EXODUS 4 COMMETARY EDITED BY GLE PEASE ITRODUCTIO COFFMA, "This great chapter gives a prophetic summary of the deliverance of Israel before the events actually happened. In Exodus 3, God dealt with two of Moses' objections: (1) Who am I? and (2) What is thy name? And here, three other objections are encountered and dealt with: (3) "They will not believe" (Exodus 4:1); (4) "I am not eloquent" (Exodus 4:10); and (5) "Send ... by the hand of whom thou wilt send" (Exodus 4:13). These latter three objections are topic sentences of the sections where they occur. All objections having been disposed of, Moses asked and received Jethro's permission to return to Egypt; he was assured by the Lord that the enemies who sought his life were dead; he began the journey, taking along his wife Zipporah and their two sons Gershom and Eliezer, the latter of which Moses had neglected to circumcise (Exodus 4:18-23). On the way to Egypt, God taught Moses that His law was not merely for the people, but for their leaders also, smiting him with some kind of a fatal malady, which both Zipporah and Moses recognized as punishment for failure to circumcise Eliezer, whereupon Zipporah circumcised him at once; and God permitted the resumption of the journey (Exodus 4:24-26). However, at this point, Moses decided to send Zipporah and the children back to Midian, and continued the journey alone. God instructed Aaron to go and meet Moses, where Moses gave him a full account of all that had happened; and, together, they went before the elders of Israel, who believed them, and thus the stage was set for the great series of miracles that would result in the deliverance of Israel from Egyptian slavery (Exodus 4:27-31). Signs for Moses 1 Moses answered, “What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you’?” BARES, "With this chapter begins the series of miracles which resulted in the
1. EXODUS 4 COMME TARY EDITED BY GLE PEASE I TRODUCTIO COFFMA ,
"This great chapter gives a prophetic summary of the deliverance of
Israel before the events actually happened. In Exodus 3, God dealt
with two of Moses' objections: (1) Who am I? and (2) What is thy
name? And here, three other objections are encountered and dealt
with: (3) "They will not believe" (Exodus 4:1); (4) "I am not
eloquent" (Exodus 4:10); and (5) "Send ... by the hand of whom thou
wilt send" (Exodus 4:13). These latter three objections are topic
sentences of the sections where they occur. All objections having
been disposed of, Moses asked and received Jethro's permission to
return to Egypt; he was assured by the Lord that the enemies who
sought his life were dead; he began the journey, taking along his
wife Zipporah and their two sons Gershom and Eliezer, the latter of
which Moses had neglected to circumcise (Exodus 4:18-23). On the
way to Egypt, God taught Moses that His law was not merely for the
people, but for their leaders also, smiting him with some kind of a
fatal malady, which both Zipporah and Moses recognized as
punishment for failure to circumcise Eliezer, whereupon Zipporah
circumcised him at once; and God permitted the resumption of the
journey (Exodus 4:24-26). However, at this point, Moses decided to
send Zipporah and the children back to Midian, and continued the
journey alone. God instructed Aaron to go and meet Moses, where
Moses gave him a full account of all that had happened; and,
together, they went before the elders of Israel, who believed them,
and thus the stage was set for the great series of miracles that
would result in the deliverance of Israel from Egyptian slavery
(Exodus 4:27-31). Signs for Moses 1 Moses answered, What if they do
not believe me or listen to me and say, The Lord did not appear to
you? BAR ES, "With this chapter begins the series of miracles which
resulted in the
2. deliverance of Israel. The first miracle was performed to
remove the first obstacle, namely, the reluctance of Moses,
conscious of his own weakness, and of the enormous power with which
he would have to contend. CLARKE, "They will not believe me - As if
he had said, Unless I be enabled to work miracles, and give them
proofs by extraordinary works as well as by words, they will not
believe that thou hast sent me. GILL, "And Moses answered and
said,.... In reference to what Jehovah had declared to him in the
latter end of the preceding chapter: but, behold, they will not
believe me, nor hearken to my voice; this seems to contradict what
God had said to him, Exo_3:18 that they would hearken to his voice;
but it can hardly be thought, that so good a man, and so great a
prophet as Moses was, would directly fly in the face of God, and
expressly contradict what he had said. To reconcile this it may be
observed, that what the Lord says respects only the elders of
Israel, this all the people; or Jehovah's meaning may be, and so
this of Moses, that neither the one nor the other would regard his
bare word, without some sign or miracle being wrought; for as his
call was extraordinary, so it required something extraordinary to
be done that it might be credited: for they will say, the Lord hath
not appeared unto me: in the bush, as he would affirm he did, and
might do it with the greatest assurance; yet the thing being so
marvellous, and they not eyewitnesses of it, might distrust the
truth of it, or be backward to receive it on his bare word; and
this Moses might rather fear would be the case, from the experience
he had had of them forty years ago, when it was more likely for him
to have been a deliverer of them. HE RY, "It was a very great
honour that Moses was called to when God commissioned him to bring
Israel out of Egypt; yet he is with difficulty persuaded to accept
the commission, and does it at last with great reluctance, which we
should rather impute to a humble diffidence of himself and his own
sufficiency than to any unbelieving distrust of God and his word
and power. Note, Those whom God designs for preferment he clothes
with humility; the most fit for service are the least forward. I.
Moses objects that in all probability the people would not hearken
to his voice (Exo_4:1), that is, they would not take his bare word,
unless he showed them some sign, which he had not been yet
instructed to do. This objection cannot be justified, because it
contradicts what God had said (Exo_3:18), They shall hearken to thy
voice. If God says, They will, does it become Moses to say, They
will not? Surely he means, Perhaps they will not at first, or some
of them will not. If there should be some gainsayers among them who
would question his commission, how should he deal with them? And
what course should he take to convince them? He remembered how they
had once rejected him, and feared it would be so again. Note, 1.
Present discouragements often arise from former disappointments. 2.
Wise and good men have sometimes a worse opinion of people than
they deserve. Moses sad (Exo_4:1), They will not believe me; and
yet he was happily mistaken, for it is said (Exo_4:31), The people
believed; but then the signs which God appointed in answer to this
objection were first wrought in their sight.
3. JAMISO , "Exo_4:1-31. Miraculous change of the rod, etc.
But, behold Hebrew, If, perhaps, they will not believe me. - What
evidence can I produce of my divine mission? There was still a want
of full confidence, not in the character and divine power of his
employer, but in His presence and power always accompanying him. He
insinuated that his communication might be rejected and he himself
treated as an impostor. K&D, "Moses now started a fresh
difficulty: the Israelites would not believe that Jehovah had
appeared to him. There was so far a reason for this difficulty,
that from the time of Jacob-an interval, therefore, of 430 years -
God had never appeared to any Israelite. God therefore removed it
by giving him three signs by which he might attest his divine
mission to his people. These three signs were intended indeed for
the Israelites, to convince them of the reality of the appearance
of Jehovah to Moses; at the same time, as even Ephraem Syrus
observed, they also served to strengthen Moses' faith, and
dissipate his fears as to the result of his mission. For it was
apparent enough that Moses did not possess true and entire
confidence in God, from the fact that he still raised this
difficulty, and distrusted the divine assurance, They will hearken
to thy voice, Exo_3:18). And finally, these signs were intended for
Pharaoh, as is stated in Exo_4:21; and to him the () were to become
(). By these signs Moses was installed as the servant of Jehovah
(Exo_14:31), and furnished with divine power, with which he could
and was to appear before the children of Israel and Pharaoh as the
messenger of Jehovah. The character of the three signs corresponded
to this intention. CALVI , "1.And Moses answered. Moses relates in
this chapter how hesitatingly he obeyed God, not from stubbornness,
but from timidity, for he does not shake off the yoke, as unruly
beasts do, but shrinks away from it, that it may not be placed upon
him. (50) And hence we may better perceive under what infirmity he
labored, so that his faith was almost stifled. On the one side, he
was willing and ready to obey; but when the arduous difficulties of
his task presented themselves, he could not escape from this
conflict until he had exhausted all efforts to escape. or indeed
can we greatly wonder that he resisted for a time, since he could
see scarcely any advantage in his undertaking. I admit that he
ought to have proceeded according to Gods command, even with his
eyes shut, since on His will alone all believers are bound to
depend; he ought not to have judged of a thing (in itself)
incredible, from his own reasoning, but from the voice of God. or,
in point of fact, did he either refuse to credit Gods words, or
wish to reject the burden imposed upon him; but when, on the other
hand, he beheld dangers from which he could not disentangle
himself, his mind was thus a prey to distracting feelings. either
is there any believer who is not often drawn into such harassing
discussions, whenever his mind is darkened by the perception of
obstacles. There was, therefore, in the mind of Moses, willingness
and zeal, though alacrity and firmness were wanting; because
through his weakness he was compelled to hold back by the
hinderances which presented themselves. We must carefully
distinguish between the timidity which delays our progress and the
bold refusal which is allied to contempt. Many, in flying from
trouble, are so withheld from duty, that they grow hardened in
their
4. inactivity; while those who desire to act rightly, although
through anxiety and fear they apparently recoil, still aspire to
ulterior progress, and, in a word, do not so far alternate as to
withdraw themselves altogether from the command of God. Moses
seems, indeed, to murmur, and to enter into altercation with God;
but whether this were audacity or simplicity, there was more of
modesty in it, than as if he had hidden himself in silence, as we
have said that many do, who by their silence only strengthen
themselves in the liberty to disobey. This was clearly his object,
that he might afterwards be more fitted to proceed. The holy man
was very anxious, because he knew from experience that his
countrymen were depraved, and almost intractable; disburdening
himself, then, of this anxiety into the bosom of God, he desires to
be confirmed by a fresh promise, so that he may be freed from this
impediment, and proceed with alacrity. ELLICOTT, "(1) Behold.Some
render the word here used by perhaps (LXX., Aben-Ezra, Saadia,
&c); but it does not appear to have anywhere this meaning.
Moses meant to express a positive conviction that he would not be
listened to. His faith was weak. They will say, The Lord hath not
appeared.It is very probable that the people would have said this
if Moses had not had any credentials to produce. It is even
possible that they did say it. There had been no appearance of
Jehovah to any one for above four hundred years, and they might
well think that the age of miracles was past. Miracles cluster
around certain crises in Gods dealings with man, ceasing alto
gether between one crisis and another. They were suspended for
above 500 years between the time of Daniel and the appearance of
the angel to Zacharias. TRAPP, "Exodus 4:1 And Moses answered and
said, But, behold, they will not believe me, nor hearken unto my
voice: for they will say, The LORD hath not appeared unto thee.
Ver. 1. They will not believe me.] They had formerly refused him,
"and thrust him away." [Exodus 2:14 Acts 7:27] And so they might
again, if he had not somewhat to show for his extraordinary
calling. (a) In the year 434, the Jews of Crete were shamefully
seduced by a pseudo-Moses, who promised to divide the sea for them
to bring them back to their own country. (b) Those that will not
receive the love of the truth, are justly given up to the efficacy
of error. [2 Thessalonians 2:10-11] COFFMA , ""And Moses answered
and said, But, behold, they will not believe me, nor hearken to my
voice; for they will say, Jehovah hath not appeared unto thee."
Moses, in these verses, records his sins and weakness with the same
fullness and impartiality seen in all that he wrote. That Moses was
clearly at fault here lies in the fact that God had already assured
him that the people would believe him (Exodus 3:18). In respect to
the natural weakness of the flesh, God was not displeased with him,
but gave three signs, which however discernible in later wonders,
were here specifically for the purpose of establishing Moses' faith
and removing his objections.
5. The three were: (1) the rod-serpent; (2) the leprosy, and
(3) the water changed to blood. "They will not believe me ..." This
is quite a human thing that Moses did here. When looked at purely
from the human standpoint, what God was requiring of Moses was
absolutely impossible. Only one man, without money, without troops,
without military experience, or without anything else that men
would have considered necessary, Moses had been commissioned to
deliver 2,000,000 slaves from bondage, thus depriving their earthy
lords of fantastic benefits and profits! As Ellison pointed out,
however, ministers of God today are often inclined to shirk their
own duties by blaming what they consider to be the shortcomings and
faithlessness of the church members, "and think that this absolves
(them) from their responsibilities."[1] Sure, Moses displayed a
weakness of faith here, but, as Fields pointed out, "Moses finally
obeyed, and because he is called a man of faith (Hebrews 11:24-29),
we are reluctant to say he lacked faith."[2] "This weakness of
Moses magnified the power of God, making GOD, not Moses, the Hero
and Mover in the Book of Exodus."[3] COKE, "Exodus 4:1. Moses
answeredbehold, they will not believe me The plain meaning of these
words, as is evident from the miracles which God immediately
wrought, and gave Moses also power to perform, is, that his bare
word would be insufficient to convince the people, without some
extraordinary signs to confirm the truth of his mission: "the
people will say, the LORD hath not appeared unto thee: if he had,
he would certainly have enabled thee to give some sign: shew us
therefore such a sign, or we will not believe or regard thy voice."
This is so natural an interpretation of the passage, that, I think,
it renders useless Bishop Warburton's conjecture, that the
backwardness of Moses proceeded from his thinking the recovery of
the Israelites, from Egyptian superstition, altogether deliberate.
CO STABLE 1-5, "God gave Moses three miracles to convince the
Israelites that the God of their fathers had appeared to him. They
also served to bolster Moses" faith. Moses had left Egypt and the
Israelites with a clouded reputation under the sentence of death,
and he had been away for a long time. He needed to prove to his
brethren that they could trust and believe him. ot only were these
miracles strong proofs of God"s power, but they appear to have had
special significance for the Israelites as well (cf. Exodus 4:8). [
ote: See Johnson, p55; et al.] God probably intended the first
miracle, of the staff and serpent ( Exodus 4:2-5), to assure Moses
and the Israelites that He was placing the satanic power of Egypt
under his authoritative control. This was the power before which
Moses had previously fled. Moses" shepherd staff became a symbol of
authority in his hand, a virtual scepter. The serpent represented
the deadly power of Egypt that sought to kill the Israelites, and
Moses in particular. The Pharaohs wore a metal cobra around their
heads. It was a common symbol of the nation of Egypt. However the
serpent also stood for the great enemy of man behind that power,
Satan, who had been the foe of the seed of the woman since the Fall
( Genesis 3:15). Moses" ability to turn the serpent into his rod by
seizing its tail would have encouraged the
6. Israelites. They should have believed that God had enabled
him to overcome the cunning and might of Egypt and to exercise
authority over its fearful power. This was a sign that God would
bless Moses" leadership. PULPIT, "The reluctance of Moses to
undertake the part of leader, indicated by his first reply at his
first calling, "Who am I that I should go?" etc. (Exodus 3:11), was
not yet overcome. God had promised that he would succeed; but he
did not see how he could succeed, either with the people or with
Pharaoh. It was not enough for him that God had declared, "They
(the people) shall hearken unto thy voice" (Exodus 3:18); he does
not, cannot believe this, and replies: "Behold, they will not
believe, neither hearken unto my voice" (Exodus 4:1). This was
plain want of faith; but not unnatural, and not, in God's sight,
inexcusable. God therefore condescended to the human weakness of
his servant, and proceeded to show him how he intended that he
should persuade the people of his mission. He should persuade them
by producing the credentials of miracles (Exodus 4:2-9). But the
laggard heart finds yet a further objection. Moses feels that he
labours under a personal defect, which (he thinks) is an absolute
disqualification. He is "slow of speech and of a slow tongue"
(Exodus 4:10), has always been wanting in eloquence, and does not
find himself any the more eloquent since God has been speaking with
him. In vain does Jehovah promise to "be with his mouth" (Exodus
4:12); Moses' last word indicates all the old feeling of
self-distrust. "Send, I pray thee, by the hand of him whom thou
wilt send" (Exodus 4:13). Then at last the anger of the Lord is
kindled against Moses, and God inflicts on him a sort of
punishmentdegrades him; as it weredeposes him from the position of
sole leader, and associates Aaron with him in such sort that Aaron
must have appeared, both to the Israelites and to the Pharaoh, as
the chief leader rather than Moses. (See Exodus 4:30; Exodus 7:2,
Exodus 7:10, Exodus 7:19; Exodus 8:6, Exodus 8:17, etc.) At this
point the interview between Moses and Jehovah ends, and the action
of the Exodus commences. Moses obtains leave to quit Midian, and
quits itretires to Egypt, after escaping from a dangerous sickness
on the way (Exodus 4:24-26), is met by Aaron and takes him into his
counsels, summons the elders and exhibits before them his
miraculous powers, persuades them, and is finally accepted as
having, with Aaron, a mission from God, both by the elders and the
people. Exodus 4:1 Behold, they will not believe. Attempts have
been made to soften down this contradiction of God's words in
Exodus 3:18, and to represent Moses as merely saying, "What if the
people will not hearken, etc. What shall I do then?" (So the LXX;
Geddes, Boothroyd, and others.) But the phrase is really emphatic
and peremptory. As Rosenmuller says: "Vox est negantis et
detrac-tantis officium." The Lord hath not appeared to thee. It is
quite probable that the Israelites would have so spoken, if Moses
had had no sign to show. There had been no appearance of Jehovah to
anyone for above four hundred years. And the Israelites, who had
not seen Moses for forty years, would not know whether he was a
veracious person or not.
7. EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE COMME TARY, "MOSES HESITATES. Exodus
4:1-17. Holy Scripture is impartial, even towards its heroes. The
sin of David is recorded, and the failure of Peter. And so is the
reluctance of Moses to accept his commission, even after a miracle
had been vouchsafed to him for encouragement. The absolute
sinlessness of Jesus is the more significant because it is found in
the records of a creed which knows of no idealised humanity. In
Josephus, the refusal of Moses is softened down. Even the modest
words, "Lord, I am still in doubt how I, a private man and of no
abilities, should persuade my countrymen or Pharaoh," are not
spoken after the sign is given. or is there any mention of the
transfer to Aaron of a part of his commission, nor of their joint
offence at Meribah, nor of its penalty, which in Scripture is
bewailed so often. And Josephus is equally tender about the
misdeeds of the nation. We hear nothing of their murmurs against
Moses and Aaron when their burdens are increased, or of their
making the golden calf. Whereas it is remarkable and natural that
the fear of Moses is less anxious about his reception by the tyrant
than by his own people: "Behold, they will not believe me, nor
hearken unto my voice; for they will say, The Lord hath not
appeared unto thee." This is very unlike the invention of a later
period, glorifying the beginnings of the nation; but it is
absolutely true to life. Great men do not fear the wrath of enemies
if they can be secured against the indifference and contempt of
friends; and Moses in particular was at last persuaded to undertake
his mission by the promise of the support of Aaron. His hesitation
is therefore the earliest example of what has been so often since
observed--the discouragement of heroes, reformers and messengers
from God, less by fear of the attacks of the world than of the
contemptuous scepticism of the people of God. We often sigh for the
appearing, in our degenerate days, of "A man with heart, head,
hand, Like some of the simple great ones gone." Yet who shall say
that the want of them is not our own fault? The critical apathy and
incredulity, not of the world but of the Church, is what freezes
the fountains of Christian daring and the warmth of Christian zeal.
For the help of the faith of his people, Moses is commissioned to
work two miracles; and he is caused to rehearse them, for his own.
Strange tales were told among the later Jews about his
wonder-working rod. It was cut by Adam before leaving Paradise, was
brought by oah into the ark, passed into Egypt with Joseph, and was
recovered by Moses while he enjoyed the favour of the court. These
legends arose from downright moral inability to receive the true
lesson of the incident, which is the confronting of the sceptre of
Egypt with the simple staff of the shepherd, the choosing of the
weak things of earth to confound the strong, the power of God to
work His miracles by the most puny and inadequate means.
8. Anything was more credible than that He who led His people
like sheep did indeed guide them with a common shepherd's crook.
And yet this was precisely the lesson meant for us to learn--the
glorification of poor resources in the grasp of faith. Both
miracles were of a menacing kind. First the rod became a serpent,
to declare that at God's bidding enemies would rise up against the
oppressor, even where all seemed innocuous, as in truth the waters
of the river and the dust of the furnace and the winds of heaven
conspired against him. Then, in the grasp of Moses, the serpent
from which he fled became a rod again, to intimate that these
avenging forces were subject to the servant of Jehovah. Again, his
hand became leprous in his bosom, and was presently restored to
health again--a declaration that he carried with him the power of
death, in its most dreadful form; and perhaps a still more solemn
admonition to those who remember what leprosy betokens, and how
every approach of God to man brings first the knowledge of sin, to
be followed by the assurance that He has cleansed it.(7) If the
people would not hearken to the voice of the first sign, they
should believe the second; but at the worst, and if they were still
unconvinced, they would believe when they saw the water of the ile,
the pride and glory of their oppressors, turned into blood before
their eyes. That was an omen which needs no interpretation. What
follows is curious. Moses objects that he has not hitherto been
eloquent, nor does he experience any improvement "since Thou hast
spoken unto Thy servant" (a graphic touch!), and he seems to
suppose that the popular choice between liberty and slavery would
depend less upon the evidence of a Divine power than upon sleight
of tongue, as if he were in modern England. But let it be observed
that the self-consciousness which wears the mask of humility while
refusing to submit its judgment to that of God, is a form of
selfishness--self- absorption blinding one to other considerations
beyond himself--as real, though not as hateful, as greed and
avarice and lust. How can Moses call himself slow of speech and of
a slow tongue, when Stephen distinctly declares that he was mighty
in word as well as deed? (Acts 7:22). Perhaps it is enough to
answer that many years of solitude in a strange land had robbed him
of his fluency. Perhaps Stephen had in mind the words of the Book
of Wisdom, that "Wisdom entered into the soul of the servant of the
Lord, and withstood dreadful kings in wonders and signs.... For
Wisdom opened the mouth of the dumb, and made the tongues of them
that cannot speak eloquent" (Wisdom of Solomon 10:16; Wisdom of
Solomon 10:21). To his scruple the answer was returned, "Who hath
made man's mouth?... Have not I the Lord? ow therefore go, and I
will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say." The
same encouragement belongs to every one who truly executes a
mandate from above: "Lo, I am with you alway." For surely this
encouragement is the same. Surely Jesus did not mean to offer His
own presence as a substitute for that of God, but as being in very
truth Divine, when He bade His disciples, in
9. reliance upon Him, to go forth and convert the world. And
this is the true test which divides faith from presumption, and
unbelief from prudence: do we go because God is with us in Christ,
or because we ourselves are strong and wise? Do we hold back
because we are not sure of His commission, or only because we
distrust ourselves? "Humility without faith is too timorous; faith
without humility is too hasty." The phrase explains the conduct of
Moses both now and forty years before. Moses, however, still
entreats that any one may be chosen rather than himself: "Send, I
pray Thee, by the hand of him whom Thou wilt send." And thereupon
the anger of the Lord was kindled against him, although at the
moment his only visible punishment was the partial granting of his
prayer--the association with him in his commission of Aaron, who
could speak well, the forfeiting of a certain part of his vocation,
and with it of a certain part of its reward. The words, "Is not
Aaron thy brother the Levite?" have been used to insinuate that the
tribal arrangement was not perfected when they were written, and so
to discredit the narrative. But when so interpreted they yield no
adequate sense, they do not reinforce the argument; while they are
perfectly intelligible as implying that Aaron is already the leader
of his tribe, and therefore sure to obtain the hearing of which
Moses despaired. But the arrangement involved grave consequences
sure to be developed in due time: among others, the reliance of
Israel upon a feebler will, which could be forced by their clamour
to make them a calf of gold. Moses was yet to learn that lesson
which our century knows nothing of,--that a speaker and a leader of
nations are not the same. When he cried to Aaron, in the bitterness
of his soul, "What did this people to thee, that thou hast brought
so great a sin upon them?" did he remember by whose unfaithfulness
Aaron had been thrust into the office, the responsibilities of
which he had betrayed? ow, it is the duty of every man, to whom a
special vocation presents itself, to set opposite each other two
considerations. Dare I undertake this task? is a solemn question,
but so is this: Dare I let this task go past me? Am I prepared for
the responsibility of allowing it to drift into weaker hands? These
are days when the Church of Christ is calling for the help of every
one capable of aiding her, and we ought to hear it said more often
that one is afraid not to teach in Sunday School, and another dares
not refuse a proffered district, and a third fears to leave
charitable tasks undone. To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth
it not, to him it is sin; and we hear too much about the terrible
responsibility of working for God, but too little about the still
graver responsibility of refusing to work for Him when called.
Moses indeed attained so much that we are scarcely conscious that
he might have been greater still. He had once presumed to go
unsent, and brought upon himself the exile of half a lifetime.
Again he presumed almost to say, I go not, and well-nigh to incur
the guilt of Jonah when sent to ineveh, and in so doing he
forfeited the fulness of his vocation. But who reaches the level of
his possibilities? Who is not haunted by faces, "each one a
murdered self," a nobler self, that might have been,
10. and is now impossible for ever? Only Jesus could say "I
have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do." And it is
notable that while Jesus deals, in the parable of the labourers,
with the problem of equal faithfulness during longer and shorter
periods of employment; and in the parable of the pounds with that
of equal endowment variously improved; and yet again, in the
parable of the talents, with the problem of various endowments all
doubled alike, He always draws a veil over the treatment of five
talents which earn but two or three besides. A more cheerful
reflection suggested by this narrative is the strange power of
human fellowship. Moses knew and was persuaded that God, Whose
presence was even then miraculously apparent in the bush, and Who
had invested him with superhuman powers, would go with him. There
is no trace of incredulity in his behaviour, but only of failure to
rely, to cast his shrinking and reluctant will upon the truth he
recognised and the God Whose presence he confessed. He held back,
as many a one does, who is honest when he repeats the Creed in
church, yet fails to submit his life to the easy yoke of Jesus. or
is it from physical peril that he recoils: at the bidding of God he
has just grasped the serpent from which he fled; and in confronting
a tyrant with armies at his back, he could hope for small
assistance from his brother. But highly strung spirits, in every
great crisis, are aware of vague indefinite apprehensions that are
not cowardly but imaginative. Thus C sar, when defying the hosts of
Pompey, is said to have been disturbed by an apparition. It is vain
to put these apprehensions into logical form, and argue them down:
the slowness of speech of Moses was surely refuted by the presence
of God, Who makes the mouth and inspires the utterance; but such
fears lie deeper than the reasons they assign, and when argument
fails, will yet stubbornly repeat their cry: "Send, I pray Thee, by
the hand of him whom Thou wilt send." ow this shrinking, which is
not craven, is dispelled by nothing so effectually as by the touch
of a human hand. It is like the voice of a friend to one beset by
ghostly terrors: he does not expect his comrade to exorcise a
spirit, and yet his apprehensions are dispelled. Thus Moses cannot
summon up courage from the protection of God, but when assured of
the companionship of his brother he will not only venture to return
to Egypt, but will bring with him his wife and children. Thus,
also, He Who knew what was in men's hearts sent forth His
missionaries, both the Twelve and the Seventy (as we have yet to
learn the true economy of sending ours), "by two and two" (Mark
6:7; Luke 10:1). This is the principle which underlies the
institution of the Church of Christ, and the conception that
Christians are brothers, among whom the strong must help the weak.
Such help from their fellow-mortals would perhaps decide the choice
of many hesitating souls, upon the verge of the divine life,
recoiling from its unknown and dread experiences, but longing for a
sympathising comrade. Alas for the unkindly and unsympathetic
religion of men whose faith has never warmed a human heart, and of
congregations in which emotion is a misdemeanour! There is no
stronger force, among all that make for the abuses of priestcraft,
than this same yearning for human help becomes when robbed of its
proper nourishment, which is the communion of saints, and the
pastoral care of souls. Has
11. it no further nourishment than these? This instinctive
craving for a Brother to help as well as a Father to direct and
govern,--this social instinct, which banished the fears of Moses
and made him set out for Egypt long before Aaron came in sight,
content when assured of Aaron's co-operation,--is there nothing in
God Himself to respond to it? He Who is not ashamed to call us
brethren has profoundly modified the Church's conception of
Jehovah, the Eternal, Absolute and Unconditioned. It is because He
can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, that we are
bidden to draw near with boldness unto the Throne of Grace. There
is no heart so lonely that it cannot commune with the lofty and
kind humanity of Jesus. There is a homelier lesson to be learned.
Moses was not only solaced by human fellowship, but nerved and
animated by the thought of his brother, and the mention of his
tribe. "Is not Aaron thy brother the Levite?" They had not met for
forty years. Vague rumours of deadly persecution were doubtless all
that had reached the fugitive, whose heart had burned, in solitary
communion with ature in her sternest forms, as he brooded over the
wrongs of his family, of Aaron, and perhaps of Miriam. And now his
brother lived. The call which Moses would have put from him was for
the emancipation of his own flesh and blood, and for their
greatness. In that great hour, domestic affection did much to turn
the scale wherein the destinies of humanity were trembling. And his
was affection well returned. It might easily have been otherwise,
for Aaron had seen his younger brother called to a dazzling
elevation, living in enviable magnificence, and earning fame by
"word and deed"; and then, after a momentary fusion of sympathy and
of condition, forty years had poured between them a torrent of
cares and joys estranging because unshared. But it was promised
that Aaron, when he saw him, should be glad at heart; and the words
throw a beam of exquisite light into the depths of the mighty soul
which God inspired to emancipate Israel and to found His Church, by
thoughts of his brother's joy on meeting him. Let no man dream of
attaining real greatness by stifling his affections. The heart is
more important than the intellect; and the brief story of the
Exodus has room for the yearning of Jochebed over her infant "when
she saw him that he was a goodly child," for the bold inspiration
of the young poetess, who "stood afar off to know what should be
done to him," and now for the love of Aaron. So the Virgin, in the
dread hour of her reproach, went in haste to her cousin Elizabeth.
So Andrew "findeth first his own brother Simon." And so the Divine
Sufferer, forsaken of God, did not forsake His mother. The Bible is
full of domestic life. It is the theme of the greater part of
Genesis, which makes the family the seed-plot of the Church. It is
wisely recognised again at the moment when the larger pulse of the
nation begins to beat. For the life-blood in the heart of a nation
must be the blood in the hearts of men. Verses 18-31 MOSES
OBEYS.
12. Exodus 4:18-31. Moses is now commissioned: he is to go to
Egypt, and Aaron is coming thence to meet him. Yet he first returns
to Midian, to Jethro, who is both his employer and the head of the
family, and prays him to sanction his visit to his own people.
There are duties which no family resistance can possibly cancel,
and the direct command of God made it plain that this was one of
them. But there are two ways of performing even the most imperative
obligation, and religious people have done irreparable mischief
before now, by rudeness, disregard to natural feeling and the
rights of their fellow-men, under the impression that they showed
their allegiance to God by outraging other ties. It is a theory for
which no sanction can be found either in Holy Scripture or in
common sense. When he asks permission to visit "his brethren" we
cannot say whether he ever had brothers besides Aaron, or uses the
word in the same larger national sense as when we read that, forty
years before, he went out unto his brethren and saw their burdens.
What is to be observed is that he is reticent with respect to his
vast expectations and designs. He does not argue that, because a
Divine promise must needs be fulfilled, he need not be discreet,
wary and taciturn, any more than St. Paul supposed, because the
lives of his shipmates were promised to him, that it mattered
nothing whether the sailors remained on board. The decrees of God
have sometimes been used to justify the recklessness of man, but
never by His chosen followers. They have worked out their own
salvation the more earnestly because God worked in them. And every
good cause calls aloud for human energy and wisdom, all the more
because its consummation is the will of God, and sooner or later is
assured. Moses has unlearned his rashness. When the Lord said unto
Moses in Midian, "Go, return unto Egypt, for all the men are dead
which sought thy life," there is an almost verbal resemblance to
the words in which the infant Jesus is recalled from exile. We
shall have to consider the typical aspect of the whole narrative,
when a convenient stage is reached for pausing to survey it in its
completeness. But resemblances like this have been treated with so
much scorn, they have been so freely perverted into evidence of the
mythical nature of the later story, that some passing allusion
appears desirable. We must beware equally of both extremes. The Old
Testament is tortured, and genuine prophecies are made no better
than coincidences, when coincidences are exalted to all the dignity
of express predictions. One can scarcely venture to speak of the
death of Herod when Jesus was to return from Egypt, as being
deliberately typified in the death of those who sought the life of
Moses. But it is quite clear that the words in St. Matthew do
intentionally point the reader back to this narrative. For, indeed,
under both, there are to be recognised the same principles: that
God does not thrust His servants into needless or excessive peril;
and that when the life of a tyrant has really
13. become not only a trial but a barrier, it will be removed
by the King of kings. God is prudent for His heroes. Moreover, we
must recognise the lofty fitness of what is very visible in the
Gospels-- the coming to a head in Christ of the various experiences
of the people of God; and at the recurrence, in His story, of
events already known elsewhere, we need not be disquieted, as if
the suspicion of a myth were now become difficult to refute; rather
should we recognise the fulness of the supreme life, and its points
of contact with all lives, which are but portions of its vast
completeness. Who does not feel that in the world's greatest events
a certain harmony and correspondence are as charming as they are in
music? There is a sort of counterpoint in history. And to this
answering of deep unto deep, this responsiveness of the story of
Jesus to all history, our attention is silently beckoned by St.
Matthew, when, without asserting any closer link between the
incidents, he borrows this phrase so aptly. A much deeper meaning
underlies the profound expression which God now commands Moses to
employ; and although it must await consideration at a future time,
the progressive education of Moses himself is meantime to be
observed. At first he is taught that the Lord is the God of their
fathers, in whose descendants He is therefore interested. Then the
present Israel is His people, and valued for its own sake. ow he
hears, and is bidden to repeat to Pharaoh, the amazing phrase,
"Israel is My son, even My firstborn: 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." Thus it is that infant faith is led from
height to height. And assuredly there never was an utterance better
fitted than this to prepare human minds, in the fulness of time,
for a still clearer revelation of the nearness of God to man, and
for the possibility of an absolute union between the Creator and
His creature. It was on his way into Egypt, with his wife and
children, that a mysterious interposition forced Zipporah
reluctantly and tardily to circumcise her son. The meaning of this
strange episode lies perhaps below the surface, but very near it.
Danger in some form, probably that of sickness, pressed Moses hard,
and he recognised in it the displeasure of his God. The form of the
narrative leads us to suppose that he had no previous consciousness
of guilt, and had now to infer the nature of his offence without
any explicit announcement, just as we infer it from what follows.
If so, he discerned his transgression when trouble awoke his
conscience; and so did his wife Zipporah. Yet her resistance to the
circumcision of their younger son was so tenacious, with such
difficulty was it overcome by her husband's peril or by his
command, that her tardy performance of the rite was accompanied by
an insulting action and a bitter taunt. As she submitted, the Lord
"let him go"; but we may perhaps conclude that the grievance
continued to rankle, from the repetition of her gibe, "So she said,
A bridegroom of blood art thou because of the circumcision." The
words mean, "We are betrothed again in blood," and might of
themselves admit a gentler, and even a tender significance; as if,
in the sacrifice of a strong
14. prejudice for her husband's sake, she felt a revival of
"the kindness of her youth, the love of her espousals." For nothing
removes the film from the surface of a true affection, and makes
the heart aware how bright it is, so well as a great sacrifice,
frankly offered for the sake of love. But such a rendering is
excluded by the action which went with her words, and they must be
explained as meaning, This is the kind of husband I have wedded:
these are our espousals. With such an utterance she fades almost
entirely out of the story: it does not even tell how she drew back
to her father; and thenceforth all we know of her is that she
rejoined Moses only when the fame of his victory over Amalek had
gone abroad. Their union seems to have been an ill-assorted or at
least an unprosperous one. In the tender hour when their firstborn
was to be named, the bitter sense of loneliness had continued to be
nearer to the heart of Moses than the glad new consciousness of
paternity, and he said, "I am a stranger in a strange land."
Different indeed had been the experience of Joseph, who called his
"firstborn Manasseh, for God, said he, hath made me forget all my
toil, and all my father's house" (Genesis 41:51). The home-life of
Moses had not made him forget that he was an exile. Even the
removal of imminent death from her husband could not hush these
selfish complaints of Zipporah, not because he was a father of
blood to her little one, but because he was a bridegroom of blood
to her own shrinking sensibilities. It is Miriam the sister, not
Zipporah the wife, who gives lyrical and passionate voice to his
triumph, and is mourned by the nation when she dies. Both what we
read of her and what we do not read goes far to explain the
insignificance of their children in history, and the more startling
fact that the grandson of Moses became the venal instrument of the
Danites in their schismatic worship ( 18:30, R.V.). Domestic
unhappiness is a palliation, but not a justification, for an
unserviceable life. It is a great advantage to come into action
with the dew and freshness of affection upon the soul. Yet it is
not once nor twice that men have carried the message of God back
from the barren desert and the lonely ways of their unhappiness to
the not too happy race of man. ow, who can fail to discern real
history in all this? Is it in such a way that myth or legend would
have dealt with the wife of the great deliverer? Still less
conceivable is it that these should have treated Moses himself as
the narrative hitherto has consistently done. At every step he is
made to stumble. His first attempt was homicidal, and brought upon
him forty years of exile. When the Divine commission came he drew
back wilfully, as he had formerly pressed forward unsent. There is
not even any suggestion offered us of Stephen's apology for his
violent deed-- namely, that he supposed his brethren understood how
that God by his hand was giving them deliverance (Acts 7:25). There
is nothing that resembles the eulogium of the Epistle to the
Hebrews upon the faith which glorified his precipitancy, like the
rainbow in a torrent, because that rash blow committed him to share
the affliction of the people of God, and renounced the rank of a
grand son of the Pharaoh (Hebrews 11:24-25). All this is very
natural, if Moses himself be in any degree
15. responsible for the narrative. It is incredible, if the
narrative were put together after the Captivity, to claim the
sanction of so great a name for a newly forged hierarchical system.
Such a theory could scarcely be refuted more completely, if the
narrative before us were invented with the deliberate aim to
overthrow it. But in truth the failures of the good and great are
written for our admonition, teaching us how inconsistent are even
the best of mortals, and how weak the most resolute. Rather than
forfeit his own place among the chosen people, Moses had forsaken a
palace and become a proscribed fugitive; yet he had neglected to
claim for his child its rightful share in the covenant, its
recognition among the sons of Abraham. Perhaps procrastination,
perhaps domestic opposition, more potent than a king's wrath to
shake his purpose, perhaps the insidious notion that one who had
sacrificed so much might be at ease about slight negligences,--some
such influence had left the commandment unobserved. And now, when
the dream of his life was being realised at last, and he found
himself the chosen instrument of God for the rebuke of one nation
and the making of another, how pardonable it must have seemed to
leave an unpleasant small domestic duty over until a more
convenient season! How natural it still seems to merge the petty
task in the high vocation, to excuse small lapses in pursuit of
lofty aims! But this was the very time when God, hitherto
forbearing, took him sternly to task for his neglect, because men
who are especially honoured should be more obedient and reverential
than their fellows. Let young men who dream of a vast career, and
meanwhile indulge themselves in small obliquities, let all who cast
out demons in the name of Christ, and yet work iniquity, reflect
upon this chosen and long-trained, self-sacrificing and ardent
servant of the Lord, whom Jehovah seeks to kill because he wilfully
disobeys even a purely ceremonial precept. Moses was not only
religious, but "a man of destiny," one upon whom vast interests
depended. ow, such men have often reckoned themselves exempt from
the ordinary laws of conduct.(8) It is not a light thing,
therefore, to find God's indignant protest against the faintest
shadow of a doctrine so insidious and so deadly, set in the
forefront of sacred history, at the very point where national
concerns and those of religion begin to touch. If our politics are
to be kept pure and clean, we must learn to exact a higher
fidelity, and not a relaxed morality, from those who propose to
sway the destinies of nations. And now the brothers meet, embrace,
and exchange confidences. As Andrew, the first disciple who brought
another to Jesus, found first his own brother Simon, so was Aaron
the earliest convert to the mission of Moses. And that happened
which so often puts our faithlessness to shame. It had seemed very
hard to break his strange tidings to the people: it was in fact
very easy to address one whose love had not grown cold during their
severance, who probably retained faith in the Divine purpose for
which the beautiful child of the family had been so strangely
preserved, and who had passed through trial and discipline unknown
to us in the stern intervening years.
16. And when they told their marvellous story to the elders of
the people, and displayed the signs, they believed; and when they
heard that God had visited them in their affliction, then they
bowed their heads and worshipped. This was their preparation for
the wonders that should follow: it resembled Christ's appeal,
"Believest thou that I am able to do this?" or Peter's word to the
impotent man, "Look on us." For the moment the announcement had the
desired effect, although too soon the early promise was succeeded
by faithlessness and discontent. In this, again, the teaching of
the earliest political movement on record is as fresh as if it were
a tale of yesterday. The offer of emancipation stirs all hearts;
the romance of liberty is beautiful beside the ile as in the
streets of Paris; but the cost has to be gradually learned; the
losses displace the gains in the popular attention; the labour, the
self- denial and the self-control grow wearisome, and Israel
murmurs for the flesh-pots of Egypt, much as the modern revolution
reverts to a despotism. It is one thing to admire abstract freedom,
but a very different thing to accept the austere conditions of the
life of genuine freemen. And surely the same is true of the soul.
The gospel gladdens the young convert: he bows his head and
worships; but he little dreams of his long discipline, as in the
forty desert years, of the solitary places through which his soul
must wander, the drought, the Amalekite, the absent leader, and the
temptations of the flesh. In mercy, the long future is concealed;
it is enough that, like the apostles, we should consent to follow;
gradually we shall obtain the courage to which the task may be
revealed. ISBET, "SLOW TO OBEY And Moses answered and said, But,
behold, they will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice: for
they will say, The Lord hath not appeared unto thee. Exodus 4:1 Our
duty to our Lord in this world requires that we should do somewhat
more than live a life of obedience to Him. Our obedience must be
acknowledged obedience. We must never be loth to say Whose we are,
and Whom we serve. We may read this lesson writ large in the
history of Gods sending Moses to deliver His people. Moses went
through a trial on Mount Horeb, the exact opposite of the trial of
Christ. I. Moses was tempted to decline the contest with the world
altogether, to shrink from action and from prominence, when God
called him. Christ was tempted to take the world by storm, to
overwhelm it with conviction. II. Moses was full of sympathy for
the poor, full of a desire to see Gods ancient promises realised;
but when the time came, and God said, ow go, then, for the first
time, it flashed upon Moses that he was unfit to carry out what he
had so aspired to be trusted with. His eighty years of life had
been given him that in its vast experience he might learn that God
was all, man was nothing. He had very nearly learned it in truth;
the crust or chrysalis of self was very nearly ready to drop off;
it needed just this interview with God to rid him of it entirely.
He had seen the
17. miraculous powers with which he had been endowed, but he
had not fully understood them, and therefore his will was pausing
still. III. The voice of God within him and without him waxed more
imperious. God sternly pointed out that such eloquence as he longed
for was but a secondary qualification. Thy brother, I know that he
can speak well; the legislator need not be the orator. There is not
one of us who ever complained to God of insufficient strength
without finding his complaint answered either by ministration of
grace or disappearance of difficulties. IV. What interests trembled
in the balance while Moses was debating! It is not for ourselves
only that we shall be responsible if we debate till the time is
gone. Archbishop Benson. Illustration (1) God summons each one of
us thus each new day if we could but hear. A door clanks loose; the
gust beats by; The chairs stand plain about; Upon the curving
mantel high The carved heads stand out. The maids go down to brew
and bake, And on the dark stair make A clatter, sudden, shrill
Lord, here am I, Clear of the night, and ready for thy will. Is
that our daily attitude of life? (2) He who would right what is
wrong must expect not only the hostility of open foes but the
thanklessness of the men and women whose champion he is. So Oliver
Cromwell and John Milton found in England. They thought they saw a
noble and puissant nation rousing herself, like a strong man after
sleep, and shaking her invincible locksrenewing her mighty youth at
the fountain itself of heavenly radiance. But the one was tormented
with fears of assassination, and the other lived, in darkness and
neglect, to bewail the riot and godlessness of the Restoration. Let
me not be deterred from doing Gods work and mans by the knowledge
that probably I shall reap the ingratitude of the very souls I am
eager to benefit. Let me confirm myself by the thought that I am
treading the road heroes and confessors have trodden before me. BI,
"But, behold, they will not believe me. Moses temptation to shrink
from, the contest Our duty to our Lord in this world requires that
we should do somewhat more than live a
18. life of obedience to Him. Our obedience must be
acknowledged obedience. We must never be loth to say, Whose we are,
and Whom we serve. We may read this lesson writ large in the
history of Gods sending Moses to deliver His people. Moses went
through a trial on Mount Horeb, the exact opposite of the trial of
Christ. I. Moses was tempted to decline the contest with the world
altogether, to shrink from action and from prominence, when God
called him. Christ was tempted to take the world by storm, to
overwhelm it with conviction. II. Moses was full of sympathy for
the poor, full of a desire to see Gods ancient promises realized;
but when the time came, and God said, Now go, then, for the first
time, it flashed upon Moses that he was unfit to carry out what he
had so aspired to be trusted with. His eighty years of life had
been given him that in its vast experience he might learn that God
was all, man was nothing. He had very nearly learned it in truth;
the crust or chrysalis of self was very nearly ready to drop off;
it needed just this interview with God to rid him of it entirely.
He had seen the miraculous powers with which he had been endowed,
but he had not fully understood them, and therefore his will was
pausing still. III. The voice of God within him and without him
waxed more imperious. God sternly pointed out that such eloquence
as he longed for was but a secondary qualification. Thy brother, I
know that he can speak well; the legislator need not be the orator.
There is not one of us who ever complained to God of insufficient
strength without finding his complaint answered either by
ministration of grace or disappearance of difficulties. IV. What
interests trembled in the balance while Moses was debating! It is
not for ourselves only that we shall be responsible if we debate
till the time is gone, (Archbishop Benson.) Gods call and mans duty
I. God proposes great things to men. In proportion as any call in
life is great, let the heart pause and consider whether its very
greatness is not a proof of its divinity. II. We are not to look at
what we are, but at what God is. When He calls, He qualifies for
the work III. What is right in itself may be perverted and abused.
Timidity is right in itself; but when pushed into cowardice, it is
wrong. Self-distrust is right in itself; but if it degenerates into
atheism, then it is the plague and destruction of the soul. IV.
Gods call to faith is the greatest call to his universe. Our duty
is to go forward to the unknown and the invisible, and live by
faith. (J. Parker, D. D.) The mission of Moses I. The nature of the
mission. 1. Its difficulty and danger. 2. It was divinely
appointed. II. Moses was trained specially for it. 1. The school of
providence.
19. 2. Our need of discipline. III. Moses was sufficiently
equipped. The rod. 1. The use of little things. 2. The use of
present means. Use what is in thy hand. IV. Moses shrank from his
mission. Modesty and self-distrust generally go with true greatness
and exalted virtue. (P. S. Henson, D. D.) The lament of the pulpit
I. The preacher has frequently to lament the scepticism of his
congregation. Practical unbelief. II. The preacher has frequently
to lament the inattention of his congregation. Nothing worse than
disobedience to the messages of God. III. the preacher has
frequently to lament the querulous spirit of his congregation. They
question inspiration, preparation, qualification of teacher. And
often in unkind, factious spirit. Should rather welcome him as from
God, sent to achieve their moral freedom. IV. That this conduct on
the part of congregations has a most depressing influence on the
minds of ministers. He needs the attention, sympathy, prayers, help
of those whom he seeks to free from the tyranny of sin. He has
enough to contend with external hindrances, with the opposition of
Pharaoh, without having added to it that of the slave whose fetter
he seeks to break. (J. S. Exell, M. A.) Why did Moses imagine that
the Israelites would not believe him 1. Because he knew that they
were a stiff-necked people. 2. Because he considered himself of
insufficient authority to command their respect. 3. Because the
power and tyranny of Pharaoh would deter them from believing him.
4. Because they would think it unlikely that God, who had never
been seen by man, should appear to him. (J. S. Exell, M. A.) Human
distrust Human distrust is a difficulty which every preacher,
teacher, and holy labourer has to encounter. All great movements
are carried by consent of parties. God Himself cannot re-establish
moral order without the concurrence of the powers that have
rebelled against His rule. After all, the spiritual labourer has
less to do with the unbelief of his hearers than with the
instruction and authority of God. We have to ascertain what God the
Lord would have us to say, and then to speak it simply and
lovingly, whether men will hear or whether they will forbear. The
preacher must prepare himself for having doubts thrown upon his
authority; and he must take care that his answer to such doubts be
as complete as the authority itself. God alone can give the true
answer to human doubt. We are not to encounter scepticism with
merely ingenious replies and clever arguments, but in the power and
grace of the living God. (J. Parker, D. D.)
20. Ministerial duty in spite of discouragement Dr. Stevens
narrates how an eminent minister was very much depressed by the
unbelief of his congregation, and how his spirit of depression was
shaken off. He dreamed that he was working with a pick-axe on the
top of a basaltic rock, which remained non-riven in spite of
repeated strokes of his arm of muscle. When about to give up in
despair, a stranger of solemn and dignified demeanour appeared on
the scene, who reminded him that as a servant he was bound to go on
whether the rock yielded or not. Work is your duty; leave the
results to God, were the last words of his strange visitor. The
result was that the discouraged pastor resumed his work, and was
abundantly rewarded by the shattering of the rock of unbelief and
indifference among his flock. Frailty invested with divinity If we
pause for a moment and consider the almost insurmountable
difficulties which stood in the way of Israels redemption from
Egypt, we can readily appreciate the hesitation on the part of
Moses before undertaking this herculean task. Egypt at that time
was one of the most powerful of nations. It was not that Egypt
desired simply to hold Israel in subjection, that such a strict and
powerful sovereignty was exercised; hut the Israelites had become
the servants, the slaves of the Egyptians, and as such were almost
necessary to the vigour of the nation. Besides, four centuries of
oppression had left their deep and degrading mark upon the children
of Israel. They had become in a measure satisfied with their
condition. Hope had taken to itself wings. Ambition had died within
them. There native fire and energy had wasted away. To redeem a
people who do not care to be redeemed, to set free a nation which
is content with captivity, is a work well-nigh impossible. And
then, to add to the difficulty of the case, supposing even that
they were free, where will they go? Their own land, the land
promised to their father Abraham, is already occupied. Warlike
tribes have come down from the north and strongly entrenched
themselves within its borders. Who and what am I, said Moses, that
I should go upon this great mission? What proofs can I bring to
assure the people that I am come from God? They will not believe my
word, and they will ask, Where is the God of our fathers and what
is His name? What sign have I to convince them? What power have I
to display? At length God answers, What is that in thy hand? And he
said a rod. He was told to cast it upon the ground, when all at
once it became a writhing serpent. You will notice all through the
Scriptures in the dealings of God with His people, that in almost
every instance He proceeds upon the principle contained in our
text. When any great work is to be done, when any special mission
is to be undertaken, God does not bring down to the accomplishment
of His purpose strange or wonderful agencies, but He rather takes
the simple things that lie about common life, and makes them
achieve the Divine will. God seems to take the most exquisite
pleasure in clothing human frailty with Divine strength and beauty,
and imparting to the most ordinary and trivial things, heavenly
meaning and significance. Indeed, Gods constant purpose seems to
have been to unite this world with another one, to blend this life
with a life infinitely higher and grander. Life is robbed of all
its harmony, all its grace, all its impressiveness if we ever allow
it to become separated from the Divine and the eternal, and the
little boat which is unswung from the davits and carried off by a
huge billow from its place on the ocean steamer, is no more
helpless as it rolls in the trough of the sea, and is no more
pitiable in its desolation, than the life which is adrift from God
out upon the great waters of human experience and distress. To many
life is a weary drudgery all the way from the cradle to the grave.
It is nothing but work and eat and sleep. Once in a great while
there
21. is a little change, but not often. The great bulk of life
is a sad monotony, and millions look forward to the quiet and rest
of the grave. And why are these people in this dismal plight?
Simply because their life is not connected with the Divine life,
because this world is not made a part of the heavenly world, and
like a car which has become detached from the swift express and
flung out upon a siding, it stands helpless and forsaken in the
dark and dismal night. Suppose that here are three plates of common
glass a foot square, an eighth or a quarter of an inch in
thickness, and suppose that they are given to three men to dispose
of them as they please. One takes his and he covers it with black
enamel, and on the ebonized surface he paints a human face, or some
lovely flowers. Another takes his and he spreads upon it a solution
of quicksilver and it becomes a mirror throwing back to the
beholder his own face and expression. But the third takes his to
the best room in his house, he inserts it in the window which has
the most commanding view, and then carefully removing all the dust
and finger-marks, he looks through its open substance and sees the
skies in their morning beauty, the fields in living green or
glistening white, and thus brings heaven and earth within the
circle of that room. Now these are the ways in which most of us
live. We take our life and we enamel or ebonize it. We make it
opaque. We cannot see through it to anything that lies beyond; and
though we paint it, and try to adorn it, yet we in no wise remove
the mystery; the darkness in the sad background which even the
flowers will not hide away. Some use the coating of mercury, and
make their life nothing but a mirror which reflects themselves.
Self is the image ever rising before their eyes. But the wise man
makes this life simply a transparency through which he can see the
life of God. There are three forms of power by which the machinery
of clocks is kept in motion. The first and the one of the oldest
date is that of the weight suspended upon a chain or rope. The bulk
and heaviness of the weight was always in proportion to the size of
the clock, and the wheels were literally driven by the sheer force
of the big weights as they slowly descended. The second is that of
the spring, the band of steel coiled within its cylinder spending
its strength in expansion, and forcing the wheels to revolve in its
great desire to get free. The third is that of electricity, where
the current is carried along the wire from the central battery.
Silently, but almost irresistibly, the mysterious force operates
upon the machinery, ensuring an accuracy and faithfulness which can
be gained in no other way. And in these we have illustrations of
how human life is carried on. Many of us go by weight. We are
dragged down by heaviness and toil, and compelled by the demands of
circumstances to go our weary round. Others go through by the sheer
force of their own energy. They have power and strength in
themselves to propel them around the dial-plate of common
existence, and in this way they fulfil the measure of their days.
But some have an electric current. The wires of their thought are
in connection with the great battery of God. Life to them is not a
mere drag. Life to them is not merely an expenditure of vital
force. Life to them means heavenly communion, Divine fellowship,
holy enjoyment, and the days of their pilgrimage are accomplished
in simple dependence upon the Almighty will. Now, what seems to be
the very plain, the very obvious meaning of this rod? Is it not
this: that the most common things within our possession, and under
our control, can be so wrought upon by Divine influence, and so
charged with Divine power, as to accomplish the most strange and
glorious results? St. Paul tells us in the Epistle to the
Corinthians that God has a strange choice in the selection of His
instrumentalities: Not many wise men after the flesh, not many
mighty, not many noble are called: but God hath chosen the foolish
things of the world to confound the wise. And if you will go down
the lines of history you will see that God has carried out this
principle in its integrity. And this ought not to strike us as
either strange or remarkable, because we do just the same
ourselves. We take the most common things that we can find, and we
unite them with other things until we finally develop the most
potential forces of our time. A few gallons of water, a
22. few pieces of coal are enough to send the mad steam hissing
through the pipes, eager to turn yon giant engine, or send the
train of cars thundering along the line. A few drops of vitriol, a
few pieces of prepared zinc, a single thread of wire, and lo, the
electric force flashes as light around our world. A few grains of
charcoal and sulphur mixed with nitre are sufficient to give us the
dreadful gunpowder which sends iron giants swinging in the air that
beat into ruin walls and parapets of stone. We take the most common
rods that Nature has in her hand, and we breathe upon them, and
they become instinct with life; we give them of our genius and our
strength; we lift them up out of their low estate. We take the iron
and the coal from the mines, we dig out the metals that are in the
hills, we dignify them and ennoble them until at length they become
our most valued agents and servants. But we must always remember
that the rod of itself will be valueless unless it have with it the
presence and favour of God. Of what worth was the mere rod which
Moses held in his hand that day as he stood before the burning
bush? In all probability it was only the shepherds crook which he
used while attending the flocks of Jethro. The rod itself was
almost of no value whatever. And so exactly with our life. Before
we can be really useful, before we can accomplish any great work,
before we can live up to the measure of our power, we must first of
all meet with God. We must stand before the burning bush; we must
listen to the Divine voice; we must receive the heavenly
commission; we must accept the Divine command. Until this is done
our life is nothing but a roda rod without any special use or
intrinsic value, and which will one day break in our hands, and be
cast into the fire and be destroyed. Look how this is illustrated:
What is that in thy hand? A sling, said David. It is enough; go up
against the giant; and the great Goliath fell before the
shepherd-boy. What is that in thy hand? A sword, answered Jonathan.
It is enough, and the brave youth, followed by his armour-bearer,
goes up against an army, and the Philistines are defeated by these
twain. What is that in thy hand? A piece of parchment, answered
Luther. It is enough, and he proceeds to nail his famous protest
upon the doors of the Roman Church and the era of the Reformation
broke upon darkened Europe. What is that in thy hand? A pen, said
Bunyan, as he spoke from under the arches of Bedford jail. It is
enough, and he wrote the story of the Pilgrims Progress, which will
live while the world endures. Men and women, with common, simple
things about them, have heard the voice of God, and doing just what
their hand found to do, they made their life memorable in the
history of the Church and accomplished the Divine will. What is
that in your hand? Only a rod, answers the mother from beside the
cradle, the workman standing at the bench, the clerk behind the
counter, the man of business at his desk. Only a rod, and is that
all? Oh, there is something of far greater value than you now
suppose. Ask that honest farmer in a few weeks from now standing in
the open furrows, what is that in his hand, and he will answer,
only a few grains of seed. But is that all? Far from it. Those
grains of seed contain the germs of the great harvest which will
fill our lands with plenty, and crowd the threshing-floors with
abundance. Then say not Only a rod. There is no such word as only
about human life. Every part of it is invested with mysterious
grandeur and possibility. We cannot tell how far the most simple
thing will reach. A word dropped from our lips, a hand clasped
within ours, something apparently trifling done and then forgotten,
will go on long after we have passed away, and a life which throws
its shadows all down eternity cannot have anything but which is of
value. (J. W. Johnston.)
23. 2 Then the Lord said to him, What is that in your hand? A
staff, he replied. BAR ES, "A rod - The word seems to denote the
long staff which on Egyptian monuments is borne by men in positions
of authority. It was usually made of acacia wood. CLARKE, "A rod -
matteh, a staff, probably his shepherds crook; see Lev_ 27:32. As
it was made the instrument of working many miracles, it was
afterwards called the rod of God; see Exo_4:20. GILL, "And the Lord
said unto him,.... Not reproving him for contradicting him, or
showing any diffidence of what he had said; but rather as approving
the hint he gave of having some sign or miracle wrought, to command
from the Israelites an assent unto him, as commissioned of God to
deliver them: what is that in thine hand? which question is put,
not as being ignorant of what it was, but to lead on to what he had
further to say, and to the working of the miracle: and he said, a
rod; or staff, such as shepherds use in the management of their
flocks, for Moses was now feeding the flock of his father-in-law;
but Aben Ezra seems rather to think it was a walking staff, such as
ancient men lean upon, since Moses did not go to Pharaoh after the
manner of a shepherd; yea, it may be added, he went with the
authority of a prince or ruler of Israel, and even with the
authority of the ambassador of the King of kings. HE RY 2-4, "God
empowers him to work miracles, directs him to three particularly,
two of which were now immediately wrought for his own satisfaction.
Note, True miracles are the most convincing external proofs of a
divine mission attested by them. Therefore our Saviour often
appealed to his works (as Joh_5:36), and Nicodemus owns himself
convinced by them, Joh_3:2. And here Moses, having a special
commission given him as a judge and lawgiver to Israel, has this
seal affixed to his commission, and comes supported by these
credentials. 1. The rod in his hand is made the subject of a
miracle, a double miracle: it is but thrown out of his hand and it
becomes a serpent; he resumes it and it becomes a rod again,
Exo_4:2-4. Now, (1.) Here was a divine power manifested in the
change itself, that a dry stick should be turned into a living
serpent, a lively one, so formidable a one
24. that Moses himself, on whom, it should seem, it turned in
some threatening manner, fled from before it, though we may
suppose, in that desert, serpents were no strange things to him;
but what was produced miraculously was always the best and
strongest of the kind, as the water turned to wine: and, then, that
this living serpent should be turned into a dry stick again, this
was the Lord's doing. (2.) Here was an honour put upon Moses, that
this change was wrought upon his throwing it down and taking it up,
without any spell, or charm, or incantation: his being empowered
thus to act under God, out of the common course of nature and
providence, was a demonstration of his authority, under God, to
settle a new dispensation of the kingdom of grace. We cannot
imagine that the God of truth would delegate such a power as this
to an impostor. (3.) There was a significancy in the miracle
itself. Pharaoh had turned the rod of Israel into a serpent,
representing them as dangerous (Exo_1:10), causing their belly to
cleave to the dust, and seeking their ruin; but now they should be
turned into a rod again: or, thus Pharaoh had turned the rod of
government into the serpent of oppression, from which Moses had
himself fled into Midian; but by the agency of Moses the scene was
altered again. (4.) There was a direct tendency in it to convince
the children of Israel that Moses was indeed sent of God to do what
he did, Exo_4:5. Miracles were for signs to those that believed
not, 1Co_14:22. JAMISO , "the Lord said, ... What is that in thine
hand? The question was put not to elicit information which God
required, but to draw the particular attention of Moses. A rod
probably the shepherds crook - among the Arabs, a long staff, with
a curved head, varying from three to six feet in length. K&D,
"Exo_4:2-5 The First Sign. - The turning of Moses' staff into a
serpent, which became a staff again when Moses took it by the tail,
had reference to the calling of Moses. The staff in his hand was
his shepherd's crook ( Exo_4:2, for , in this place alone), and
represented his calling as a shepherd. At the bidding of God he
threw it upon the ground, and the staff became a serpent, before
which Moses fled. The giving up of his shepherd-life would expose
him to dangers, from which he would desire to escape. At the same
time, there was more implied in the figure of a serpent than danger
which merely threatened his life. The serpent had been the constant
enemy of the seed of the woman (Gen 3), and represented the power
of the wicked one which prevailed in Egypt. The explanation in
Pirke Elieser, c. 40, points to this: ideo Deum hoc signum Mosi
ostendisse, quia sicut serpens mordet et morte afficit homines, ita
quoque Pharao et Aegyptii mordebant et necabant Israelitas. But at
the bidding of God, Moses seized the serpent by the tail, and
received his staff again as the rod of God, with which he smote
Egypt with great plagues. From this sign the people of Israel would
necessarily perceive, that Jehovah had not only called Moses to be
the leader of Israel, but had endowed him with the power to
overcome the serpent-like cunning and the might of Egypt; in other
words, they would believe that Jehovah, the God of the fathers, had
appeared to him. (On the special meaning of this sign for Pharaoh,
see Exo_7:10.) CALVI , "2.What is that in thine hand? In accordance
with the idiom of the Hebrew language, Moses now explains more
fully, and more distinctly pursues,
25. what he had before only generally alluded to respecting the
signs. In the three signs which he refers to we must consider their
respective meanings The pastoral crook, which he carried in his
hand, is flung on the ground, and becomes a serpent; again it is
taken back into his hand, and recovers its original nature. I doubt
not but that God wished to shew him, that although his condition
was abject and despicable, still he would be formidable to the king
of Egypt. For his rod was the symbol of a shepherd; and what would
be more contemptible than for a keeper of sheep to come up from the
desert, and to oppose to the scepter of a most powerful king that
crook, by which he could scarcely protect himself and his flock
from wild beasts? But God assures him, that although deprived of
earthly splendor, wealth, or power, he would still be terrible to
Pharaoh; as much as to say, that he need not fear lest Pharaoh
should despise him, or take no account of him as a mere rustic,
because his rod, turned into a serpent, would inspire more terror
than a thousand swords. As to what Moses says, that he himself fled
from it in alarm, unquestionably God intended to affright his
servant, that he might the better estimate from his own feelings
what would be the power of God to terrify that proud king. This,
then, was the object of the miracle, that there was no occasion for
mighty armies, since Pharaoh would tremble at the sight of the
simple rod; and that the rod need not be wielded and violently
agitated, because it would inspire sufficient terror by its own
movement and agitation. The one part of the miracle, where the rod
returned to its former shape, was intended to shew Moses, that what
was to be hostile and injurious to his enemy, would be an
assistance and safeguard to himself. Therefore, the same rod which
encouraged and emboldened Moses, depressed and overwhelmed his foe.
But that he dares, in immediate obedience to the voice of God, to
lay hold of the serpent, is a proof of his remarkable faith; and
this appears more manifestly from his sudden change, that he fears
not to provoke a poisonous and noxious animal, by taking hold of
its tail, when he had so lately fled from its very sight in
consternation. His timid mind, then, was capable of great courage,
and his timidity and piety brought forth their fruit alternately.
And this is especially worthy of remark, that Moses was
strengthened by the presence of God; but that he was weakened when
he turned his eyes to the untameable minds of his own race, and to
the proud tyranny of Egypt. The question now arises, whether the
change of the rod into a serpent was real, and actual, or whether
the outward form only was changed? Although I should be unwilling
to contend pertinaciously for a thing of little consequence, I
embrace that opinion which is more probable, that not merely an
image or vision appeared, but that God, who created all things out
of nothing, gave a new nature to the rod, and again made a rod out
of the serpent, which was in no degree more difficult than to
change Lots wife into a pillar of salt. (Genesis 19:26.) Since this
was easy to Gods power, it does not appear likely to me that He had
recourse to the illusion of visions. As to the imitation of the
magicians, we will speak of their sorceries in their proper place.
ELLICOTT, "(2) A rod.Most commentators regard the rod of Moses as
his shepherds crook, and this is certainly possible; but the
etymology of the word employed seems rather to point to an ordinary
staff, or walking-stick. Egyptians of rank usually carried long
batons; and one suggestion is, that the rod of Moses was
26. that which he had been accustomed to carry as the son of
Pharaohs daughter. But even if this was still in his possession
after forty years of exile, he is not likely to have taken it with
him when he went a-shepherding. Probably the rod was a common
staff, such as a shepherd of eighty years old might need for a
support. TRAPP, "Exodus 4:3 And he said, Cast it on the ground. And
he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled
from before it. Ver. 3. And it became a serpent.] So doth the word
to those that cast away the care of it; it stings them with
unquestionable conviction and horror. With this rod Moses should
guide the Israelites, sting the Egyptians. [Isaiah 14:29 Jeremiah
8:17] And Moses fled from before it,] First fly from sin as from a
serpent, saith one. But if thou hast taken this serpent into thy
hand, rest not, till, like Mosess serpent, it be turned into a rod
again to scourge thy soul. Be either innocent or penitent. PULPIT,
"A rod. Or "a staff." Some suppose the ordinary shepherd's staff,
or crook, to be meant; but it is objected that this would have been
an unfit object to have brought into the presence of Pharaoh
(Kalisch), being unsuitable for a court, and emblematic of an
occupation which the Egyptians loathed (Genesis 46:34); and the
suggestion is therefore made, that it was the baton or long stick
commonly carried by Egyptians of good position and especially by
persons in authority. But Moses in Midian, forty years after he
quitted Egypt, is not likely to have possessed such an article;
nor, if he had possessed it, would he have taken it with him when
shepherding. Probably a simple staff, the natural support of a man
of advanced years, is meant. EXPOSITOR'S DICTIO ARY "The Rod That
Is in Thine Hand Exodus 4:2; Exodus 4:17 I. God often does His
greatest works by the humblest means. The great forces of nature
are not in the earthquake which tumbles cities into ruins. This
power passes in a moment; the soft silent light, the warm summer
rain, the stars whose voice is not heardthese are the majestic
mighty forces which fill the earth with riches, and control the
worlds which constitute the wide universe of God. II. So in
Providence. The founders of Christianity were fishermen. Christ
Himself the Carpenter, the azarene, despised and crucified, was the
wisdom and the power of God. For did He not say"I, if I be lifted
up, will draw all men unto Me"? So in the text, "What is that in
thine hand? A rod"the emblem, the tool of his daily work. With this
Moses was to do mighty deeds. Rabbinical tradition has it that
Moses was an excellent shepherd. He followed a lamb across the
wilderness, plucked it with his rod from a precipice amid the
rocks, carried it in his bosom, whereupon
27. God said"Let us make this Moses the shepherd of Israel". He
a stranger, a fugitive, a humble shepherd, becomes the lawgiver,
the leader, the deliverer of his people. III. The lesson of the
text is plain. God still meets every man and asks the old
question"What is that in thine hand?" Is it the tool of an ordinary
trade? With that God will be served. The artisan where he Isaiah ,
in his humble workshop, by using the "rod which is in his hand,"
the merchant in his business, are in the place where they are now;
all are called upon to do service. Few have rank, or wealth, or
power, or eloquence. Let those illustrious few use their ten
talents, but let us, the obscure millions, use the simple duties of
life"the rod that is in our hand". ot extraordinary works, but
ordinary works well done, were demanded by the Master. J. Cameron
Lees, British Weekly Pulpit, vol. II. p509. COFFMA , "Verses 2-4
"And Jehovah said unto him, What is that in thine hand? And he
said, A rod. And he said, Cast it on the ground. And he cast it on
the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from before it.
And Jehovah said unto Moses, Put forth thy hand, and take it by the
tail (and he put forth his hand, and laid hold of it, and it became
a rod in his hand)." This is the very first in that tremendous
series of miracles that would precede and precipitate the exodus of
2,000,000 slaves from the tyranny of Egypt, and which would never
cease until they had crossed the waters of the Jordan into the
Promised Land. This first miracle was for the purpose of removing
the first obstacle, namely, the reluctance of Moses. "A rod ..."
Some have supposed that this was some special kind of staff, such
as that seen in the hands of Egyptian royalty on monuments, but,
inasmuch as Moses already had it, it could hardly have been
anything else except the usual shepherd's crook distinguished as
the invariable instrument of shepherds. How appropriate was such a
choice on God's part! The Egyptians despised shepherds; and now, it
was to be a shepherd's staff that would humble and overthrow the
all powerful enemies of God's people. The might and glory of Egypt
would be humbled and destroyed by it, yet it was merely an
instrument in the hands of an instrument (Moses) of God! "Take it
by the tail ..." This was a test of Moses' faith. "Snake charmers
usually take snakes by the neck to prevent their biting."[4] The
almost certain way to be bitten by a serpent is to take it by the
tail! As to what kind of a snake this was, we are not told,
however, implicit in Moses' fear of it is the near certainty that
it was a poisonous serpent. Many have supposed that it was the
cobra, of the type depicted on the headdress of Egyptian kings.[5]
Here again, the symbolism is most important, showing God's power as
infinitely superior to the serpent-crowned rulers of Egypt.
Although some have disallowed it, we believe that Keil was correct
in seeing this also
28. as a reminder that, "The serpent had been a constant enemy
of the Seed of Woman (Genesis 3:15) and represented the power of
the evil one which prevailed in Egypt."[6] Certainly the mission of
Moses then beginning was a key factor in the bringing in of that
Visitor from on High who would crush the serpent's head. COKE,
"Exodus 4:2. And the Lord saidWhat is that? &c. This is a
proof, among many others, that questions are frequently asked in
the sacred Scripture, not merely for the purpose of information:
the Lord could not be ignorant what Moses had in his hand. This
remark may be useful for the rightly understanding of many texts of
Scripture. The rod which Moses held, was, most probably, his
shepherd's crook. See Micah 7:14. The word, rendered serpent,
signifies all kinds of serpents. Lightfoot conjectures it to have
been a crocodile. It is probable, from the terror of Moses, that it
was an animal of a very fearful kind. Exodus 4:5 as well as Exodus
4:8-9 evince the truth of the interpretation which we have given of
the first verse. LA GE, "Exodus 4:2-5. The casting down of the
shepherds rod may signify the giving up of his previous pastoral
occupation. As a seemingly impotent shepherds rod he becomes a
serpent, he excites all the hostile craft and power of the
Egyptians. Pharaoh especially appears in the whole process also as
a serpent-like liar. But as to the serpent, it is enough to
understand by it the dark, hostile power of the Egyptians which now
at first frightened him. It is true, the enemy of the womans seed,
the old serpent, constitutes the background of the Egyptian
hostility; but here the symbol of the Egyptian snake kind is
sufficient. When Moses, however, seizes the serpent by the tail, by
its weaponless natural part, as is illustrated in the Egyptian
plagues, it becomes a rod again, and now a divine rod of the
shepherd of the people. BI 2-5, "What is that in thine hand? A
trivial possession I. God frequently makes inquiry about the most
trivial possessions of men. 1. Have they been honourably gained? 2.
Are they being put to their proper use? 3. Are they in a line with
Divine power? II. God frequently makes the most trivial possessions
of men teach great truths. 1. This shows the Divine adaptability to
the circumstances of men. 2. This shows the Divine wisdom in making
insignificant things teach Divine truth. 3. This shows the Divine
simplicity of the plans and purposes of Heaven. III. That the most
trivial possessions are useful to others as well as those to whom
they belong. IV. That the most trivial possessions of men prove,
after all, the most useful, and ought therefore to awaken human
gratitude. (J. W. Johnston.)
29. A rod 1. The subject of Divine inquiry. 2. The token of a
shepherds office. 3. The symbol of a leaders power. 4. The prophecy
of a nations freedom. (J. W. Johnston.) The rod When God installed
Moses into his great trust, He gave him a wand or staff of office
as its badge. But it was not the baton of a general nor the sceptre
of a king. It was only the shepherds rod. In Moses hand it became
what no jewelled crosier ever has been or will be. This stick was
to be not only the ensign of his power, but its instrument. And in
this simplicity, indeed, lay its special fitness for its office;
because all men who looked upon it could see that its power was not
in itself, not inherent; not in the rod, but effectual only by a
self-imposed law of Gods action, and conditioned in its success
upon His fidelity to His own rule. In this, as afterwards of the
yet humbler symbol of the cross,in this, the symbol of his
simplicity, of his exile, of his lowliness, the world was to be
conquered. 1. I remark in regard to this rod, that it had no
natural aptitude for its work. There was nothing in its natural
qualities to distinguish it from any other rod, and its appointment
to be Moses staff of office and instrument of miracle wrought in it
no physical change whatever. It was still mere wood. Sufficient
force would break it. A sharp tool would cut it. And it was
according to the analogy of His ways: and so St. Paul broadly
states it. Base things of the world, and things which are despised,
hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought
things that are. It is Gods way to do great things by weak means.
That is the Divine philosophy of action, the opposite of