page_title: Shemot (parsha)
section_title: Exodus chapter 4
hierarchical_section_title: Shemot (parsha) / In classical rabbinic interpretation / Exodus chapter 4
caption_attribution_description: The Knesset Menorah, Jerusalem (detail - Hillel the Elder)
context_page_description: Shemot, Shemoth, or Shemos is the thirteenth weekly Torah portion in the annual Jewish cycle of Torah reading and the first in the Book of Exodus. It constitutes Exodus 1:1–6:1. The parashah tells of the Israelites' affliction in Egypt, the hiding and rescuing of the infant Moses, Moses in Midian, the calling of Moses, circumcision on the way, meeting the elders, and Moses before Pharaoh.
  It is made up of 6,762 Hebrew letters, 1,763 Hebrew words, 124 verses, and 215 lines in a Torah Scroll. Jews read it the thirteenth Sabbath after Simchat Torah, generally in late December or January.
context_section_description: Resh Lakish taught that Providence punishes bodily those who unjustifiably suspect the innocent. In Exodus 4:1, Moses said that the Israelites "will not believe me," but God knew that the Israelites would believe. God thus told Moses that the Israelites were believers and descendants of believers, while Moses would ultimately disbelieve. The Gemara explained that Exodus 4:13 reports that "the people believed" and Genesis 15:6 reports that the Israelites' ancestor Abraham "believed in the Lord," while Numbers 20:12 reports that Moses "did not believe." Thus, Moses was smitten when in Exodus 4:6 God turned his hand white as snow.
  The Mishnah counted the miraculous rod of Exodus 4:2–5,17 among ten things that God created at twilight at the end of the sixth day of creation.
  Rabbi Samuel bar Nahman taught that Moses first incurred his fate to die in the wilderness from his conduct at the Burning Bush, for there God tried for seven days to persuade Moses to go on his errand to Egypt, as Exodus 4:10 says, “And Moses said to the Lord: ‘Oh Lord, I am not a man of words, neither yesterday, nor the day before, nor since you have spoken to your servant’” (which the Midrash interpreted to indicate seven days of conversation). And in the end, Moses told God in Exodus 4:13, “Send, I pray, by the hand of him whom You will send.” God replied that God would keep this in store for Moses. Rabbi Berekiah in Rabbi Levi's name and Rabbi Helbo give different answers on when God repaid Moses. One said that all the seven days of the consecration of the priesthood in Leviticus 8, Moses functioned as High Priest, and he came to think that the office belonged to him.  But in the end, God told Moses that the job was not his, but his brother's, as Leviticus 9:1 says, “And it came to pass on the eighth day, that Moses called Aaron.” The other taught that all the first seven days of Adar of the fortieth year, Moses beseeched God to enter the Promised Land, but in the end, God told him in Deuteronomy 3:27, “You shall not go over this Jordan.”
  Rabbi Simeon ben Yochai taught that because Aaron was, in the words of Exodus 4:14, “glad in his heart” over the success of Moses, in the words of Exodus 28:30, “the breastplate of judgment the Urim and the Thummim . . . shall be upon Aaron's heart.”
  A Midrash explained why Moses returned to Jethro in Exodus 4:18. The Midrash taught that when Moses first came to Jethro, he swore that he would not depart without Jethro's knowledge. Thus when God commissioned Moses to return to Egypt, Moses first went to ask Jethro to absolve him of his oath.
  Rabbi Levi bar Hitha taught that one bidding farewell to a living friend should not say, "Go in peace (לֵךְ בְּשָׁלוֹם, lech b'shalom)" but "Go unto peace (לֵךְ לְשָׁלוֹם, lech l'shalom)." The Gemara cited Jethro's farewell to Moses in Exodus 4:18 as a proof of the proper farewell, for there Jethro said, "Go unto peace," and Moses went on to succeed in his mission. The Gemara cited David's farewell to Absalom in 2 Samuel 15:9 as a proof of an improper farewell, for there David said, "Go in peace," and Absalom went and got caught up in a tree and became easy prey for his adversaries, who killed him.
  Rabbi Johanan said on the authority of Rabbi Simeon ben Yochai that wherever the Torah mentions "quarrelling" (nizzim), the Torah refers to Dathan and Abiram. Thus the Gemara identified as Dathan and Abiram the men whom Exodus 4:19 reports sought the life of Moses. Resh Lakish further explained that they had not actually died, as Exodus 4:19 appears to report, but had become impoverished, for (as a Baraita taught) the impoverished are considered as if they were dead (for they have similarly little influence in the world). The Baraita taught that four types of people are accounted as though they were dead: a poor person, a person affected by skin disease (מְּצֹרָע, metzora), a blind person, and one who is childless. A poor person is accounted as dead, for Exodus 4:19 says, "for all the men are dead who sought your life" (and the Gemara interpreted this to mean that they had been stricke
caption: Hillel (sculpture at the Knesset Menorah, Jerusalem
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