Jesus: From Genesis to Revelation

Day 4: Objections and Signs -- Moses Resists, God Persists

Reading

Historical Context

Exodus 4:1-17 records the final three of Moses’ five objections to God’s call – a sequence that began in chapter 3 and escalates from theological inquiry to naked refusal. The first two objections – “Who am I?” (3:11) and “What is your name?” (3:13) – were at least plausible questions from a man confronting an unprecedented commission. But the objections in chapter 4 shift from inquiry to resistance. “They will not believe me or listen to my voice” (4:1). “I am not eloquent… I am slow of speech and of tongue” (4:10). And finally, stripped of all pretense: “Oh, my Lord, please send someone else” (shelach na beyad tishlach, 4:13) – literally, “send by the hand of whomever you will send,” a polite formula that thinly veils outright refusal.

God’s response to the first objection in chapter 4 – “What is that in your hand?” (4:2) – introduces three signs that are not arbitrary demonstrations of power but carefully structured revelations. The staff (matteh) that Moses carries is the basic tool of a shepherd’s trade. When thrown to the ground, it becomes a serpent (nachash), and Moses flees from it. The Hebrew nachash is the same word used for the serpent in Genesis 3 – the creature that introduced death and deception into the world. When Moses seizes it by the tail (a detail that emphasizes risk – snakes are grasped behind the head, not by the tail), it becomes a staff again. The sign dramatizes God’s sovereignty over the forces of chaos and evil. The serpent is not destroyed. It is taken in hand and made an instrument.

The second sign – Moses’ hand turning leprous (metsora’at kashalaeg, “leprous as snow,” 4:6) and then restored – demonstrates God’s authority over disease and ritual impurity. In Israel’s later legislation, tsara’at (the skin disease translated “leprosy”) will render a person ceremonially unclean, excluded from the community, a walking symbol of death encroaching on the living. God inflicts and heals the disease in a single demonstration, showing that both states – corruption and restoration – lie within his sovereign control. The third sign – water from the Nile turning to blood on dry ground (4:9) – foreshadows the first plague and announces that God’s power extends to the heart of Egypt’s life-source. These three signs form a theological sequence: authority over the serpent (the chaos of Genesis 3), authority over disease (the corruption of the body), and authority over Egypt’s sacred river (the power of the oppressor).

Moses’ fourth objection – lo ish devarim anokhi, “I am not a man of words” (4:10) – introduces the phrase kevad peh ukhevad lashon, “heavy of mouth and heavy of tongue.” The word kavad (“heavy”) will recur throughout the exodus narrative as a description of Pharaoh’s heart: his heart is “hardened” (kavad, literally “heavy,” Exodus 7:14, 8:15, 8:32, 9:7, 9:34). Moses claims his mouth is too heavy to speak. Pharaoh’s heart will be too heavy to listen. The same word governs both the deliverer’s inadequacy and the oppressor’s intransigence – and God overrules both.

God’s anger at the fifth objection (4:14) results in the appointment of Aaron as Moses’ spokesman – a concession that will have complicated consequences throughout the wilderness narrative. But even in his anger, God does not revoke the commission. He adjusts the structure of the mission while maintaining its author. “You shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth… He shall speak for you to the people, and he shall be your mouth, and you shall be as God to him” (4:15-16). The arrangement foreshadows the prophetic office: God speaks to the prophet, the prophet speaks to the people, and the prophet stands before the people “as God” – not as deity but as authorized representative, carrying a word that is not his own.

Christ in This Day

Moses’ five objections and God’s persistent, patient responses reveal the deep grammar of divine calling – a pattern that will recur through every generation of prophets, judges, and apostles until it reaches its ultimate fulfillment in the one who did not resist. Gideon protests, “How can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh” (Judges 6:15). Jeremiah cries, “I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth” (Jeremiah 1:6). Isaiah confesses, “I am a man of unclean lips” (Isaiah 6:5). Peter falls at Jesus’ knees and says, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man” (Luke 5:8). The pattern is consistent: God calls, the human recoils, and God overrules the objection not by removing the inadequacy but by asserting his own sufficiency. But Jesus, the true and final deliverer, breaks the pattern by fulfilling it. In the garden of Gethsemane, facing a commission infinitely heavier than Egypt, he says, “Not my will, but yours, be done” (Luke 22:42). Where Moses said “send someone else,” Jesus said “here I am.” The Letter to the Hebrews attributes Psalm 40:7 to Christ at his incarnation: “Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God’” (Hebrews 10:7). The reluctant deliverer finds his antitype in the willing sacrifice.

The three signs God gives Moses – the serpent, the leprous hand, the water turned to blood – are compressed previews of the redemptive work Christ will accomplish. The serpent that is seized by the tail and transformed into a staff anticipates the moment when Christ will take the power of the ancient serpent in hand and render it an instrument of his own authority. Paul writes, “He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him” (Colossians 2:15). The serpent lifted up on the pole in Numbers 21 – which Jesus explicitly claims as a type of his crucifixion (John 3:14) – extends this sign into its fuller meaning: the symbol of death becomes the instrument of healing. The leprous hand, diseased and restored in a single moment, anticipates Jesus’ repeated healings of lepers – acts that were not merely medical but theological, restoring the unclean to the community, reversing the curse of exclusion that disease imposed. And the Nile water turned to blood foreshadows not only the plagues but the blood of the new covenant, poured out for many “for the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:28). Water becomes blood in Egypt as a sign of judgment. Wine becomes blood at the Last Supper as a sign of salvation.

God’s answer to Moses’ inadequacy – “Who has made man’s mouth?… Is it not I, the LORD?” (4:11) – is the theological foundation on which Paul will build his entire understanding of apostolic weakness: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). The God who made Moses’ mouth does not need Moses’ eloquence. The God who commissioned Paul with a thorn in his flesh does not need Paul’s strength. The deliverer’s qualification is not the deliverer’s competence but the sender’s identity. Jesus himself embodies this principle: he empties himself of divine prerogatives (Philippians 2:7), takes on the weakness of human flesh, and accomplishes through apparent defeat what no display of power could achieve. The cross is the final answer to Moses’ objection. God does not need the qualified. He qualifies the called – and his supreme qualification is a crucified Messiah whom the world considers foolishness (1 Corinthians 1:23-25).

Key Themes

Connections

Old Testament Roots

Moses’ reluctance echoes a pattern that stretches across the prophetic tradition. Gideon asks for sign after sign before he will believe God’s commission (Judges 6:17-40). Jeremiah protests his youth and is told, “Do not say, ‘I am only a youth’; for to all to whom I send you, you shall go” (Jeremiah 1:7). Jonah does not merely object – he flees in the opposite direction (Jonah 1:3). In each case, God’s response is the same: the mission does not depend on the messenger’s readiness. It depends on the message’s author. The staff that becomes a serpent also connects to the serpent imagery of Genesis 3 – the nachash whose power God now demonstrates he can command and contain.

New Testament Echoes

Jesus sends out his disciples with instructions that echo God’s commission of Moses: “Do not be anxious about how you should speak or what you should say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you” (Matthew 10:19-20). The principle is identical: the speaker is not the source. Paul extends the pattern in 2 Corinthians 4:7: “We have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.” Moses is the original jar of clay – cracked, reluctant, heavy of tongue – carrying a treasure that does not depend on the vessel’s quality. Jesus’ invitation to Philip – “Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves” (John 14:11) – echoes the logic of the signs: if the words are not sufficient, the works will authenticate the sender.

Parallel Passages

1 Samuel 10:1-7 – Saul’s anointing and the signs given to confirm his calling – follows the same structural pattern as Exodus 4: commission, signs, and the assurance “God is with you.” 1 Corinthians 1:26-29 – “Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise” – is the New Testament’s fullest articulation of the principle established at the burning bush: God’s choice of the inadequate is not accidental. It is strategic.

Reflection Questions

  1. Moses offered five objections to God’s call, and God answered every one – not by removing the inadequacy but by asserting his own sufficiency. Where in your life are you presenting your inadequacy to God as a reason not to act? How might God’s response to Moses – “Who has made man’s mouth?” – apply to the objection you are raising?

  2. The three signs – serpent, leprosy, blood – are not random miracles but theological previews of God’s authority over chaos, disease, and oppressive power. How do you see these same themes addressed in the ministry of Jesus? What does it mean that the signs given to authenticate Moses anticipate the works of Christ?

  3. Jesus, unlike Moses, did not resist his commission. In the garden of Gethsemane, facing a mission infinitely heavier than Egypt, he said, “Not my will, but yours, be done” (Luke 22:42). What does Christ’s willingness reveal about the kind of deliverer God’s people ultimately needed? How does his obedience free you from the pressure to be “enough” before God can use you?

Prayer

Lord God, you are the maker of mouths and the author of missions. You called a man with a heavy tongue to speak before the most powerful ruler on earth, and when he said “send someone else,” you did not revoke the commission – you adjusted the plan without abandoning the purpose. We confess that we are fluent in Moses’ language of objection: we are not enough, we are not ready, we are not the right person. And yet you answer every objection not by pointing to us but by pointing to yourself – the I AM who made us, who sends us, who goes with us. As you gave Moses signs to authenticate your message, you have given us the greatest sign of all: a crucified and risen Savior, the serpent lifted up, the leprous world healed, the waters of judgment transformed into the blood of the covenant. Silence our excuses with the sufficiency of your name. Make us willing where Moses was reluctant, obedient where we have been evasive, and confident not in ourselves but in the God who has never failed to finish what he started. In Jesus’ name, who said “Here I am” when we said “Send someone else.” Amen.