Numbers 14:13 - Exposition

And Moses said unto the Lord. The words which follow are so confused, and the construction so dislocated, that they afford the strongest evidence that we have here the ipsissima verba of the mediator, disordered as they were in the moment of utterance by passionate earnestness and an agonizing fear. Had Moses been ever so eloquent, a facility of speech at such a moment would have been alike unnatural and unlovely. What we can see in the words is this: that Moses had no thought for himself, and that it never occurred to him to entertain the tempting offer made to him by God; that he knew God too well, and cared for God too much, to let him so compromise his honour among the nations, and so thwart his own purposes, without making one effort (however audacious) to turn his wrath aside. We can see that it is (as in Exodus 32:11 , Exodus 32:12 , only much more boldly and abruptly) the thought of what the heathen would say which he wishes to thrust upon the Almighty; but we cannot be sure of the right translation of the words. The most literal rendering would seem to be, "Both the Egyptians have heard ( וְשָׁמְעוּ ) that thou broughtest out this people from among them with thy might, and they have told it ( וְאָמְרוּ ) to the inhabitants of this land; they have heard ( שָׁמְעוּ , repeated) that thou, Lord, art amongst this people," &c.; The Septuagint, however, translates the first verb by a future ( καὶ ἀκούσεται αἴγυπτος ), and, as this gives a much clearer sense, it is followed by the Targum Palestine and most of the versions.