Exodus 6:30

Summary

Moses speaks before Yehovah, repeating his objection that he is "uncircumcised of lips" and asking how Pharaoh could possibly listen to him. This verse essentially restates the protest Moses made earlier in the chapter, reintroducing the same self-description before the narrative resumes.

Key words

• va-Yomer ("and he said", H0559) — qal narrative form, marking a new step in the story sequence.
• li-fnei ("before", H6440G) — construct plural noun with preposition, literally "to the face of," describing Moses' position relative to Yehovah.
• 'aral ("uncircumcised of", H6189) — masculine singular adjective in construct state, requiring a following noun to complete its meaning.
• sefatayim ("lips", H8193G) — feminine dual noun, indicating the paired body part (the two lips) rather than a general plural.
• yishma' ("will he listen", H8085G) — qal imperfect, expressing an action viewed as incomplete, here functioning as a future/potential sense within a question.

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative vav construction va-Yomer ("and he said"), a standard way Biblical Hebrew moves the story forward. The phrase li-fnei Yehovah ("before Yehovah") uses the construct noun fnei ("face of") governed by the preposition li, a common idiom for describing someone's presence before a superior or deity, here rendering literally "to the face of Yehovah."

Moses' self-description, 'aral sefatayim, combines a construct-state adjective with a dual noun. The adjective 'aral ("uncircumcised of") normally applies to foreskin in other contexts, but here is applied metaphorically to sefatayim ("lips"), the dual form marking the two lips as a natural pair. This construct pairing produces the sense "uncircumcised with respect to lips," an idiom describing some kind of speech difficulty rather than referring to physical circumcision.

The question that follows, introduced by 'eikh ("how?"), uses the qal imperfect yishma' ("will he listen"), a verb form that in Biblical Hebrew often carries future or potential nuance depending on context. The clause ends with 'elai ("to me," preposition plus first-person suffix) and Par'oh ("Pharaoh"), producing the rhetorical question "how will Pharaoh listen to me?" The imperfect aspect leaves open whether this is a simple future statement or expresses doubt/incredulity, a nuance not always distinguishable in translation.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders 'aral sefatayim ("uncircumcised of lips") with ischnophonos ("faint/weak-voiced"), a Greek term describing a speech impairment, differing from the Hebrew idiom built on the circumcision metaphor. The Vulgate follows the Hebrew more literally with incircumcisus labiis ("uncircumcised in lips"), preserving the idiom. Modern translations such as the BSB ("unskilled in speech") and SBLIBRE ("me cuesta mucho expresarme," "it is very hard for me to express myself") interpret the idiom functionally, describing a speech difficulty without retaining the literal circumcision imagery found in the Hebrew and Vulgate.