The Reluctant Messenger and the Dangerous Journey Home

God had just said in 3:18 “they shall hearken to thy voice”, and Moses answers with the exact reverse: they will not hearken unto my voice. His objection flatly contradicts the promise, though he frames it as what the people will say rather than what he believes.

In Hebrew “What is that” is written as one word, mazzeh, and some rabbis read it as a pun on mah zeh, “what is this?”, the question God asks of what Moses already holds. The rod, matteh, is a shepherd’s staff, the tool of the trade Moses had learned in Midian.

“Serpent” here is nachash, the word of Genesis 3. Before Pharaoh in 7:10 the rod will become a tannin, a larger creature, a crocodile or sea monster. The man who will face Pharaoh runs from his own stick.

Seizing a snake by the tail is exactly how any herdsman knows not to do it, since the head can turn and strike. The command asks Moses to act against his instinct. “Caught” is a stronger verb than “take”, to grab hold firmly.

The sentence breaks off: it is the purpose clause of the whole sign, with no main verb before it. The triple naming of the patriarchs from 3:6 and 3:15 returns a third time, so that Israel will recognise the God who has appeared as their own fathers’ God.

“Bosom” is the fold of the robe at the chest. “Leprous as snow” describes a flaky whiteness; the Hebrew tsara’at covered a range of skin diseases, not only what is now called leprosy. Miriam’s punishment in Numbers 12:10 uses the same phrase, “leprous, white as snow”.

The restoration is described as carefully as the disease: “as his other flesh”, like the rest of his body. The one who can strike can also heal, and the sign shows both. Leviticus 13–14 will spend two chapters on what this sign does in a moment.

Signs are given a “voice”, qol, as if they were witnesses that speak. The first sign and the latter sign are pictured as two speakers, and the hearers can reject one and accept another. Deuteronomy 19:15 requires two or three witnesses to establish a matter.

This third sign anticipates the first plague of 7:17–21, in miniature: water taken from the Nile and turned to blood on land. Moses is given the first plague to perform in private before he performs it in public.

“Not eloquent” is literally “not a man of words”. “Slow of speech” and “slow of tongue” are literally “heavy of mouth” and “heavy of tongue”. The same word, kaved, heavy, will later describe Pharaoh’s heart. Stephen in Acts 7:22 remembers him as “mighty in words”.

Four conditions are listed: dumb, deaf, seeing, blind. God claims to make them all. The point is not a theory about disability; Moses’ tongue is under the authority of the one who made mouths, so it cannot be a reason he is unfit to be sent.

“Teach” is yarah, the root of torah, instruction. The promise of 3:12, “I will be with thee”, is narrowed to one organ: “I will be with thy mouth”. The objection of verse 10 is answered point by point.

The Hebrew is clipped: “send, please, by the hand you will send”, a polite way of saying anyone but me. It is the first time Moses gives no reason at all. Jewish tradition sometimes read it as a request to send Aaron, or the Messiah.

The anger of the LORD burns for the first time in Scripture here, and against Moses. Aaron is called “the Levite”, perhaps pointing ahead to his priestly role. That Aaron is already coming shows the provision was in motion before Moses asked for it.

The roles are laid out like a chain: God puts words in Moses, and Moses puts words in Aaron. The same phrase, “put words in his mouth”, describes the prophet in Deuteronomy 18:18: “I will put my words in his mouth.” The pronoun “you” is now plural; both brothers will be taught.

Moses will be to Aaron “instead of God”, as a prophet is the mouth of a god. Exodus 7:1 develops this: Moses becomes “a god to Pharaoh” and Aaron his prophet. The word here is Elohim without an article, a role, not a nature.

The rod is picked up again after the long exchange about speech. God never withdraws the rod from Moses and gives it to Aaron; Moses’ signs remain Moses’ signs, whatever Aaron speaks.

In the Hebrew the father in law is called Jether here, a short form of Jethro. Moses gives a partial reason, to see whether his brethren are alive, and says nothing of the bush. Asking leave was what a son in law living in his wife’s father’s household owed him; Jacob, who left without asking, was pursued by Laban.

“The men are dead which sought thy life” is echoed almost exactly in Matthew 2:20, where Joseph is told to return with the child Jesus: “they are dead which sought the young child’s life.” The Gospel frames Jesus’ childhood as a second Moses’ return.

“Sons” is plural, though only Gershom has been named; Eliezer is named in 18:4. A donkey was ordinary family travel, nothing royal. The shepherd’s staff of verse 2 is now called “the rod of God”, the same wood renamed for its real owner.

The first mention of hardening, and the verb is chazaq, to make strong or firm. The plague chapters use three different verbs for it, and there Pharaoh’s heart is hard, and he hardens it himself, several times before 9:12 first reports that the LORD hardened it. The order of the telling matters to how the hardening is read.

“My firstborn” gives Israel the legal standing of the heir. Egypt claimed that its king was the son of the god Ra. Hosea 11:1 recalls the phrase: “When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt”, which Matthew 2:15 applies to Jesus.

The punishment matches the crime exactly: son for son, firstborn for firstborn. “Serve me” recurs as the governing aim of the whole release, and Pharaoh is warned of the tenth plague before the first has been threatened.

“Inn” is malon, a place to lodge for the night, likely a campsite rather than a building. “Him” is not identified, and the pronoun may refer to Moses or to his son. The Greek reads “the angel of the Lord met him”, softening the sentence.

Flint knives were used for circumcision long after metal was available (Joshua 5:2). “Feet” may be a polite term. “Bloody husband” is chatan damim; chatan means bridegroom, and it may have been a phrase for the circumcised or the newly married. Which person’s feet she touches is uncertain.

“Let him go” uses the verb rafah, to release or leave alone, not the shalach of Pharaoh’s “let my people go”. Zipporah repeats her phrase, and the book adds an explanation, “because of the circumcision”, as if the phrase needed glossing even in its own day.

The mount of God, Horeb, is where Moses met the LORD in chapter 3, and now where he meets his brother. The kiss is the greeting of family, as Esau kissed Jacob in Genesis 33:4. Verse 14 promised Aaron would be glad; the kiss shows it.

Moses tells Aaron “all the words” and “all the signs”, the word “all” twice. The chain of 4:15 is now in place: God to Moses, Moses to Aaron. Nothing is held back from the one who will speak.

The command of 3:16 to gather the elders is done without delay or objection. For the first time since the bush Moses simply does what he was told, and this time Aaron walks with him.

Aaron speaks, as promised, but it says Aaron also “did the signs”. The signs were given to Moses’ hand, and the rod was his. Either Aaron performed them on Moses’ behalf or the record uses the pair loosely; either way the demonstration is public, before all the people.

“Believed” is he’emin, from the root of amen, to trust as firm. Moses’ fear in verse 1, that they would not believe, is proved wrong in the first word of this verse. “Visited” picks up Joseph’s dying promise, paqad, from Genesis 50:24–25.