Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Exodus · About this commentary
I Am Yahweh: Seven Promises
Exodus 6:1-13
1 Yahweh said to Moses, “Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh, for by a strong hand he shall let them go, and by a strong hand he shall drive them out of his land.” · WEB
Answering a complaint, God does not explain the delay but repeats his name and attaches seven verbs to it.
Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh, for by a strong hand he shall let them go, and by a strong hand he shall drive them out of his land Exodus 6:1.
The reply to a bitter question is not an explanation. It is a schedule. Moses had asked why; he is told what, and told it in the future tense, which is the answer Scripture most often gives to that question.
God spoke to Moses, and said to him, "I am Yahweh. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty; but by my name Yahweh I was not known to them" Exodus 6:2–3.
The statement sits beside a book that has used the name from its second chapter onward, and the tension is real. It resolves in what knowing a name means in these writings. To know a name is to have seen what it stands for demonstrated. Abraham heard the name and lived on a promise; he never saw the promise kept, because the land was not given in his lifetime and the nation did not exist. God Almighty is the title of one who can promise; Yahweh, in this book, is the name of one who arrives. Chapter six is not the introduction of a word but the redemption of one, which is why its entire paragraph is a list of things about to happen.
Seven of them, each in the first person, and each still the vocabulary of every later account of salvation.
I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will rid you out of their bondage. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm, and with great judgments. I will take you to myself for a people. I will be your God. I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a heritage Exodus 6:6–8.
The sequence is exact and is never afterward reversed. Rescue comes first, then possession, then relationship, then inheritance. Nothing is asked of Israel in any of the seven clauses; the people appear only as the object of the verbs. And the whole list is bracketed by the same three words at each end — I am Yahweh — so that the promises are secured by the character of the one making them and by nothing on the other side.
Moses spoke so to the children of Israel, but they didn't listen to Moses for anguish of spirit, and for cruel bondage Exodus 6:9.
The finest paragraph of promise in the book falls on people too crushed to hear it. The narrative does not scold them. It gives the reason plainly, and the reason is not unbelief but exhaustion, which is a different thing and is treated differently.
Moses draws the obvious inference and is wrong. Behold, the children of Israel haven't listened to me. How then shall Pharaoh listen to me, when I have uncircumcised lips? Exodus 6:12. His own people's despair is taken as proof that the errand is hopeless. The argument sounds like humility and functions as a resignation, and it is answered by a command rather than by reassurance Exodus 6:13.
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