1And Moses answered and said, And, behold, they will not believe me and will not listen to my voice. For they will say, Jehovah has not appeared to you. 2And Jehovah said to him, What is this in your hand? And he said, A staff. 3And He said, Throw it to the ground. And he threw it to the ground, and it became a snake. And Moses fled before it. 4And Jehovah said to Moses, Send out your hand and take it by the tail. And he sent out his hand and caught it, and it became a staff in his hand; 5so that they may believe that Jehovah the God of their fathers has appeared to you, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. 6And Jehovah said to him again, Now put your hand into your bosom. And he put his hand into his bosom, and he brought it out, and, behold, his hand was leprous like snow. 7And He said, Put your hand back into your bosom. And he put his hand back into his bosom, and he brought it out from his bosom; and, behold, it had returned like his flesh! 8And it shall be, if they will not believe you and will not listen to the voice of the first sign, that they will believe the latter sign. 9And it shall be, if they will not believe these two signs also, and will not listen to your voice, you shall take of the water of the Nile and pour it on the dry land. And the water which you take from the Nile shall become blood on the dry land. 10And Moses said to Jehovah, O Lord, I am not a man of words, either from yesterday or the third day, nor since You have been speaking to Your bondslave. For I am heavy of mouth and heavy of tongue. 11And Jehovah said to him, Who has made man's mouth? Or who makes the dumb, or the deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? Is it not I, Jehovah? 12And now go, and I will be with your mouth, and will teach you what you shall speak. 13And he said, O Lord, please send by the hand of him whom You will send. 14And the anger of Jehovah glowed against Moses. And He said, Do I not know your brother, Aaron the Levite, that he can speak well? And, behold, he also is coming out to meet you, and he will see you and be glad in his heart. 15And you shall speak to him, and you shall put the words in his mouth. And I will be with your mouth, and with his mouth, and I will teach you what you shall do. 16And he shall speak for you to the people. And it shall be, he shall be a mouth for you, and you shall be a god for him. 17And you shall take this staff in your hand by which you do the signs. 18And Moses went and returned to his father-in-law Jethro, and said to him, Please let me go and return to my brothers who are in Egypt, and see whether they are still alive. And Jethro said to Moses, Go in peace. 19And Jehovah said to Moses in Midian, Go! Return to Egypt. For all the men are dead, those seeking your life. 20And Moses took his wife and his sons and made them ride on an ass. And he returned to the land of Egypt. And Moses took the staff of God in his hand. 21And Jehovah said to Moses, As you go to return to Egypt, see all the wonders which I have put in your hand, and do them before Pharaoh. And I will make strong his heart, and he will not send the people away. 22And you shall speak to Pharaoh, So says Jehovah, My son, My first-born is Israel. 23And I said to you, Send My son away, and let him serve Me; and you refused to send him. Behold, I am about to kill your son, your first-born! 24And it happened on the way, in the lodging place, Jehovah met him and sought to kill him. 25And Zipporah took a stone and cut off her son's foreskin, and caused it to touch his feet. And she said, You are a bridegroom of blood to me. 26And He pulled back from him. Then she said, A bridegroom of blood, for the circumcision. 27And Jehovah said to Aaron, Go to the wilderness to meet Moses. And he went and met him in the mountain of God; and he kissed him. 28And Moses told Aaron all the words of Jehovah with which He had sent him, and all the signs which He had commanded him. 29And Moses and Aaron went on and gathered all the elders of the sons of Israel. 30And Aaron spoke all the words which Jehovah had spoken to Moses. And he did the signs before the people. 31And the people believed. And they heard that Jehovah had visited the sons of Israel, and that He had seen their affliction. And they bowed and worshiped.
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.