Exodus 4:11

Summary

Yehovah answers Moses' objection about speech impediment by asking a series of rhetorical questions about who determines human physical conditions — mouth, muteness, deafness, sight, and blindness. The verse closes with a self-identifying rhetorical question that ties these conditions back to Yehovah himself.

Key words

• mi ("who?", H4310) — the interrogative pronoun opens each of the two main questions, framing the verse as a challenge rather than a statement.
• sam ("did he make", H7760A) — perfect verb form referring to a completed act (the giving of peh "mouth", H6310G), used for the first question.
• yasum ("does he make", H7760A) — imperfect form of the same root as sam, but marking ongoing/general action, used for the second question covering muteness, deafness, sight, and blindness.
• 'anokhi ("[do] I", H0595) — independent personal pronoun, placed for emphasis before the divine name in the closing rhetorical question.
• halo (H3808 + H9008) — negation joined with the interrogative particle, forming "is it not," a construction that turns the sentence into a question expecting affirmation.

What the text says

The verse is built from two parallel rhetorical questions introduced by mi ("who?"), followed by a third rhetorical question that answers them. The first question uses the perfect verb sam ("did he make," H7760A) tied to peh ("mouth," H6310G) and 'adam ("person," H0120G), asking who established the mouth for humankind. The second question shifts to the imperfect form yasum (H7760A), the same root but a different aspect, and lists four paired conditions joined by 'o ("or," H0176A): 'illem ("dumb," H0483), cheresh ("deaf," H2795), piqqeach ("seeing," H6493), and 'iver ("blind," H5787). The change from perfect to imperfect distinguishes a single completed act (the mouth) from a general or recurring capacity (the ability to make someone in these various states).

The closing line uses halo to form a question anticipating a positive answer, followed by 'anokhi ("I," H0595) placed before Yehovah (H3068G), giving emphasis to the speaker's identity as the one responsible for the conditions just listed.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders sam ("did he make") as edōken ("gave"), pairing it with stoma ("mouth") and anthrōpō ("to man"), a slightly different verb choice than the Hebrew "made/placed." The LXX also groups the four adjectives in two pairs (dyskōphon kai kōphon, "hard of hearing and deaf"; bleponta kai typhlon, "seeing and blind"), differing from the Hebrew's four items each separated by 'o ("or"). The closing question in the LXX reads "οὐκ ἐγὼ ὁ θεός" ("is it not I, God?"), and the Vulgate has simply "nonne ego?" ("is it not I?") — both omitting the second occurrence of the divine name Yehovah found in the Hebrew closing phrase.