Context & Key Themes
Exodus 4 records Moses’s extended objections to his commission and God’s patient, sometimes sharp, responses to each one. Moses is not enthusiastic about what God is calling him to do, and the chapter does not hide that. It also contains one of the most mysterious and disturbing passages in the Pentateuch — the encounter at the lodging place where God seeks to kill Moses. The themes are human reluctance in the face of divine call, the provision God makes for weakness, and the obedience that finally moves despite fear.
Key Verses
“But Moses said to the Lord, ‘Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue.'” — Exodus 4:10
“The anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses.” — Exodus 4:14
Summary
Moses raises his first objection: what if the people do not believe me or listen? God gives him three signs. He throws his staff on the ground and it becomes a serpent. He picks it up by the tail and it becomes a staff again. He puts his hand inside his cloak and it comes out leprous. He puts it back and it is restored. If they do not believe the first sign or the second, he is to take water from the Nile and pour it on dry ground, and it will become blood.
Moses raises his second objection: I am not eloquent, I am slow of speech and tongue. God replies: who made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, deaf, seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go and I will be with your mouth and teach you what to speak. Moses says: please send someone else. The anger of the Lord is kindled against Moses. God tells him that Aaron his brother is already coming to meet him and can speak well. Moses will tell Aaron what to say and God will be with both their mouths. Aaron will be Moses’s mouth and Moses will be as God to him. Moses is to take the staff in his hand with which he will do the signs.
Moses goes back to Jethro and asks permission to return to Egypt to see whether his kindred are still alive. Jethro releases him in peace. God tells Moses in Midian: go back to Egypt, for all the men who were seeking your life are dead. Moses takes his wife and sons, puts them on a donkey, and returns to Egypt, taking the staff of God in his hand.
God tells Moses that when he stands before Pharaoh he is to do all the wonders, but God will harden Pharaoh’s heart so he will not let the people go. Moses is to tell Pharaoh: Israel is my firstborn son. Let my son go so he may serve me. If you refuse, I will kill your firstborn son.
At a lodging place on the way, the Lord meets Moses and seeks to kill him. Zipporah takes a flint and cuts off her son’s foreskin and touches Moses’s feet with it, saying: surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me. God lets him alone. She says bridegroom of blood because of the circumcision.
Aaron meets Moses at the mountain of God and kisses him. Moses tells Aaron everything God has said and all the signs he has commanded. They gather the elders of Israel. Aaron speaks all the words and Moses performs the signs in the sight of the people. The people believe. When they hear that God has visited the people of Israel and has seen their affliction, they bow their heads and worship.
Reflection
Moses’s objections follow a pattern recognizable to anyone who has ever been called to something that terrified them. What if they don’t believe me? What if I’m not good enough? Can’t someone else do it? Each objection receives a specific, practical answer from God, and yet Moses keeps finding another reason not to go. God’s anger at the final plea — send someone else — is worth noting. He does not rescind the call. He provides Aaron. But the text is honest that Moses’s persistent reluctance provoked something in God that was not simply patience. The call stands. The reluctance is accommodated. But it costs something.
The circumcision episode at the lodging place is one of the most opaque passages in all of Exodus. God seeks to kill Moses, and Zipporah’s swift action with a flint saves him. The most likely reading is that Moses had neglected to circumcise his son, which was the covenant sign given to Abraham. The man about to go and demand the release of God’s covenant people had failed to mark his own household with the covenant sign. Zipporah, not Moses, is the one who acts. Whatever the full interpretation, the episode makes one thing plain: obedience to the covenant cannot be compartmentalized. The deliverer cannot carry the covenant for a nation while ignoring it in his own tent.
The people’s response when they hear and see — they bow their heads and worship — is the right response. Not celebration, not immediate action. Worship. Before anything has changed externally, before Pharaoh has been confronted, before a single slave is free, Israel bows. That is the beginning of the Exodus: not the parting of the sea but the bowing of heads at the news that God has seen and remembered.