Moses Slaying the Egyptian (colorized), Dalziels' Bible Gallery 1863–81. Met Museum
Moses’ Speech Impediment: Taking Action before Using Words
Moses’ claim that he is “heavy of mouth and heavy of tongue” has been understood as a speech impediment or language difficulty, but his actual concern is about his quick temper.
Published: January 13, 2025
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Last Updated: September 7, 2026
Biblical translations follow NJPS, with modifications.
Martin Noth, Exodus: A Commentary, trans. J. S. Bowden (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press 1962), 25; Umberto Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Exodus, trans. Israel Abrahams (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1951), 18.
The phrase is used for each creation except humans (Gen 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25). Editor’s note: See Shana Strauch Schick, “When Moses Was Born the House Was Filled with Light,” TheGemara (2018). From a source critical perspective, these passages are from different sources: The creation account in Genesis 1 is part of the Priestly source, while the story of Moses’ birth is non-Priestly.
It might be tempting to suggest that because the words are in the mouth of a woman, the child’s mother, they do not count. The following is an example of such sentiment, though it refers to Samson’s mother in the book of Judges, not Genesis. “Caution about the testimony of women is a recurring phenomenon in biblical narrative, all the way from Gen. 3 to the resurrection stories…. The woman doesn’t really know what she is saying, though she is dropping hints all along the way.” Robert G. Boling, Judges: Introduction, Translation and Commentary (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1975), 221. This sentiment might reveal more about biases in biblical scholarship than in the biblical text itself.
The Hebrew פֶּה (peh) can refer to the organ of speech, but while “speech” and “mouth” are connected, they are not the same thing. See Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament with an Appendix Containing the Biblical Aramaic (BDB) (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1951), s.v. פֶּה, 804–805, and The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (DCH), ed. David J. A. Clines, 9 vols. (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 1993–2014), s.v. פֶּה, 6:655–656.
For a thorough discussion of the different interpretive options, see Amy L. Balogh, Moses Among the Idols: Mediators of the Divine in the Ancient Near East (Lanham: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2018), 36–38.
The phrase כְבַד פֶּה, “heavy of mouth,” is unique in the Bible, but Ezekiel describes the speech of other peoples as כִבְדֵי לָשׁוֹן “heavy of tongue” (3:5–6). Jeffrey Tigay notes that describing foreign languages using terms for speech impediments is well-attested in Semitic and non-Semitic languages. See Jeffrey Tigay, “‘Heavy of Mouth’ ‘Heavy of Tongue’: On Moses’ Speech Difficulty,” BASOR 231 (1978): 57–67 (at 58).
Translation follows Martin I. Lockshin, Rashbam’s Commentary on Exodus: An Annotated Translation. Brown Judaic Studies 310 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997), with modifications.
Rashbam frequently disagrees with Rashi, his grandfather.
Ibn Ezra wrote two commentaries on Exodus, which scholars typically refer to as the “short” and the “long” commentary.
Translation follows Ibn Ezra’s Commentary on the Pentateuch, trans. and annot. by H. Norman Strickman and Arthur M. Silver (New York: Menorah Pub., 1988–2004), with modifications.
Tigay, “‘Heavy of Mouth’ ‘Heavy of Tongue,’” 57–59, and esp. 61.
BDB, s.v. עָוַר, 734; DCH, s.v. עור II, 6:316.
BDB, s.v. אָלַם, 47–48; DCH, s.v. אלם I, 1:294.
The identity of the servant in this passage (Isa 52:13–53:12), who is presented as suffering unjustly, is unclear. It could refer to Israel as a nation, to a sub-group within the community, or to one of its individual members. See the discussion in “Chapter 9: Isaiah’s Suffering Servant,” in Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler, The Bible With and Without Jesus: How Jews and Christians Read the Same Stories Differently (San Francisco, CA: HarperOne, 2020).
BDB, s.v. חָרֵשׁ II, 361; DCH, s.v. חרשׁ II, 3:323–324.
BDB, s.v. פָּקַח, 824; DCH, s.v. פקח, 6:747–748. Note that it once carries the connotation of “open ears” (Isa 42:20).
The analysis here focuses on the final form of the text, and thus does not differentiate among the pentateuchal sources. Both the non-Priestly (כְבַד פֶּה וּכְבַד לָשׁוֹן, “heavy of mouth and heavy of tongue,” Exod 4:10) and Priestly (עֲרַל שְׂפָתַיִם, “uncircumcised lips,” Exod 6:30) sources, however, preserve traditions that there is something unusual about Moses’ speech that makes him a poor choice to speak for YHWH.
Moses says:
שׁמות לב:יג זְכֹר לְאַבְרָהָם לְיִצְחָק וּלְיִשְׂרָאֵל עֲבָדֶיךָ אֲשֶׁר נִשְׁבַּעְתָּ לָהֶם בָּךְ וַתְּדַבֵּר אֲלֵהֶם אַרְבֶּה אֶת זַרְעֲכֶם כְּכוֹכְבֵי הַשָּׁמָיִם וְכָל הָאָרֶץ הַזֹּאת אֲשֶׁר אָמַרְתִּי אֶתֵּן לְזַרְעֲכֶם וְנָחֲלוּ לְעֹלָם.
Exod 32:13 “Remember Your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, how You swore to them by Your Self and said to them: I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven, and I will give to your offspring this whole land of which I spoke, to possess forever.”
Editor’s note: On the various biblical traditions regarding why Moses does not enter the land, see Raanan Eichler, “The Torah’s Three Explanations for Why Moses Does Not Enter the Land,” TheTorah (2023).
Indeed, at times Moses’ speech is quite beautiful, as when he extols the list of YHWH’s attributes (Num 14:18).
