Why was Moses not Gifted with Eloquence?
M. M. Kalisch, Ph. D. Exodus 4:10-13 And Moses said to the LORD, O my LORD, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since you have spoken to your servant… It might certainly be asked with propriety, why Moses, who was singled out by Providence as the great medium for bringing the wisdom of heaven down to the earth, for ever substituting Divine truth instead of human error, and who was gifted with such uncommon perfection of the mind and intellect, was denied the power of eloquence, apparently so indispensable for his extraordinary vocation. But it was an act of the sublime wisdom of the Almighty to withhold from Moses just the gift of persuasion, lest it should appear that he owed the triumph over the obstinacy of Pharaoh and the disbelief of the Israelites, not to the miracles of God and the intrinsic worth of the Law, but to the artifices and subtleties of oratory, which too often procure, even to fallacies and sophisms, an ephemeral victory. It was wisely designed that the power of God should the more gloriously shine through a humble and imperfect instrument. This is a remarkable and deeply interesting difference between the legislator of Israel and the founders of almost all other religions, to whom, uniformly, no quality is ascribed in a higher degree than the gift of eloquence. (M. M. Kalisch, Ph. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And Moses said unto the LORD, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue. WEB: Moses said to Yahweh, "O Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before now, nor since you have spoken to your servant; for I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue."