Exodus 3:1-4:31--The Call of Moses

Exodus 3-4
World English Bible

3 Now Moses was keeping the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the back of the wilderness, and came to God’s mountain, to Horeb. 2 Yahweh’s angel appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the middle of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. 3 Moses said, “I will go now, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.”

4 When Yahweh saw that he came over to see, God called to him out of the middle of the bush, and said, “Moses! Moses!”

He said, “Here I am.”

5 He said, “Don’t come close. Take off your sandals, for the place you are standing on is holy ground.” 6 Moreover he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”

Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God.

7 Yahweh said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. 8 I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey; to the place of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite. 9 Now, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to me. Moreover I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. 10 Come now therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”

11 Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?”

12 He said, “Certainly I will be with you. This will be the token to you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”

13 Moses said to God, “Behold, when I come to the children of Israel, and tell them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what should I tell them?”

14 God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM,” and he said, “You shall tell the children of Israel this: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” 15 God said moreover to Moses, “You shall tell the children of Israel this, ‘Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and this is my memorial to all generations. 16 Go and gather the elders of Israel together, and tell them, ‘Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has appeared to me, saying, “I have surely visited you, and seen that which is done to you in Egypt. 17 I have said, I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, to a land flowing with milk and honey.”’ 18 They will listen to your voice. You shall come, you and the elders of Israel, to the king of Egypt, and you shall tell him, ‘Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. Now please let us go three days’ journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to Yahweh, our God.’ 19 I know that the king of Egypt won’t give you permission to go, no, not by a mighty hand. 20 I will reach out my hand and strike Egypt with all my wonders which I will do among them, and after that he will let you go. 21 I will give this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, and it will happen that when you go, you shall not go empty-handed. 22 But every woman shall ask of her neighbor, and of her who visits her house, jewels of silver, jewels of gold, and clothing. You shall put them on your sons, and on your daughters. You shall plunder the Egyptians.”

4 Moses answered, “But, behold, they will not believe me, nor listen to my voice; for they will say, ‘Yahweh has not appeared to you.’”

2 Yahweh said to him, “What is that in your hand?”

He said, “A rod.”

3 He said, “Throw it on the ground.”

He threw it on the ground, and it became a snake; and Moses ran away from it.

4 Yahweh said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand, and take it by the tail.”

He stretched out his hand, and took hold of it, and it became a rod in his hand.

5 “This is so that they may believe that Yahweh, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.” 6 Yahweh said furthermore to him, “Now put your hand inside your cloak.”

He put his hand inside his cloak, and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous, as white as snow.

7 He said, “Put your hand inside your cloak again.”

He put his hand inside his cloak again, and when he took it out of his cloak, behold, it had turned again as his other flesh.

8 “It will happen, if they will not believe you or listen to the voice of the first sign, that they will believe the voice of the latter sign. 9 It will happen, if they will not believe even these two signs or listen to your voice, that you shall take of the water of the river, and pour it on the dry land. The water which you take out of the river will become blood on the dry land.”

10 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.”

11 Yahweh said to him, “Who made man’s mouth? Or who makes one mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Isn’t it I, Yahweh? 12 Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth, and teach you what you shall speak.”

13 Moses said, “Oh, Lord, please send someone else.”

14 Yahweh’s anger burned against Moses, and he said, “What about Aaron, your brother, the Levite? I know that he can speak well. Also, behold, he is coming out to meet you. When he sees you, he will be glad in his heart. 15 You shall speak to him, and put the words in his mouth. I will be with your mouth, and with his mouth, and will teach you what you shall do. 16 He will be your spokesman to the people. It will happen that he will be to you a mouth, and you will be to him as God. 17 You shall take this rod in your hand, with which you shall do the signs.”

18 Moses went and returned to Jethro his father-in-law, and said to him, “Please let me go and return to my brothers who are in Egypt, and see whether they are still alive.”

Jethro said to Moses, “Go in peace.”

19 Yahweh said to Moses in Midian, “Go, return into Egypt; for all the men who sought your life are dead.”

20 Moses took his wife and his sons, and set them on a donkey, and he returned to the land of Egypt. Moses took God’s rod in his hand. 21 Yahweh said to Moses, “When you go back into Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the wonders which I have put in your hand, but I will harden his heart and he will not let the people go. 22 You shall tell Pharaoh, ‘Yahweh says, Israel is my son, my firstborn, 23 and I have said to you, “Let my son go, that he may serve me;” and you have refused to let him go. Behold, I will kill your firstborn son.’”

24 On the way at a lodging place, Yahweh met Moses and wanted to kill him. 25 Then Zipporah took a flint, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet; and she said, “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me.”

26 So he let him alone. Then she said, “You are a bridegroom of blood,” because of the circumcision.

27 Yahweh said to Aaron, “Go into the wilderness to meet Moses.”

He went, and met him on God’s mountain, and kissed him. 28 Moses told Aaron all Yahweh’s words with which he had sent him, and all the signs with which he had instructed him. 29 Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the children of Israel. 30 Aaron spoke all the words which Yahweh had spoken to Moses, and did the signs in the sight of the people. 31 The people believed, and when they heard that Yahweh had visited the children of Israel, and that he had seen their affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshiped.

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As Moses is out tending his father-in-law's sheep, he sees a burning bush that is not consumed.  He's not amazed by seeing a burning bush, but by the fact that the fire is not consuming the bush (usually fire will turn its fuel to ash by combining it with oxygen through combustion--run out of fuel or oxygen and the fire goes out, but this fire kept burning even though it was not using up any of the fuel.  It was an altogether different kind of fire).  As he approached to investigate, a voice came from the bush calling him by name and telling him to take of his shoes for the place he was standing was holy ground (this place is called both Mount Horeb and is probably also Mount Sinai where they would return to receive the Law and the rest of the Mosaic Covenant and where many other great things would happen, but it is not the place that made it holy, it is the presence of God that made it holy, for every place He is and He touches is holy.)

The LORD reveals Himself by His covenant name, though Moses doesn't recognize it as such yet when He says "I AM the God of your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob."  Jesus will point to this exact passage in the New Testament to point to the evidence of an eternal soul as the LORD speaks of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the present tense, not the past tense.  Jesus says He is the God of the living, not the dead, and this means that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were still alive and He was still their God when the LORD spoke to Moses, though they lived in Paradise at the time awaiting the future resurrection.

The LORD commands Moses (after he has been on the run for 40 years) to return to Egypt and command Pharaoh to let His people go, for He has heard their prayers and cries of agony and has had compassion on them.  Everything is going according to plan as the LORD told Abraham in Genesis 15:13.  The four hundred years of his people living outside the Land is nearly over and the wickedness of the Canaanites is nearly full so that they are ready to be judged, and Israel, by being in slavery in Egypt, has been saved from the even greater evil of being exposed to the wickedness of the Canaanites for all these years.  It's an amazing thought when you put these two passages together to say that God intended to use their slavery for their protection, and, yet, He hears their agony and desires to deliver them, but He waits until exactly the right time for that deliverance to occur while His people would cry out with the Psalmist (if they would have known the name of the LORD, which it seems they have forgotten), "How long O LORD?"

Moses resists and says that he needs to go under the authority of a God with a name that people and Pharaoh might recognize and fear, but the LORD replies to tell Moses His covenant Name--"I AM WHO I AM" which we will shorten to "I AM" and this version of the Bible will often replace with Yahweh.  In Hebrew, the vowels are omitted and the consonants alone are there, YHWH.  Since the name of the LORD has not been spoken by the Jews in a very long time (they often replace it with the word Adonai which means "Lord" as in a king or master so that they might not use His holy Name "in vain"--that commandment means something else entirely, but we'll talk about that  when we get there).

Moses knew the names of all the Egyptian gods and most of the pagan gods from the surrounding peoples due to his Egyptian education in the palace, and he did not recognize the name of the LORD, for his people had forgotten it.  So, Moses correctly asked for signs to go along with the Name of the LORD to show both Pharaoh and the people that the LORD was capable of saving His people (rescue for His people and destruction for those who opposed Him).  The LORD does this very thing and gives Moses powerful signs to show both the people and the court of Pharaoh (we'll see how that goes in both cases later).  However, this does not end Moses's objections.

Moses tells the LORD that he has a speech impediment (probably a stutter, though maybe a lisp) and that he could not go stand before Pharaoh or the people of God because he was in imperfect instrument and he deemed himself unworthy of the task the LORD had chosen him for.  It was at this point that the LORD's anger burned against Moses because he was now questioning God's election of him and Moses was trying to make the LORD choose someone else for this difficult task (namely his brother Aaron).  The LORD already knew this was going to be Moses's response and already started to send Aaron to Moses to assist him, but it didn't stop the LORD from being upset by Moses's lack of faith, even though He was already preparing to deal with it.  The LORD tells Moses that he is forfeiting much that God had wanted for him by refusing to be the LORD's mouthpiece, but the LORD allows him to speak to his brother Aaron and for Aaron to act as a translator to speak to the people and to Pharaoh.

In this way, Moses will have to share the glory with Aaron and I believe this also leads to Moses not being called to be the High Priest of Israel later--how amazing it would have been to see one person who was both seen as "savior" and "priest" that even better pointed to the roles that Jesus would fulfil, but the job of the priest was to speak to the people for the LORD and to speak to the LORD for the people.  If Moses refused to speak, he could not have this role, and this role would be given to Aaron and his sons instead of Moses and his sons.

Moses goes home to his father-in-law to take his family with him to Egypt (this is not what the LORD commanded him, and it will cause trouble).  Jethro blesses Moses and tells him to go in peace.  The LORD confirms to Moses that all who sought his life in Egypt are dead and that it is safe for him to return.  He will into be walking into a situation where he is sought as a fugitive from justice to be executed by the authorities.  He will be allowed to walk right into the palace of Pharaoh and deliver the LORD's message.

The LORD calls Israel his son and promises that because Pharaoh will not listen and will not let the people of Israel go to worship the LORD, the LORD will take the life of Pharaoh's firstborn son.  Historians who question the Bible have trouble understanding why there is a particular Pharaoh who had two sons and the older son disappears from the historical record and never takes the throne--the younger son does.  They seek an answer outside the Bible while the answer is in the Bible (and probably not anywhere else).  This Pharaoh is the Pharaoh Moses was dealing with (the time is exactly right as well) and other details also line up such descriptions of the plagues we're going to see, the entire army basically being destroyed in a single day, and the wealth of the nation disappearing, seemingly overnight.  The LORD is behind all of this to bless His people and turn them into the great nation that He promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Now, there is but one more part of this passage that is strange to us.  I said already that Moses's wife and children were not part of the plan.  They were not meant to go to Egypt with him.  Moses had not insisted that his children be raised as Hebrews and they had not received circumcision like all the Hebrews since Abraham was given the Abrahamic Covenant along with circumcision as the sign of that covenant.  The angel of the LORD (that's Jesus in the Old Testament) sets out to destroy Moses for taking his uncircumcised son back to Egypt with him (he is saying that the LORD has to make them a part of his plan for His people, even though Moses has made no attempt to bring them into the community of the LORD's people).  Moses's wife understands better what is going on than Moses does and she takes a flint and circumcises their son.  She says, "Certainly you are a bridegroom of blood to me."  It's an interesting statement but from that point forward, blood and redemption are going to be connected.  There is a curse of death that can only be atoned for with blood.  In this case, it was the blood shed by circumcision, and I believe that was partially the LORD's intent in the covenant of circumcision, because the need to shed blood to atone for sin was almost immediate, even by the eighth day there was sin to atone for.  However, we see this pattern continue with the Passover Lamb (we've already hinted at the Tenth Plague and Passover in this passage) and all the blood sacrifices given under the Law and ultimately this is fulfilled in the blood of Jesus Himself (the one who was the angel of the LORD that demanded blood to be shed would be the one to shed His own blood to satisfy the justice and wrath of God--His own justice and wrath).  More on that as we continue studying The Gospel Project.