The LORD responds to this excuse first of all with rhetorical questions. Who has made man’s mouth? may be understood as “Who gives man his mouth?” (Good News Translation), “Who gives man speech?” (New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh), or “Who made humans [or, people] so that they can talk?” Since man is the generic term for humankind (ʾadam), it should be understood as “a person” (New Jerusalem Bible).

Who makes him dumb, or deaf is changed to “deaf or dumb” in Good News Translation because of the more natural order in English. (New International Version has “Who makes him deaf or mute?”) But the focus is primarily on the word dumb, or the inability to speak. It is the LORD who makes a person speechless as well as able to speak. What follows only adds emphasis: it is the LORD who causes one to be deaf, or seeing, or blind. It may be easier to handle these four terms in two parallel questions, as Good News Translation continues: “Who gives him sight or makes him blind?” The word for seeing may be understood as “clear-sighted” (New English Bible), or “keen-sighted” (Translator’s Old Testament). An alternative translation model for these two questions is “Who causes a person to be deaf or not able to talk? Who causes a person to be able to see or be blind?”

Is it not I, the LORD? is a negative rhetorical question that demands an affirmative answer. It may be easier to change it to a declarative statement as in Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch “It is I, the Lord!” or “I, the LORD am the one who does these things,” or even “I, Yahweh, am the one….”

Quoted with permission from Osborn, Noel D. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Exodus. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1999. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .