ולא ישמעו בקולי, “they (the people) will not listen to me (Take me seriously).” if you were to argue that there is a contradiction here, G-d having told Moses that they will have faith in Him in 3,18, the answer is that Moses argues that they will not believe that Moses is His prophet, but is an impostor. This sounds heretical, as G-d had told Moses in 3,18 that they will listen to him and believe in him? The answer is that G-d had spoken of the elders, whereas here he had been asked to instruct the people who were asked to believe that the Egyptians would hand over all their valuables.

?מזה בידך, “what is this in your hand?” The word מזה is to be read as if it had been spelled in two words, i.e. מה זה.

והאמינו לקול האות האחרון, “they will believe in the effect of the (sound) of the last miracle.” Healing the skin disease of tzoraat was so unheard of that it would convince the people that Moses had been sent by G-d as only He could do this.

והיו לדם ביבשת, “and it (the waters) will turn into blood as soon as it hits the dry ground.” This water, once it had turned into blood on the ground, would not revert to become water again even when the plague had ended. This would serve as proof to the Egyptians that this phenomenon had had its origin in heaven. Anything that is manipulated by witchcraft etc., is reversible. Here we are dealing with real blood. (as opposed to the waters that had remained in the river or lakes)

בי אדוני, this is the name of G-d spelled with the letters אדני; (not permitted to erase)

לא איש דברים אנכי, this verse is incomplete, and it must be understood as follows: “Please, O Lord, I have not been a man of eloquent tongue since my birth already.” By saying that he was not eloquent “yesterday, i.e. אתמול,” it follows that earlier, i.e. “the day before yesterday,” i.e. שלשום, I had been even less eloquent. I have also not become more eloquent since My Lord has seen fit to speak to me.”If we were to take the text at face value, how would we explain that Moses proceeds first backwards in time, i.e. “yesterday and the day before yesterday,” and then jumps to the present? He should have said: “I am not eloquent since You spoke to me, nor have I been eloquent the day previously, nor the day before that.”

גם מאז דברך אל עבדך, “neither since You have spoken to Your servant.” He meant to tell G-d that having been worthy to be addressed by G-d had not enabled him to henceforth speak more eloquently, (or distinctly).

כי כבד פה ובד לשון אנכי, “for I suffer from a speech handicap.” He implies that this handicap has been his ever since he was forced to flee from Egypt. I fled from Egypt when I was a young man of 20. Now that I am 80 years old I have forgotten to speak the Egyptian language, but Aaron my brother never left Egypt and he know how to speak Egyptian well. [I believe that our author feels uncomfortable with implying that Moses would have criticised G-d for having been born with this handicap. Ed.]

מי שם פה לאדם “Who has provided man with a mouth to speak with?” G-d replies that since it is He Who has given man the power of speech when He created the species, it was He who has given or restricted his power of speech. Clearly, if it was His will to do so, He could correct his handicap. G-d, as previously, answers Moses point by point.

אלם, “dumb,” this is spelling out the first of the faculties that G-d has equipped the human species with, i.e. speech; חרש, refers to the ability to hear sounds. [Thus far G-d mentions physical faculties. Ed.]פקח, “intelligent;” the reason why this faculty is inserted here before the sense of sight, is that although both hearing correctly and seeing correctly, are merely physical functions, they require the abstract faculty of intelligence to become meaningful to a human being. Compare: Isaiah 42,20: ולא תשמור פקוח אזנים ולא ישמע, “with ears open he hears nothing.” Or: verse 7 in the same chapter of Isaiah: לפקוח עמים עורות, “opening eyes deprived of light.”

או עור, “or blind?” Rashi understands this as a question concerning who made the Egyptians blind when Moses fled and as a result of their blindness they did not find him. He bases himself on Exodus 2,15: וישמע פרעה, “Pharaoh heard,” but he could not see. According to Rashi, Pharaoh’s executioner’s sword was blunted by Moses’ neck becoming rock hard. (Jerusalem Talmud tractate B’rachot chapter 9, halachah 1)

עם פיך, “I will heal your handicap so that you can speak clearly and distinctly. “When Moses realised that all his objections thus far had been useless, including the hints he gave G-d concerning his basic unfitness due to his speech defect, he revealed that his real reason was that he did not want to deprive his older brother, the first born Aaron, of that honour. He knew that Aaron was an eloquent orator. This is why he concluded with the suggestion that G-d should appoint Aaron who during Moses’ many years of being in Midian had been the leader of the Jewish people. He phrased it by saying: “please send the one that You have seen fit to send up to now, as long as it is not I.”At that point, G-d became angry (verse 14) pointing out that Aaron would be very pleased to accept the mission G-d would appoint him to become His spokesman. He will be very happy to meet Moses again, and to hear that his brother Moses had become a prophet. He would not be jealous of him at all, as Moses had unfairly suspected. At this point, Moses accepted the mission and set out to perform it.

ויאמר בי אדוני, the word adonay is again the name of G-d spelled with אד.

וראך ושמח בלבו “and when he sees you, he will be glad in his heart” He will be happy that you have become a prophet and he will not be jealous of you. When Moshe heard this, he immediately went to Egypt.

וישב אל יתר חותנו, “Moses returned to his fatherinlaw Yeter.” (Yitro) He returned from the desert where he had the encounter at the thorn bush, in order to bring Yitro’s flock back to him. He had no idea when he would return to Midian.

ויאמר ה׳ אל משה במדין, “G-d spoke to Moses while he was still in Midian; after G-d had first spoken to Moses in the desert, He now spoke to him again in Midian.

כי מתו כל האנשים וגו׳׳, “that all the men (who sought his death) had died in the meantime; Rashi identifies these two men as Datan and Aviram of the tribe of Reuven. [This is problematic as these same people conspired against him with Korach about 2 years after the Exodus. (Compare Numbers 16,1) Ed.] Rashi knew this of course; what he meant was that in the meantime these two men had become blind, and according to the Talmud in Nedarim 64, blind people are considered as if dead already. They had the effrontery to accuse Moses of trying to scratch out the eyes of the seeing. Compare Numbers 16,14. There are 3 other categories that the Talmud in Nedarim quoted are considered as dead, the ones smitten with the skin disease tzoraat, the childless, as well as the poor. Seeing that Datan and Aviram are reported as having children, and seeing that they had not been ostracised outside the camp, they had to be either blind or poor, or both. According to the plain meaning of the text, G-d had referred to the Egyptians who sought Moses’ death, the ones biologically related to the Egyptian whom Moses had slain.

ויקח משה את אשתו ואת בניו, “Moses took his wife and his sons;” seeing that both of his sons were still very young and in need of constant attention by their mother, their mother is mentioned here first, whereas when Yaakov fled from his uncle Lavan and fatherinlaw in Genesis 31,17, his sons are mentioned before his wives.

וישב ארצה מצרים, “he returned headed for Egypt.” He now continued his journey alone. After the angel, (G-d’s messenger), had shown him that G-d had been displeased that Eliezer had not yet been circumcised, Moses left his family there (at the inn), and continued on towards Egypt. After Eliezer had recovered from his circumcision, Tzipporah and children returned to her father in Midian.

את מטה האלוהים, “the staff of G-d.” This staff had not yet been renamed as “Moses’ staff” because he had not yet performed miracles with it.

ראה כל המופתים, “look at all the miracles, etc.” only one of the three miracles that Moses had performed thus far, he performed before Pharaoh, i.e. the staff turning into a vicious snake.

ואני אחזק את לבו, “I will harden his heart;” this does not mean that G-d deprives Pharaoh of the ability to become a penitent and to reverse his attitude and cooperate with G-d’s commands if he so wills it. The line must be understood as follows: “I will give him additional courage so that seeing My miracles he will not die from fright until all My miracles will have been performed.” This is also how we must understand Exodus 73: ואני אקשה את לב פרעה, “I will toughen Pharaoh’s heart;” he will not collapse from fear.” If you needed proof for this interpretation consider Exodus 9,15: כי עתה שלחתי את ידי ואך אותך, “for now I will stretch out My hand and smite you with pestilence.”

בני בכורי ישראל, “My firstborn son, Israel.” All of G-ds creatures are His children. However, Israel is the most beloved of His children as when He created mankind the species, it was for the sake of eventually there being a nation like Israel. An alternate exegesis: When Yaakov (Israel) purchased the birthright from Esau and he eventually acknowledged that he had deserved it, I had been instrumental in this, and until Aaron became a priest the Temple service was meant to be performed by the firstborn. This is why I demand that you release My firstborn son to perform the service fore me in the desert.

If you keep refusing to release My firstborn, הנה אנכי הורג את בנך בכורך, “I am going to kill your firstborn.” G-d explains to Pharaoh that His system of meting out justice is based on the punishment fitting the crime. Rashi adds that here we find G-d already predicting that noncompliance will eventually result in the tenth plague.

ויהי בדרך למלון, “it was while they had been on the way, at an inn; this verse ought to have been appended to verse 20 where we were told: ויקח מה את אשתו ואת בניו, “Moses took his wife and his sons;” it is similarly out of place as is Exodus 21,36 שלם ישלם “he is to pay double,” really belongs in verse 37 in that chapter. The reason why it is written where it is, is that the Torah did not want to interrupt what G-d had been saying to Moses.

ויפגשהו, “he encountered him;” the expression is remindful of Hoseah 13,8: אפגשם כדב שכול, “I attack them like a bear robbed of its young.”

ויבקש להמיתו, “he attempted to kill him;” according to Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel, the angel attempted to kill Eliezer, the uncircumcised baby. (Talmud Nedarim 32) This is why Tzipporah called her son Eliezer a “groom acquired through blood” (of circumcision). [She meant that if she had not circumcised him she would have lost him. Ed.] A different interpretation: the angel tried to kill Moses. He had been guilty of not circumcising Eliezer on the eighth day of his life as G-d had commanded that it be done. He should have done so and left him with his mother in Midian. This would have enabled him to carry out the mission entrusted to him by G-d without delay and without hold ups due to consideration of the needs of his family. Instead he had walked slowly while his family was riding. (Nedarim 31)

ויבקש המיתו, according to Rashi the reason for Moses’ punishment was not that he had not circumcised Eliezer on the way, but that this was not his first concern when arriving at the inn. To the question that seeing that neglecting to perform circumcision carries a very severe penalty, as opposed to delaying his trip to Egypt which was only the slight delay in performing a positive commandment, something that normally is not even punishable at all, so why did Moses indeed not perform the commandment of circumcision on time? The answer is that it is not the father of the child that is subject to this penalty, but the uncircumcised male when he is old enough to arrange for his own circumcision if his father failed to do so. The Torah spells this out when writing: וערל זכר אשר לא ימול בשר ערלתו ונכרתה, “when a male with a foreskin allows his foreskin not to be circumcised he will be cut off, etc.” (Genesis 17,14) This is why Moses was not bothered by attending to other details about his family’s accommodation before attending to circumcision of his son.

ותקח צפורה וגו, “Tzipporah took etc.” what prompted Tzipporah was that her husband had been weakened by the attack of that angel so that he, personally, was unable to perform this commandment. He therefore revealed to his wife what had to be done, and she performed the deed.

צר, a sharp scalpel. Compare Joshua 5,2 חרבות צורים, according to Rash’bam. An alternate interpretation: the word צר means “stone;” we find it as having this meaning also in Ezekiel 3,9: כשמיר חזק מצור, like a shamir, “even harder than rock.” She took what was at hand.

ותגע לרגליו; “she touched his male member.” This is another word being used to describe the area of it where the circumcision had to be performed. We find another occasion where the word: רגליו has been used in the same sense in Samuel II 19,25: לא עשה רגליו, “he had not attended to his private parts.” It is necessary to rephrase this verse so that it means: “Tzipporah took a scalpel and applied the sharp edge of it to the male member of her child and she cut off his foreskin.”Still another interpretation: the subject in the word: לרגליו are the angel’s feet. She considered what she had done as a kind of sacrifice to G-d, and placed it (the foreskin) at the feet of G-d’s representative, in this case, the angel. We find something similar to this when Gideon as well as Manoach in the Book of Judges, placed their “sacrifice” at the feet of the angel. (Compare Pessikta de Zutrata on Exodus 12,13 at length on this subject). Another explanation is that she threw the foreskin at Moshe’s feet because she thought that the blood of the mitzvah would banish the danger, just as we read later on in Egypt that the blood of the Pascal lamb kept the destroying angel away from the Jewish homes.

(ותאמר (אל משה, “she said: (to Moses)”

כי חתן דמים אתה לי, “for you are a bridegroom to me on account of the circumcision.” She attributed the fact the Moses had almost be killedn to herself, i.e. as being her fault for having married her, a Midianite, something not appropriate for Hebrews to do. She considered herself as inferior to Moses.

וירף ממנו, “he let him alone;” after Tzipporah had performed the circumcision on her son, the angel left. and no longer tried to kill Moses; at that point Tzipporah understood what it had been that caused her husband to almost have been killed, i.e. the fact that Eliezer had remained uncircumcised until then. This is the reason why she had not referred to the word למולות, “on account of circumcision,” in the previous verse where she first described herself a bridegroom of blood. A different interpretation: As long as Moses and Tzipporah had lived in her father’s house, Moses had not been punished for not having circumcised Eliezer because his fatherinlaw would have tried to prevent him from doing so. Compare Yonathan ben Uzziel on the subject who attributes the fact that Moses’ grandson became an idolater to the fact that Gershom had not been circumcised as part of an agreement between Moses and his fatherinlaw that one of his sons could be circumcised but not the other. The reason that the angel tried to kill Moses was on account of Tzipporah, who had opposed his circumcision before. (Compare Judges 18,30, and the commentators there) Nonetheless most people understand the matter as being the non circumcision of Eliezer, not Gershom. At the same time no one has attempted to either explain (away) the aggadah of Moses having made a deal with his fatherinlaw concerning the subject of circumcision. If you were to counter that Rashi on verse 2,16 has already stated that Yitro had abandoned idolatry so how could he have opposed Moses’ circumcising his son, I believe that this Rashi need not be understood literally, i.e. Yitro had not converted to Abrahamitic monotheism, but had become what we call “a ger toshav” a proselyte who had accepted the seven basic laws G-d gave to mankind. He himself had certainly not circumcised himself, in the opinion of Rashi.

כי חתן דמים אתה לי, “for you are a bridegroom of blood to me.” According to Rashi, the word דמים should be understood as in שופך דמים, “spilling blood, killing. Compare Samuel II 16,7 צא איש הדמים, “get out murderer!” The verse ought to be rearranged so that it is understood as: כי דמים חתן אתה לי, “you were (potentially) a shedder of the blood of my groom for me.” (Alternately, these words could have been addressed to her baby Eliezer, meaning that the baby if not for the blood of his at the circumcision, it would have caused her groom’s death.

ויפגשהו וישק לו, “when he met him, he kissed him. (Aaron kissed Moses.)” This is alluded to in Psalms 85,11 חסד ואמת נפגשו, צדק ושלום נשקו, “loving kindness and truth meet; righteousness and peace kiss one another.” (Compare Sh’mot Rabbah Rabbah 5,10.) [The commentators on that Midrash have different views of what the author meant. Ed.] Basically, our sages describe Aaron’s predominant characteristic, virtue as that of chessed, leniency, whereas Moses’ predominant characteristic was truth, justice. Similarly, Moses was distinguished by insisting on righteousness, whereas Aaron strove for preserving or making peace where at all possible. Our author also quotes Malachi 2,6 בשלום ובמישור הלך אתי, “he walked with Me in peace and equity” as relevant to Aaron’s stature. [The whole chapter discusses the priests. Ed.]

ויגד משה לאהרן, Moses told Aaron all that had transpired since he last saw him many years ago, including the fact that he had brought his wife and children with him on this journey, until the very first inn. Upon hearing this, Aaron told him that there were already far too many Israelites suffering in Egypt, and he did not need to increase their number by bringing along his family. We may assume, as did our sages, that this prompted Moses to send his family back to Midian to her father’s home.

ויעש האותות, “Moses performed the three miracles;” the staff turning into a snake, his hand becoming smitten with the skin disease known as tzoraat, and turning water into blood.