Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 4:29-31

29 And Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the children of Israel:

30 And Aaron spake all the words which the Lord had spoken unto Moses, and did the signs in the sight of the people.

31 And the people believed: and when they heard that the Lord had visited the children of Israel, and that he had looked upon their affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshipped.

Aaron spoke, the signs were performed, and the people believed, just as the Lord had foretold. The Israelites were ready for deliverance, receiving the promise with reverence, not skepticism.

Years ago, Moses had already tried to help the Israelites and he had been rejected. But back then he had acted alone, according to his own wisdom and ability, whereas now he had come as an extension of the Lord. It can be hard to try to do something good, fail at it, and then accept that triumph can only come by giving it over to God. That requires great humility, and surrendering of self, and trusting in uncontrolled outcomes. This is very challenging and daunting to do, but for the most important things in life, it is the only way to succeed.

And as for Moses’s prior hesitancy, we never hear of it again. He resisted God’s plan leading up to this moment, but from this point on he remains a rock, constant and committed through every twist and turn.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 4:27-28

27 And the Lord said to Aaron, Go into the wilderness to meet Moses. And he went, and met him in the mount of God, and kissed him.

28 And Moses told Aaron all the words of the Lord who had sent him, and all the signs which he had commanded him.

Not only did the Lord address Moses’s insecurities by assigning Aaron as a spokesperson, but He even sent Aaron to meet Moses along the way. The path God had described to Moses was forming itself before him, and Moses would come to the Israelites ready and prepared with his brother.

We do not get much insight to the relationship between Aaron and Moses. We will learn later that Aaron was born three years before Moses, presumably before the Pharaoh’s murderous decree, and thus he was allowed to live with his family unlike Moses. Aaron would have been there as his mother weaned infant Moses and may have had memories of the time. He would have been around when his younger brother was given away to the Egyptians, and we do not know what relationship Moses had with his real family after that. And then Moses had been in exile far from Aaron, living an entire life in Midian with the family he established there.

It seems quite likely, therefore, that the two were mostly strangers to one another, knowing who the other was, but not who they really were. Even so, their reunion was still full of brotherly love and care. Aaron kissed Moses when he saw him, and this happy reunion calls to mind a very similar one between Jacob and Esau. Unlike those two, though, Aaron and Moses’s reunion was to be permanent. They would now work side-by-side for the rest of their lives. Moses informed Aaron of all the details of the Lord’s plan, and now the two shared a united in purpose.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 4:24-26

24 And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the Lord met him, and sought to kill him.

25 Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art thou to me.

26 So he let him go: then she said, A bloody husband thou art, because of the circumcision.

These verses don’t seem to fit in very well with the broader narrative. We seem to be coming into the middle of a drama that we never heard the beginning of. And this could be the case. It is possible that these verses were part of a separate record about Moses, the beginning of which was lost, but this part was still inserted into the broader narrative for the sake of completion.

Whatever the case, apparently Moses had failed to follow the Abrahamic covenant which required each male to be circumcised. The fact that the Lord was angered enough to kill him makes me assume that Moses was not ignorant on the matter either. It seems likely to me that there had been some prior conversation about the matter already, for how else would Zipporah have known that this is what needed to happen?

And in this story we see an example of Zipporah being a good spouse to her husband, helping to improve him in his failings, as every husband and wife should aspire to do for one other. There are probably other lessons that could be derived from these verses, but I don’t feel comfortable trying to identify them without having a fuller context of what happened.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 4:21-23

21 And the Lord said unto Moses, When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go.

22 And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord, Israel is my son, even my firstborn:

23 And I say unto thee, Let my son go, that he may serve me: and if thou refuse to let him go, behold, I will slay thy son, even thy firstborn.

When Moses fled from Egypt, we were told that Pharaoh, himself, sought to slay him. Since God had assured Moses that everyone who sought his life was now dead, this must have been a new Pharaoh that Moses would contend with. So once again, the Israelite captivity had carried from one generation of rulership to another, still with no end in sight. This new Pharaoh would be given the chance to atone for the sins of his fathers, but the Lord tells Moses that the man will refuse, even in the face of Moses’s miracles. And because of the Pharaoh’s stubbornness, God will exact His vengeance upon the Egyptians, even to the slaying of all their firstborn.

It seems strange that God says, “I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go.” Undoubtedly God does have the ability to change the heart of a man, but typically we think of that as being to change the heart for the better, not for the worse. An argument could certainly be made that it feels unjust for God to prevent a man from repenting, and thus requiring him to receive a greater condemnation than he might otherwise have.

Now for me, personally, this passage is not a concern. I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and we believe that this passage is a mistranslation, and that what God said in this, and every other instance, was that Pharaoh would harden his own heart. Obviously, I don’t expect most other Christians to just accept that decision, and obviously there is a slippery slope in declaring certain passages of the Bible as being mistranslated. Before long one might excise any portion of the Bible that teaches something they find personally inconvenient, saying it must simply be a mistranslation. Even so, with serious gravity for the sacredness of the Biblical text, we must accept that it is possible that some parts of it might have been mangled over the years. The oldest, surviving version of the Old Testament is the Septuagint, which was a Greek translation made in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, BC. We no longer have the text that that translation was based off of, let alone the centuries and centuries of copying and translating scriptural text that came before.

If one insists that the text that we have today must be accurate, then there are still a number of commentators who refuse to accept that this passage means that God would harden the heart of a man. Some have suggested God merely means He will not be applying His grace to Pharaoh, and without it, Pharaoh’s heart will naturally remain hardened. Others assert that God really did harden Pharaoh’s heart, but that such a decision is His divine prerogative. I suppose it is up to you to make of this passage what you will.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 4:18-20

18 And Moses went and returned to Jethro his father in law, and said unto him, Let me go, I pray thee, and return unto my brethren which are in Egypt, and see whether they be yet alive. And Jethro said to Moses, Go in peace.

19 And the Lord said unto Moses in Midian, Go, return into Egypt: for all the men are dead which sought thy life.

20 And Moses took his wife and his sons, and set them upon an ass, and he returned to the land of Egypt: and Moses took the rod of God in his hand.

Moses’s communion with the Lord came to a close and he returned to the house of his father-in-law. Moses requested that Jethro would permit him return to the land of Egypt, which Jethro readily agreed to. This scene of leaving a father-in-law to return to one’s people reminds me a great deal of Jacob and Laban, though the father-in-law in that story was far less agreeable to the sudden separation!

Already the Lord informed Moses that Aaron was on his way to join him, and in these verses He provides yet another reassurance, telling Moses that all those who were in a position of power and sought to slay him are now dead. Moses will no longer be a hunted man.

Finally, in verse 20, we hear mention of Moses’s wife and sons, which is a reminder that he was a man who had his own life, his own household. He wasn’t losing all those parts of his life, but they were being changed. The life and the future that he thought he was following were being turned towards something new. This fact is symbolized in the final detail given at the end of verse 20: “and Moses took the rod of God in his hand.” Until just recently, that had been merely a shepherd’s staff, but now it was “the rod of God.” Like Moses, it had been remade for a new purpose.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 4:17

17 And thou shalt take this rod in thine hand, wherewith thou shalt do signs.

The last instruction from God in the burning bush was that Moses should take the rod that had been temporarily turned into a snake, and with it he would continue to do the miracles that were required of him. This rod thus became the first spiritual artifact that we hear of in the Bible, eventually being joined by Aaron’s rod, the stone tablets, and the ark of the covenant. Interestingly, while the Israelites would go on to worship all manner of idols and graven images, we never hear of them adulterating these actual sacred artifacts in that way. Perhaps this is because it is easy to be profane with the idea of sacred things, but we are humbled when actually in the presence of them.

I also want to note that this staff had been Moses’s basic tool as a shepherd. It had been his instrument for doing his earthly work, and now it would be his instrument for doing God’s heavenly work. There is a lesson here about God being able to take our natural talents and resources and sanctifying them for a holier purpose. The ordinary can be made extraordinary by God.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 4:16

16 And he shall be thy spokesman unto the people: and he shall be, even he shall be to thee instead of a mouth, and thou shalt be to him instead of God.

This verse gives one of the clearest examples of divine investiture and delegation. I’ll work through it backwards. Moses was told that he is to be to Aaron in the place of God. This wasn’t to say that Moses was God. This wasn’t even to say that he would be infallible, we know that he still made mistakes, such as when he struck the rock at Horeb. But from now on, God was going to speak to Aaron through Moses, so if Aaron wanted to have a full relationship with God, he was going to have to heed Moses.

The role that Moses was being called to fill was both old and new. Long before Moses there had been the patriarchs who stood as representatives of God to their sons. Now, though, the Israelites were a multitude of separate family units. They could not literally all have the same father, but they still needed a divine father figure. Moses is the first person we hear of that was chosen to fill this position. He was called to be a presiding prophet. Yes, every Israelite was still going to be commanded to seek the Lord on a personal basis, but that relationship was going to be cultivated, in large part, by following the directions of Moses.

And this is perfectly appropriate. Obviously, God is entitled to set whatever terms He chooses for how we will receive His light, and for the Israelites He had decided that a significant portion of that light would be channeled through Moses.

But just as God was going to be represented in the figure of Moses, parts of Moses would be represented in others. God would direct Moses in what to do and say, and Moses would delegate that “saying” part to Aaron. This idea would be further expanded on when Moses, at the suggestion of Jethro, delegated the judging of the multitude to a hierarchy of worthy men.

So, taking these two principles as a whole, the presiding prophet was specially selected to represent God by directing the affairs of the covenant people. That prophet was able to spread that responsibility out to others, and thus an entire body of people could become responsible for executing the will of God on the Earth. This was a new system of society and government, a gift of structure and procedure from God. Presumably we had not heard of this system previously among the Abrahamic nation because they had not yet been large enough to require it. Now that the system had been introduced, though, it would persist throughout much of the Biblical record.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 4:13-15

13 And he said, O my Lord, send, I pray thee, by the hand of him whom thou wilt send.

14 And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses, and he said, Is not Aaron the Levite thy brother? I know that he can speak well. And also, behold, he cometh forth to meet thee: and when he seeth thee, he will be glad in his heart.

15 And thou shalt speak unto him, and put words in his mouth: and I will be with thy mouth, and with his mouth, and will teach you what ye shall do.

I am trying to understand what Moses meant by saying “O my Lord, send, I pray thee, by the hand of him whom thou wilt send,” and why God apparently had such an angry response to it. Moses’s statement seems to be him finally showing compliance to the Lord’s command, so why is the Lord now upset?

I can see three possible explanations for this. First, one might argue that the Lord was already angry at Moses for his prior reluctance, and was simply now showing that anger all at once. Sometimes when someone finally relents we feel exasperated at how hard we had to push to get them to see reason. It could be that this was God’s reaction, though to me that seems petty.

A more likely possibility, in my mind, would be that Moses was consenting to God’s plan, but in a grumbling way. We are told what he said, but not what sort of tone he spoke with. It might be that he was essentially saying “well, if I have to, okay then.” In this instance it would make sense for God to upbraid Moses for being bitter even in his compliance.

And a third option could be that Moses wasn’t actually complying. He might have been adjuring God to send someone else, someone more fitting than Moses. In this case, then God’s anger would simply be due to Moses’s near-refusal to do as he was commanded.

I’m not sure which of these three interpretations is accurate, or if any of them even are. In any case, one way or another Moses had incurred the anger of God, but even while chastising Moses the Lord show graciousness. He gives Aaron as a companion and a spokesperson for Moses, someone to share this incredible burden. What’s more, God reveals that Aaron is already on his way to Moses. God had already been setting in motion the special help that Moses needed. Yes, God was frustrated at Moses faithlessness, but He had also accounted for it in advance.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 4:10-12

10 And Moses said unto the Lord, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.

11 And the Lord said unto him, Who hath made man’s mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the Lord?

12 Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say.

Thus far Moses had blamed external factors for his hesitancy, insisting that the people wouldn’t believe him, that they would require proof of his divine commission, that they would require Moses to tell them the name of the Lord. God had addressed each of these concerns, but now Moses moved to another excuse. This one was at least more honest in that it was directed at Moses’s inner adequacy, rather than trying to put the blame on others. Moses claimed he was not eloquent of speech. Some have wondered if this means he had a speech impediment, but that is merely conjecture. Perhaps he did, or perhaps he simply struggled to find the right way to say things.

In either case, God delivered a resounding rebuke to Moses. Who made man’s mouth?! Who made the dumb? The deaf? The seeing? The blind? God made Moses to begin with, so if there ware any difficulties of speech lingering in him, God could remake him without those flaws.

Also, Moses was missing the point. Moses was seeing himself as the one who had to come up with a convincing enough argument to get the Israelites to follow him, and a compelling enough demand to get Pharaoh to let the people go. But God’s plan never was for Moses to do this by his own power or intelligence. Moses was correct that he would be totally inadequate to do this on his own, but Moses wasn’t supposed to do this one his own. Moses wasn’t to speak his own words; he was to speak God’s words. Moses wasn’t to be the leader; he was just to be the spokesperson. God explained all of this in verse 12. “I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say.” All Moses had to do was present himself and act as directed!

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 4:8-9

8 And it shall come to pass, if they will not believe thee, neither hearken to the voice of the first sign, that they will believe the voice of the latter sign.

9 And it shall come to pass, if they will not believe also these two signs, neither hearken unto thy voice, that thou shalt take of the water of the river, and pour it upon the dry land: and the water which thou takest out of the river shall become blood upon the dry land.

After turning the staff into a serpent, the healthy hand leprous, and then changing them back, God tells Moses how to perform another miracle. This one is different from the other two, though. For one thing, God does not actually rehearse this one with Moses, telling him only to do it in the land of Egypt. For another, while there is still a transformation of something pure into something unnerving, there is no return transformation back to the original.

It seems to me that Moses didn’t act out this last wonder by himself because its message was directed specifically to the people of Israel and Egypt. It was not intended to test him personally as the first two miracles had been.

So, what was the special message that it conveyed to the people in Egypt? It seems clear to me that it was a reminder of evil done and a promise for retribution. Recall the former Pharaoh’s instructions that “every son that is born [of the Israelites] ye shall cast into the river.” Now Moses was to go to that same river, draw from it, and pour blood upon the land. It was the blood of the innocent, the blood of the infant sons killed by Pharaoh’s decree. God had not been blind to this horrific injustice. He had collected the full measure of blood, and now He would pour the same upon the people of Egypt. As it would be written, “vengeance is mine, saith the Lord” (Romans 12:19). This is why this sign would not only be shown to the assembly of Israelites, but also to Pharaoh himself. Both the ruler and the Israelites needed to understand that God remembered what was done, and He had come to repay!