(1) Then ה׳ said to Moses, “You shall soon see what I will do to Pharaoh: he shall let them go because of a greater might; indeed, because of a greater might he shall drive them from his land.” (2) God spoke to Moses and said to him, “I am ה׳. (3) I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai, but I did not make Myself known to them by My name ה׳.

(1) וארא AND I APPEARED — to the patriarchs. (2) באל שדי BY THE NAME OF GOD ALMIGHTY — I made certain promises to them and in the case of all of these I said unto them, “I am God Almighty”. (3) ושמי ה׳ לא נודעתי להם BUT BY MY NAME THE LORD WAS I NOT KNOWN TO THEM — It is not written here לא הודעתי [My name the Lord] I did not make known to them, but לא נודעתי [by My name, the Lord], was I not known [unto them] — i. e. I was not recognised by them in My attribute of “keeping faith”, by reason of which My name is called ה׳, which denotes that I am certain to substantiate My promise, for, indeed, I made promises to them but did not fulfill them [during their lifetime].

(1)And God spoke unto Moses, and said unto him: “I am the Lord; and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob” (Exod. 6:2).(3) If a man should dare say to a person more important than himself, “Why did you treat me so badly?” he would be held guilty of a serious offense, yet Moses said: For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Thy name, he hath dealt ill with this people (ibid., v. 23). The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moses: Alas for those who have perished but are not to be found! I revealed myself to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as the Lord Almighty, but I never disclosed to them that My name is YHWH, as I did to you, yet they never criticized My ways.


To Abraham I said: Arise, walk through the land in the length thereof (Gen. 13:17), yet though he searched for a burial place for Sarah, and was unable to obtain one until he paid four hundred shekels of silver for it, he did not disparage My ways. I told Isaac: Sojourn in this land …for unto thee, and unto thy seed, I will give all these lands (ibid. 26:3), but even when he sought water to drink and was unable to find any, And the herdsman of Gerar strove with Isaac’s herdsmen, saying: “The water is ours” (ibid., v. 20), he did not criticize My ways. I told Jacob: The land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed (ibid. 28:13), yet when he sought a place to pitch his tent, and could not obtain any land until he purchased it with a hundred lambs, he found no fault with My words.


(4) However, on the very first mission I assigned to you, you asked Me, “What is your name?” and now you say: For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Thy name, He hath dealt ill, etc. Therefore, Now shalt thou see what I will do to Pharaoh (Exod. 6:1). That is, you will participate in the struggle with Pharaoh, but you will not witness the war against the thirty-one kings, that Joshua, your disciple, will wage in vengeance against them. From this verse you may learn that Moses was punished by being forbidden to enter the land. Hence it is written: And God said unto Moses that He would requite him with Divine Justice.