Exodus 4:15

Summary

God tells Moses to speak to Aaron and place the words in his mouth. God promises to "be with" the mouths of both Moses and Aaron, and states he will teach them what to do.

Key words

• dibbarta ("you will speak", H1696) — piel sequential perfect, continuing the chain of divine instruction; piel gives an intensive or directed sense to speaking.
• peh (H6310) — "mouth", appears three times in construct form (pi, pikha, pihu) with pronominal suffixes ("his mouth", "your mouth", "his mouth"), anchoring the promise of assistance to the physical organ of speech.
• 'ehyeh ("I will be", H1961) — qal imperfect, first person; the same verbal root used elsewhere for divine self-identification, here simply projecting future presence ("I will be with...").
• horeti ("I will teach", H3384) — hiphil sequential perfect, causative form: "I will cause [you] to know/instruct."
• ta'asun ("you will do", H6213) — qal imperfect plural with paragogic nun, an added nun ending that in Biblical Hebrew often carries rhetorical emphasis or solemnity.

What the text says

The verse is built as a chain of sequential perfects (ve-dibbarta, ve-samta, ve-horeti) following an initial command, a common Hebrew narrative-instructional pattern where each "and you will X" verb continues the force of the preceding imperative. This creates a stepwise sequence: speak → put the words → [I will be with the mouths] → I will teach.

The phrase 'anokhi 'ehyeh 'im-pikha ve-'im-pihu ("I, I will be with your mouth and with his mouth") uses the preposition 'im ("with", H5973), not "in", literally locating divine presence alongside the mouths of both men rather than inside them. The repetition of peh ("mouth") three times in the verse — once for Aaron alone, then for Moses and Aaron together — structurally ties the entire verse to the image of speech as the site of divine assistance. The paragogic nun on ta'asun ("you will do") is a grammatical feature without a semantic English equivalent; it marks the verb form but does not change the plain sense "what you all will do."

Differences between versions

The Hebrew 'ehyeh 'im-pikha ("I will be with your mouth", H1961 + H5973) is rendered in the LXX as ἀνοίξω τὸ στόμα σου ("I will open your mouth"), a different verb and image (opening vs. being-with). The Vulgate's ero in ore tuo ("I will be in your mouth") uses "in" rather than the Hebrew "with" ('im), shifting the spatial nuance slightly. For horeti ("I will teach", H3384), the LXX uses συμβιβάσω ("I will instruct/bring together"), while the Vulgate's ostendam ("I will show") and the Hebrew "teach" convey related but not identical verbal actions.