Moses: Slow of Speech and Blessed

(10) But Moses said to יהוה, “Please God, I have never been a man of words, either in times past or now that You have spoken to Your servant; I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.”

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 God 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.

NOR SINCE THOU HAST SPOKEN. Me-az dabberkha (since you have spoken) is to be rendered, from the time that you spoke. Me-az (since) in For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Your name (Ex. 5:23) is similar, as the slowness of his speech was not removed but remained as it was. The one who says that Moses forgot Egyptian is incorrect, because Moses mentioned two things, viz., slowness of speech and slowness of tongue. Furthermore, we can learn from God’s answer, Who has made human’s mouth? or who makes a person dumb? that Moses was not referring to the Egyptian language. 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. However, he was able to pronounce some of them with difficulty. This is the meaning of, and I will be with your mouth, and teach you what you should speak; i.e., God told Moses that God would teach him to speak with words that do not contain letters that he had difficulty enunciating.

...“And she brought him to the daughter of Pharaoh…” The daughter of Pharaoh would kiss and hug and adore him (Moses) as if he were her own son, and she would not take him out of the king’s palace. And because [Moses] was so beautiful, everyone yearned to see him. One that would see him would not leave his presence. And it was that Pharaoh would kiss him (Moses) and hug him, and he would remove Pharaoh’s crown and place it on his own head, as he would do to him in the future when he was great. And some of the observers sitting among them were the magicians of Egypt that said, “We are wary of this, that he is taking your crown and placing it on his head, that he not be the one we say (i.e. prophesy) that will take the kingship from you.” Some said to kill him, and some said to burn him. And Jethro was sitting among them and said to them, “This child has no intent [to take the throne]. Rather, test him by bringing in a bowl [a piece of] gold and a coal. If he outstretches his hand towards the gold, [surely] he has intent [to take the throne], and you should kill him. And if he outstretches his hand towards the coal, he [surely] does not have intent [to take the throne], and he does not deserve the death penalty.” They immediately brought the bowl before him (Moses), and he outstretched his hand to take the gold, and Gabriel (some say) came and pushed his (Moses’) hand, and he grabbed the coal. He then brought his hand along with the coal into his mouth and burned his tongue, and from this was made (Exodus 4:10) “slow of speech and slow of tongue.” “And she called his name ‘Moshe’” – From here you can learn about the merit of those that perform acts of kindness.

God said to Moses: "Who gave people mouths?"

God continued: ‘Do not be pained that you are not a man of words. Have I not made the mouth of all that speak, and I chose to make ones dumb (mute)? And have I not made the deaf and the blind, and opened their eyes to see and ears to hear? Now had I wanted that you be a man of words, you would have been so. But it is my desire that you continue to be so, and when you will speak [to Pharaoh] your utterance will be correct, for I will be with your mouth.’ This is the sense of the verse, Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth.”

Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said: One who sees spotted people recites: Blessed…Who makes creatures different. The Gemara raises a challenge: One who saw a person with unusually black skin, a person with unusually red skin, a person with unusually white skin [lavkan], an unusually tall and thin person, a dwarf, or one with warts [darnikos]recites: Blessed…Who makes creatures different. However, one who sees an amputee, a blind person, a flat-headed person, a lame person, one afflicted with boils, or spotted people recites: Blessed…the true Judge, not: Who makes creatures different. The Gemara answers: This is not difficult. This, where Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi says to recite: Who makes creatures different, refers to a case where the individual was spotted from when he was in his mother’s womb, since birth. While this, where one recites: The true Judge, refers to a case where the individual only became spotted after he was born.