Illustration Credit: Elad Lifshitz, Dov Abramson Studio
What's going on here? מַה זֶה?
In last week’s parashah and again this week, when God instructs Moshe to appear before Pharaoh, Moshe tries to get God to choose someone else. Moshe gives a bunch of different reasons, and one that comes up a few times is that he is unable to speak well (Shemot 4:10; 6:12; 6:30).
What exactly was Moshe’s speech difficulty?
- Abarbanel and Rabbeinu Hannanel say that Moshe had a hard time pronouncing certain letters.
- Rashbam says that Moshe was not fluent in the Egyptian language because he had run away from Pharaoh’s palace at a young age.
- Shadal says that Moshe was an old man who was used to hanging out with sheep; he didn’t have a fancy vocabulary or strong powers of persuasion.
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