Page 42 - Pentateuch - Student Textbook

leadership for so great a project (4:1). He begs to be released due to his lack of eloquence, claiming to
be slow of speech and tongue (4:10). And, finally, he simply wants out of the job, saying bluntly, “Please
send someone else” (4:13).

The series of conversations, back and forth, highlights the testimony of Moses (referred to in later
Deuteronomy) to the grace of God. At any point God would have been justified in executing Moses or, at
the very least, forgetting about him. God introduced himself as the faithful God who keeps his promises
(3:8-9). He reveals himself further to Moses than he had to the patriarchs (3:14) and lays out for him the
whole scenario of judgment on Egypt to come (3:18-20), including the favor of Egyptians in giving to
Israel silver and gold to the extent of plunder (3:21-22). He authorizes Moses to use three distinct signs
that prove God’s presence. His rod becomes a snake and returns to rod form (4:4). His hand becomes
leprous and returns to health (4:7). He takes water out of the Nile, pouring it on the ground and it
becomes blood (4:9). He reminds Moses of his awareness of what the human body can do. After all, he
is the Creator. He gave mouths to humans and sight to the blind. As Moses tries God’s patience to the
point of anger, the gracious God also enlists Aaron, the brother of Moses, to do the speaking (4:14-17).

Here we must pause. In these verses God has revealed himself to Moses in a deeper manner than he
ever did with the patriarchs. We might remember all those incidents in Abraham’s life and how each
revealed a little bit more of God’s character to him. We might remember Jacob wrestling the angel of
the Lord until dawn, seeking a blessing and being refined in the process by his
interaction with God. They knew YHWH, but they did not know him as hy<h.a, rv,a] hy<h.a
thoroughly as Moses now knows him. God reveals himself as the great “I AM,” I am who I am
the root meaning of the word YHWH. The revelation is emphatic, “I AM WHO I
AM” (3:14).

To know God in this fashion is a great privilege. God takes the initiative in grace, calling the undeserving
into this presence. Yet once a man or woman has been brought into God’s presence that person’s
response is crucial. God instructs Moses to return to Egypt. He does so, taking his wife and sons. On the
way God gives him more revelation about how the endeavor will end. Pharaoh’s heart will be hardened
at the expense of his firstborn son (4:18-23)

Suddenly God confronts Moses and is going to kill him (4:24). We are given no warning about this threat.
Immediately we wonder why. A strange event follows. Zipporah, Moses’ wife, circumcises their sons and
all is well (4:25-26). Can it be that Moses has lived a casual spiritual life in Midian, away from the rest of
the nation? Can it be that Zipporah is more spiritually attuned than her husband. Male circumcision has
been the sign of God’s covenant with the nation since the days of Abraham (Gen. 17:9-14). “Any
uncircumcised male…will be cut off from his people;” he has broken God’s covenant (Gen. 17:14).

Moses is just beginning to learn what it means to know the holy God. Years previously he had been
ordered to take off his sandals, “for the place where you are standing is
holy ground (Exod. 3:5).” The verb form of “holy” occurs first in Genesis 2:3
in connection with the Sabbath day of rest. The only other occurrence vd,q – holy - special
before Exodus 3:6 is the chapter about Judah visiting a prostitute. Three
times in 38:21-22 the NIV uses the phrase “shrine prostitute.” The phrase has the word “holy” as its
root. Many of the nations in Canaan viewed sex as an integral part of their religion. Human sexual
activity stimulated their god’s to be sexually active. The result would be adequate rain, abundant crops

41