I shall inflict upon
him by my power, he shall let them go./
ELLICOTT, "(1) ow shalt thou see.—Moses’ complaint was that God delayed,
and “was slack as concerning His promise.” Hitherto He had not “delivered His
people at all.” The answer,” ow shalt thou see,” is an assurance that there will be
no more delay; the work is just about to begin, and Moses will behold it. He will
then cease to doubt.
With a strong hand shall he let them go.—Rather, through a strong hand: i.e.,
through the compulsion which my strong hand will exert on him,
Drive them.—Comp. Exodus 12:31-33.
COFFMA , "Introduction
In the last chapter, despite developments which in no sense could be understood as a
failure of God's purpose, the people, nevertheless, who had probably expected some
immediate and miraculous delivery, but who instead had been rebuffed and loaded
with heavier burdens than ever by Pharaoh, were greatly distressed and vented
their disappointment by angry remarks to Moses. Moses was also powerless to
answer their objections, being in fact himself very much discouraged and doubtful.
The Scriptures make this plain enough, always, as in this example of it, "telling it
like it is," regardless of the faults, sins and mistakes of God's heroes, which are
related impartially along with their deeds of success and glory. ote how Josephus'
account of this same situation not only ignores Moses' fear, uncertainty, and doubt,
but actually affirms just the opposite:
"Moses did not let his courage sink for the king's threatenings, nor did he abate of
his zeal on account of the Hebrews' complaints, but he supported himself, and set
his soul resolutely against them both, and used his own utmost diligence to procure
liberty to his countrymen."[1]
As for the near-panic that fell upon the Hebrews, this was primarily due to their
deliverance not having come suddenly and dramatically as they no doubt had
expected. We should not be too hard in our judgment of them, however, for many
Christians of our own day are guilty of the same shortsightedness. "One of the most
pernicious misapprehensions of the Gospel is that which looks on salvation as an
instantaneous thing, which speaks of the `saved,' instead of those who `are being
saved' (Acts 2.47)."[2]
The finding of multiple "sources" in this chapter by the critics in the first half of
this century is nothing but a preposterous scholarly hoax. And we are pleased to

note that much of the wind has already been taken out of the sails of such attacks
upon the Scriptures. The witness has actually been against them continually. Even
in 1915, Moller wrote: "The unity of thought here demonstrated (throughout this
chapter) is a protecting wall against the flood-tide of the documentary theory."[3]
There was indeed once a flood-tide of those irresponsible theories, Harford, for
example, stating as fact that this chapter is "a second account of Moses' call,
belonging to `P'."[4] Of course, it is no such thing. The so-called second account
here is nothing more than a renewal of the call already received by Moses in Midian,
and repeated here for the sake of encouraging and enabling a despondent and
doubting Moses, as many of the most dependable current scholars have pointed out.
We agree with apier who thought that, "Moses could have continued at all only in
the power of a renewal."[5] "This section does not contain a different account of the
calling of Moses, taken from some other source. It presupposes Exodus 3 and
completes the account commenced there."[6] It is a renewal, not a variable account
of the call in Midian. The necessity for this renewal of Moses' commission is
inherent and demanded by his doubt and discouragement. He simply could not have
gone on without it.
Verse 1
"And Jehovah said unto Moses, ow shalt thou see what I will do to Pharaoh: for
by a strong hand shall he let them go, and by a strong hand shall he drive them out
of his land."
God's reassurance to Moses not only affirmed that Pharaoh would indeed let the
people go, but that Pharaoh himself would thrust them out of the land.
"By a strong hand ..." "The strong hand here is that of Jehovah, not of
Pharaoh."[7]
" ow shalt thou see ..." The situation was now dramatically altered toward the
ultimate achievement of God's purpose. Israel had been unified by the shameful and
pitiless manner in which Pharaoh had beaten the Hebrew petty officers. The
willingness of Israel to leave the comfortable conditions of a slavery where they were
having plenty to eat and had learned to enjoy the leeks and garlic had been
accomplished. Their increased hardships had intensified their hatred of their servile
condition and had made them willing to endure genuine hardship in order to escape
from it. Also, that first confrontation had been designed merely to bring out the true
attitude of Pharaoh and to show his real hatred of God's purpose. That hatred being
made clear enough, "The necessity for the great judgments of God against Egypt
was demonstrated, and is here distinctly expressed in the words, ` ow shalt thou see
what I will do to Pharaoh.'"[8]
COKE, "Exodus 6:1. Then the Lord said unto Moses— The improper division of
this, and of many other subsequent chapters, is evident to readers of the least
attention. Some have supposed, that the language of Moses, at the close of the
former chapter, was querulous and unbecoming: but the answer which God here
condescends to make him, sufficiently shews, that it was not indecent or blameable;

but only an humble and fervent expostulation with him, for the ill success of his first
message.
TRAPP, Exodus 6:1 Then the LORD said unto Moses, ow shalt thou see what I
will do to Pharaoh: for with a strong hand shall he let them go, and with a strong
hand shall he drive them out of his land.
Ver. 1. Then the Lord said unto Moses.] Pardoning the faults of his prayer, God
grants him a gracious answer. So he dealt with David, "For I said in my haste, I am
cut off from before thine eyes: nevertheless thou heartiest the voice of nay
supplication when I cried unto thee." [Psalms 31:22]
EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE COMME TARY, "THE E COURAGEME T OF
MOSES.
Exodus 6:1-30.
We have seen that the name Jehovah expresses not a philosophic meditation, but the
most bracing and reassuring truth--viz., that an immutable and independent Being
sustains His people; and this great title is therefore reaffirmed with emphasis in the
hour of mortal discouragement. It is added that their fathers knew God by the name
of God Almighty, but by His name Jehovah was He not known, or made known,
unto them. ow, it is quite clear that they were not utterly ignorant of this title, for
no such theory as that it was hitherto mentioned by anticipation only, can explain
the first syllable in the name of the mother of Moses himself, nor the assertion that
in the time of Seth men began to call upon the name of Jehovah (Genesis 4:26), nor
the name of the hill of Abraham's sacrifice, Jehovah-jireh (Genesis 22:14). Yet the
statement cannot be made available for the purposes of any reasonable and
moderate scepticism, since the sceptical theory demands a belief in successive
redactions of the work in which an error so gross could not have escaped detection.
And the true explanation is that this ame was now, for the first time, to be realised
as a sustaining power. The patriarchs had known the name; how its fitness should
be realised: God should be known by it. They had drawn support and comfort from
that simpler view of the Divine protection which said, "I am the Almighty God:
walk before Me and be thou perfect" (Genesis 17:1). But thenceforth all the
experience of the past was to reinforce the energies of the present, and men were to
remember that their promises came from One who cannot change. Others, like
Abraham, had been stronger in faith than Moses. But faith is not the same as
insight, and Moses was the greatest of the prophets (Deuteronomy 34:10). To him,
therefore, it was given to confirm the courage of his nation by this exalting thought
of God. And the Lord proceeds to state what His promises to the patriarchs were,
and joins together (as we should do) the assurance of His compassionate heart and
of His inviolable pledges: "I have heard the groaning of the children of Israel, ... and
I have remembered My covenant."

It has been the same, in turn, with every new revelation of the Divine. The new was
implicit in the old, but when enforced, unfolded, reapplied, men found it charged
with unsuspected meaning and power, and as full of vitality and development as a
handful of dry seeds when thrown into congenial soil. So it was pre-eminently with
the doctrine of the Messiah. It will be the same hereafter with the doctrine of the
kingdom of peace and the reign of the saints on earth. Some day men will smile at
our crude theories and ignorant controversies about the Millennium. We, meantime,
possess the saving knowledge of Christ amid many perplexities and obscurities. And
so the patriarchs, who knew God Almighty, but not by His name Jehovah, were not
lost for want of the knowledge of His name, but saved by faith in Him, in the living
Being to Whom all these names belong, and Who shall yet write upon the brows of
His people some new name, hitherto undreamed by the ripest of the saints and the
purest of the Churches. Meantime, let us learn the lessons of tolerance for other
men's ignorance, remembering the ignorance of the father of the faithful, tolerance
for difference of views, remembering how the unusual and rare name of God was
really the precursor of a brighter revelation, and yet again, when our hearts are
faint with longing for new light, and weary to death of the babbling of old words, let
us learn a sober and cautious reconsideration, lest perhaps the very truth needed for
altered circumstance and changing problem may lie, unheeded and dormant, among
the dusty old phrases from which we turn away despairingly. Moreover, since the
fathers knew the name Jehovah, yet gained from it no special knowledge of God,
such as they had from His Almightiness, we are taught that discernment is often
more at fault than revelation. To the quick perception and plastic imagination of the
artist, our world reveals what the boor will never see. And the saint finds, in the
homely and familiar words of Scripture, revelations for His soul that are unknown
to common men. Receptivity is what we need far more than revelation.
Again is Moses bidden to appeal to the faith of his countrymen, by a solemn
repetition of the Divine promise. If the tyranny is great, they shall be redeemed with
a stretched out arm, that is to say, with a palpable interposition of the power of God,
"and with great judgments." It is the first appearance in Scripture of this phrase,
afterwards so common. ot mere vengeance upon enemies or vindication of subjects
is in question: the thought is that of a deliberate weighing of merits, and rendering
out of measured penalties. ow, the Egyptian mythology had a very clear and
solemn view of judgment after death. If king and people had grown cruel, it was
because they failed to realise remote punishments, and did not believe in present
judgments, here, in this life. But there is a God that judgeth in the earth. ot
always, for mercy rejoiceth over judgment. We may still pray, "Enter not into
judgment with Thy servants, O Lord, for in Thy sight shall no man living be
justified." But when men resist warnings, then retribution begins even here.
Sometimes it comes in plague and overthrow, sometimes in the worse form of a
heart made fat, the decay of sensibilities abused, the dying out of spiritual faculty.
Pharaoh was to experience both, the hardening of his heart and the ruin of his
fortunes.
It is added, "I will take you to Me for a people, and I will be to you for a God." This
is the language, not of a mere purpose, a will that has resolved to vindicate the right,

but of affection. God is about to adopt Israel to Himself, and the same favour which
belonged to rare individuals in the old time is now offered to a whole nation. Just as
the heart of each man is gradually educated, learning first to love a parent and a
family, and so led on to national patriotism, and at last to a world-wide
philanthropy, so was the religious conscience of mankind awakened to believe that
Abraham might be the friend of God, and then that His oath might be confirmed
unto the children, and then that He could take Israel to Himself for a people, and at
last that God loved the world.
It is not religion to think that God condescends merely to save us. He cares for us.
He takes us to Himself, He gives Himself away to us, in return, to be our God.
Such a revelation ought to have been more to Israel than any pledge of certain
specified advantages. It was meant to be a silken tie, a golden clasp, to draw together
the almighty Heart and the hearts of these downtrodden slaves. Something within
Him desires their little human love; they shall be to Him for a people. So He said
again, "My son, give Me thine heart." And so, when He carried to the uttermost
these unsought, unhoped for, and, alas! unwelcomed overtures of condescension,
and came among us, He would have gathered, as a hen gathers her chickens under
her wings, those who would not. It is not man who conceives, from definite services
received, the wild hope of some spark of real affection in the bosom of the Eternal
and Mysterious One. It is not man, amid the lavish joys and splendours of creation,
who conceives the notion of a supreme Heart, as the explanation of the universe. It is
God Himself Who says, "I will take you to Me for a people, and I will be to you a
God."
or is it human conversion that begins the process, but a Divine covenant and
pledge, by which God would fain convert us to Himself; even as the first disciples
did not accost Jesus, but He turned and spoke to them the first question and the first
invitation; "What seek ye?... Come, and ye shall see."
To-day, the choice of the civilised world has to be made between a mechanical
universe and a revealed love, for no third possibility survives.
This promise establishes a relationship, which God never afterwards cancelled.
Human unbelief rejected its benefits, and chilled the mutual sympathies which it
involved; but the fact always remained, and in their darkest hour they could appeal
to God to remember His covenant and the oath which He sware.
And this same assurance belongs to us. We are not to become good, or desirous of
goodness, in order that God may requite with affection our virtues or our
wistfulness. Rather we are to arise and come to our Father, and to call Him Father,
although we are not worthy to be called His sons. We are to remember how Jesus
said, "If ye being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much
more shall your heavenly Father give His Holy Spirit to them that ask Him!" and to
learn that He is the Father of those who are evil, and even of those who are still
unpardoned, as He said again, "If ye forgive not ... neither will your heavenly

Father forgive you."
Much controversy about the universal Fatherhood of God would be assuaged if men
reflected upon the significant distinction which our Saviour drew between His
Fatherhood and our sonship, the one always a reality of the Divine affection, the
other only a possibility, for human enjoyment or rejection: "Love your enemies, and
pray for them that persecute you, that ye may be sons of your Father Which is in
heaven" (Matthew 5:44-45). There is no encouragement to presumption in the
assertion of the Divine Fatherhood upon such terms. For it speaks of a love which is
real and deep without being feeble and indiscriminate. It appeals to faith because
there is an absolute fact to lean upon, and to energy because privilege is conditional.
It reminds us that our relationship is like that of the ancient Israel,--that we are in a
covenant, as they were, but that the carcases of many of them fell in the wilderness;
although God had taken them for a people, and was to them a God, and said, "Israel
is My son, even My firstborn."
It is added that faith shall develop into knowledge. Moses is to assure them now that
they "shall know" hereafter that the Lord is Jehovah their God. And this, too, is a
universal law, that we shall know if we follow on to know: that the trial of our faith
worketh patience, and patience experience, and we have so dim and vague an
apprehension of Divine realities, chiefly because we have made but little trial, and
have not tasted and seen that the Lord is gracious.
In this respect, as in so many more, religion is analogous with nature. The squalor of
the savage could be civilised, and the distorted and absurd conceptions of medi ύval
science could be corrected, only by experiment, persistently and wisely carried out.
And it is so in religion: its true evidence is unknown to these who never bore its
yoke; it is open to just such raillery and rejection as they who will not love can pour
upon domestic affection and the sacred ties of family life; but, like these, it
vindicates itself, in the rest of their souls, to those who will take the yoke and learn.
And its best wisdom is not of the cunning brain but of the open heart, that wisdom
from above, which is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated.
And thus, while God leads Israel, they shall know that He is Jehovah, and true to
His highest revelations of Himself.
All this they heard, and also, to define their hope and brighten it, the promise of
Palestine was repeated; but they hearkened not unto Moses for anguish of spirit and
for cruel bondage. Thus the body often holds the spirit down, and kindly allowance
is made by Him Who knoweth our frame and remembereth that we are dust, and
Who, in the hour of His own agony, found the excuse for His unsympathising
followers that the spirit was willing although the flesh was weak. So when Elijah
made request for himself that he might die, in the utter reaction which followed his
triumph on Carmel and his wild race to Jezreel, the good Physician did not dazzle
him with new splendours of revelation until after he had slept, and eaten miraculous
food, and a second time slept and eaten.

But if the anguish of the body excuses much weakness of the spirit, it follows, on the
other hand, that men are responsible to God for that heavy weight which is laid
upon the spirit by pampered and luxurious bodies, incapable of self-sacrifice,
rebellious against the lightest of His demands. It is suggestive, that Moses, when sent
again to Pharaoh, objected, as at first: "Behold, the children of Israel have not
hearkened unto me; how then shall Pharaoh hear me, who am of uncircumcised
lips?"
Every new hope, every great inspiration which calls the heroes of God to a fresh
attack upon the powers of Satan, is checked and hindered more by the coldness of
the Church than by the hostility of the world. That hostility is expected, and can be
defied. But the infidelity of the faithful is appalling indeed.
We read with wonder the great things which Christ has promised to believing
prayer, and, at the same time, although we know painfully that we have never
claimed and dare not claim these promises, we wonder equally at the foreboding
question, "When the Son of Man cometh, shall He find the faith (faith in its fulness)
on the earth?" (Luke xviii. 8). But we ought to remember that our own low standard
helps to form the standard of attainment for the Church at large--that when one
member suffers, all the members suffer with it--that many a large sacrifice would be
readily made for Christ, at this hour, if only ease and pleasure were at stake, which
is refused because it is too hard to be called well-meaning enthusiasts by those who
ought to glorify God in such attainment, as the first brethren did in the zeal and the
gifts of Paul.
The vast mountains raise their heads above mountain ranges which encompass
them; and it is not when the level of the whole Church is low, that giants of faith and
of attainment may be hoped for. ay, Christ stipulates for the agreement of two or
three, to kindle and make effectual the prayers which shall avail.
For the purification of our cities, for the shaming of our legislation until it fears God
as much as a vested interest, for the reunion of those who worship the same Lord,
for the conversion of the world, and first of all for the conversion of the Church,
heroic forces are demanded. But all the tendency of our half-hearted, abject, semi-
Christianity is to repress everything that is unconventional, abnormal, likely to
embroil us with our natural enemy, the world; and who can doubt that, when the
secrets of all hearts shall be revealed, we shall know of many an aspiring soul, in
which the sacred fire had begun to burn, which sank back into lethargy and the
commonplace, murmuring in its despair, "Behold, the children of Israel have not
hearkened unto me; how then shall Pharaoh hear me?"
It was the last fear which ever shook the great heart of the emancipator Moses.
At the beginning of the grand historical work, of which all this has been the prelude,
there is set the pedigree of Moses and Aaron, according to "the heads of their
fathers' houses,"--- an epithet which indicates a subdivision of the "family," as the

family is a subdivision of the tribe. Of the sons of Jacob, Reuben and Simeon are
mentioned, to put Levi in his natural third place. And from Levi to Moses only four
generations are mentioned, favouring somewhat the briefer scheme of chronology
which makes four centuries cover all the time from Abraham, and not the captivity
alone. But it is certain that this is a mere recapitulation of the more important links
in the genealogy. In umbers 26:58-59, six generations are reckoned instead of four;
in 1 Chronicles 2:3 there are seven generations; and elsewhere in the same book (1
Chronicles 6:22) there are ten. It is well known that similar omissions of obscure or
unworthy links occur in St. Matthew's pedigree of our Lord, although some stress is
there laid upon the recurrent division into fourteens. And it is absurd to found any
argument against the trustworthiness of the narrative upon a phenomenon so
frequent, and so sure to be avoided by a forger, or to be corrected by an
unscrupulous editor. In point of fact, nothing is less likely to have occurred, if the
narrative were a late invention.
either, in that case, would the birth of the great emancipator be ascribed to the
union of Amram with his father's sister, for such marriages were distinctly
forbidden by the law (Leviticus 18:14).
or would the names of the children of the founder of the nation be omitted, while
those of Aaron are recorded, unless we were dealing with genuine history, which
knows that the sons of Aaron inherited the lawful priesthood, while the descendants
of Moses were the jealous founders of a mischievous schism ( 18:30, R.V.).
or again, if this were a religious romance, designed to animate the nation in its
later struggles, should we read of the hesitation and the fears of a leader "of
uncircumcised lips," instead of the trumpet-like calls to action of a noble champion.
or does the broken-spirited meanness of Israel at all resemble the conception,
popular in every nation, of a virtuous and heroic antiquity, a golden age. It is indeed
impossible to reconcile the motives and the date to which this narrative is ascribed
by some, with the plain phenomena, with the narrative itself.
or is it easy to understand why the Lord, Who speaks of bringing out "My hosts,
My people, the children of Israel" (Exodus 7:4, etc.), should never in the Pentateuch
be called the Lord of Hosts, if that title were in common use when it was written; for
no epithet would better suit the song of Miriam or the poetry of the Fifth Book.
When Moses complained that he was of uncircumcised lips, the Lord announced
that He had already made His servant as a god unto Pharaoh, having armed him,
even then, with the terrors which are soon to shake the tyrant's soul.
It is suggestive and natural that his very education in a court should render him
fastidious, less willing than a rougher man might have been to appear before the
king after forty years of retirement, and feeling almost physically incapable of
speaking what he felt so deeply, in words that would satisfy his own judgment. Yet
God had endowed him, even then, with a supernatural power far greater than any

facility of expression. In his weakness he would thus be made strong; and the less fit
he was to assert for himself any ascendency over Pharaoh, the more signal would be
the victory of his Lord, when he became "very great in the land of Egypt, in the
sight of Pharaoh's servants, and in the sight of the people" (Exodus 11:3).
As a proof of this mastery he was from the first to speak to the haughty king
through his brother, as a god through some prophet, being too great to reveal
himself directly. It is a memorable phrase; and so lofty an assertion could never, in
the myth of a later period, have been ascribed to an origin so lowly as the reluctance
of Moses to expose his deficiency in elocution.
Therefore he should henceforth be emboldened by the assurance of qualification
bestowed already: not only by the hope of help and achievement yet to come, but by
the certainty of present endowment. And so should each of us, in his degree, be bold,
who have gifts differing according to the grace given unto us.
It is certain that every living soul has at least one talent, and is bound to improve it.
But how many of us remember that this loan implies a commission from God, as
real as that of prophet and deliverer, and that nothing but our own default can
prevent it from being, at the last, received again with usury?
The same bravery, the same confidence when standing where his Captain has
planted him, should inspire the prophet, and him that giveth alms, and him that
showeth mercy; for all are members in one body, and therefore animated by one
invincible Spirit from above (Romans 12:4-9).
The endowment thus given to Moses made him "as a god" to Pharaoh.
We must not take this to mean only that he had a prophet or spokesman, or that he
was made formidable, but that the peculiar nature of his prowess would be felt. It
was not his own strength. The supernatural would become visible in him. He who
boasted "I know not Jehovah" would come to crouch before Him in His agent, and
humble himself to the man whom once he contemptuously ordered back to his
burdens, with the abject prayer, "Forgive, I pray thee, my sin only this once, and
entreat Jehovah your God that He may take away from me this death only."
ow, every consecrated power may bear witness to the Lord: it is possible to do all
to the glory of God. ot that every separate action will be ascribed to a
preternatural source, but the sum total of the effect produced by a holy life will be
sacred. He who said, "I have made thee a god unto Pharaoh," says of all believers,
"I in them, and Thou, Father, in Me, that the world may know that Thou hast sent
Me."
PULPIT, "Exodus 6:1-8
The expostulation of Moses did not offend God. God gave him, in reply to it, a most
gracious series of promises and assurances, well calculated to calm his fears, assuage

his griefs, and comfort his heart; and he confirmed the whole to him by his name
JEHOVAH, "the Only Existent," and therefore" the Eternal and Immutable." This
name he had previously revealed to Moses at Mount Sinai, as his peculiar name, and
the one by which he would choose to be called (Exodus 3:13-15). He had also told
him to proclaim this name to the people. This command is now repeated (Exodus
6:6) very solemnly; and with it are coupled the promises above alluded to.
1. That God would certainly bring the Israelites out of Egypt, despite the
unwillingness of Pharaoh (Exodus 6:1 and Exodus 6:6),
2. That he would do this "with a stretched-out arm," and by means of "great
judgments" (Exodus 6:6);
3. That he would keep the covenant which he had made with the patriarchs to give
their descendants the laud of Canaan (Exodus 6:4) and would assuredly "bring in"
the Israelites to that land, and "give it them for an heritage" (Exodus 6:8).
Exodus 6:1
ow shalt thou see. There was encouragement in the very word "now." Moses'
complaint was, that God delayed his coming, would not show himself, was "slack
concerning his promise." In reply he is told that there is to be no longer any delay—
the work is just about to commence. " ow shalt thou see." With a strong hand shall
he let them go. The "strong hand" is not Pharaoh's, but God's. "By means of my
strong hand" (or "overpowering might") "laid upon him shall he be induced to let
them go," and similarly with the other clause. Drive them out. This phrase well
expresses the final anxiety of Pharaoh to be rid of the Israelites. (See Exodus 12:31,
Exodus 12:22.)
PULPIT, "HOMILIES BY J. ORR
Exodus 6:1-9
A Divine commentary on a Divine name.
The antiquity of the name Jehovah, setting aside direct testimonies to its occurrence
in earlier scriptures, is sufficiently proved by its etymology (from havah, an old—
and, in the days of Moses, obsolete—form of the verb "to be"), and from its
presence (in composition) in pre-Mosaic proper names (e.g. Exodus 6:20). It is
absurd to press this passage in proof of the ignorance of the patriarchs of this name
of God, when one observes—
1. That the context plainly relates to a commentary which God was about to give on
this name in deeds.
2. That the name is not here announced, but is presupposed as known—"My name
Jehovah."

3. That in Exodus 3:14-16, where it is announced, it is expressly referred to as a
name of older date—God styling himself repeatedly, "Jehovah God of your
fathers." The knowledge of God by this name in the present passage has obvious
reference to a knowledge derived from manifestation of the attributes implied in the
meaning of the name.
I. "JEHOVAH" I CO TRAST WITH "EL-SHADDAI" (Exodus 3:3).
1. El-Shaddai means, as translated, "God Almighty." It denotes in God the simple
attribute of power—All-Mightiness—power exerted chiefly in the region of the
natural life.
2. Jehovah, on the other hand, has a deeper and wider, an infinitely fuller and
richer meaning. It denotes God as possessed of the perfections of the Absolute—self-
identical and changeless because self-existent and eternal. God's eternally what he is
(Exodus 3:14)—the Being who is and remains one with himself in all he thinks,
purposes, and does. This implies, together with immutability, the attribute of self-
determining freedom, and that unlimited rule (dominion, sovereignty) in the worlds
of matter and mind, which is of the essence of the conception of the Absolute. Hence
such passages as these:—"I am Jehovah, I change not" (Malachi 3:6); "Whatsoever
Jehovah pleased, that did he in heaven, and in earth, in the seas, and in all. deep
places" (Psalms 130:6); "Jehovah, he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth
beneath; there is none else" (Deuteronomy 4:39). Jehovah is, moreover, the God of
gracious purpose. It is this which gave the name its depth of interest to the Hebrew
bondsmen, who were not likely to be greatly influenced by purely ontological
conceptions. The chosen sphere for the manifestation of the attributes denoted by
these names of God was that marked out by the promises of the Covenant. El-
Shaddai, e.g; while declaring the possession by God of the attribute of power in
general, had immediate reference to the manifestations of power which God would
give in the birth of Isaac, and in the fulfilment of the promise to Abraham of a
numerous posterity (Genesis 16:1-7). It was power working in the interests of grace,
in subserviency to love. The same is true of the name Jehovah. A view of God in his
bare absoluteness would awaken only a speculative interest; but it is different when
this self-existent, eternal Being is seen entering into history, and revealing himself as
the God of compassionating love. Grace and mercy are felt to be no longer foreign to
the meaning of the name, but to be as much a part of it as changelessness and
freedom. This, accordingly, was what the name told to Israel; not simply that there
was an Absolute, or even that he who had entered into covenant with the Fathers,
and was now about to undertake their deliverance, was this absolute God; but
rather, that it was in the work of their salvation that his perfections as Absolute
were to be surprisingly and surpassingly exhibited. Their redemption was to be a
chosen field for the manifestation of his Jehovah attributes. There would be given in
it a discovery and demonstration of these surpassing everything that had hitherto
been known. And was not this glorious comfort to a nation lying in darkness and the
shadow of death!

II. THE HISTORICAL EXHIBITIO OF THIS CO TRAST.
1. God revealed as El-Shaddai (Exodus 3:3). God was made known as El-Shaddai in
the birth of IsaActs (Romans 4:17-22), in the care exercised over the patriarchs in
their wanderings (Genesis 28:15), in the provision made for their temporal
necessities (Genesis 45:5-9), in the increase and preservation of the chosen race in
Egypt (Exodus 1:7, Exodus 1:12, Exodus 1:20; Exodus 3:2). This name, however,
was inadequate to express the richer aspects and relations of the Divine character
brought to light in the Exodus, and in the subsequent experiences of the people.
2. The transition from El-Shaddai to Jehovah. Exodus 3:4-6 narrate the steps by
which the way was prepared for the new and higher manifestation. The preparation
involved—
We have now to view in it a situation providentially prepared with the design of
affording the tidiest possible scope for the display of the truth, grace, power, and
all-embracing sovereignty of the great Being who was revealing himself in Israel's
history.
3. God revealed as Jehovah (Exodus 3:6-9). This revelation would embrace—
Lessons:—
1. How wonderful to contemplate God in the majesty of his perfections as the Great
I Am—the absolute and unconditioned Being! But what language will express the
condescension and grace displayed in the stooping down of this absolute Being to
enter into covenant engagements with man, even to the extent of binding himself
with oaths to fulfil the promises given by his own free goodness.
2. The manifestation of the Jehovah attributes in the deliverance of Israel from
Egypt has its higher counterpart in the discovery of them since made in the
redemption of men from sin and Satan through Christ. Christ redeems us from sin's
burden and from Satan's tyranny. He does this in virtue of the "stretched-out arm"
and "mighty judgments" with which, while on earth, he overcame the Prince of the
power of this world; himself also enduring the judgment of God in being "made sin
for us," "that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." By this
atonement and victory, in the might of which he has now ascended on high, leading
captivity captive, we, being reconciled to God, are formed into a people for his
praise, and he becomes our God; the same power that redeemed us working in us to
deliver us from sin in our members, and to prepare us for a heavenly inheritance; to
which, as the goal of all God's leading of us, the promises immovably point forward
(Romans 8:1, Romans 8:2; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Ephesians 4:8; Colossians 1:12-15;
Colossians 2:15; 1 Peter 2:3-10; 1 Peter 2:9, 1 Peter 2:10).—J.O.
BIBLICAL ILLUSTRATOR, "Exodus 6:1
ow shalt thou see what I will do.
God’s reply to the prayer of a disappointed worker

I. This reply to the prayer of Moses intimated that God would bring the true result
of his mission more thoroughly within the cognizance of his senses. “And the Lord
said unto Moses, ow shalt thou see what I will do to Pharaoh.”
1. The mission had hitherto been a great tax upon the faith of Moses. The first
repulse made him cry out for the visible and the tangible.
2. ow the mission is lowered to the sensuous vision of Moses.
II. This reply to the prayer of Moses vindicated his conduct against the recent
insinuations and reproach of the Israelites. Men often take a wrong view of our
conduct. God always takes the right view. He knows when His servants are doing
what He tells them. He sends them messages of approval for so doing. This
vindication--
1. Would reassure Moses in his work.
2. Would clear his conscience from all condemnation.
3. Would enable him to interpret his apparent failure.
III. This reply to the prayer of Moses indicated how thoroughly the work
announced by God should be accomplished. “For with a strong hand shall he let
them go, and with a strong hand shall he drive them out of his land.”
1. This shows how wicked men are, under the providence of God, brought to do that
which they had once resolutely refused. The sinner knoweth not the future, or he
would act with greater wisdom in the present.
2. God makes these revelations in response to prayer, that He may reanimate the
dispirited worker.
IV. In reply to the prayer of Moses, God vouchsafes a new and sublime revelation of
his character.
1. A sublime revelation of His name.
2. A comforting reference to His covenant.
3. A pathetic reference to the sorrow of Israel.
Lessons:
1. That God speaks to disappointed souls in prayer.
2. That the Divine communings with a disappointed soul have an uplifting tendency.
3. That God deals compassionately with the weakness of Christian workers. (J. S.
Exell, M. A.)
God’s long restrained wrath
When the ice on the great American rivers is broken up, it is sometimes obstructed
in its course towards the sea by a log of wood, or something else, that arrests it. But
then, as block after block of ice accumulates, the waters above increase in volume
and weight, till their force, with mighty crash, sweeps away all the mass. And so the

wrath of God, though long restrained by His love and mercy, sweeps away the
incorrigible sinner to perdition. (H. R. Burton.)
Conditions of successful work for God
1. Faith in God, and honest conviction that God will do as He says He will.
2. Courage to ,do what faith declares. God doesn’t use cowards or faint-hearted men
to do much for Him. He told Joshua to be of good courage.
3. Perseverance. Keep right on in the place God gives you to work for Him. Many
men fail right on the eve of battle. The best silver mine in England was worked for a
long time by a man who became discouraged just before it yielded the richest ingots
of choicest silver, and he sold out for a song and lost a princely fortune. Keep at it.
Get others to help, and work and plod and win success.
4. Enthusiasm is a valuable element, and one that most men need. Too many are
afraid of enthusiasm, but all of us need to put more fire and feeling in what we do
for the Lord. (D. L. Moody.)
The judgments of God upon wicked men
I. That God sends severe judgements on men who reject His commands. “ ow shalt
thou see what I will do to Pharaoh.”
1. otwithstanding his kingship.
2. otwithstanding his obstinacy.
3. otwithstanding his despotism.
II. That these judgments are often witnessed by Christian people. “ ow shalt thou
see.”
1. They are seen clearly.
2. Retributively.
3. Solemnly. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
God’s everlasting “shalls”
It is a great thing to get hold of one of God’s everlasting “shalls.” For when God
says a thing shall be done, who shall hinder? When God says “shall,” you may be
sure that He is stirring up His strength and making bare His mighty arm, to do
mighty and terrible things in righteousness. Just read through this chapter, and
note how Jehovah asserts Himself--“I am the Lord”; “I have remembered My
covenant”; “I will bring you out from under the burdens of Egypt”; “I will rid you
of their bondage”; “I will redeem you with a stretched out arm”; “I will take you to
Me for a people”; “I will bring you into the land concerning which I did swear to
give it to Abraham, and I will give it to you”; “I am the Lord.” All this is very
refreshing and encouraging to me. It must have been so to Moses, as he stood there
and listened to these strong and blessed words. And so I learn from such words this
lesson: when I am discouraged or cast down either about my own salvation, or
about the work of the Lord--to turn to the blessed Scriptures and search through
the pages, and read over and over again the strong, sure words of God. They sound

like bugle-blasts to me, calling me to faith and service. So may the strong words of
God reassure any fainting heart! Be sure that He will not be untrue to even the least
of the promises He has made to you; but will fulfil them all most gloriously. These
promises are like the cakes baked for Elijah, in the strength of which he went for
forty days. Only we may eat them fresh every day if we are so disposed. (G. F.
Pentecost, D. D.)
Verses 1-30
CHAPTER VI.
THE E COURAGEME T OF MOSES.
Exodus 6:1-30.
We have seen that the name Jehovah expresses not a philosophic meditation, but the
most bracing and reassuring truth--viz., that an immutable and independent Being
sustains His people; and this great title is therefore reaffirmed with emphasis in the
hour of mortal discouragement. It is added that their fathers knew God by the name
of God Almighty, but by His name Jehovah was He not known, or made known,
unto them. ow, it is quite clear that they were not utterly ignorant of this title, for
no such theory as that it was hitherto mentioned by anticipation only, can explain
the first syllable in the name of the mother of Moses himself, nor the assertion that
in the time of Seth men began to call upon the name of Jehovah (Genesis 4:26), nor
the name of the hill of Abraham's sacrifice, Jehovah-jireh (Genesis 22:14). Yet the
statement cannot be made available for the purposes of any reasonable and
moderate scepticism, since the sceptical theory demands a belief in successive
redactions of the work in which an error so gross could not have escaped detection.
And the true explanation is that this ame was now, for the first time, to be realised
as a sustaining power. The patriarchs had known the name; how its fitness should
be realised: God should be known by it. They had drawn support and comfort from
that simpler view of the Divine protection which said, "I am the Almighty God:
walk before Me and be thou perfect" (Genesis 17:1). But thenceforth all the
experience of the past was to reinforce the energies of the present, and men were to
remember that their promises came from One who cannot change. Others, like
Abraham, had been stronger in faith than Moses. But faith is not the same as
insight, and Moses was the greatest of the prophets (Deuteronomy 34:10). To him,
therefore, it was given to confirm the courage of his nation by this exalting thought
of God. And the Lord proceeds to state what His promises to the patriarchs were,
and joins together (as we should do) the assurance of His compassionate heart and
of His inviolable pledges: "I have heard the groaning of the children of Israel, ... and
I have remembered My covenant."
It has been the same, in turn, with every new revelation of the Divine. The new was
implicit in the old, but when enforced, unfolded, reapplied, men found it charged
with unsuspected meaning and power, and as full of vitality and development as a
handful of dry seeds when thrown into congenial soil. So it was pre-eminently with
the doctrine of the Messiah. It will be the same hereafter with the doctrine of the

kingdom of peace and the reign of the saints on earth. Some day men will smile at
our crude theories and ignorant controversies about the Millennium. We, meantime,
possess the saving knowledge of Christ amid many perplexities and obscurities. And
so the patriarchs, who knew God Almighty, but not by His name Jehovah, were not
lost for want of the knowledge of His name, but saved by faith in Him, in the living
Being to Whom all these names belong, and Who shall yet write upon the brows of
His people some new name, hitherto undreamed by the ripest of the saints and the
purest of the Churches. Meantime, let us learn the lessons of tolerance for other
men's ignorance, remembering the ignorance of the father of the faithful, tolerance
for difference of views, remembering how the unusual and rare name of God was
really the precursor of a brighter revelation, and yet again, when our hearts are
faint with longing for new light, and weary to death of the babbling of old words, let
us learn a sober and cautious reconsideration, lest perhaps the very truth needed for
altered circumstance and changing problem may lie, unheeded and dormant, among
the dusty old phrases from which we turn away despairingly. Moreover, since the
fathers knew the name Jehovah, yet gained from it no special knowledge of God,
such as they had from His Almightiness, we are taught that discernment is often
more at fault than revelation. To the quick perception and plastic imagination of the
artist, our world reveals what the boor will never see. And the saint finds, in the
homely and familiar words of Scripture, revelations for His soul that are unknown
to common men. Receptivity is what we need far more than revelation.
Again is Moses bidden to appeal to the faith of his countrymen, by a solemn
repetition of the Divine promise. If the tyranny is great, they shall be redeemed with
a stretched out arm, that is to say, with a palpable interposition of the power of God,
"and with great judgments." It is the first appearance in Scripture of this phrase,
afterwards so common. ot mere vengeance upon enemies or vindication of subjects
is in question: the thought is that of a deliberate weighing of merits, and rendering
out of measured penalties. ow, the Egyptian mythology had a very clear and
solemn view of judgment after death. If king and people had grown cruel, it was
because they failed to realise remote punishments, and did not believe in present
judgments, here, in this life. But there is a God that judgeth in the earth. ot
always, for mercy rejoiceth over judgment. We may still pray, "Enter not into
judgment with Thy servants, O Lord, for in Thy sight shall no man living be
justified." But when men resist warnings, then retribution begins even here.
Sometimes it comes in plague and overthrow, sometimes in the worse form of a
heart made fat, the decay of sensibilities abused, the dying out of spiritual faculty.
Pharaoh was to experience both, the hardening of his heart and the ruin of his
fortunes.
It is added, "I will take you to Me for a people, and I will be to you for a God." This
is the language, not of a mere purpose, a will that has resolved to vindicate the right,
but of affection. God is about to adopt Israel to Himself, and the same favour which
belonged to rare individuals in the old time is now offered to a whole nation. Just as
the heart of each man is gradually educated, learning first to love a parent and a
family, and so led on to national patriotism, and at last to a world-wide
philanthropy, so was the religious conscience of mankind awakened to believe that

Abraham might be the friend of God, and then that His oath might be confirmed
unto the children, and then that He could take Israel to Himself for a people, and at
last that God loved the world.
It is not religion to think that God condescends merely to save us. He cares for us.
He takes us to Himself, He gives Himself away to us, in return, to be our God.
Such a revelation ought to have been more to Israel than any pledge of certain
specified advantages. It was meant to be a silken tie, a golden clasp, to draw together
the almighty Heart and the hearts of these downtrodden slaves. Something within
Him desires their little human love; they shall be to Him for a people. So He said
again, "My son, give Me thine heart." And so, when He carried to the uttermost
these unsought, unhoped for, and, alas! unwelcomed overtures of condescension,
and came among us, He would have gathered, as a hen gathers her chickens under
her wings, those who would not. It is not man who conceives, from definite services
received, the wild hope of some spark of real affection in the bosom of the Eternal
and Mysterious One. It is not man, amid the lavish joys and splendours of creation,
who conceives the notion of a supreme Heart, as the explanation of the universe. It is
God Himself Who says, "I will take you to Me for a people, and I will be to you a
God."
or is it human conversion that begins the process, but a Divine covenant and
pledge, by which God would fain convert us to Himself; even as the first disciples
did not accost Jesus, but He turned and spoke to them the first question and the first
invitation; "What seek ye?... Come, and ye shall see."
To-day, the choice of the civilised world has to be made between a mechanical
universe and a revealed love, for no third possibility survives.
This promise establishes a relationship, which God never afterwards cancelled.
Human unbelief rejected its benefits, and chilled the mutual sympathies which it
involved; but the fact always remained, and in their darkest hour they could appeal
to God to remember His covenant and the oath which He sware.
And this same assurance belongs to us. We are not to become good, or desirous of
goodness, in order that God may requite with affection our virtues or our
wistfulness. Rather we are to arise and come to our Father, and to call Him Father,
although we are not worthy to be called His sons. We are to remember how Jesus
said, "If ye being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much
more shall your heavenly Father give His Holy Spirit to them that ask Him!" and to
learn that He is the Father of those who are evil, and even of those who are still
unpardoned, as He said again, "If ye forgive not ... neither will your heavenly
Father forgive you."
Much controversy about the universal Fatherhood of God would be assuaged if men
reflected upon the significant distinction which our Saviour drew between His
Fatherhood and our sonship, the one always a reality of the Divine affection, the

other only a possibility, for human enjoyment or rejection: "Love your enemies, and
pray for them that persecute you, that ye may be sons of your Father Which is in
heaven" (Matthew 5:44-45). There is no encouragement to presumption in the
assertion of the Divine Fatherhood upon such terms. For it speaks of a love which is
real and deep without being feeble and indiscriminate. It appeals to faith because
there is an absolute fact to lean upon, and to energy because privilege is conditional.
It reminds us that our relationship is like that of the ancient Israel,--that we are in a
covenant, as they were, but that the carcases of many of them fell in the wilderness;
although God had taken them for a people, and was to them a God, and said, "Israel
is My son, even My firstborn."
It is added that faith shall develop into knowledge. Moses is to assure them now that
they "shall know" hereafter that the Lord is Jehovah their God. And this, too, is a
universal law, that we shall know if we follow on to know: that the trial of our faith
worketh patience, and patience experience, and we have so dim and vague an
apprehension of Divine realities, chiefly because we have made but little trial, and
have not tasted and seen that the Lord is gracious.
In this respect, as in so many more, religion is analogous with nature. The squalor of
the savage could be civilised, and the distorted and absurd conceptions of medi ύval
science could be corrected, only by experiment, persistently and wisely carried out.
And it is so in religion: its true evidence is unknown to these who never bore its
yoke; it is open to just such raillery and rejection as they who will not love can pour
upon domestic affection and the sacred ties of family life; but, like these, it
vindicates itself, in the rest of their souls, to those who will take the yoke and learn.
And its best wisdom is not of the cunning brain but of the open heart, that wisdom
from above, which is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated.
And thus, while God leads Israel, they shall know that He is Jehovah, and true to
His highest revelations of Himself.
All this they heard, and also, to define their hope and brighten it, the promise of
Palestine was repeated; but they hearkened not unto Moses for anguish of spirit and
for cruel bondage. Thus the body often holds the spirit down, and kindly allowance
is made by Him Who knoweth our frame and remembereth that we are dust, and
Who, in the hour of His own agony, found the excuse for His unsympathising
followers that the spirit was willing although the flesh was weak. So when Elijah
made request for himself that he might die, in the utter reaction which followed his
triumph on Carmel and his wild race to Jezreel, the good Physician did not dazzle
him with new splendours of revelation until after he had slept, and eaten miraculous
food, and a second time slept and eaten.
But if the anguish of the body excuses much weakness of the spirit, it follows, on the
other hand, that men are responsible to God for that heavy weight which is laid
upon the spirit by pampered and luxurious bodies, incapable of self-sacrifice,
rebellious against the lightest of His demands. It is suggestive, that Moses, when sent

again to Pharaoh, objected, as at first: "Behold, the children of Israel have not
hearkened unto me; how then shall Pharaoh hear me, who am of uncircumcised
lips?"
Every new hope, every great inspiration which calls the heroes of God to a fresh
attack upon the powers of Satan, is checked and hindered more by the coldness of
the Church than by the hostility of the world. That hostility is expected, and can be
defied. But the infidelity of the faithful is appalling indeed.
We read with wonder the great things which Christ has promised to believing
prayer, and, at the same time, although we know painfully that we have never
claimed and dare not claim these promises, we wonder equally at the foreboding
question, "When the Son of Man cometh, shall He find the faith (faith in its fulness)
on the earth?" (Luke xviii. 8). But we ought to remember that our own low standard
helps to form the standard of attainment for the Church at large--that when one
member suffers, all the members suffer with it--that many a large sacrifice would be
readily made for Christ, at this hour, if only ease and pleasure were at stake, which
is refused because it is too hard to be called well-meaning enthusiasts by those who
ought to glorify God in such attainment, as the first brethren did in the zeal and the
gifts of Paul.
The vast mountains raise their heads above mountain ranges which encompass
them; and it is not when the level of the whole Church is low, that giants of faith and
of attainment may be hoped for. ay, Christ stipulates for the agreement of two or
three, to kindle and make effectual the prayers which shall avail.
For the purification of our cities, for the shaming of our legislation until it fears God
as much as a vested interest, for the reunion of those who worship the same Lord,
for the conversion of the world, and first of all for the conversion of the Church,
heroic forces are demanded. But all the tendency of our half-hearted, abject, semi-
Christianity is to repress everything that is unconventional, abnormal, likely to
embroil us with our natural enemy, the world; and who can doubt that, when the
secrets of all hearts shall be revealed, we shall know of many an aspiring soul, in
which the sacred fire had begun to burn, which sank back into lethargy and the
commonplace, murmuring in its despair, "Behold, the children of Israel have not
hearkened unto me; how then shall Pharaoh hear me?"
It was the last fear which ever shook the great heart of the emancipator Moses.
At the beginning of the grand historical work, of which all this has been the prelude,
there is set the pedigree of Moses and Aaron, according to "the heads of their
fathers' houses,"--- an epithet which indicates a subdivision of the "family," as the
family is a subdivision of the tribe. Of the sons of Jacob, Reuben and Simeon are
mentioned, to put Levi in his natural third place. And from Levi to Moses only four
generations are mentioned, favouring somewhat the briefer scheme of chronology
which makes four centuries cover all the time from Abraham, and not the captivity
alone. But it is certain that this is a mere recapitulation of the more important links

in the genealogy. In umbers 26:58-59, six generations are reckoned instead of four;
in 1 Chronicles 2:3 there are seven generations; and elsewhere in the same book (1
Chronicles 6:22) there are ten. It is well known that similar omissions of obscure or
unworthy links occur in St. Matthew's pedigree of our Lord, although some stress is
there laid upon the recurrent division into fourteens. And it is absurd to found any
argument against the trustworthiness of the narrative upon a phenomenon so
frequent, and so sure to be avoided by a forger, or to be corrected by an
unscrupulous editor. In point of fact, nothing is less likely to have occurred, if the
narrative were a late invention.
either, in that case, would the birth of the great emancipator be ascribed to the
union of Amram with his father's sister, for such marriages were distinctly
forbidden by the law (Leviticus 18:14).
or would the names of the children of the founder of the nation be omitted, while
those of Aaron are recorded, unless we were dealing with genuine history, which
knows that the sons of Aaron inherited the lawful priesthood, while the descendants
of Moses were the jealous founders of a mischievous schism ( 18:30, R.V.).
or again, if this were a religious romance, designed to animate the nation in its
later struggles, should we read of the hesitation and the fears of a leader "of
uncircumcised lips," instead of the trumpet-like calls to action of a noble champion.
or does the broken-spirited meanness of Israel at all resemble the conception,
popular in every nation, of a virtuous and heroic antiquity, a golden age. It is indeed
impossible to reconcile the motives and the date to which this narrative is ascribed
by some, with the plain phenomena, with the narrative itself.
or is it easy to understand why the Lord, Who speaks of bringing out "My hosts,
My people, the children of Israel" (Exodus 7:4, etc.), should never in the Pentateuch
be called the Lord of Hosts, if that title were in common use when it was written; for
no epithet would better suit the song of Miriam or the poetry of the Fifth Book.
When Moses complained that he was of uncircumcised lips, the Lord announced
that He had already made His servant as a god unto Pharaoh, having armed him,
even then, with the terrors which are soon to shake the tyrant's soul.
It is suggestive and natural that his very education in a court should render him
fastidious, less willing than a rougher man might have been to appear before the
king after forty years of retirement, and feeling almost physically incapable of
speaking what he felt so deeply, in words that would satisfy his own judgment. Yet
God had endowed him, even then, with a supernatural power far greater than any
facility of expression. In his weakness he would thus be made strong; and the less fit
he was to assert for himself any ascendency over Pharaoh, the more signal would be
the victory of his Lord, when he became "very great in the land of Egypt, in the
sight of Pharaoh's servants, and in the sight of the people" (Exodus 11:3).

As a proof of this mastery he was from the first to speak to the haughty king
through his brother, as a god through some prophet, being too great to reveal
himself directly. It is a memorable phrase; and so lofty an assertion could never, in
the myth of a later period, have been ascribed to an origin so lowly as the reluctance
of Moses to expose his deficiency in elocution.
Therefore he should henceforth be emboldened by the assurance of qualification
bestowed already: not only by the hope of help and achievement yet to come, but by
the certainty of present endowment. And so should each of us, in his degree, be bold,
who have gifts differing according to the grace given unto us.
It is certain that every living soul has at least one talent, and is bound to improve it.
But how many of us remember that this loan implies a commission from God, as
real as that of prophet and deliverer, and that nothing but our own default can
prevent it from being, at the last, received again with usury?
The same bravery, the same confidence when standing where his Captain has
planted him, should inspire the prophet, and him that giveth alms, and him that
showeth mercy; for all are members in one body, and therefore animated by one
invincible Spirit from above (Romans 12:4-9).
The endowment thus given to Moses made him "as a god" to Pharaoh.
We must not take this to mean only that he had a prophet or spokesman, or that he
was made formidable, but that the peculiar nature of his prowess would be felt. It
was not his own strength. The supernatural would become visible in him. He who
boasted "I know not Jehovah" would come to crouch before Him in His agent, and
humble himself to the man whom once he contemptuously ordered back to his
burdens, with the abject prayer, "Forgive, I pray thee, my sin only this once, and
entreat Jehovah your God that He may take away from me this death only."
ow, every consecrated power may bear witness to the Lord: it is possible to do all
to the glory of God. ot that every separate action will be ascribed to a
preternatural source, but the sum total of the effect produced by a holy life will be
sacred. He who said, "I have made thee a god unto Pharaoh," says of all believers,
"I in them, and Thou, Father, in Me, that the world may know that Thou hast sent
Me."
Verse 2-3
Exodus 6:2-3
I am the Lord.
Duty to Jehovah
Consider the meaning of our duty to God; the great truth that we have such a duty;
and how it comes about that we have it.

I. Duty is something which is due from one to another: something which ought to be
given, or ought to be done; not a thing which is given or done under compulsion,
under the influence of fear, extorted by force, not even a free gift or offering; quite
different from this; if a thing is a duty, it must be done because it is right to do it
and wrong to omit it.
II. The words of the text are as it were, the sign manual whereby Almighty God, in
His dealings with His ancient people the Children of Israel, claimed from them the
performance of that duty which they owed to Him. The words which gave validity to
an Israelitish law merely rehearsed the fact that He who gave the law was Jehovah;
and nothing more was added, because nothing more remained to be said.
III. otice the principles upon which our duty to God depends.
1. There is a relationship, a close vital connection between God and man, which does
not exist between God and any other of His creatures; man is in a very high sense
“the Son of God,” so that it is inconceivable that the true aims and purposes of God
and man can be distinct. Man being made in God’s image, ought to do God’s will.
2. Our duty to God depends also on the ground of election. God deals with us now as
with His Church in former days; it is still a Church of election. We, to whom God
sends His commands, are still rightly described as redeemed out of the house of our
bondage; and if the redemption of Israel out of Egypt be nothing better than the
faintest type and shadow of the redemption of mankind out of the power of the
devil, how much greater is the appeal which is made to us on the ground of ,that
deliverance which Jesus Christ has wrought out. (Bp. Harvey Goodwin.)
2 God also said to Moses, “I am the Lord.
BAR ES, "There appears to have been an interval of some months between the
preceding events and this renewal of the promise to Moses. The oppression in the
meantime was not merely driving the people to desperation, but preparing them by
severe labor, varied by hasty wanderings in search of stubble, for the exertions and
privations of the wilderness. Hence, the formal and solemn character of the
announcements in the whole chapter.

Exo_6:2
I am the Lord ... - The meaning seems to be this: “I am Jehovah (Yahweh), and I
appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai, but as to my name Jehovah, I was
not made known to them.” In other words, the full import of that name was not
disclosed to them. See Exo_3:14.
CLARKE, "I am the Lord - It should be, I am Jehovah, and without this the reason
of what is said in the 3d verse is not sufficiently obvious.
GILL, "And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am the Lord. Or
Jehovah, the self-existent Being, the Being of beings, the everlasting I am, the
unchangeable Jehovah, true, firm, and constant to his promises, ever to be believed, and
always to be depended on.
HE RY 2-3, " He gives him further instructions, that both he and the people of
Israel might be encouraged to hope for a glorious issue of this affair. Take comfort,
1. From God's name, Jehovah, Exo_6:2, Exo_6:3. He begins with this, I am Jehovah,
the same with, I am that I am, the fountain of being, and blessedness, and infinite
perfection. The patriarchs knew this name, but they did not know him in this matter by
that which this name signifies. God would now be known by his name Jehovah, that is,
(1.) A God performing what he had promised, and so inspiring confidence in his
promises. (2.) A God perfecting what he had begun, and finishing his own work. In the
history of the creation, God is never called Jehovah till the heavens and the earth were
finished, Gen_2:4. When the salvation of the saints is completed in eternal life, then he
will be known by his name Jehovah (Rev_22:13); in the mean time they shall find him,
for their strength and support, El-shaddai, a God all-sufficient, a God that is enough
and will be so, Mic_7:20.
JAMISO , "And God spake unto Moses — For his further encouragement, there
was made to him an emphatic repetition of the promise (Exo_3:20).
CALVI , "2.And God spake. God pursues His address, that Moses may again uplift
the fainting courage of the people. Moreover, He rebukes their distrust, by recalling
the memory of His covenant; for if this had been duly impressed upon their minds,
they would have been much more firm in their expectation of deliverance. He
therefore shews that He has now advanced nothing new; since they had heard long
ago from the Patriarchs that they were chosen by God as His peculiar people, and
had almost imbibed from their mother’s breasts the doctrine of his adoption of
them. Wherefore their stupidity is the more unpardonable, and more manifest,
when they thus factiously complain of Moses, as if he had himself invented what he
had promised them in the name of God. He also stings them by an implied
comparison; Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had eagerly embraced the promise given
them, and had quietly, and perseveringly trusted in it; whilst they, who boasted of
their descent from that holy stock, disdainfully rejected it, because its fulfillment did
not immediately appear. And, in order to amplify their sin, he reasons from the less

to the greater: since a fuller and clearer manifestation of it is presented to them than
there had been to the fathers, it follows that they ought to have been more ready to
believe it. Whence it is plain that their stupidity is inexcusable, since they will not
receive God, when he is so familiarly presenting himself to them. Translators do not
agree as to the epithet “Sadai.” Some derive it from the word ‫,שדד‬ shadad, and
imagine that the final letter ‫,י‬ yod, is the double ‫,ד‬ daleth If we agree to this, it will
mean the same as “the Destroyer;” or at any rate will signify the awful majesty of
God. Others are rather of opinion that the root is ‫,שד‬ shad, which means “a teat.”
To others it appears to be a compound word from the relative ‫,אשר‬ esher, or ‫,ש‬ and
‫,די‬ di, which in Hebrew means “ sufficiency. ” Thus he will be called “Sadai,” who
abounds with all good things. It is indeed sure that they use this word in a good as
well as a bad sense; for where Isaiah threatens that God will be the avenger of sins,
he calls him “Sadai.” ( Isaiah 13:9.) So also in Job 23:16, “Sadai troubleth me.” In
these and similar passages, the terrible power of God is unquestionably expressed;
but when He promises to Abraham that He will be the God “Sadai,” He is engaging
himself to be merciful and bounteous. Here again, where He says that He appeared
to the Fathers as the God “Sadai,” He has not respect so much to His might in
exercising judgment, as to His abundant and perfect loving-kindness; as though He
had said, that He had manifested to Abraham and the other Patriarchs how great
was His efficiency in preserving and defending His own people, and that they had
known from experience how powerfully and effectually He cherishes, sustains, and
aids them that are His. But although He declares what benefits He conferred upon
them, He says that He was not known to them by His name “Jehovah;” signifying
thus that He now more brightly manifested the glory of His divinity to their
descendants. It would be tedious to recount the various opinions as to the name
“Jehovah.” It is certainly a foul superstition of the Jews that they dare not speak, or
write it, but substitute the name “Adonai;” nor do I any more approve of their
teaching, who say that it is ineffable, because it is not written according to
grammatical rule. Without controversy, it is derived from the word ‫,היה‬ hayah, or
‫,הוה‬ havah, and therefore it is rightly said by learned commentators to be the
essential name of God, whereas others are, as it were, epithets. Since, then, nothing
is more peculiar to God than eternity, He is called Jehovah, because He has
existence from Himself, and sustains all things by His secret inspiration. or do I
agree with the grammarians, who will not have it pronounced, because its inflection
is irregular; because its etymology, of which all confess that God is the author, is
more to me than an hundred rules. (72) or does God by “His name” in this passage
mean syllables or letters, but the knowledge of His glory and majesty, which shone
out more fully and more brightly in the redemption of His Church, than in the
commencement of the covenant. For Abraham and the other Patriarchs were
content with a smaller measure of light; whence it follows that the fault of their
descendants would be less excusable, if their faith was not answerable to the
increase of their grace. Meanwhile, Moses is awakened to activity whilst God is
setting before him a magnificent and singular means of shewing forth His glory.
BE SO , "Exodus 6:2. I am the Lord — That is, Jehovah, on which word the
emphasis is laid, and it is to be wished that it had been always preserved in this

translation, and especially in such passages as this, the sense of which entirely
depends on the word. It signifies the same with, I AM THAT I AM, the fountain of
being and blessedness, and of infinite perfection. By my name Jehovah was I not
known unto them — As it is certain that God declared himself to these patriarchs by
the name Jehovah, as may be seen Genesis 15:6-7; Genesis 22:14; Genesis 22:16,
some of the best and most accurate writers conclude that the latter part of this verse
ought to be read interrogatively, thus, And by my name Jehovah was I not known
unto them? The original words will well bear this translation, and it would entirely
remove that apparent contradiction which is implied in our version. At the same
time it would greatly improve the sense and force of the passage. But if we do not
read it in this manner, we must not understand it of the name itself, but of the
power and virtue which the name expresses. And then the meaning of the passage
will be, that though God had revealed himself to the patriarchs as the El-shaddai,
the Almighty, or All-sufficient, yet they did not live to see the accomplishment of his
promises; and therefore, though they believed, yet they did not experimentally know
that he was a God of unchangeable truth; nor had they experienced that all the
powers of nature were in his hand, and that he could change them as he pleased,
and even communicate the power of doing so to man. But it was to Moses that God
first showed his power of making alterations in nature, or working miracles and
prodigies. What makes this sense of the passage probable is, that the knowing of
Jehovah is spoken of in this way, Exodus 7:5, And the Egyptians shall know that I
am Jehovah, when I stretch forth my hand on Egypt. Thus, Henry observes, “The
patriarchs knew this name, but they did know him in this matter by that which this
name signifies.” God would now be known by his name Jehovah, that Isaiah , 1 st, A
God performing what he had promised, and so giving being to his promises. 2d, A
God perfecting what he had begun, and finishing his own work. In the history of the
creation God is never called Jehovah till the heavens and the earth were finished,
Genesis 2:4. When the salvation of the saints is completed in eternal life, then he will
be known by his name Jehovah, Revelation 22:13; in the mean time they shall find
him for their strength and support, El-shaddai, a God all-sufficient, a God that is
enough.
COFFMA , "Verse 2-3
"And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am Jehovah: and I appeared
unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, As God Almighty; but by my name
Jehovah I was not known to them."
This passage must be hailed as one of the most difficult in the Bible, the difficulty
being in the statement that, "as Jehovah" (Yahweh), God was unknown to the
patriarchs. Whereas, it is a fact that the patriarchs most assuredly DID know God
by that name! We may be certain that this apparent contradiction is due to some
kind of human error. It is simply inconceivable that Moses, the author of Exodus,
could have stated what is recorded here, unless some meaning beyond what seems to
be said is intended.
First, let it be understood that the patriarchs DID know God by the name Jehovah.
When Abraham offered Isaac and God provided a ram as the sacrifice, Abraham

called the name of the place Jehovah-jireh (Genesis 22:14). Moses' own mother was
named Jochebed (Exodus 6:20), which means "Jehovah is glory!"[9] Abraham
knew Jehovah in the land of Ur, for God told him, "I am Jehovah that brought thee
out of Ur" (Genesis 15:7), and Abraham used "Jehovah" in addressing God: "Oh
Lord Jehovah, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit ..." (Genesis 15:8). The
mother of all living in the gates of Paradise itself said, regarding the birth of Cain,
"I have gotten a man with the help of Jehovah" (Genesis 4:1). It was under the
name Jehovah that God visited Abraham (Genesis 18:13,17). Under the name
Jehovah, he appeared to Isaac (Genesis 26:2); and Jacob explained his early return
to Isaac on the occasion of the blessing by saying, "Jehovah thy God (Isaac's God)
sent me good speed" (Genesis 27:20). oah invoked the name of Jehovah in the
blessing of Shem (Genesis 9:26). Examples could be multiplied, but these are
sufficient to show that the patriarchs did indeed know the name Jehovah.
ow, it is in the light of that background that the rendition here of Exodus 6:3,
making it say, "By my name Jehovah, I was OT known to them!" that the
difficulty appears. The unbelieving critics assert that different authors were writing
in the various parts of the Pentateuch, and that they contradicted each other. Hence,
the Bible is not God's Word as Jesus Christ himself declared it to be! A falsehood of
such dimensions no believer in Christ can allow for a single moment. That is OT
the explanation of this difficulty. What is the explanation? The following solutions
to the problem have been proposed:
The words here rendered, "I was not known unto them," are a mistranslation. The
principal Hebrew word in the clause means, "I-made-myself-known."[10] There is
also a negative, but it occurs afterward, and the placement of it is optional. Tyndale
rendered it thus: "Was I not known unto them?" (Punctuation mine). Remember
that punctuation of Biblical texts is purely a human, and therefore, a very fallible
thing. We have chosen the Tyndale rendition because it more exactly conforms to
the order of the Hebrew words, and if we punctuate it properly, we have this:
"BY MY AME JEHOVAH WAS I OT MADE K OW U TO THEM?"
In defense of this punctuation, we may say that it is certainly as "inspired" as that
of any of the critics who would like to punctuate it in order to make a contradiction
here of other Biblical texts. This exegesis is supported by scholarly opinion of the
very highest rank. "The words should be read interrogatively, for the negative
particle (not) often has this power in Hebrew."[11] Clark's rendition of the whole
sentence is: "And by my name Jehovah was I not also made known unto them?"[12]
Regarding the conjunction here (but in the ASV and and in Clark's rendition), it is
not in the Hebrew at all either way and is merely supplied by the translator. Robert
Jamieson also gave as the preferred rendition here: "By my name Jehovah was I not
known to them?"[13] Other discerning scholars of recent times could be cited in this
connection, but we have chosen Clark and Jamieson because their works rank as
high as any other, have already been received and in use for a century or a century
and a half, and are still being printed. We consider their testimony on this point
irrefutable. In this connection, it should also be noted that the Cross-Reference
Bible of 1910 also gave the proper rendition of the key words here (except for the

question mark): "Did I not make myself known?"[14]
Therefore, this is our preferred exegesis of the passage, making it a categorical
denial and refutation of the critical nonsense that makes this a contradiction of
thirty passages in the rest of the Pentateuch. However, even if this obvious meaning
of the place is ignored, there are other explanations that will be noted.
J. R. Dummelow believed that, "The appearance of Jehovah in those earlier
passages may be due, not to the speakers, but to the writer, to whom it was familiar,
and who used it by anticipation."[15] This would mean that Moses, having learned
the "new name" put it into the mouths of characters who lived centuries earlier.
This device is called prolepsis, and a number have supposed that is what we have
here. However, this seems to us impossible of acceptance. Could we suppose, even
for a moment, that Moses changed the name of his own mother, putting in the
mouth of those who named her a word they never even heard of?. Ridiculous.
Prolepsis is not at all indicated here.
Another explanation is this: Fields suggested that "knowing God" means "knowing
what the name implies."[16] Supporting this view is the fact that, long centuries
after the name Jehovah was well known, God said, "I will cause them to know that
my name is Jehovah (Jeremiah 16:21)."[17] Thus, knowing God, as indicated by the
Scriptures themselves, certainly means more than merely knowing how to
pronounce God's name. In fairness, it must be said that this appears to be the
preferred explanation adopted by scholars generally. ote:
"The name was not unknown to the patriarchs ... the full significance of it was now
to be revealed? The text plainly relates to a commentary God is about to give on this
name (an old name) in deeds? What is indicated is not that the name Jehovah
(Yahweh) was previously unknown but that the meaning was about to be revealed?
In other words, the full import of that name was not disclosed to the patriarchs.[21]
God is not revealing an unknown name, but using a known name to give emphasis
to a promise? God had not revealed himself in his character as Jehovah to Abraham
as he was now about to do for Israel? (This is) a further revelation of who God
is."[24]
Thus, even in the light of this type of exegesis, which we nevertheless believe is
secondary to that given under (a) above, it is clear enough that all references to "the
divine new name"[25] are absolutely in error. o new name is given. "It is absurd to
press this passage as proof of the ignorance of the patriarchs of the name Jehovah
for God."[26] "The apparent meaning of this passage (as improperly punctuated)
cannot therefore be its true meaning."[27]
We have devoted a little more space to this question than might seem necessary to
some, but right here is the keystone of the arch for that fantastic rainbow bridge of
lies that current critics have built over the Word of God, because it is important that
it should be demonstrated just how weak and unacceptable a pretense that arch is.
Read the passage like it should be read:

"BY MY AME JEHOVAH WAS I OT K OW U TO THEM?"
This is exactly the same kind of interrogative declaration used by Jesus Christ
himself when he asked, "IF HE ASK FOR A FISH; WILL HE GIVE HIM A
SERPE T?" (Matthew 7:10). The constantly repeated use of the names Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob in contexts where this name is mentioned proves that who the
sacred author was referring to here was that same JEHOVAH who was the God of
Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob. Otherwise, there could have been no point at
all in mentioning the names of those patriarchs ten times upon those occasions when
Moses was using the name.
TRAPP, "Exodus 6:2 And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I [am] the
LORD:
Ver. 2. I am Jehovah.] Aυταυτος (Scaliger’s (a) word); that do Press (b) (Gregory’s
word); that have being of myself, give being to all things else, and in special to my
promises, to "perform with my hand" what I have "spoken with my mouth"; [1
Kings 8:15] only God expects that men put his promises in suit by their prayers, as
here, and burden him with them, as that martyr said.
EXPOSITOR'S DICTIO ARY OF TEXTS, "The ames of God
Exodus 6:2-3
If we read into the first of these two verses "Jehovah" for "Lord," we shall get the
exact balance and contrast of what was here said to Moses. A name is just the
utterance of character. That is its first and proper meaning. It is the putting out of a
character in a human word, and that is just what God meant when He gave Himself
these various names. They were intended to be such utterances as men and women
could easily understand and apply by understanding them to their varied
experience. The text gives us two reveal ings of names from God, and God Himself is
careful to tell Moses that there was a progression from the one to the other, that the
first was the preliminary of the second, and the second was raised, as it were, on the
meaning of the first. ow the conditions of the people to whom the name was given
determined these various self-revealings.
I. The Progressive Revealing of the ames of God.—In general the occasions of
revealing different names of God correspond in the history of Israel to special
epochs in that history, or, in the broader area of the human race, they correspond
with great needs of that race, and gradually, by the successive names, God tried to
show mankind what He really was. All the revealings of the name of God in the
Bible have crowned and culminated in one name that you find in the ew
Testament from the lips of Christ, the name that carried to Him most of the
meaning of the Godhead and the name that He meant should carry most of the
meaning of the Godhead to you, for in His last prayer to the Father He speaks in
this wise: "O, righteous Father, the world hath not known Thee, but I have known
Thee," and that name of "Righteous Father" is the last utterance of the Godhead as

to what God is and as to how you are to name God to your own hearts and
consciences. ow all down the Bible it would be an easy matter to trace historically
this development of the name of God, and you must not wonder that at the
beginning the name was a very primitive one, carrying rather ideas of power and
might and august majesty than tenderness and gentleness and love, for the full
revealing of God at the first would have been utterly useless, and indeed impossible.
God has always revealed the knowledge of Himself and all other knowledge in one
way. It has been through consecrated souls and gifted minds who, as a rule, in
religious Revelation , have not been the official representatives of religion, have not
been the priests, have not been the leaders of the religious life of their time, and have
not been popular, as a rule, certainly have not had a large popular following.
Abraham, Moses, as in my text, all the Hebrew prophets, the Apostles of the Lord,
and Christ Himself, they were all antagonists of the official religion of their times,
and God passed by officialism, and chose out lowly hearts and gracious minds, and
through them revealed the sequence of the names of God from lower to higher and
from simple to more wondrous. And God acts on the same principle in His revealing
to souls. That has been God"s way, a progressive revealing of His name.
II. The Meaning of the ames.—Apply it to what you have in my text. Here you
have two names, "God Almighty" and "Jehovah". ow the first one, "God
Almighty," is said here to be suitable to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, but not
suitable to the slaves in Egypt that Moses was to enfranchise. The other name was
fit for them, namely, that great name of "Jehovah, the Lord". This second is an
advance on the first. An inferior idea of God was given to the great saints; a
superior idea of God was given to the slaves in Egypt. What do these two names
mean? The first means simply "divine almightiness," the idea of organized power,
God Almighty; the second one is an altogether more involved name, and in general
you may understand it in this way. It means "The Unchanging, the Eternal,
Trustworthy One". The name Jehovah carries in it the idea of a covenant-keeping
God. By the first, the idea of power, almightiness, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were
specially blessed and strengthened, and it was just what they wanted, it was just the
name suitable to their condition. Round the other name of the trustworthy,
covenant-keeping God, a nation of slaves was rallied and concentrated and led on to
liberty and national life. Men in sorrow need more of God, the revealing of more of
God"s tenderness, than men in prosperity and health and strength and happiness.
III. The Greater the eed the Greater the Revelation.—The deeper the sorrow, the
more the unfolding of the heart of God. The more poignant the grief, the more
tender the revelation of the name of God. And that has always been God"s way. The
deeper the sin, the more bitter the sorrow of Prayer of Manasseh , the more tenderly
God has revealed Himself. The thought ought to nerve us to know that God has
given us that last name because the needs of an age like this are greater than the
needs of an age like that of Abraham; more of His love has been revealed to this age
than to the Apostles" age.
References.—VI:3.—J. H. Rushbrooke, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxxi1907 , p69.
VI:6-8.—H. W. Webb-Peploe, The Life of Privilege, p44.

Exodus 6 commentary

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Exodus 6 commentary