Unmarked Rhetorical Question
EXO.6.3
My translation of Exodus 6:2–4 reads: “Elohim spoke further to Moshe and said to him, ‘I am YHVH; and I appeared to Avraham, Yitzhak, and Yaakov as El Shaddai—but by My name YHVH, did I not make Myself known to them? I also established My covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they sojourned.’” This rendering understands Exodus 6:3 as a rhetorical question rather than the traditional declarative statement (“but by My name YHVH I was not known to them”). Admittedly, this interpretation is a minority position. One objection is that Biblical Hebrew rhetorical questions commonly employ the interrogative particle הֲ, which is absent in Exodus 6:3. Nevertheless, unmarked questions are well attested in Biblical Hebrew and may be recognized from context alone. As noted by Gesenius, “The omission of the interrogative particle הֲ occurs especially before gutturals... But even where the clause does not begin with a guttural, a question is not infrequently indicated merely by the tone of voice with which it is uttered.”¹ Examples cited include Genesis 27:24 (אַתָּה זֶה בְּנִי עֵשָׂו, “Art thou my son Esau?”), 2 Samuel 16:17 (זֶה חַסְדְּךָ אֶת־רֵעֶךָ, “Is this thy kindness to thy friend?”), and Jonah 4:11 (וַאֲנִי לֹא אָחוּס, “And should I not have pity?”). The rhetorical reading is also supported by the broader narrative context of Genesis, where the patriarchs repeatedly use and invoke the divine name YHVH (e.g., Gen 12:8; 15:2, 7; 22:14; 26:25). Therefore, the question “Did I not make Myself known to them by My name YHVH?” appears more consistent with the Torah’s preceding narrative than the statement “I was not known to them by My name YHVH.”
Translations that reflect this reading are the ISV, TS2009.
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary as well as scholars like
Adam Clarke, Nehemia Gordon, and Nechama Leibowitz (to name a few) treat this reading as a strong possibility of the text.