What Does Exodus 6:12 Mean?
And Moses spoke before the LORD, saying, Behold, the children of Israel have not heard and responded to me; how then will Pharaoh hear and respond to me, who am of uncircumcised lips?
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And Moses spake before the LORD, saying, Behold, the children of Israel have not hearkened unto me; how then shall Pharaoh hear me, who am of uncircumcised lips?THE KEY
Hearing and speaking meet at one threshold here: Moses fears the word cannot be received when he feels unable to voice it.
THE MEANING
When your words meet no response, the failure can seem to attach itself to your own ability to speak. The verse holds both sides of that fear: the people have not heard and responded to Moses, and he describes his own lips as uncircumcised. His question, how will Pharaoh hear? makes the fear of an unreceived word visible.
THE ROOT
שָׁמְעוּ
shamʿu
GROWS FROM
שמע
sh-m-ʿ
Hear and respond; listen with heed.
“heard and responded to” in this verse is shamʿu. The people have not “hearkened” with שמע, a word that carries hearing and responsive attention. Moses asks whether Pharaoh can hear what Israel has not received, so the concern reaches beyond sound to the response a word meets.
ALSO GROWS
shema: Hear; hear and respond.
שְׁמַע
This familiar form of the same root makes the passage’s concern with responsive hearing clear.
shemuʿah: A report or thing heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
The branch names what passes from a speaker to a hearer, echoing the word Moses fears will not get through.
עֲרַל
arel
GROWS FROM
ערל
ʿ-r-l
Be uncircumcised; used figuratively of a faculty described as unopened or unready.
“uncircumcised lips” in this verse is arel. The image is applied to Moses’s lips here, to ears in Jeremiah 6:10, and to the heart in Leviticus 26:41. Speech, hearing, and the heart are described through the same figure of an unopened faculty.
ALSO GROWS
oznayim arelot: Uncircumcised ears.
אָזְנַיִם עֲרֵלוֹת
Jeremiah uses the same image for ears that cannot hearken, joining Moses’s difficulty speaking to a listener’s difficulty receiving.
lev arel: Uncircumcised heart.
לֵב עָרֵל
The same root can describe the heart as unopened, extending the image from speech and hearing to inward receptivity.
שְׂפָתַיִם
sefatayim
GROWS FROM
שפה
sh-p-h
Lip, edge, or language.
שפה can name both the lip and language, and it also appears in the word for a shore, the edge between land and sea. “Uncircumcised lips” places Moses’s fear at the boundary where an inner word has to cross into speech.
ALSO GROWS
safah: Lip; language.
שָׂפָה
The same word links the physical lips to language, making Moses’s expression itself part of the verse’s concern.
sefat hayam: Shore or edge of the sea.
שְׂפַת הַיָּם
This branch gives the image of lips as an edge or boundary, where a word must pass outward.
THE PATTERN
Scripture treats hearing as complete when what is received becomes a response.
And Samuel said, Does the LORD delight in rising offerings and slaughtered offerings as much as in hearing and responding to the voice of the LORD? Behold, hearing and responding is better than a slaughtered offering; to prick the ear is better than the fat of rams.But be makers of the word, and not hearers only, miscounting yourselves.My sheep hear and respond to my voice, and I perceive them, and they follow me.THE THREAD
To whom shall I speak and bear witness, that they may hear and respond? Behold, their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot bend it. Behold, the word of the LORD has become to them a taunt; they have no delight in it.Jeremiah uses the same word, “uncircumcised,” for ears and connects it to the inability to hearken, while Moses applies it to his lips. The repeated image binds both sides of communication: the question is whether speech can open and be received.
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