Today, I am reading and commenting on  Exodus 4-6.

Yesterday in chapter three when God told Moses to go to the elders of Israel, he asked God what name for God should he give them.  That seems an innocent enough question.  However, in today’s passage, Moses asks God what if the Israelites don’t believe that God spoke with him.  Then, after God gives him three signs to perform for the people, Moses complains that he is not eloquent or a good speaker.  Finally, Moses outright asks God to send someone else.  Which leads us to the conclusion that Moses did not ask any of these questions in order to get an answer.  Rather they were excuses to not undertake the mission which God had given him.  Now, except for the last two, these were good questions.  When God gives us a mission we should ask those questions, but we should do so believing that God has an answer for them.

God’s answer to Moses’ complaint about not being eloquent is one to which we should pay close attention.  God told Moses that it was He that gave people voices or made them mute.  It was He that allowed them to hear or made them deaf, and it was He who gave them sight or made them blind.  Therefore, He would give Moses the words to speak and help him say them.  God did not choose Moses because of his skills.  God gave Moses his skills because He had chosen him.  In the same way, God does not call us for tasks because we have the skills to execute the tasks.  Whatever the reason God has called us to a task, He will give us the skills to execute that task.  God calls us for tasks in order to demonstrate His power.  At the end of today’s passage, when Moses asks God why Pharaoh would listen to him, God answers, “Because I AM THE LORD.”  His answer to us when we ask Him how we will be able to accomplish the task He has given us, or why people will listen to us when we speak the message He has given us is the same.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Exodus 4-6.

Part of this passage confuses me.  When Moses left his father-in-law it tells us that he took his wife and sons (note the plural there) with him.  A couple of verses later, the passage says that the Lord met “him” (which the translators decided meant Moses, and probably does) and was about to kill him.  The only reason the Lord did not kill Moses was because Zipporah circumcised her son (note the singular there) with a flint knife.  I am confused by the fact that God had sent Moses to Egypt but now was seeking to kill him.  Why was the Lord seeking to kill Moses here?  Was it because his son was uncircumcised?  Were both of his sons uncircumcised, or just the one?   The best explanation I have seen for this is that these few verses were part of a larger account which has been lost to us over time.  As best I can make it out, Moses had failed, for one reason or another, to circumcise the younger of his two sons (there is no biblical basis for it being the younger, that is just what makes sense to me). God could not have his representative not be in compliance with the rules he had laid down for the descendants of Abraham.  I further speculate that Moses had not circumcised his son for one of two reasons.  First, he did not circumcise him because Zipporah objected.  Second, maybe Zipporah had wanted Moses to circumcise his sons (she was also a descendant of Abraham by way of Midian whose mother was Keturah), but Moses did not do so(perhaps only refusing on one of the sons).  Both of these explanations would explain why Zipporah was the one to perform the circumcision here when Moses was apparently unable to do so.  Another factor in our trouble understanding this account is that it was written in Hebrew more than 3,000 years ago.  We may lack some understanding of the words used which may have been common at that time which would have made the meaning more clear.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Exodus 4-6.

In yesterday’s passage it mentions that Moses discovered an Egyptian beating an Israelite and Moses killed the Egyptian.  This resulted in Moses needing to flee Egypt.  It has struck me for some time that Moses killed the Egyptian because he was feeling God’s calling to help his people, but it was not God’s timing.  On two occasions in today’s passage Moses objects to God sending him to speak to Pharaoh because he is not well-spoken.  The first time Moses used his lack of eloquence as his last excuse in an attempt to convince God that he was the wrong man for the job.  God replied that since He had made people able to speak in the first place, He would be able to give Moses the ability to say the right thing at the right time: Moses only needed to put his faith in God.  The second time Moses used his inability to speak eloquently was after Pharaoh had rejected his initial request and the Israelites blamed Moses for Pharaoh’s reaction.  Moses had tried to do God’s will and had failed (as people would look at things).  At this point, Moses had “failed” twice to help the Israelites, once as a young man and now a second time as a mature adult.  He would “fail” nine more times before God would give him success.  These first two failures both made Moses want to give up, but God had other plans for him.  I want to highlight that even though from a human perspective Moses failed eleven times before he accomplished what he set out to do only the first of those failures was a actually a failure.  The first time Moses attempted to help his fellow Israelites, he acted on his own.  The other times he acted according to God’s command, and his “failure” was not a failure.  It was part of God’s plan.  So, if God has given you a mission and things do not go as you think they should do not be convinced that you have failed.  Continue to do God’s will, even when it doesn’t “work”, because success in God’s eyes is often not the same as success in our eyes.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Exodus 4-6.

There are two main points in this passage which I want to highlight today.  First, Moses did not want to go back to Egypt.  He was content with his life as a shepherd of Midian.  Each of his objections was just an excuse.  He raised issues which had validity, but once God had addressed them, Moses begged God to send someone else.  Yet, when God insisted, Moses went.  Second, when Moses confronted Pharaoh, things got worse for the Israelites, not better.  We need to remember that this is often the case when God begins to act.  Generally, God does not begin to make things better until the situation is such that no one can take credit for the change.  So that we know things got better through God’s action, not because of ours.  Really, these two points are related.  God chose Moses to rescue the Israelites because Moses knew that he did not have the skills to accomplish it on his own.  And God allowed Pharaoh to make things worse so that everyone would see that the Israelites were released through God’s power, not Pharaoh’s good will.

I initially said there were only two points I wanted to touch on.  However, as I re-read to write the above I was struck by the fact that Moses had not circumcised his sons until he was returning to Egypt.  Further, it is interesting that it was his Midianite wife who did so when she perceived that God was angry with Moses.  The reason this is significant is that the Midianites were also descended from Abraham (by way of Midian, who was born to Keturah who Abraham married after the death of Sarah).  Further, Moses’ father-in-law was a priest of God.  Did Moses not circumcise his sons because the Midianites did not circumcise their sons?  But if that was the reason, how did his wife know to do so in this situation?  Just some food for thought.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Exodus 4-6.

I wrote yesterday about Moses’ reluctance to following God’s calling to go back to Egypt.  He continues with that in today’s passage, but I am not going to spend any more time on that. Except for this bit to encourage you to think about Moses’ interaction in today’s passage.

What I want to focus on is Pharaohs answer when Moses first demanded he let the Israelites to worship God and God’s answer to Moses when Moses complained that going to Pharaoh had just made things worse.  Pharaoh responded to Moses and Aaron by saying, “Who is he? and why should I listen to what he says?”  Some context, the Pharaohs considered themselves the son of one of their gods, usually the chief god.  They were the ultimate authority on what the gods wanted.  So, really what Pharaoh was saying was, “Who are you to speak on behalf of the gods?” 

Which brings us to God’s answer, the answer He gives to everyone who doubts His power and authority.  To understand that answer we need to consider the Hebrew derivation of God’s name, Yahweh or YHWH.  YHWH is closely related to the Hebrew word for “to be”.  When God told Moses, “I am YHWH,” He was telling him that He was that which is, that everything else existed only because He existed.  Pharaoh rejected God’s authority over him.  Moses went to God and said, in essence, “See, I told you so. I am not the right man to convince Pharaoh.”  God’s answer was that Pharaoh had no more ability to reject doing His will than he had of rejecting gravity.