The Five Books of Moses: A Translation With Commentary by Robert Alter

Author:Robert Alter [Alter, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Tags: Old Testament, General, Religion, Exegesis & Hermeneutics, Biblical Commentary, Biblical Studies, Biblical Criticism & Interpretation
ISBN: 9780393019551
Google: pKHRaOIpAnsC
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2004-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

14. My presence shall go, and I will grant you rest. The Hebrew is altogether cryptic—and so compact that the whole sentence is only four words—and this translation mirrors that cryptic effect. Presumably, what God is telling Moses is that He will indeed go before the people through the wilderness, and thus lighten Moses’s burden, “grant you rest” (alternately, that verb could refer, according to biblical idiom, to giving Moses, or the people, “rest” from their enemies when they enter the land). But God, scarcely willing to concede that He Himself will lead the people, words the response so laconically, suppressing the clarifying “before you” after “My presence shall go,” that Moses is by no means sure what God means, and so he goes on to say, “If Your presence does not go, do not take us up from here.” He then stipulates (verse 16) that it is only through God’s presence among the Israelites as they journey onward that his own favored status before God can be confirmed, and the election of Israel as well. In all this, it should be noted that “presence” and “face” are the same Hebrew word, panim.

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