Exodus 4 – Study

For those who may wish to ‘study’ this chapter, the following simple resources are provided for you. Each passage has a four-Part approach to help you take in and think further about what you have read.

Passage: Exodus 4:1-9

1 Moses answered, ‘What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, “The Lord did not appear to you”?’

2 Then the Lord said to him, ‘What is that in your hand?’

‘A staff,’ he replied.

3 The Lord said, ‘Throw it on the ground.’

Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it. 4 Then the Lord said to him, ‘Reach out your hand and take it by the tail.’ So Moses reached out and took hold of the snake and it turned back into a staff in his hand. 5 ‘This,’ said the Lord, ‘is so that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers – the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob – has appeared to you.’

6 Then the Lord said, ‘Put your hand inside your cloak.’ So Moses put his hand into his cloak, and when he took it out, the skin was leprous – it had become as white as snow.

7 ‘Now put it back into your cloak,’ he said. So Moses put his hand back into his cloak, and when he took it out, it was restored, like the rest of his flesh.

8 Then the Lord said, ‘If they do not believe you or pay attention to the first sign, they may believe the second. 9 But if they do not believe these two signs or listen to you, take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground. The water you take from the river will become blood on the ground.’

A. Find Out:

1. What problem did Moses next face? v.1
2. What did the Lord then transform? v.2,3
3. What was Moses then to do with it? v.4
4. What next did the Lord transform? v.6,7
5. What might happen nevertheless? v.8,9a
6. What was Moses finally to do? v.9

B. Think:

1. What was the problem that both Moses and the Lord accepted could be a possibility?
2. How would you generally describe these three “signs”?
3. What does it show us about the backing that the Lord was willing to give Moses?

C. Comment:

       Right, he understands he’s not alone, he understands who it is he’s got to speak about but, reasons Moses, suppose they just don’t believe I’ve met you? Here we see Moses continuing to make excuses, and the Lord continuing patiently as with a small child. God’s answer is startling in the extreme! He lays on three miraculous signs for Moses to perform.

      Now two studies ago we saw the Lord speaking of a “retrospective sign” for Moses (3:12) but now He supplies strong, obvious, present, miraculous signs for the elders’ benefit (NOT for Moses, for he seems to believe already). The Lord seems to reserve such outward obvious miraculous manifestations for extreme situations, and this is clearly one of those.

      John the Baptist wasn’t given signs of this sort (John 10:41) and even Jesus refused to “do” signs for the unbelievers (Matthew 12:39), although all his works were signs for those who had eyes to see (John 2:11). These transformation miracles are clearly meant to impress and release faith. There are many years of harsh slavery that have created a sense of helpless unbelief which has to be overcome.  The Lord knows that, He understands, and He provides faith stimuli sufficient for the task.

D. Application?

1. What does the Lord want us to lay down so that He can transform it?   
2. Ponder His ability to transform the ordinary.

Passage: Exodus 4:10-17

10 Moses said to the Lord, ‘Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.’

11 The Lord said to him, ‘Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord? 12 Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.’

13 But Moses said, ‘Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else.’

14 Then the Lord’s anger burned against Moses and he said, ‘What about your brother, Aaron the Levite? I know he can speak well. He is already on his way to meet you, and he will be glad to see you. 15 You shall speak to him and put words in his mouth; I will help both of you speak and will teach you what to do. 16 He will speak to the people for you, and it will be as if he were your mouth and as if you were God to him. 17 But take this staff in your hand so that you can perform the signs with it.’

A. Find Out:

1. What personal limitation did Moses next bring up? v.10
2. What was the Lord’s reply? v.12
3. What was Moses’ final plea? v.13
4. What did the Lord feel about this? v.14a
5. Who did He say could help Moses? v.14b
6. How would it work? v.16
7. What was Moses still to do though? v.17

B. Think:

1. Check back over the conversation. How has the Lord said He would help Moses?
2. What does the Lord’s reaction to Moses’ final request indicate?
3. What does the Lord’s final instruction say about Him?

C. Comment:

     The Lord has answered every one of Moses’ questions. He has said He will be with him, that He will help him speak, that He will give him miraculous and supernatural support, but still Moses tries to opt out of the job! Moses is typical of so many of us!

    What is remarkable here is that the Lord doesn’t give up on him. We might have rejected him and gone and found someone else but that is not the Lord’s way, for He knows He has chosen the right man who CAN handle the job, but that doesn’t stop Him being angry against Moses’ unbelief. Moses IS in the wrong, but the Lord doesn’t discard him! Perhaps God is angry because Moses NEEDS to realise it is possible to displease God!

      Here is a most valuable lesson. Jesus died for us as sinners. He knows we fail Him, but He doesn’t give up on us. When He called us, He knew we could make it through with His enabling.    His grace is there, and we WILL make it through! Yes?  God loves us so much that He accept us just as we are, but He also loves us so much He doesn’t want us to stay as we are!  We always need to hold these two truths in balance if we are to be secure but also to go on with God.

D. Application?

1. Thank the Lord for His grace that is there to enable you to make it through when the going gets tough.
2. Thank Him for calling you.

Passage: Exodus 4:18-23

18 Then Moses went back to Jethro his father-in-law and said to him, ‘Let me return to my own people in Egypt to see if any of them are still alive.’

Jethro said, ‘Go, and I wish you well.’

19 Now the Lord had said to Moses in Midian, ‘Go back to Egypt, for all those who wanted to kill you are dead.’ 20 So Moses took his wife and sons, put them on a donkey and started back to Egypt. And he took the staff of God in his hand.

21 The Lord said to Moses, ‘When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. 22 Then say to Pharaoh, “This is what the Lord says: Israel is my firstborn son, 23 and I told you, ‘Let my son go, so that he may worship me.’ But you refused to let him go; so I will kill your firstborn son.”’

A. Find Out:

1. With whom did Moses first share his intention? v.18
2. What extra encouragement had the Lord given? v.19
3. Who did he take with him? v.20
4. What had the Lord told Moses to do? v.21
5. How did the Lord consider Israel? v.22
6. What would God do on Pharaoh’s refusal? v.23

B. Think:

1. What are the signs here of Moses’ obedience?
2. How was this, really, a humanly impossible task?
3. How is the end of it all revealed now?

C. Comment:

      Moses, in obedience to the calling of God on his life, leaves what has been his home for forty years and starts back to Egypt.  The Lord had encouraged him by letting him know that the Pharaoh and others who had wanted him dead, were now dead themselves.  So Moses takes his family and starts back.

      As he goes the Lord speaks again, first to encourage him to do the things they had been speaking about previously, and second to reveal the end of it all. This is quite an amazing revelation, for the Lord shares that He looks on Israel as His firstborn son, and firstborn sons were always special to fathers.

      So, says the Lord, I will WARN Pharaoh that if he won’t let my firstborn son go, then I’ll destroy his firstborn son. Please note it doesn’t HAVE to happen, it’s Pharaoh’s choice! All he has to do is let Israel go. By the time it comes to the fight for whose son will live, Pharaoh will have NO excuse! God will have performed so many signs for Pharaoh that he will not be able to say he didn’t know. This is no hasty action by the Lord but a long, carefully planned strategy, which will allow some to be saved but will leave Pharaoh without excuse. Never look at the Lord in the Old Testament and say He is a harsh God of judgement. He warns and warns again, and this is real grace.

D. Application?

1. Thank the Lord that He gives every man a chance to repent.
2. God looks for opportunity to express mercy.

Passage: Exodus 4:24-31

24 At a lodging place on the way, the Lord met Moses and was about to kill him. 25 But Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off her son’s foreskin and touched Moses’ feet with it. ‘Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me,’ she said. 26 So the Lord let him alone. (At that time she said ‘bridegroom of blood’, referring to circumcision.)

27 The Lord said to Aaron, ‘Go into the wilderness to meet Moses.’ So he met Moses at the mountain of God and kissed him. 28 Then Moses told Aaron everything the Lord had sent him to say, and also about all the signs he had commanded him to perform.

29 Moses and Aaron brought together all the elders of the Israelites, 30 and Aaron told them everything the Lord had said to Moses. He also performed the signs before the people, 31 and they believed. And when they heard that the Lord was concerned about them and had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshipped.

A. Find Out:

1. What was the Lord apparently about to do? v.24
2. What did Moses’ wife do? v.25
3. Why did Aaron go to meet Moses? v.27a
4. Where did he meet him? v.27b
5. What did they do together? v.29,30
6. With what result? v.31

B. Think:

1. What had obviously not been done that ought to have been done? (see Genesis 17:10)
2. How is Aaron shown to be someone who knows and hears the Lord?
3. How do Moses & Aaron work as a team?

C. Comment:

     Circumcision was a sign of the special relationship between every Israelite male and God, done at God’s command. Now Moses had not circumcised his son and so, as he moved to perform perhaps the most difficult task asked of any man in history, he has to learn that with a Holy God he has to be TOTALLY obedient if he is to fulfil God’s purposes. God therefore brings him to the brink of death, to bring home to Moses that he is dealing with a holy God, knowing that Zipporah will act to put matters right. There is a seriousness about this that should put us in awe of the Lord.

       Next, we see Aaron going to meet Moses at Sinai, which is presumably as far as Moses and his family have got. Aaron clearly has some sort of relationship with the Lord for he is there at God’s bidding. There the brothers meet up and Moses shares all that God has said and all that has happened. Together they go to the elders of Israel where Aaron speaks and Moses performs the miracles that God has given him to do and the leaders believe and worship God. That looks a good start, but there is a long way to go yet and it won’t all be so encouraging.

D. Application?

1. The holiness of God is not to be taken lightly. Do we believe we’ll “get away” with “little indiscretions”??
2. The Lord looks for obedience from His people.