This question relates to two verses which put Moses in a chain relationship which goes : God → Moses → Aaron → listener. It is unusual in the Bible because normally there is only one agent between God and the listener, such as God → angel → Moses, or God → prophet → people.
Exodus 4:16 – Moses “as God” to Aaron
“And he [Aaron] shall speak for you [Moses] to the people, and he will be as your mouth, while you will be to him as God” (Exodus 4:16).
The Hebrew here is L-ELOHIM (לֵאלֹהִים ) with the prefix L- giving the meaning FOR or INSTEAD OF-God. This is found in the Greek Old Testament too (τὰ πρὸς τὸν θεόν), ‘that representing God’.
Exodus 7:1 Moses “made a god” to Pharaoh
“Behold, I have made you [Moses] God to Pharaoh, and Aaron your brother shall be your prophet” (Exodus 7:1).
The Hebrew here is markedly different from 4:16 which shows the correct relationship of Moses’ role to the children of Israel. Here there is no L-prefix before Elohim, the text is simply ELOHIM L-PHARAOH (אֱלֹהִים לְפַרְעֹה). This has bothered some readers as the inference of actually making Moses a god to Pharaoh sounds somewhat pagan. Although it is not as pagan as the exceptional incident where a nervous Abraham unfortunately used Elohim with a plural verb before Abimelek in Genesis 20:13, “the gods caused (plural verb) me to wander”.
It cannot be dodged that Exodus 7:1 does say something that is not said in Exodus 4:16. The bare text does actually say “a god to Pharaoh”.
The King James Version reads God as saying to Moses “I have made thee a god to Pharaoh” (KJV), as if Moses was to be a minor god, equivalent to an Egyptian idol.
Nevertheless modern scholarly versions generally read the verse as God telling Moses, “I have made you like/as God to Pharaoh” (ESV, NIV, NRSV etc.). This follows the sense of the Hebrew verb for ‘made’ here, in appointing Moses to a role to Pharaoh (as to Aaron earlier), rather than actually making Moses become a minor deity in his own right. It’s a metaphor that illustrates the unusual God → Moses → Aaron → listener chain caused by Moses’ timidity. It’s a very different sentence than God saying “I have established you Moses as God” (sic).
Although there is nothing inspired about the Septuagint, it’s worth noting that the translators rendered Exodus 7:1 as “I [God] have given you [Moses] as God to Pharaoh.” On the face of it then the Greek Old Testament, here leaves the Hebrew unchanged (δέδωκά σε θεὸν Φαραω): I have made you a god to Pharaoh. This might surprise some since the Alexandrian translators in many cases remove or soften references to pagan gods in the Hebrew text. However the Greek does not use prepositions as in English “…. as…. to…..” but uses grammatical case to indicate “I [nominative] give you [direct accusative] God [indirect accusative] Pharaoh [dative]”. Because of this the Greek could be read as, in effect, the same thing as the English ESV, NIV, NRSV, etc.
In any case, 7:1 is still a statement about how Moses will be viewed as a god by a pagan king, and is still not as in 4:16 about how Moses is viewed standing for God, L-ELOHIM, before the congregation of Israel.
.
Conclusion
As can be seen from the above, the difference between the KJV “a god” and ESV, NIV, NRSV “as God” is not enormous, but the KJV is not incorrect to translate Moses as “a god” (small g, Moses as a pagan god).
Not incorrect provided the context of speaking to a pagan king is remembered. No version has fallen halfway between “made a god” and “made as God”, to render “as a god” – for good reason. There is no problem here, in that the whole purpose of the God → Moses → Aaron → listener relationship in Exodus 4:16 is that ultimately the real Living God was the one speaking. So however Exodus 7:1 was seen by the pagan king, Moses was not functioning as one of Pharaoh’s clay idols, nor as a golden calf to Aaron, Moses was (briefly) “made a god” to Pharaoh, but speaking for God, for YHWH of Hosts, the One God.
No Comments yet!