Exodus 4-The Lord Gives Moses Powerful Signs And Moses Returns To Egypt
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Sunday October 2, 2011
Journey Through The Bible Series: Exodus Chapter Four-The Lord Gives Moses Powerful Signs And Moses Returns To Egypt
Lesson # 4
Please turn in your Bibles to Exodus 4:1.
Exodus chapter four is divided into three sections: (1) Exodus 4:1-9: The Lord delegates power to Moses to perform three sign-miracles to convince Israel that He has spoken to Moses. (2) Exodus 4:10-18: Moses’ expresses typical Near Eastern exaggerated humility when speaking to God followed by Moses’ actual rejection of the commission. (3) Exodus 4:19-31: Moses’ accepts commission and returns to Egypt with his family.
Exodus 4:1 Then Moses said, “What if they will not believe me or listen to what I say? For they may say, ‘The Lord has not appeared to you.’” 2 The Lord said to him, “What is that in your hand?” And he said, “A staff.” 3 Then He said, “Throw it on the ground.” So he threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from it. 4 But the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand and grasp it by its tail”—so he stretched 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.” (NASB95)
As we noted in Exodus 3:11 and 13, when responding to God’s commissioning him to be His representative to the Israelites and the Egyptians, Moses expresses typical Near Eastern exaggerated humility to express his polite acceptance of the commission that God had bestowed upon.
However, in Exodus chapter 4, the questions that Moses asks God with response to this assignment reveal a great uncertainty in his mind with regards to this task.
His questions in this chapter express his unbelief.
For example, his question in Exodus 4:1 expresses his unbelief because in Exodus 3:18, God explicitly tells Moses that the Israelites will in fact listen to him and will accept what God has told him to say to the Israelites.
In Exodus 4:2-5, we have the first of three miracles which God performs in front of Moses, all of which involve changing something into something else.
God commands Moses to throw his staff on the ground and the purpose of this miracle was so that the Israelites will know without a doubt that the God of the patriarchs had in fact spoken to him.
Now, this first miracle like the two to follow are all designed to convince Moses to have faith in God’s ability to give him the capacity to carry out the commission that God bestowed upon him.
Exodus 4:6 The Lord furthermore said to him, “Now put your hand into your bosom.” So he put his hand into his bosom, and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous like snow. 7 Then He said, “Put your hand into your bosom again.” So he put his hand into his bosom again, and when he took it out of his bosom, behold, it was restored like the rest of his flesh. 8 “If they will not believe you or heed the witness of the first sign, they may believe the witness of the last sign.” (NASB95)
Right on the heels of the first miracle, God performs a second which like the first involved God turning something into something else.
This second miracle involves God turning Moses healthy hand into a leprous one and then turning back into a healthy hand.
God says that if they don’t believe the first miracle, they will believe this second one.
The purpose of this second miracle was to produce confidence in Moses that he could, with God’s power, carry out the task that God had assigned to him.
Exodus 4:9 “But if they will not believe even these two signs or heed what you say, then you shall take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground; and the water which you take from the Nile will become blood on the dry ground.” (NASB95)
Verse 9 records the third and final miracle, which like the first two involved God changing something into something else.
Here He changes the water from the Nile River into blood.
The Egyptians regarded the Nile as the source of life and productivity.
This miracle would show the Israelites that God had given to Moses power over the Nile.
This sign would tell the Israelites that the one who sent Moses to them had power over the Nile and thus creation.
It would tell the Israelites that indeed the Creator and God of their ancestors, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had sent Moses to them and was speaking through Moses.
Exodus 4:10 Then Moses said to the Lord, “Please, Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither recently nor in time past, nor since You have spoken to Your servant; for I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.” 11 The Lord said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes him mute or deaf, or seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? 12 “Now then go, and I, even I, will be with your mouth, and teach you what you are to say.” (NASB95)
The statement made by Moses to the Lord is again typical Near Eastern exaggerated humility and is figurative and not literal speech.
When Moses says to the Lord that he was not eloquent in speaking and was slow in speech and slow of tongue he is not saying to God that he has a speech impediment or was unwilling to speak to the Israelites as God’s representative.
Rather, he is speaking figuratively in the sense that he is politely accepting the assignment given to him by the Lord.
That Moses is speaking in figurative terms here and expressing typical Near Eastern exaggerated humility is indicated by the fact that Moses throughout the rest of the Pentateuch does most of the speaking to Israel and Pharaoh.
Nowhere for the rest of Exodus do we see Moses showing the slightest hesitation in speaking to either the Israelites or to Pharaoh.
In fact, Stephen in Acts 7:22 says that Moses was a powerful speaker.
Exodus 4:13 But he said, “Please, Lord, now send the message by whomever You will.” 14 Then the anger of the Lord burned against Moses, and He said, “Is there not your brother Aaron the Levite? I know that he speaks fluently. And moreover, behold, he is coming out to meet you; when he sees you, he will be glad in his heart. 15 You are to speak to him and put the words in his mouth; and I, even I, will be with your mouth and his mouth, and I will teach you what you are to do. 16 Moreover, he shall speak for you to the people; and he will be as a mouth for you and you will be as God to him. 17 You shall take in your hand this staff, with which you shall perform the signs.” (NASB95)
God’s angry response to Moses plea to send someone else to the Israelites rather than himself indicates that Moses was no longer using figurative language but rather he is literally rejecting the commission given to him by God.
He was angry with Moses because Moses had no excuse for turning down the commission after being given sufficient proof with the miracles that God would give him the ability to carry out his commission to go to the Israelites and the Egyptians.
God does not enlist Aaron as co-speaker to the Israelites because Moses could not speak well but rather to encourage Moses in carrying out his task of going to the Israelites.
Exodus 4:30 and 5:1 indicate that initially Aaron spoke for Moses when dealing with the Israelites and then together they spoke to Pharaoh.
However, after that Aaron is never said to speak for Moses.
Evidently, after these initial encounters with the Israelites and Pharaoh, Moses gained in confidence that God was with him and did not enlist the services of his brother again.
Exodus 4:18 Then Moses departed and returned to Jethro his father-in-law and said to him, “Please, let me go, that I may return to my brethren who are in Egypt, and see if they are still alive.” And Jethro said to Moses, “Go in peace.” (NASB95)
This verse brings an end to the second chapter of Moses’ life and inaugurates the third and final chapter.
Exodus 4:19 Now the Lord said to Moses in Midian, “Go back to Egypt, for all the men who were seeking your life are dead.” 20 So Moses took his wife and his sons and mounted them on a donkey, and returned to the land of Egypt. Moses also took the staff of God in his hand. 21 The Lord said to Moses, “When you go back to Egypt see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders which I have put in your power; but I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. 22 Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the Lord, “Israel is My son, My firstborn. 23 So I said to you, ‘Let My son go that he may serve Me’; but you have refused to let him go. Behold, I will kill your son, your firstborn.”’” (NASB95)
The men who were seeking Moses’ life refers to Thutmose III as well as his relatives and members of his administration who would have been aware of Moses murdering one of their number in defense of a Hebrew slave.
Thus far in the narrative of Exodus, only one son of Moses is mentioned.
The other was Eliezer according to Exodus 18:4.
In Exodus 3:10-22, God instructed Moses to perform the three miracles in the presence of the Israelites but now in verses 21-23 He is commanding him to do them in the presence of Pharaoh.
God prophesies to Moses that He will harden Pharaoh’s heart.
In the Old Testament hardening results from the sinner’s persistence in rejecting God’s call or command.
From this arises a state in which the sinner is no longer able to hear and in which he is irretrievably enslaved to sin and the devil.
The Scriptures teach that God hardened Pharaoh (Exodus 9:12; 10:1, 20, 27; 11:10; 14:8) and there were prophecies that God would do this to Pharaoh (Exodus 4:21; 7:3) but the Scriptures also teach that Pharaoh would harden himself (Exodus 7:13, 14, 22; 8:15, 19, 32; 9:7, 34, 35).
God’s hardening of Pharaoh is the result of Pharaoh first hardening himself in the sense of rejecting over and again God’s command to release the nation of Israel from her bondage to him in Egypt.
Exodus 4:22-23 records for the first time in Scripture God describing Israel corporately as His “first-born son” which means that God was bestowing upon Israel a privileged status among the nations of the world.
Also, by conferring this status on Israel, God was saying that the Israelites no longer serve Pharaoh but Him and Him alone.
This first-born status also meant that Israel would have a responsibility to serve and represent God in a fashion that was pleasing to Him.
It meant that they were to be devoted to God and that God was identifying with Israel as His personal possession.
Exodus 4:23 is a prophesy referring to the tenth and final plague.
Exodus 4:24 Now it came about at the lodging place on the way that the Lord met him and sought to put him to death. 25 Then Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin and threw it at Moses’ feet, and she said, “You are indeed a bridegroom of blood to me.” 26 So He let him alone. At that time she said, “You are a bridegroom of blood”—because of the circumcision. (NASB95)
Why would God seek to kill Moses after He just commissioned him to go to the Israelites and the Egyptians?
The key to understanding why God sought to kill Moses is found in Genesis 17:14.
Genesis 17:14 “But an uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant.” (NASB95)
“Cut off” is the verb kā∙rǎṯ (כָּרַת), which means “to kill” since God sought to kill Moses for not circumcising his boys.
In Exodus 4:25, we see that Moses’ wife, Zipporah circumcises her boys but she does so grudgingly.
She was raised in a different tradition in Midian, even though her father was a priest and worshipper of Yahweh.
Evidence demonstrates that the Egyptians practiced circumcision but was performed at the age of twelve.
Abraham’s descendants, the Israelites were to perform the ritual on the child when he was eight days old, which is quite different than the custom of the Midianites, thus Zipporah thought it repulsive and cruel to circumcise an infant.
Thus, her statement “you are a bridegroom of blood” is not a term of endearment as some suggest but rather in fact a derogatory statement.
Exodus 4:27 Now the Lord said to Aaron, “Go to meet Moses in the wilderness.” So he went and met him at the mountain of God and kissed him. 28 Moses told Aaron all the words of the Lord with which He had sent him, and all the signs that He had commanded him to do. 29 Then Moses and Aaron went and assembled all the elders of the sons of Israel; 30 and Aaron spoke all the words which the Lord had spoken to Moses. He then performed the signs in the sight of the people. 31 So the people believed; and when they heard that the Lord was concerned about the sons of Israel and that He had seen their affliction, then they bowed low and worshiped. (NASB95)
While God was giving instructions to Moses, He was also doing the same way with his brother Aaron.
God tells Aaron to go meet Moses in the wilderness where they reunite.
In verses 29-31, we have the account of Aaron being Moses’ spokesperson and the Lord performing the miracles through Moses in the presence of the Israelites who responded by worshipping the Lord in thanksgiving for His concern for them and the great revelation they had received from Him through Moses and Aaron.
This response of the Israelites expresses their faith in the Lord.
God’s prophesy to Moses that they would respond to his message from Him has been fulfilled as recorded in verse 31.