Phonetics: Shmot 4 (Copy)

SLOW OF SPEECH (lit. heavy of mouth) I speak heavily (with difficulty); O.F. balbus Eng., a stammerer. (American: stutterer)

....(from underlined): In line with the plain meaning of Scripture, the purport of the verse is as follows: [Moses said], "For I am slow of speech from heretofore and from time past, for I have been slow of speech from my youth on and all the more now that I am old and also now since Thou hast spoken unto Thy servant, for thou hast not removed the defect in my speech when Thou didst command me to go to Pharaoh to speak Thy name. How then can I go before him?" Now Moses, out of great desire not to go [on the mission] did not pray before G-d, blessed be He, that He remove his defective speech from him, but he argued: "Since you have not removed my slowness of speech from me from the time You spoke to me to undertake this mission, do not command me to go, for it is inconceivable that the Master o everything should send a man of uncircumcised lips to a king of the nations, And since Moses did not pray [for removal of his defect], the Holy One, blessed be He, did not desire to heal him. Instead, he said, "I will be with my mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt speak, meaning that "you will be able to correctly express the words which I put in your mouth."...

According to the Midrash, it appears to me that the reason he did not desire to remove his defective speech from him was because a miraculous event, as told by the Rabbis, happened to Moses, when he was still before Pharaoh,

(From Chavel source notes: Ramban evidently refers to Shmot Rabbah 1:31, wherein it is related that when Moses was still an infant and Pharaoh played with him on his lap, Moses took the crown from the king's head and placed it on his own. Terrified t what had happened, the magicians advised that he be slain. But Jethro(Yitro) who was one of the counsellors of the king, advised that he be tested as follows: Two dishes were to be placed before him, one containing pieces of gold and the other live coal. If he would stretch out his hand for the gold, it would be known that his taking the crown was done consciously, and therefore he was to be slain. But if he would grasp the live coal, he was innocent. (my note: because infants and toddlers wouldn't automatically innocently reach for the shiny thing...?). When the test was made, Moses began stretching his hand toward to gold, but the angel Gabriel made him take the live coal. Thereupon, Moses put his hand with the coal into his mouth, which burnt part of his tongue. As a result he became slow of speech and of a slow tongue for all of his life. (my note: from a lisp?).

(1) כי כבד פה וכבד לשון אנכי, I am not fluent in the Egyptian spoken by the upper classes of the aristocracy. The reason is that I fled Egypt before I had completed my education there and in the meantime I am 80 years of age. We find in Ezekiel 3,4-6 that the prophet is told to address the Jewish people as opposed to addressing the local aristocracy whose tongue is described as unintelligible speech and difficult language, i.e. עמקי שפה וכבדי לשון. Is it possible that a prophet who could communicate with G’d freely, i.e. “face to face,” and who received the Torah from Him and communicated it to his people should have been afflicted with a stutter? [one could add to the author’s rejection of the commonly held view of Moses’ speech impediment that if he functioned as High Priest for a full week before his brother Aaron took over, how was that possible if he was afflicted with what would be considered a disabling mum, physical blemish for even an ordinary priest? Ed.] Nowhere in our traditional literature of Tannaim and Amoraim (Talmud) is there such a view expressed, and we certainly have no reason to accept such views when they are expressed in hagiographical writings.

...(from underlined) The upshot of this is that Moses was born with slowness of speech; i.e., he could not pronounce the labials or all of the linguals. (Strickman/Silver notes: Slowness of speech indicates a problem with labials, for the Hebrew word for speech is safah (lips). Slowness of tongue indicates a problem with linguals.)

However, he was able to pronounce some of them with difficulty. This is the meaning of and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt speak;, i.e., G-d told Moses that He would teach him to speak words that do not contain letters that he has difficulty enunciating.

(personal thanks to Rabbi Michael Teitcher for this source).

(1) ויאמר משה בי אדוני, Moses responded by saying: בי אדוני, “please O Lord, etc.” Moses pointed out that he had been asked to face Pharaoh and his advisors who had command of all seventy languages, and would ridicule him when addressing him in any of these languages which he did not have any command of. They would then add: “In whose name and language do you come to speak to us?” G’d reminded him that it had been He who had enabled Adam to give the proper names in the in all the languages to all of His creatures. (Genesis 2,20) [It did not say there שם in the singular mode, but in the plural mode, i.e. that he named each animal in each of the seventy languages.] If He had been able to enable Adam to do this, Adam who had eaten from the tree of knowledge, it would require only a minor adjustment of Moses’ faculties for him to be able to do so also, and He implied that He would do so immediately, seeing that he had been selected to perform much greater deeds than had Adam. An alternate interpretation of G’d’s response: The words: מי שם פה, “Who has provided a new mouth, etc;” surely the One Who provided the first mouth in the first place at the time of creating human beings with a mouth to express their thoughts. (Attributed to Rabbi Yoseph.) Rabbi Ovadiah interpreted the answer as a rebuke to Moses, who was surely aware of G’d’s abilities, and if He had given Moses a mouth to speak with, He was surely also aware of Moses’ speech defect, and did not need a reminder from him. It is within My power to remedy this. [G’d did not say that He would remedy this, and if so when He would do so. Ed.]

(5) כי כבד פה וכבד לשון אנכי, the reason why I do not possess this facility is because the physical tools with which to express my thoughts are defective. I have therefore never even made the effort to develop this facility (compare Isaiah 50,4) לדעת לעות את יעף דבר, “to know how to speak timely words to the weary.”

(1) מי שם פה לאדם?, Who provided the natural infrastructure for nature to be able to provide the body’s equipment?