Exodus 4:1-17: When Moses Resists God

Exodus 4:1-17: God is Flexible.

Today, we continue reading about when God and Moses meet. And, again, this is not simply a meeting. This is a commissioning. A calling. But Moses has no interest in being called. He has questions, concerns, and protests. In a perfect world, I would've been able to teach from 3:1-4:17. But that's a really big chunk of scripture, and I just couldn't pull it off. But we will cheat, and try to hold it all together today.

Let's start today by rereading part of last week's passage, starting in verse 7. God/Jesus has just appeared to Moses in the burning bush, and this is what He says next:

(7) and Yahweh said,

"I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt,

while their cry I have heard on account of their taskmasters,

because I know his suffering,

(8) and I have come down to deliver him from the hand of Egypt and to bring him up from that land to good and spacious land-- to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites and Hivvites and Amorites and Perizzites and Hivvites and Jebusites,

(9) and now, LOOK! The cry of the sons of Israel has come to me,

and, what's more, I have seen the oppression that Egypt is oppressing them,

(10) so therefore, go!,

and I shall send you to Pharaoh,

and you shall bring out my people-- the sons of Israel-- from Egypt,

So, God says, "GO!" But Moses isn't ready to go. Instead, he asks question #1. Verse 11:

(11) and Moses said to the God/Elohim,

"Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring out the sons of Israel from Egypt?",

(12) and He said,

"Because I shall be with you,

and this to you [is] the sign: when I have sent you, when you bring out the people from Egypt, you (plural) shall serve the God/Elohim upon this mountain,"

In verse 13, Moses raises a second issue, which God will then answer:

(13) and Moses said to the God/Elohim,

"LOOK! I have come to the sons of Israel,

and I have said to them, "The God of your fathers has sent me to you,"

and they have said to me, 'What is his name?",

What shall I say to them?"

(14) and God/Elohim said to Moses,

"I shall/will be what I shall/will be,"

and He said,

"Thus say, "I shall/will be" has sent me to you,"

(15) and God/Elohim said again to Moses,

"Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel:

"He shall be (= 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 how I will be remembered from generation to generation.

God, having answered Moses' concern, now repeats himself. "GO"! Verse 16:

(16) Go!,

and gather the elders of Israel,

and say to them,

"Yahweh, the God of your Fathers has appeared to me-- the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, saying,

'I have surely visited (="intervened for)[1]you and what has been done[2]to you in Egypt,

(17) and I said,

"I shall bring you up from the afflictions of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites and the Hittites, and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites-- to a land flowing with milk and honey,"

(18) and they will heed your voice,

and you will go with the elders of Israel to the King of Egypt,

and you (plural) will say to him,

"Yahweh the God of the Hebrews appeared to us,

and so then, Let us go, please, on a three day journey in the wilderness, that[3]we may sacrifice to Yahweh our God,

(19) while I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go,

and not with a strong hand,[4]

(20) and I will stretch out my hand,

and I will strike[5]Egypt with all my wonders that shall do in his midst,

and afterward, he shall send you,

(21) and I shall give favor to this people in the eyes of Egypt,

and then, when they go, they shall not go empty-handed,

(22) and a woman/wife shall ask from her neighbor and from the foreigner staying in her house vessels of silver and vessels of gold and clothing,

and you shall put them on your sons and upon your daughters,

and you will plunder[6]the Egyptians.

This brings us to today's passage. Moses has been told twice to "go." But he's not ready. Verse 1:

(1) And Moses answered,

and he said,

"And LOOK! They may/will not believe me,

and they may/will not heed my voice,

because they may/will say,

"Yahweh hasn't appeared to you,"

God had told Moses that the elders would believe him. Exodus 3:18: "They will heed your voice." But Moses expresses doubt about this.

Now, how much doubt does Moses express?

One of the tricky things about Hebrew is that it doesn't have a lot of verbs. One verb-- the yiqtol/imperfective/imperfect (3 different ways of naming it)-- can mean, "may," or "will," or "shall."

Let's turn to a pretty well known "promise" in Isaiah 1:18 for kind of the classic example of this:

(18) Come, please, and let us argue (have a legal dialogue), says Yahweh.

If your sins are like crimson, like snow, they will/shall/may be white.

If they are crimson red, like wool they will/shall/may become.

There are three ways to understand verse 18, as long as we are careful not to keep reading.

(1) God is making a promise here. Your sins will be forgiven (NIV).

(2) God is offering a possibility here. Your sins may be forgiven, if you repent (Isaiah 1:19-20).

(3) God is making a command here. Your sins shalt be as white as snow (Goldingay).

The only way to know which reading is correct, is to check the context.

So whenever you're reading in the OT, and you see "may" or "shall" or "will," understand that there can be ambiguity. Moses is either saying, there is the possibility that the elders won't believe. Or, he is saying, flat-out, that they won't believe.

Either way, Moses is offering an objection to God. God had made it sound like they will believe (there, it has to be taken positively as "will"). And Moses says, I'm not so sure. Maybe, Moses is thinking about how the Hebrews, many years early, rejected his attempts at authority over them. I don't know.

Now, God, in response, doesn't criticize Moses for arguing with him. He takes Moses' concern seriously, and this is what He says, verse 2:

(2) and Yahweh said to him,

"What [is] in your hand?,"

and he said,

"A staff,"

(3) and He said,

"Throw it toward the earth,"

and he threw it toward to earth,

and it became a serpent,

and Moses fled from its presence,

(4) and Yahweh said to Moses,

"Stretch out your hand,

and seize it by its tail,"

(and he stretched out his hand,

and he seized it,

and it became a staff in his hand)

(5) "so that they may believe

that He has appeared to you-- Yahweh, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob,"

Moses doesn't ask God for a sign to serve as evidence that God sent him. But that's how God interprets it (H/T Fretheim). Would a six foot staff that turns into a scary serpent, that turns back in to a staff, convince you?

Verse 6-9:

(6) and Yahweh said to him again,

"Put, please, your hand in your cloak,"

and he put his hand in his cloak,

and he brought it out,

and LOOK! His hand [was] leprous/white as snow,

(7) and He said,

"Return your hand to your cloak,"

and he returned his hand to his cloak,

and he brought it out from the cloak,

and LOOK! It has turned again to his flesh!,

(8) and then, if they don't believe you,

and they don't heed the voice/sound of the first sign, they may believe the voice/sound of the latter,

(9) and then, if they also don't believe these two signs, and they don't heed your voice, take from the water of the Nile,

and pour them out on the dry ground,

and the water that you take from the Nile shall be as blood on the dry ground,"

In verses 6-8, God offers Moses another sign to show the people. What we need to focus on, is verse 8. "If they don't believe you, and they don't heed the voice of the first sign, they MAY believe the voice of the latter."

Here, we find ourselves wrestling with the same type of imperfect verb. The KJV ignores verse 9 and translates it as a promise. They WILL believe the sound of the second sign. But the KJV just badly misreads it here (contrast literally every other translation).

Verse 9 makes it really obvious that there are no guarantees here. God tells Moses, they MAY believe.

What is God saying here?

In the end, in God's own words, God doesn't know exactly how this will play out (H/T Fretheim). Maybe the elders won't need any signs. Maybe they will need one, or two, or three.

And maybe three won't be enough. God gives no promises after offering the third sign. In the end, none of this is completely certain.

And Moses seems to accept this. Moses understands, like God, that the people's response is open, and to some degree unforeseeable (H/T Fretheim). In the end, humans are unpredictable.

And so Moses moves on. He has another concern. Verse 10:

(10) and Moses said to Yahweh,

"Please, Lord, not a man of words [am] I.

What's more, not in the past.

What's more, not previously.

What's more, not from the time [that] you spoke to your servant,

because heavy of mouth and heavy of tongue[am] I,"

Moses is a man of action, not a man of words. And Moses points out, that this has always been true of him. Maybe he has some type of stutter. Maybe he's just one of those people who can't get the words out. And people who have problems with their speech, understand that working with others is really difficult. People tend to think you're stupid. Some people aren't patient with you. A guy I went to school with was a brilliant young scholar. But he struggled to put his words together. And if you were his professor, or his student, you had to be patient with him. Now, it was worth it. He was brilliant. But you had to be patient.

The other thing we should notice here, with Moses, is how he points out that God has done nothing to fix his speech problem. He is, even now, heavy of mouth and tongue.

This brings us to verse 11-12. I'm going to be honest-- I don't like this verse at all. All I'll say about it, is that this is not God's final word regarding weakness, and disability.

(11) and Yahweh said to him,

"Who has made the mouth of a man, or who makes them mute or deaf or seeing or blind?

Is it not I, Yahweh?,

(12) and so then, Go!,

while Iwill be with your mouth,

and I will teach you what you shall say,"

God says that He has made Moses, exactly how He wanted to. God doesn't disagree with Moses-- Moses has some type of speech impediment. But God promises Moses that He will be with his mouth, and that He will teach Moses what to say. Moses' speech problem, is not something Moses needs to worry about. God will take of it.

What then, should Moses do? God, for the third time (!), tells Moses to "go."

Verse 13-17:

(13) and he said,

"Please, Lord. Send, please, anyone else you wish to send,"[7]

(14) and the anger of Yahweh burned against Moses,

and He said,

"Isn't Aaron the Levite your brother?

I know that he actually/surely speaks [well],

and, what's more, LOOK! He is coming to meet you,

and when[8]he sees you, he will rejoice in his heart

(15) and you shall speak to him,

and you shall put the words in his mouth,

while Iwill be with your mouth and with his mouth,

and I will teach you what you will do,

(16) and he will speak for you to the people,

and he shall be for you as a mouth,

while youshall be to him as God,

(17) while this staff you shall take in your hand,

that you may/shall do with it the signs."

In the end, Moses runs out of questions, and concerns, and objections. Stripped of all of these things, all Moses can do, is ask God, very politely, very nicely, to find someone else.

And this leads God to switch from Plan A, to Plan B. God hadn't wanted to involve Aaron. And as we keep reading in Exodus, there are good reasons for not involving Aaron. Something about a golden calf, and leading an entire nation away from God. There's a reason God started with Moses, and not Aaron. But here, in anger, God offers Aaron to Moses as a helper. Aaron will be a like a prophet to Moses, and Moses will be like God to Aaron.

And that's where we will leave off this morning. We don't know what Moses will do next. But we know that, three times, God has told him to go. God has answered every question, addressed every concern. And Moses has resisted, at every point.

But in the end, God is going to use Moses. And Moses doesn't seem to have a choice in this-- he's like Jeremiah, or Paul.

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As we think about how to apply the passage today, I want to start with God. What does this passage teach us about who God is?

I think the main thing we learn here, is that God is flexible.

Lots of Christians have this sort of vague notion that everything that will ever happen is set in stone. God will do what He will do. We will do what we will do. And history is moving in a straight, rigid line from now until Jesus comes back. [And if anything threatened that, God would "prune it" (Loki)].

But I think most of our notions about God, and history, are based more on Greek philosophy than the Bible. What we see in Exodus 4, is that the future is to some extent open. God has a specific plan-- He is going to free his people from the Egyptians, and bring them up to a land flowing with milk and honey. But how that plan works out, is an open question.

God wants to use Moses. But Moses doesn't want to be used.

What, then, does God do?

God treats Moses like a genuine partner in all of this. The two of them have an open dialogue, where concerns are addressed and questions are answered.

But even more than this, Moses walks away from this encounter with God, with far more help than he would've, if he'd simply gone the first time God said "go."

First, God promises Moses that He will be with him. Second, God reveals his name, Yahweh. Third, God gives three signs to show the people. Fourth, God promises Moses that He will be with his mouth, specifically. Fifth, God gave Moses his brother Aaron to be his prophet. Sixth, God gives Moses a staff, that Moses will be able to do all kinds of stuff with.

If Moses had simply obeyed, and done what God wanted, he wouldn't have received any of these things. Do you see this?

Now, at the end of the day, God is still probably going to get what He wants here. God isn't giving Moses much of a choice in any of this, with the big picture.

But in the details? In the specific blessings, and promises? As a result of this dialogue, it's like Moses drives off to Egypt in a Cadillac, instead of a Chevy.

So when you think about your own life, and your own relationship with God, I'd encourage you to view it in light of Exodus 4. God has entered into a genuine relationship with you. He values your feedback. He takes your concerns seriously. He changes what He will do, based on what you say and do. When you pray, you will often walk away with far more, than if you'd kept your mouth shut. Sometimes, you don't have, because you don't ask.

The other thing this passage makes me think about, is being prepared for an encounter with God. As my employer would say, "Expect the unexpected." Quite a few people have stories about Jesus appearing to them, calling them to specific tasks. I assume that there are lots of other Christians who have these stories, but kept them to themselves. If this happened to me, I think it'd be amazing.

But reading Exodus 4 made me realize that if that happens, then I should be prepared. I should have a wish list in my back pocket, of things I want from Jesus. If Jesus is going to call me to something big or new, I now have a specific list of four things that I want. And if Jesus appears to me, like he appeared to Moses, hopefully I will be as brave, and open, and demanding as Moses was-- without reaching the point of him getting mad at me.

So this morning, I want you to leave with three words in your head, and in your mouth. God is flexible.

[Also two other things we learn about God-- (1) He's reasonable, and (2) in the end, God expects to be obeyed.]

Translation:

(1) And Moses answered,

and he said,

"And LOOK! They will not believe me,

and they will not heed my voice,

because they will say,

"Yahweh hasn't appeared to you,"

(2) and Yahweh said to him,

"What [is] in your hand?,"

and he said,

"A staff,"

(3) and He said,

"Throw it toward the earth,"

and he threw it toward to earth,

and it became a serpent,

and Moses fled from its presence,

(4) and Yahweh said to Moses,

"Stretch out your hand,

and seize it by its tail,"

and he stretched out his hand,

and he seized it,

and it became a staff in his hand.

(5) "Because of this they will believe

that He has appeared to you-- Yahweh, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob,"

(6) and Yahweh said to him again,

"Put, please, your hand in your cloak,,"

and he put his hand in his cloak,

and he brought it out,

and LOOK! His hand [was] leprous/white as snow,

(7) and He said,

"Return your hand to your cloak,"

and he returned his hand to his cloak,

and he brought it out from the cloak,

and LOOK! It has turned again to his flesh!,

(8) and then, if they don't believe you,

and they don't heed the voice/sound of the first sign, they may believe the voice/sound of the latter,

(9) and then, if they also don't believe these two signs, and they don't heed your voice, take from the water of the Nile,

and pour them out on the dry ground,

and the water that you take from the Nile shall be as blood on the dry ground,"

(10) and Moses said to Yahweh,

"Please, Lord, not a man of words [am] I.

What's more, not in the past.

What's more, not previously.

What's more, not from the time [that] you spoke to your servant,

because heavy of mouth and heavy of tongue[am] I,"

(11) and Yahweh said to him,

"Who has made the mouth of a man, or who makes them mute or deaf or seeing or blind?

Is it not I, Yahweh?,

(12) and so then, Go!,

while Iwill be with your mouth,

and I will teach you what you shall say,"

(13) and he said,

"Please, Lord. Send, please, anyone else you wish to send,"[9]

(14) and the anger of Yahweh burned against Moses,

and He said,

"Isn't Aaron the Levite your brother?

I know that he actually/surely speaks [well],

and, what's more, LOOK! He is coming to meet you,

and when[10]he sees you, he will rejoice in his heart

(15) and you shall speak to him,

and you shall put the words in his mouth,

while Iwill be with your mouth and with his mouth,

and I will teach you what you will do,

(16) and he will speak for you to the people,

and he shall be for you as a mouth,

while youshall be to him as God,

while this staff you shall take in your hand,

that you may/shall do with it the signs."

[1] NET Bible: The verb פָּקַד (paqad) has traditionally been rendered “to visit.” This only partially communicates the point of the word. When God “visited” someone, it meant that he intervened in their lives to change their circumstances or their destiny. When he visited the Amalekites, he destroyed them (1 Sam 15:2). When he visited Sarah, he provided the long awaited child (Gen 21:1). It refers to God’s active involvement in human affairs for blessing or for cursing. Here it would mean that God had begun to act to deliver the Israelites from bondage and give them the blessings of the covenant. The form is joined here with the infinitive absolute to underscore the certainty—“I have indeed visited you.” Some translate it “remember”; others say “watch over.” These do not capture the idea of intervention to bless, and often with the idea of vengeance or judgment on the oppressors. If God were to visit what the Egyptians did, he would stop the oppression and also bring retribution for it. The nuance of the perfect tense could be a perfect of resolve (“I have decided to visit”), or an instantaneous perfect (“I hereby visit”), or a prophetic perfect (“I have visited” = “I will visit”). The infinitive absolute reinforces the statement (so “carefully”), the rendering “attended to” attempts to convey the ideas of personal presence, mental awareness, and action, as when a nurse or physician “attends” a patient.[1] [2]NET: tn The second object for the verb is the passive participle הֶעָשׂוּי (he’asuy). To say that God has visited the oppression (or “attended to” it) affirms that God has decided to judge the oppressing people as he blesses Israel.[2] [3]weyiqtol. [4]"meaning of Hebrew uncertain." It must refer to Pharaoh's hand, not God's, because of verse 20. [5]the Moses verb, "striking" Egypt as Moses did. [6] a different form of the verb (piel) that elsewhere means "rescue." Interesting. [7]van der Merwe's gloss. "Send, please, by the hand of [whom] you will send." This is rough Hebrew, as far as I can tell. And it's also evidence that Moses' speech really isn't good. English translations that smooth it over (like mine), are maybe missing something. [8]weqatal. [9]van der Merwe's gloss. "Send, please, by the hand of [whom] you will send." [10]weqatal.