Gerald R. McDermott examines the debate about how Moses spoke, focusing on the passage in Exodus that finds him hesitating to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, telling God that he is “not eloquent” and – as McDermott translates the Hebrew – “heavy of mouth and heavy of tongue”:
Most commentators have taken [these phrases] to refer to stuttering. But some of the rabbis, who wrote about this story for centuries in the Mishna and Talmud, didn’t think so. The eleventh-century rabbi Abraham Ibn Izra thought Moses had a speech impediment, but not stuttering. The rabbi wrote that Moses could not produce all the normal sounds with his tongue and lips.
… Other Jewish interpreters thought the Hebrew phrase “heavy of tongue and mouth” meant that Moses’ speech was just fine, in fact eloquent. Some said it meant he spoke slowly and carefully, without the glibness characteristic of frivolous persons. A first-century Aramaic translator said the Hebrew word for “heavy” really meant “deep,” so that Moses was profound in his speech. Another rabbinic interpreter said that Moses was not tongue-tied but humble, recognizing that his brother Aaron was a better speaker.
Still others have thought that Moses’ problem was linguistic. According to Sigmund Freud, Moses was Egyptian and could not speak Hebrew. Other historians have suggested that Moses knew both languages but spoke Hebrew with a heavy accent.
The Dish 