Exodus 4

Moses piles on the excuses (vs. 1-17)—Moses didn’t want to do what God asked him to do, i.e., go back to Egypt and lead the children of Israel out of captivity. So he made a number of excuses. In verse 1, he says, “But suppose they will not believe me or listen to my voice.” The Lord gave him threee miracles to perform. The first was turning his staff into a snake (vs. 2-5). In the second miracle, God commanded Moses to put his hand inside his cloak; when he removed it, “his hand was leprous, like snow” (v. 6). The hand was restored whole upon Moses putting his hand back to his bosom (v. 7). And if they still didn’t believe, God told him, “you shall take water from the river and pour it on the dry land. And the water which you take from the river will become blood on the dry land" (v. 9). Any or all of that should be sufficient to convince the Israelites of Moses’ divine mission.

But it didn’t convince Moses. In verse 10, he makes another excuse: “O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before nor since You have spoken to Your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue." The Lord responded, “Who has made man's mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not I, the LORD? Now therefore, go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say" (vs. 11-12). Moses replied that he just flat didn’t want to do it: “O my Lord, please send by the hand of whomever else You may send” (v. 13). Moses’ reticence here is a little hard to understand. Forty years earlier, he had been prepared to lead his people from slavery. Now he doesn’t want to. Perhaps his age (he’s 80 years old now), or the fact that he was in a rather comfortable situation living with his father-in-law and tending sheep had changed him into a meeker man. But the Lord wasn’t to be put off, indeed, He was angry with Moses (v. 14). But He acquiesced to the point that He sent Moses’ older brother Aaron to be the mouthpiece (vs. 14-17). Moses would get God’s message, but Aaron would speak. Moses objects no more.

Moses heads for Egypt (vs. 18-23)—Moses asks leave of Jethro, his father-in-law, to return to Egypt. Jethro grants the request, and the Lord comforts Moses by telling him that “all the men who sought your life are dead” (v. 19). So Moses packs his family up and “returned to the land of Egypt” (v. 20), i.e., headed in that direction. God gave Moses his initial task: go to Pharaoh, and perform the wonders the Lord “put in your hand” (v. 21). Pharaoh would not let the people go due to hardness of heart (v. 21). Moses was then to tell the king that if he refused to let Israel go, the Lord would kill his firstborn son (v. 23). This section of God talking to Moses is probably just a brief summation of what He told him. The death of the firstborn son would be the climactic act of God’s judgment upon Pharaoh and Egypt.

The Lord seeks to kill Moses (vs. 24-26)—Or, it’s possible, that the Lord intended—“threatened” would probably be a better word—to kill Gershom, Moses’ first born. It’s obvious from the context that Moses had not circumcised his son, something which the Lord had commanded of all the Hebrews since Abraham. Moses’ wife Zipporah intervened in time, circumcised the boy (he would have been a grown man by this time) and saved his, or his father's, life. This is a rather strange and obscure story, but it does indicate that God expects His people to follow His rules and they would suffer serious consequences if they did not.

Moses and Aaron meet (vs. 27-31)—As Moses was heading back to Egypt, God spoke to Aaron and told him to go meet his brother in the wilderness. From all indications, this was the first time they had seen each other in 40 years. They went to Egypt, and “gathered together all the elders of the children of Israel” (v. 29). Aaron “spoke all the words which the LORD had spoken to Moses. Then he [Moses] did the signs in the sight of the people” (v. 30). They believed and were encouraged (v. 31). But a long, hard road lay ahead before they would leave Egypt.