Full Text for Exodus- Volume 26 - How would you summarize the literary structure Moses' conversation with God in Exod. 3-4? (Video)

ROUGHLY EDITED COPY CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY EDUCATION NETWORK EXODUS DR. DAVID ADAMS #26 Captioning Provided By: Caption First, Inc. 10 E. 22nd Street Suite 304 Lombard, IL 60148 800-825-5234 *** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. *** >> I had some trouble trying to figure out the structure of this text, especially since the conversation between Moses and God continues on into Chapter 4. How would you summarize the literary structure of this passage? >> That's a very good question, David. And I think maybe the easiest way to answer it is to begin by walking through the scene element by element and then seeing what we've got. So if we turn to Chapter 3, the first thing that we have is Verse 1, which establishes the setting of the scene. Then we come to Verse 2 and Verse 3, which are theophany, which serves the function of getting Moses' attention and getting him over to see what's happening at the burning bush. Then in Chapter 3 Verses 4 to 5 we have a -- what in linguistic circles we call a hail and response. That is to say, God says, "Hey there" and Moses says, "What?" So God begins the conversation by speaking to Moses and declaring himself. Then we have in Verse 6 the divine identification. God speaks and introduces himself to Moses. In Verses 7 to 10, God states his plan. This is then followed by a series of objections on Moses' part. His first objection comes in Verses 11 and 12. And then we move to Moses' second objection in Verses 13 to 22. Then Moses objects for a third time after God answers that one in Chapter 4 Verses 1 to 9. And then finally, Moses objects for a fourth time to God's plan in Verses 10 to 11. Then after these four objections, God answers each one of them. And Moses finally says basically "Well, thanks for the offer but no thanks." And God says, "Well, you didn't understand. I wasn't asking you to volunteer. I was commanding you to do this." And so Moses attempts to decline in Chapter 4:13 to 17. But God doesn't allow him to decline. So these are the parts of this passage as we break it down part by part. Now let's look at how these parts fit together into groups. The first thing that we notice is that we have two big groups. The first few verses are narrative describing what happens. And the second large group is dialogue between Moses and God. And the dialogue begins in Chapter 3 Verse 4. It runs through Chapter 4 Verse 17. So this opening narrative, since it sets the framework for the passage, we usually call this a narrative frame. We have the narrative frame in Verses 1 to 3 and the dialogue in Chapter 3 Verse 4 to Chapter 4 Verse 17. Now, the question is: How do we look at this picture, structure, of the text and see what the main literary point is in the text? The easiest way to do this is to ask the question: What is it in the text that everything either builds up to or flows away from? And if we look at the text again from that perspective, we'll see that the establishment of the setting, the theophany that gets Moses' attention, the hail and the response, the divine identification, all of that is setting up God's statement of his plan in Chapter 3 Verses 7 to 10. And then after Verse 10 we get four objections on the part of Moses. And then this concluding part where Moses attempts to decline. So everything either builds up and prepares for Chapter 3 Verses 7 to 10 or it follows from Chapter 3 Verses 7 to 10. On the basis of that, we can reasonably conclude that the main literary point being made in the text is this statement of God of the plan that he has for Moses and the plan that he has to send Moses down to Egypt to redeem his people. That's the centerpiece. That's the main point in the text from a literary perspective. *** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. ***