Biblical Hebrew Forum

[George Athas <George.Athas AT moore.edu.au>]

I think the length of your post may have been the difficult, Cornelis. You'll probably find that a shorter message will get better responses.

GEORGE ATHAS

Dean of Research,

Moore Theological College (moore.edu.au)

Sydney, Australia

From: cornelis den hertog <cok17 AT hotmail.com>
Date: Wednesday, 2 January 2013 10:28 PM
To: B-Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: [b-hebrew] Ex. 3:14 ‘Ehyeh has sent me to you’

 

>  …

>   … why is this name Ehyeh used here? … in the text it is put in the mouth of Moses: it is

> Moses who has to say to the Israelites “Ehyeh has sent me to you”! …

>    In my view the reason of the use of Ehyeh as a name is that Moses is introduced here

> as a prophet. It has already often been observed that some words and motifs used in the

> context have prophetic connotations, such as the word following Ehyeh, sh-l-kh (“send”,

> in connection with saying something), and the variation of the messenger formula, “Thus

> shall you say to the Children of Israel”, just preceding the name Ehyeh. A prophet

> usually speaks in the name of God by using the first person, therefore as if God himself is

> speaking. If Moses uses the name form Ehyeh in front of the people, he is representing

> God in the most eminent way that is possible and presents himself, in combination with

> “has sent me to you”, as speaking with ultimate authorization.

>  …

 

On December 16 I wrote a long post about Exodus 3:14 and in particular about the second

part of the verse (in this mainly repeating something of a book but not exclusively). To my big

surprise I did not get any response, although I referred to previous discussions in B-Hebrew.

Of course, I wondered why not. Did the transliteration sh-l-kh  disturb some people (it may

also indicate “throw”)? sh-l-H or sh-l-x would have been clearer but, nevertheless, SBL gives

it as a possibility in connection with ‘general-purpose style’. Should I, therefore, think of

another form of dissonance?

 

Cornelis den Hertog