1And Moses will answer and say, And behold, they will not believe in me, and they will not bear to my voice: for they will say, Jehovah was not seen to thee. 2And Jehovah will say to him, What this in thy hand? and he will say, A rod. 3And he will say, Cast it upon the earth. And he will cast it upon the earth and it will be into a serpent, and Moses will flee from before it 4And Jehovah will say to Moses, Stretch forth thy hand, and seize by its tail. And he will stretch forth his hand, and will hold fast upon it, and it will be for a rod in his hand. 5That they shall believe that Jehovah was seen to thee, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaak, and the God of Jacob. 6And Jehovah will say to him yet again, Bring now thy hand into thy bosom. And he will bring his hand into his bosom, and he will bring it forth, and behold his hand leprous as snow. 7And he will say, Turn back thy hand into thy bosom. And he will turn back his hand into his bosom, and he will bring it forth from his bosom, and behold, it turned back as his flesh. 8And it shall be if they will not believe in thee, and will not hear to the voice of the first sign, and they believed the voice of the latter sign. 9And it shall be, if they will not believe in the two signs, and will not hear to thy voice, and take thou from the water of the river and pour out upon the dry; and the water which thou shalt take from the river shall be and shall be for blood upon the dry. 10And Moses will say to Jehovah, With leave my Lord, not a man of words, also from yesterday, also from the third day, also from the time of thy speaking to thy servant; for I being heavy of mouth, and heavy of tongue. 11And Jehovah will say to him, Who set a mouth to man? or who set the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or blind? is it not I Jehovah? 12And now go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say. 13And he will say, With leave, my Lord, send by the hand thou shalt send. 14And Jehovah will be angry with anger against Moses, and he will say, Is not Aaron thy brother, the Levite? I know that speaking, he will speak. And also behold him coming forth to thy meeting: and seeing thee and rejoicing in his heart 15And speak to him, and put words in his mouth: and I will be with thy mouth, and with his mouth, and teach you what ye shall do. 16And he the word for thee to the people: and being, he shall be to thee for a mouth, and thou shalt be to him for God. 17And this rod shalt thou take in thy hand, with which thou shalt do signs. 18And Moses will go and turn back to Jethro his father-in-law, and will say to him, I will go now and turn back to my brethren which are in Egypt, and I will see whether they are yet living. And Jethro will say to Moses, Go in peace. 19And Jehovah will say to Moses in Midian, Go, turn back to Egypt, for all the men died having sought thy soul. 20And Moses will take his wife and his sons, and will cause them to ride upon an ass, and he will turn back to the land of Egypt And Moses will take the rod of God in his hand. 21And Jehovah will say to Moses, In thy going to turn back to Egypt, see all the wonders which I put in thy hand: do them before Pharaoh; and I will bind fast his heart and he shall not send forth the people. 22And say thou to Pharaoh, So said Jehovah, my first-born son is Israel. 23And saying to thee, Send forth my son, and he shall save me: and shalt thou refuse to send him, behold me killing thy son, thy first-born. 24And it shall be in the way in the inn, and Jehovah will meet with him and will seek to kill him. 25And Zipporah will take a stone, and will cut off the uncircumcision her son, and will come to his feet, and will say, For a spouse of bloods, thou to me. 26And he will desist from him: then she said, A husband of bloods, for the circumcision. 27And Jehovah will say to Aaron, Go to the meeting of Moses, to the desert And he will go, and will meet with him in the mount of God, and will kiss him. 28And Moses will announce to Aaron all the words of Jehovah who sent him, and all the signs which he commanded him. 29And Moses will go, and Aaron, and they will gather together all the old men of the sons of Israel. 30And Aaron will speak all the words which Jehovah spoke to Moses, and he will do the signs in the eyes of the people. 31And the people will believe: and they will hear that Jehovah reviewed the sons of Israel, and that he saw their affliction, and they will bow down and worship.
Jamieson Fausset Brown Bible Commentary 1 MIRACULOUS CHANGE OF THE ROD, &c. (Exo. 4:1-31)
But, behold--Hebrew, "If," "perhaps," "they will not believe me."--What evidence can I produce of my divine mission? There was still a want of full confidence, not in the character and divine power of his employer, but in His presence and power always accompanying him. He insinuated that his communication might be rejected and he himself treated as an impostor.
2 the Lord said, . . . What is that in thine hand?--The question was put not to elicit information which God required, but to draw the particular attention of Moses.
A rod--probably the shepherd's crook--among the Arabs, a long staff, with a curved head, varying from three to six feet in length.
6 Put now thine hand into thy bosom--the open part of his outer robe, worn about the girdle.
9 take of the water of the river--Nile. Those miracles, two of which were wrought then, and the third to be performed on his arrival in Goshen, were at first designed to encourage him as satisfactory proofs of his divine mission, and to be repeated for the special confirmation of his embassy before the Israelites.
10 I am not eloquent--It is supposed that Moses labored under a natural defect of utterance or had a difficulty in the free and fluent expression of his ideas in the Egyptian language, which he had long disused. This new objection was also overruled, but still Moses, who foresaw the manifold difficulties of the undertaking, was anxious to be freed from the responsibility.
14 the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses--The Divine Being is not subject to ebullitions of passion; but His displeasure was manifested by transferring the honor of the priesthood, which would otherwise have been bestowed on Moses, to Aaron, who was from this time destined to be the head of the house of Levi (
1Chr 23:13). Marvellous had been His condescension and patience in dealing with Moses; and now every remaining scruple was removed by the unexpected and welcome intelligence that his brother Aaron was to be his colleague. God knew from the beginning what Moses would do, but He reserves this motive to the last as the strongest to rouse his languid heart, and Moses now fully and cordially complied with the call. If we are surprised at his backwardness amidst all the signs and promises that were given him, we must admire his candor and honesty in recording it.
18 Moses . . . returned to Jethro--Being in his service, it was right to obtain his consent, but Moses evinced piety, humility, and prudence, in not divulging the special object of his journey.
19 all the men are dead which sought thy life--The death of the Egyptian monarch took place in the four hundred and twenty-ninth year of the Hebrew sojourn in that land, and that event, according to the law of Egypt, took off his proscription of Moses, if it had been publicly issued.
20 Moses took his wife and his sons, and set them upon an ass--Septuagint, "asses." Those animals are not now used in the desert of Sinai except by the Arabs for short distances.
returned--entered on his journey towards Egypt.
he took the rod of God--so called from its being appropriated to His service, and because whatever miracles it might be employed in performing would be wrought not by its inherent properties, but by a divine power following on its use. (Compare
Acts 3:12).
24 inn--Hebrew, "a halting place for the night."
the Lord met him, and sought to kill him--that is, he was either overwhelmed with mental distress or overtaken by a sudden and dangerous malady. The narrative is obscure, but the meaning seems to be, that, led during his illness to a strict self-examination, he was deeply pained and grieved at the thought of having, to please his wife, postponed or neglected the circumcision of one of his sons, probably the younger. To dishonor that sign and seal of the covenant was criminal in any Hebrew, peculiarly so in one destined to be the leader and deliverer of the Hebrews; and he seems to have felt his sickness as a merited chastisement for his sinful omission. Concerned for her husband's safety, Zipporah overcomes her maternal feelings of aversion to the painful rite, performs herself, by means of one of the sharp flints with which that part of the desert abounds, an operation which her husband, on whom the duty devolved, was unable to do, and having brought the bloody evidence, exclaimed in the painful excitement of her feelings that from love to him she had risked the life of her child [CALVIN, BULLINGER, ROSENMULLER].
26 So he let him go--Moses recovered; but the remembrance of this critical period in his life would stimulate the Hebrew legislator to enforce a faithful attention to the rite of circumcision when it was established as a divine ordinance in Israel, and made their peculiar distinction as a people.
27 Aaron met him in the mount of God, and kissed him--After a separation of forty years, their meeting would be mutually happy. Similar are the salutations of Arab friends when they meet in the desert still; conspicuous is the kiss on each side of the head.
29 Moses and Aaron went--towards Egypt, Zipporah and her sons having been sent back. (Compare
Exod 18:2).
gathered . . . all the elders--Aaron was spokesman, and Moses performed the appointed miracles--through which "the people" (that is, the elders) believed (
1Kgs 17:24;
Josh 3:2) and received the joyful tidings of the errand on which Moses had come with devout thanksgiving. Formerly they had slighted the message and rejected the messenger. Formerly Moses had gone in his own strength; now he goes leaning on God, and strong only through faith in Him who had sent him. Israel also had been taught a useful lesson, and it was good for both that they had been afflicted.