Biblical Hebrew Forum

[cornelis den hertog <cok17 AT hotmail.com>]

 

1) On Mon, 7 Jan 2013 08:45:42 -0500  if AT math.bu.edu wrote:

Possibly Moses wanted to be ready with an answer to an expected question by the elders of Israel, or by Paroh himself as to the meaning (meaning!) of the name of the God of Israel and he gets the answer EHYH = EHWH. (…)

 

2) At 11:22:42 -0500 he also wrote:

 

It occurs to me that a similar situation transpires in Judges 13:17-18: (…) “What is your name (…)?” (…)

 

1) How do we know what Moses thinks? Should we not confine ourselves to what is narrated?

 

2) The correspondence of  the question ‘What is his name’ with the question in Judges 13:14 and

also that in Gen 32:30 (translations v. 29), all occurring in theophany narratives, has already

often been noted. A similar thing applies to Exod 6.3 These correspondences should indeed be

taken into account when dealing with the question of Moses in Exod 3:13 and God’s response to it.

 

3) The question of Moses is mostly analyzed insufficiently, also in previous B-Hebrew

discussions (for references see my post of 16 December). Commentators are jumping to the

famous answer ’ehye ’asher ’ehye, although this is in one way or another a response to Moses’

question. For the moment I would like to focus on another particularity of it: in Moses’

question the name question is attributed to the Israelites as a question they will pose as a matter

of course. Why is that?

 

Cornelis den Hertog