Fragmentation
As I have pointed out in the past, the chapter numbering and locations of those chapter breaks are not ancient, and they have ideological motivations in some cases where a logical break doesn't seem to make any sense. Also, in some instances, the Christian version of these texts will have a different location for the chapter break. This is more apparent in Psalms, where it occurs a lot, than in the Torah, although it does occur.
Also, I have mentioned that many chapters are not a single story, but may contain multiple stories that at stitched together and, when read in sequence, causes one t jump backward and forward in time, and often, not having a particular place where one can move the text due to different writing styles and story interpretations.
Chapter 6 (and 7) is a perfect example of this "stitched fragmentation" problem.
Verses 6:2-6:12 is one story which breaks down to Moses, having returned from Egypt, and is back on Elohim's mountain, is talking to YHVH. He has been walking up this mountain twice, and have walked back and forth between Midian, and YHVH's first words are, "Go back and tell the Hebrews that I am going to save them", which is something that Moses already did in 4:30, but YHVH and this Moses appear to be unaware of that event.
So Moses walks back to Israel, apparently alone, and gives the Hebrews the message, but they won't listen, so Moses walks back to Midian, and back up the mountain, and God says, "OK, now go back there and tell the Pharaoh to let them go!" Which is something that He told Moses to do back in verse 4:21, which, again, is something that this version is unaware of.
Moses then tells God, "Wait a second! Why should Pharaoh listen to me if nobody else will?!"
The story stops at verse 6:12 and doesn't give an answer.
If the chapter 4 story appears to be very similar to the chapter 6 version, that's because they are the same story!
Just as you have 2 versions of Abraham telling his wife to lie to the Pharaoh "tell him that you are my sister" (and arguably a third version, but with Isaac's name being used in place of Abraham's), so too do you have two versions of Moses being sent on his mission.
The difference is that in this version, his wife and kid aren't involved and are never mentioned again, until chapter 18, then Jethro is bringing them along to give to Moses at Mt. Sinai, who apparently had no intent on taking them along.
So the little side-story of God meeting Moses at the local in and almost starting a bar fight was but another fragment, stitched to the end of the first version of the "Moses gets a command" narrative. But is not included in the second version.
And just as the beginning of chapter 4 start with the Moses complaining that the Hebrews won't believe him, and he doesn't talk well, so too do we have the chapter-6 version with a similar beginning. We have Aaron being given the job of being the spokesman in both versions. (In neither version does Tzipporah say a word in Egypt as she did in "The Prince of Egypt" cartoon!)
So I am suggesting that both of these versions are really the same story, from different authors and periods, with small variations in the telling.
The Genealogy Fragment
Starting with 6:13, we get a short fragment giving us some genealogy. This fragment is very important because, with it, we can determine that the Exodus author was unaware of the Genesis author's view that the Hebrews would be in Egypt for 400 years. This specific genealogy, with time frames, reduces that to only about 210 years.
Meanwhile...
And the last three verses of chapter 6 are but repeats, just before the genealogy break.
And it is how that verse begins, as an introduction into chapter 7 (obviously, the logical separation of chapter 7 should really begin at 6:28) that tells us that these three verses are not just repeats, but yet another version of the "Go to Egypt and do my bidding" story.
Why?
Because in this version, not only is YHVH and Moses unaware that they have done all of this stuff before, but in verse 6:28, we read that they are both in Egypt having this conversation, not on top of any mountain!
So there are actually three versions of this "go do my bidding" story, and three times Moses says that he can't do the job, and three times YHVH assigns the speaking job to Aaron.
It's something well worth thinking about!
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