출애굽기 6:30 해설: Tze'enah Ure'enah, Rashi, Chizkuni & Rashbam

“See, I am of impeded speech” [6:30]. The Holy One said to Moses, go to Pharaoh. Moses said: I cannot speak; my lips are stopped up. Bahya asks a question. It is written, “the Lord spoke to both Moses and Aaron in regard to the Israelites and Pharaoh king of Egypt” [6:13]. There, Moses did not say that he could not speak. The explanation is because God had said to Moses and Aaron together, that they should say. Therefore, Moses was silent. He thought that perhaps Aaron would speak before Pharaoh, but here the Holy One said to Moses alone, go to Pharaoh. Therefore, Moses said that he was not the man who could speak; he had a bad tongue.⁸Bahya, Exodus, 6:30.

Hizkuni asks a question. Why did the Holy One give such an important person who was descended from a man that the Torah would forbid to marry such a wife? Amram married his aunt, Yocheved, and they had Moses, Aaron and Miriam as children. The explanation is that Moses and Aaron were born from such people so that others should be able to throw before them, when they hold themselves above Israel, one could say to them, you were born from a man who married his aunt.⁹Hizkuni, Exodus, 6:20.

Here one asks a question. Why may a woman take her uncle as a husband and a man may not marry his aunt? The explanation is that the husband rules over his wife. Therefore, when a man would marry his aunt, perhaps he would beat her, as is customary among men. It is a sin for someone to beat his aunt. However, a woman may marry her uncle, since if he would beat her sometimes when she deserves it, this is no sin.

ויאמר משה לפני ה׳ AND MOSES SAID BEFORE THE LORD — This is the statement which he made above, (v. 12), “Behold, the children of Israel have not hearkened unto me”. Scripture repeats it here, because it broke off the narrative for the reason already given. So is the method of the historian — just as a person who says, “let us return to the previous subject”.