Exodus 6:27

6:14-30 Moses and Aaron were Israelites; raised up unto them of their brethren, as Christ also should be, who was to be the Prophet and Priest, the Redeemer and Lawgiver of the people of Israel. Moses returns to his narrative, and repeats the charge God had given him to deliver his message to Pharaoh, and his objection against it. Those who have spoken unadvisedly with their lips ought to reflect upon it with regret, as Moses seems to do here.Uncircumcised, is used in Scripture to note the unsuitableness there may be in any thing to answer its proper purpose; as the carnal heart and depraved nature of fallen man are wholly unsuited to the services of God, and to the purposes of his glory. It is profitable to place no confidence in ourselves, all our sufficiency must be in the Lord. We never can trust ourselves too little, or our God too much. I can do nothing by myself, said the apostle, but I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.

These are they which spoke to Pharaoh king of Egypt,.... In the name of the Lord of hosts; and demanded the dismission of Israel, in order to bring the children of Israel from Egypt; nor did they desist making application to him, until they had prevailed upon him to let them go: these are that Moses and Aaron; which is repeated, that it may be observed who were the deliverers of Israel, what their names, of what tribe they were, and from whom they descended, and who sprung from them, at least from Aaron.

27 . These were the men commissioned also to speak to the Pharaoh on behalf of Israel: cf. vv. 11, 13. The diffuseness, and repetitions ( vv. 26, 27), are in P’s style: cf Genesis 9:16-17 (repetition of vv. 13–15), Genesis 17:26-27 (repetition of v. 23), Genesis 23:20 (see vv. 17, 18). It is to be observed that P consistently represents Moses, or his contemporaries, as being in the fourth generation (cf. Genesis 15:16 ) from on or other of Jacob’s sons: thus Levi, Kohath, Amram, Moses (here, vv. 16, 18, 20); Levi, Kohath, Iẓhar, Koraḥ, ( vv. 16, 18, 21, Numbers 14:1 ); Levi, Kohath, Uzziel, Mishael ( Leviticus 10:4 ); Reuben, Pallu, Eliab, Dathan ( Numbers 26:7-9 ). On the chronological question involved, see the Introd. p. xlv, and on Exodus 12:40 . Exodus 6:27

The Genealogy of Moses and Aaron. - "These are their (Moses' and Aaron's) father's-houses." בּית־אבות father's-houses (not fathers' house) is a composite noun, so formed that the two words not only denote one idea, but are treated grammatically as one word, like בּית־עצבּים idol-houses ( 1 Samuel 31:9 ), and בּית־בּמות high-place-houses (cf. Ges. 108, 3; Ewald, 270c). Father's house was a technical term applied to a collection of families, called by the name of a common ancestor. The father's-houses were the larger divisions into which the families (mishpachoth), the largest subdivisions of the tribes of Israel, were grouped. To show clearly the genealogical position of Levi, the tribe-father of Moses and Aaron, among the sons of Jacob, the genealogy commences with Reuben, the first-born of Jacob, and gives the names of such of his sons and those of Simeon as were the founders of families ( Genesis 46:9-10 ). Then follows Levi; and not only are the names of his three sons given, but the length of his life is mentioned ( Exodus 6:16 ), also that of his son Kohath and his descendant Amram, because they were the tribe-fathers of Moses and Aaron. But the Amram mentioned in Exodus 6:20 as the father of Moses, cannot be the same person as the Amram who was the son of Kohath ( Exodus 6:18 ), but must be a later descendant.

For, however the sameness of names may seem to favour the identity of the persons, if we simply look at the genealogy before us, a comparison of this passage with Numbers 3:27-28 will show the impossibility of such an assumption. "According to Numbers 3:27-28 , the Kohathites were divided (in Moses' time) into the four branches, Amramites, Izharites, Hebronites, and Uzzielites, who consisted together of 8600 men and boys (women and girls not being included). Of these, about a fourth, or 2150 men, would belong to the Amramites. Now, according to Exodus 18:3-4 , Moses himself had only two sons. Consequently, if Amram the son of Kohath, and tribe-father of the Amramites, was the same person as Amram the father of Moses, Moses must have had 2147 brothers and brothers' sons (the brothers' daughters, the sisters, and their daughters, not being reckoned at all). But as this is absolutely impossible, it must be granted that Amram the son of Kohath was not the father of Moses, and that an indefinitely long list of generations has been omitted between the former and his descendant of the same name" (Tiele, Chr. des A. T. p. 36). (Note: The objections of M. Baumgarten to these correct remarks have been conclusively met by Kurtz (Hist. of O. C. vol. ii. p. 144). We find a similar case in the genealogy of Ezra in Ezra 7:3, which passes over from Azariah the son of Meraioth to Azariah the son of Johanan, and omits five links between the two, as we may see from 1 Chronicles 6:7-11.