Exodus 4:1-17--Moses Given Powerful Signs

Moses Given Powerful Signs
4 Then Moses answered, “But behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice, for they will say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you.’” 2 The Lord said to him, “What is that in your hand?” He said, “A staff.” 3 And he said, “Throw it on the ground.” So he threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent, and Moses ran from it. 4 But the Lord said to Moses, “Put out your hand and catch it by the tail”—so he put out his hand and caught it, and it became a staff in his hand-- 5 “that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.” 6 Again, the Lord said to him, “Put your hand inside your cloak.” And he put his hand inside his cloak, and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous like snow. 7 Then God said, “Put your hand back inside your cloak.” So he put his hand back inside his cloak, and when he took it out, behold, it was restored like the rest of his flesh. 8 “If they will not believe you,” God said, “or listen to the first sign, they may believe the latter sign. 9 If they will not believe even these two signs or listen to your voice, you shall take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground, and the water that you shall take from the Nile will become blood on the dry ground.”

​10 But Moses said to the Lord, “Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue.” 11 Then the Lord said to him, “Who has made man's mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? 12 Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak.” 13 But he said, “Oh, my Lord, please send someone else.” 14 Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses and he said, “Is there not Aaron, your brother, the Levite? I know that he can speak well. Behold, he is coming out to meet you, and when he sees you, he will be glad in his heart. 15 You shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth, and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth and will teach you both what to do. 16 He shall speak for you to the people, and he shall be your mouth, and you shall be as God to him. 17 And take in your hand this staff, with which you shall do the signs.”

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Last time we left Moses standing in the presence of a holy God receiving a mission and message to return to God's people and to the Pharaoh of Egypt and to speak God's message that Pharaoh must let the Hebrews go.

Moses has gotten past his objection about knowing the name of the One in whose authority he is being sent, but now he seems to be moving onto, "They won't believe me," even though God had just promised him that the people of Israel would believe him and that no matter what he said that Pharaoh would not believe him and that God would have to use His "mighty hand" to coerce Pharaoh to do what He wanted Pharaoh to do.

However, God does give Moses a couple of signs to go with.  First, He allows Moses to cast down his staff and it would become a snake, and if Moses would pick it up by its tail, it would once again become his staff.  Then Moses was told to put his hand inside of his cloak and to pull it out and it would be leprous--part of leprosy made the skin turn white and the people of that area were dark-skinned, so the leprosy was visible to everyone.  Once Moses put his hand back inside his cloak, his hand would be restored to normal.

God even says that they may not believe the signs.  He only says, if they don't believe the first sign, perhaps they will believe the second sign, but it seems to me that the signs were more there to convince Moses than to convince the Israelites or Pharaoh because God already told Moses what the result would be from both sets of people.  Moses felt the need to have his message authenticated, so God gave him signs that would do just that.

Last, God told Moses that if they still would not believe after the first and second signs that he should take some water from the Nile River and pour it out on the ground and it would become blood--a sign of one of the plagues that was about to come.  God seemed to indicate that this would be enough because no more signs were given and there was no indication that this sign might not be believed--the Nile was divine to the Egyptians and their source of life, and everything that came out of the Nile was sacred--a God who could transform the waters of the Nile into blood--that was something (though we'll see that by the time the first plague comes around, the magicians of Egypt had learned to create an illusion of being about to do this).

Moses then moves onto his next objection--he's not good at public speaking.  If I had a dollar for every time I've heard someone make this kind of excuse, but it seems to be more than that.  It seems that Moses had some kind of disability that he believed made him unfit for the mission and unfit to to be the messenger, because words were hard for him.  The phrase "slow of speech" could mean something like he stuttered or a speech impediment where he could not properly form or say some words.  God reminds Moses that He is the one who made Moses' mouth and if God had something for Moses to say, He was the one that would make sure the ears of the people would understand it.  Even after this, Moses pleads for God to send someone else.  What a shame!  God had planned to use Moses in such great ways, likely to play the play the roles of prophet, priest, and king like the coming Messiah, and Moses said, "Here am I,.....don't send me" instead of "Here am I, send me."  (We'll see another prophet say this later, though that prophet correctly realizes he must deal with the sin of his lips before God's message should be come out of them).

God is then angry at Moses because Moses has not believed that God is powerful enough or good enough to deliver for the needs of one man--Moses--and he's trying to take a message that God is big enough and good enough to provide for an entire nation of people that need deliverance, and Moses seems to only be interested in the part where he believes he's good at what he's called to do not realizing that God calls us to do things everyone knows we're not good at so that He gets the glory for it.  God then says that He will let Moses take his brother Aaron with him.  God says he knows Aaron can speak well, and that God is already sending Aaron out to meet Moses and that Aaron will be happy to see him.  God would give words to Moses and he would give them to Aaron so that they would be said in an articulate way, and God would teach both Moses and Aaron what to do.

Aaron would act as Moses' mouth and Moses would stand in the place of God for Aaron and the people--He didn't completely understand what this meant at this time, but he would come to understand it more during the 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, but especially during the time that he spent with the LORD on Mt. Sinai.  God reminds Moses to take his staff with him because it would be the symbol of God's power and with it, he would perform many signs--just wait and see how true this is as the staff is associate with so many miracles throughout the book of Exodus and the book of Numbers--from the 10 plagues, to the crossing of the Red Sea, to the serpent lifted up in the wilderness that represented Christ on the cross (and many more.

We can learn from this that God is always going to equip the called, but does not always call those who feel equipped.  Moses gave up a great blessing to not only speak to the LORD for the people, but to speak to the people for the LORD, and not just to God's people, but to the enemies of God's people.  We should not make the same kind of mistake in our lives and miss out on God's potential blessing to work both in and through us.