Exoduschapter 4
31 verses · Moses, by tradition · 15th or 13th century BC · The Law
Then Moses answered, “What if they do not believe me or listen to my voice? For they may say, ‘The LORD has not appeared to you.’”
Introduction
Moses, by tradition, The Law, Exodus Overview.
This chapter finishes the conversation at the bush and puts Moses on the road back to Egypt. It was written for a people who knew how reluctant their deliverer had been and needed to know why God kept him. The signs given here are the first miracles of the book, and they were meant to be done again in front of witnesses. Listen for each excuse Moses offers and for what God supplies in answer. Listen also for the first warning of what the rescue will cost Egypt's king.
Context
- Who
- Israel in the wilderness, a circumcised people who knew what the lodging-place story meant
- What
- A narrative chapter that completes Moses' call with three signs and the help of Aaron, and brings him back to the elders of Israel.
- Where
- Horeb, the road back from Midian, a lodging place on the way, and the land of Goshen.
- When
- About 1446 BC on the traditional early date, with the late date placing it in the thirteenth century BC.
- Why
- To show God answering the weakness of His messenger and to announce in advance the judgment on Egypt's firstborn.
Historical context
The account is Moses' own by the book's own claim, and he writes here about the day his errand was settled and the road he took to it. At the time of the events he was a herdsman in Midian with a wife and two sons, and he went back as the man sent to Pharaoh. The people who first heard it read were the ones he had led out.
Show the rest of the historical context, 2 more paragraphs
The events fall in the year the exodus begins, about 1446 BC on the traditional early chronology. The place moves from Horeb to the caravan road out of Midian, then to a lodging place on the way, then to Goshen in the eastern Delta. The occasion is the errand given in the chapter before, and the objections Moses still had to it.
A first hearer knew that the signs were aimed at Egypt. The rearing cobra sat on Pharaoh's own crown as the protecting goddess Wadjet, and snake-handling belonged to the Egyptian magician's trade, so a staff turning into a serpent landed inside Egypt's own imagery. Moses is told to seize it by the tail, which is the grip no handler would use. The hearer also knew the flint knife of verse 25 as the old and proper implement for circumcision, and he knew that a household outside the covenant sign stood outside the covenant.
Significance
Israel heard that even Moses could not carry God's word to Pharaoh while neglecting God's covenant at home.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
They also heard God claim them in a sentence that governs everything after it, that Israel is my firstborn son. Every plague is the working out of that sentence, and the last one above all.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
How it is read
This is the one chapter of the span where the corpus carries three commentators with their text. Ramban holds that the signs were given for the people rather than for Moses. God showed Moses wonders "in order that they believe him" (Ramban on Exodus 4:5:1, the Chavel translation, Shilo, 1971 to 1976). Rashi reads the water poured out on dry ground in verse 9 as a warning aimed at Egypt's god. The first plague, he says, will "exact retribution from their deity", because Egypt worshipped the Nile that fed it (Rashi on Exodus 4:9:1, the Metsudah Rashi Chumash, 2009). Sforno reads the promise of verse 15 as more than words supplied. God will help both brothers speak, so that Pharaoh "will absorb the words with his heart" (Sforno on Exodus 4:15:1, the Eliyahu Munk translation). All three translations are recent and carry a CC-BY licence, so each quotation here is kept short. Rashi's notes on the rod, on the leprous hand and on the meeting at the lodging place stand by reference alone (Rashi on Exodus 4:3:1, 4:6:1 and 4:24:1).
What the rabbis say
The rabbis take up Moses pleading heavy speech at Bamidbar Rabbah 21:15 and Devarim Rabbah 1:1. On the answer about who makes the mouth they taught in Bereshit Rabbah 1:5. On the men who sought Moses' life they taught at Avodah Zarah 5a:18. On the rod that became a serpent they taught at Bava Batra 110a:3 and Midrash Lekach Tov, Exodus 4:3:1.
Sources: Ramban, Ramban on Exodus 4:5:1, Commentary on the Torah translated by Charles B. Chavel, Shilo, 1971 to 1976 (CC-BY); Rashi, Rashi on Exodus 4:9:1, the Rashi Chumash, Metsudah Publications, 2009 (CC-BY); and Rashi on Exodus 4:3:1, 4:6:1 and 4:24:1 by ref alone; Sforno, Sforno on Exodus 4:15:1, the Eliyahu Munk translation of HaChut Hameshulash (CC-BY); The Babylonian Talmud, Avodah Zarah 5a:18 and Bava Batra 110a:3, cited by ref; The Midrash, Bamidbar Rabbah 21:15, Devarim Rabbah 1:1, Bereshit Rabbah 1:5 and Midrash Lekach Tov, Exodus 4:3:1, cited by ref.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
The Rod, the Hand, the Water
Exodus 4:1-2
Moses raises a fourth objection and it contradicts what he has just been told, since Exodus 3:18 promised that the elders shall hearken to thy voice. God answers with a question about a shepherd's stick rather than with an argument. The rod in his hand at this verse is the instrument the rest of the book runs on, at the court in 7:12, at the river in 7:20, at the sea in 14:16 and at the rock in 17:6.
Exodus 4:1
“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.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
The LORD begins the first sign with the staff Moses already holds, a shepherd's working tool. From here on it becomes the instrument of the signs in Egypt and is called the staff of God in verse 20. Adam Clarke gives the Hebrew word as matteh and takes it as a shepherd's crook, and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown say the question served to fix Moses' attention on it.
Exodus 4:2
“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 shepherd's crook--among the Arabs, a long staff, with a curved head, varying from three to six feet in length.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Exodus 4:2
“A rod - מתה matteh, a staff, probably his shepherd’s 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.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Exodus 4:3-4
The stick becomes a serpent and Moses runs from the thing he had been carrying, then is told to take it by the tail, which is the one place a man handling a snake does not grasp it. Egypt wore the rearing cobra on the crown of its kings, so the first sign given to Moses puts in his hand the creature Pharaoh's house used as its emblem. Genesis 3:15 set the quarrel with the serpent and its seed, and the contest in Exodus opens with a serpent held by the tail.
Exodus 4:3
“A serpent - This miracle had a meaning which Moses could not mistake. The serpent was probably the basilisk or Uraeus, the Cobra. This was the symbol of royal and divine power on the diadem of every Pharaoh. The conversion of the rod was not merely a portent, it was a sign, at once a pledge and representation of victory over the king and gods of Egypt!”
Moses is told to seize the snake by the tail, a hold that leaves the head free to strike. His obedience, reaching for the creature he had just fled, is part of the sign, and the snake turns back into a staff in his hand. Albert Barnes, on verse 3, takes the snake as the cobra worn on every Pharaoh's crown, so the sign pictures mastery over Egypt's king.
Exodus 4:4
“He put forth his hand, and caught it - Considering the light in which Moses had viewed this serpent, it required considerable faith to induce him thus implicitly to obey the command of God; but he obeyed, and the noxious serpent became instantly the miraculous rod in his hand! Implicit faith and obedience conquer all difficulties; and he who believes in God, and obeys him in all things, has really nothing to fear.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The sign has a stated purpose and it is belief in a person rather than wonder at a marvel. God names himself by three men four centuries dead, which ties the deliverance to the promise of Genesis 15:13 and 15:14 rather than to a new departure. Jesus quotes the same triple naming from Exodus 3:6 at Matthew 22:32 and argues the resurrection from the tense of the verb.
Exodus 4:5
“That they may believe,.... The elders and people of Israel; for this miracle was wrought not for the confirmation of Moses's faith; for, as Aben Ezra observes, the sign of the burning bush was given to him to confirm his faith, that it was God that appeared to him, and called him to this work; but this was wrought to confirm the faith of the Israelites in his divine mission: that the Lord God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath appeared unto thee; See Gill on Exo 3:6.”
1 more voice on this verse
Exodus 4:5
“That they may believe - This is an example of what is called an imperfect or unfinished speech, several of which occur in the sacred writings. It may be thus supplied: Do this before them, that they may believe that the Lord hath appeared unto thee.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Exodus 4:6-7
The second sign is worked on Moses himself and it costs him what the first did not, since leprosy is the condition that put a man outside the camp. It is the only one of the three signs with no later scene attached to it anywhere in the book. What it announces is answered in words at Exodus 15:26, I am the LORD that healeth thee, which is the first occurrence of healeth in Scripture.
Exodus 4:6
“Again, another sign which Moses gave points to our Lord Jesus Christ. He put his hand into his bosom and drew it out again, and his hand had become as snow. A second time he put it in and drew it out, and it was again like the appearance of human flesh. This signified first the original glory of the Godhead of the Lord Jesus and then the assumption of our flesh, in which truth all nations and peoples must believe.”
Ambrose of Milan · written before 397 · On the Duties of the Clergy 3.15.95patristic
2 more voices on this verse
Exodus 4:6
“His hand was leprous as snow - That is, the leprosy spread itself over the whole body in thin white scales; and from this appearance it has its Greek name λεπρα, from λεπις, a scale.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Exodus 4:6
“His hand was leprous, as snow - For whiteness. This signified, That Moses, by the power of God, should bring sore diseases upon Egypt, that at his prayer they should be removed. And that whereas the Israelites in Egypt were become leprous, polluted by sin, and almost consumed by oppression, by being taken into the bosom of Moses they should be cleansed and cured.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
it was restored, like the rest of his skin: The second sign reverses as quickly as it came. The hand that came out leprous in verse 6 comes out restored, showing that the LORD both sends disease and heals it. John Wesley, writing on verse 6, saw in the pair a picture of plagues brought on Egypt and removed at Moses' prayer, and of a defiled Israel made clean.
Exodus 4:7
“And he said, put thine hand into thy bosom again,.... With the leprosy on it: and he put his hand into his bosom again, and plucked it out of his bosom; quickly after he had put it in: and, behold, it was turned again as his other flesh; it was cured of the leprosy, and recovered its colour, and was as sound as before, and as any other part of his body.”
Exodus 4:8-9
The signs are given as a graded series against unbelief, each one held in reserve for the case where the one before it fails. The third is never performed here, and it is the only one that touches Egypt's own river, poured out on dry ground where anyone can watch it. It becomes the first plague at Exodus 7:20, where the water is struck in the river itself instead of being carried out of it.
Exodus 4:8
“If they will not believe - the voice of the first sign, etc. - Probably intimating that some would be more difficult to be persuaded than others: some would yield to the evidence of the first miracle; others would hesitate till they had seen the second; and others would not believe till they had seen the water of the Nile turned into blood, when poured upon the dry land; Exo 4:9.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
take some water from the Nile: A third sign is held in reserve for a people who refuse the first two. Water taken from the Nile, the river Egypt lived by, becomes blood on the dry ground, a small first form of the plague of chapter 7. Matthew Henry notes that what began as a sign later struck the whole river when Pharaoh would not believe.
Exodus 4:9
“This was done, at first, as a sign, but, not gaining due credit with Pharaoh, the whole river was afterwards turned into blood, and then it became a plague. He is ordered to work this miracle in case they would not be convinced by the other two.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Slow of Speech; Aaron Will Speak
Exodus 4:10-12
The next objection is his own mouth, and the Hebrew idiom behind slow of speech reads as heavy of mouth and heavy of tongue. God's answer moves off the mouth and onto its maker, naming the dumb and the deaf and the blind as his own doing, then promising to be with the mouth and to teach it what to say. Acts 7:22 says Moses was mighty in words and in deeds, and readers have long set that beside this verse without settling how the two fit together.
Exodus 4:10
“Moses himself once said: "I am alogos"("wordless"). The Latin version uses a different expression, but we can translate the word alogos exactly as "without words and reason." After he said this, he received reason and speech, which he admitted that he did not have before. When the people of Israel were in Egypt, before they had received the law, they too were without words and reason and thus in a sense mute. Then they received the Word; Moses was the image of it.”
Origen of Alexandria · written before 253 · HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF LUKE 5:3patristic
1 more voice on this verse
Exodus 4:10
“I am not eloquent--It is supposed that Moses labored under a natural defect of utterance or had a difficulty in the free and fluent expression of his ideas in the Egyptian language, which he had long disused. This new objection was also overruled, but still Moses, who foresaw the manifold difficulties of the undertaking, was anxious to be freed from the responsibility.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
The LORD answers Moses' plea of slow speech with a question about who made the mouth. The Creator who forms speech and hearing, sight and blindness, has power over every limit of the one He sends. Adam Clarke, on verse 10, weighs how Moses could call himself slow of speech when Stephen in Acts 7:22 calls him mighty in words.
Exodus 4:11
Just as in Exodus God speaks to Moses, when he delays and fears to go to the people, saying, "Who gave a mouth to man and who made the dumb and the deaf, the seeing and the blind? Did not I the Lord God? Go now, and I shall open your mouth, and I will teach you what you shall speak."
Cyprian · written before 258 · Treatise XI. Exhortation to Martyrdom 10patristic
3 more voices on this verse
Exodus 4:11
“Who hath made man’s mouth? etc. - Cannot he who formed the mouth, the whole organs of speech, and hath given the gift of speech also, cannot he give utterance? God can take away those gifts and restore them again. Do not provoke him: he who created the eye, the ear, and the mouth, hath also made the blind, the deaf, and the dumb.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Exodus 4:11
“And the Lord said unto him, who hath made man's mouth?....”
Exodus 4:11
“There are some who bring false charges against God, or rather against the Scriptures of the Old Testament, because God said that he himself makes a man blind or mute. So what do they say about Christ the Lord, who says openly in the Gospel, "I have come so that those who are blind may see and those who see might be made blind"? Who besides a fool would believe that something can happen to a man in regard to corporeal defects that God did not will? No one doubts that God wills all things justly.”
Augustine of Hippo · written before 430 · QUESTIONS ON EXODUS 8patristic
I will help you as you speak: Having answered the objection, the LORD gives the command to go. The promise matches the fear, since the God who made the mouth will help Moses speak and teach him what to say. Adam Clarke notes that the ancient Aramaic paraphrase called the Chaldee speaks here of God's Word being with Moses' mouth.
Exodus 4:12
“The Lord also said to the Apostles, opening their mouths, Receive ye the Holy Ghost, whereby He declared that He is the same Who said to Moses, I will open thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say. Wherefore this wisdom, divine, unspeakable, unadulterated and incorruptible, pours her grace into the minds of her saints, and discloses to them knowledge that they may behold her glory.”
Ambrose of Milan · written before 397 · Letter 65.4patristic
1 more voice on this verse
Exodus 4:12
“I will be with thy mouth - The Chaldee translates, My Word, meimeri, shall be with thy mouth. And Jonathan ben Uzziel paraphrases, I and my Word will be with the speech of thy mouth. See Clarke on Gen 15:1 (note), and Lev 25:10 (note).”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Exodus 4:13-14
The last objection drops the arguments and asks God to send somebody else. This is the point where the anger of the LORD is kindled against Moses, and it is the only such line in the whole call at the bush. The answer still gives him what he asked for, and Aaron is already on the road, which means the brother was travelling before the request was made.
Exodus 4:13
“Send - by the hand of him whom thou wilt send - Many commentators, both ancient and modern, have thought that Moses prays here for the immediate mission of the Messiah; as if he had said: “Lord, thou hast purposed to send this glorious person at some time or other, I beseech thee send him now, for who can be sufficient to deliver and rule this people but himself alone?””
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
the anger of the LORD burned against Moses: After the plain refusal of verse 13, the LORD is angry with Moses, yet He still provides help. Aaron, the older brother, speaks well and is already on his way, so the answer to Moses' weakness was set in motion before he asked. Adam Clarke argues that this anger shows Moses was refusing the task, which rules out the reading that he asked for the Messiah to be sent.
Exodus 4:14
“And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses - Surely this would not have been the case had he only in modesty, and from a deep sense of his own unfitness, desired that the Messiah should be preferred before him. But the whole connection shows that this interpretation is unfounded.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Exodus 4:15-16
The arrangement made here is the shape of prophecy stated in miniature, one man receiving the word and another carrying it. Exodus 7:1 says it outright, that Moses is made a god to Pharaoh and Aaron his brother shall be his prophet. Matthew Henry reads the concession as a loss rather than a gift, since Moses now speaks through a mouth he does not govern, and Aaron is the man who makes the calf in chapter 32.
Exodus 4:15
“I will be with thy mouth, and with his mouth - Ye shall be both, in all things which I appoint you to do in this business, under the continual inspiration of the Most High.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Exodus 4:15
“Thou shalt speak - Moses thus retains his position as “mediator;” the word comes to him first, he transmits it to his brother.”
He will be your spokesman: The verse sets the order of speech for the mission. God gives the word to Moses, Moses gives it to Aaron, and Aaron speaks it to the people, so that Moses stands toward Aaron as God stands toward a prophet. Adam Clarke explains that Moses would deliver to Aaron what God told him, and Aaron would carry every message to the people.
Exodus 4:16
“He shall be thy spokesman - Literally, He shall speak for thee (or in thy stead) to the people. He shall be to thee instead of a mouth - He shall convey every message to the people; and thou shalt be to him instead of God - thou shalt deliver to him what I communicate to thee.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The call closes by handing back the same stick Moses was holding at verse 2. Nothing new is issued to him, and the one instrument of the deliverance is a shepherd's staff he already owned. By verse 20 the text calls it the rod of God, and it swallows the magicians' rods at 7:12, divides the sea at 14:16 and strikes the rock at 17:6.
Exodus 4:17
“And thou shall take this rod in thine hand,.... Which he then had in his hand, and was no other than his shepherd's staff: wherewith thou shall do signs: wondrous things, meaning the ten plagues inflicted on Egypt.”
2 more voices on this verse
Exodus 4:17
“Thou shalt take this rod - From the story of Moses’s rod the heathens have invented the fables of the thyrsus of Bacchus, and the caduceus of Mercury. Cicero reckons five Bacchuses, one of which, according to Orpheus, was born of the river Nile; but, according to the common opinion, he was born on the banks of that river. Bacchus is expressly said to have been exposed on the river Nile, hence he is called Nilus, both by Diodorus and Macrobius; and in the hymns of Orpheus he is named Myses, because he was drawn out of the water.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Exodus 4:17
“18 And Moses went and returned to Jethro his father in law, and said unto him, Let me go, I pray thee, and return unto my brethren which are in Egypt, and see whether they be yet alive. And Jethro said to Moses, Go in peace. 19 And the L ORD said unto Moses in Midian, Go, return into Egypt: for all the men are dead which sought thy life.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Israel Is My Firstborn Son
Exodus 4:18-19
Moses asks his father in law for leave and gives him a part of the reason, that he will see whether his brethren are yet alive. God's word in verse 19 settles the danger by telling him that all the men are dead which sought thy life. Matthew 2:20 puts nearly the same words to Joseph about Herod, they are dead which sought the young child's life, and commentators have long read the two side by side.
Moses had fled Egypt because Pharaoh sought his life after the killing of the Egyptian in chapter 2. The LORD now removes that fear by telling him his pursuers have died, which echoes 2:23, where the king of Egypt died. Adam Clarke takes this as a fresh word given in Midian after Moses had asked Jethro's leave to go.
Exodus 4:19
“In Midian - This was a new revelation, and appears to have taken place after Moses returned to his father-in-law previous to his departure for Egypt.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Moses carries a wife and sons back into the country he fled, and the text says sons in the plural though only Gershom has been named, at Exodus 2:22. The second is Eliezer, named at Exodus 18:4 on the day the family is sent back out again. The staff becomes the rod of God in this verse, which is what a shepherd's stick is called once God has told a man what to do with it.
Exodus 4:20
“And Moses took his wife, and his sons,.... Gershom and Eliezer; by which it appears that he intended to stay in Egypt, and that he believed that God would work deliverance by him: and set them upon an ass: which though with us a mean creature, yet in those times and countries were rode upon by great personages; and these, as Aben Ezra says, were reckoned in Egypt more honourable than mules.”
1 more voice on this verse
Exodus 4:20
“His wife and his sons - Both Gershom and Eliezer, though the birth of the latter has not yet been mentioned in the Hebrew text. See Clarke’s note on Exo 2:22. Set them upon an ass - The Septuagint reads the word in the plural, εκι τα ὑποζυγια, upon asses, as it certainly required more than one to carry Zipporah, Gershom, and Eliezer.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
But I will harden his heart: This is the first of nineteen hardening statements in Exodus and it is spoken before a single plague has fallen. Through the first five plagues the text puts the act on Pharaoh or leaves it stative, at 7:13, 7:22, 8:15, 8:19, 8:32 and 9:7, and 9:12 is the first verse that says the LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh, after which the subject never changes back. R. C. Sproul reads the sequence as one act carrying two true descriptions, divine sovereignty and human responsibility both real and neither cancelling the other. The free will reading takes the order seriously and holds that God confirmed a man in the direction he had already taken, and Romans 9:17 quotes Exodus 9:16 into the same argument.
Exodus 4:21
“Now many have been troubled by the story of Pharaoh, in dealing with whom God says several times, "I will harden Pharaoh's heart." For if he is hardened by God and through being hardened sins, he is not himself responsible for the sin; and if this is so, Pharaoh has no free will. And someone will say that in the same way those who are lost have no free will and will not be lost on their own account.”
Origen of Alexandria · written before 253 · ON FIRST PRINCIPLES 3.1.7patristic
1 more voice on this verse
Exodus 4:21
“I will harden - Calamities which do not subdue the heart harden it. In the case of Pharaoh, the hardening was at once a righteous judgment, and a natural result of a long series of oppressions and cruelties.”
Exodus 4:22-23
The tenth plague is announced in chapter four, before the first one falls, and it is framed as a matter between two sons. Genesis spent fifty chapters setting the younger ahead of the firstborn, Isaac over Ishmael, Jacob over Esau, Ephraim over Manasseh, and Exodus turns and deals with the firstborn directly at 12:29, 13:2 and 13:13. The demand at verse 23 reads let my son go, that he may serve me, and it is the first of seven times a purpose clause is fixed to the release, returning as let my people go, that they may serve me at 7:16, 8:1, 8:20, 9:1, 9:13 and 10:3. Release is asked for with a use named for it every time.
Exodus 4:22
“My firstborn - The expression would be perfectly intelligible to Pharaoh, whose official designation was “son of Ra.” In numberless inscriptions the Pharaohs are styled “own sons” or “beloved sons” of the deity. It is here applied for the first time to Israel; and as we learn from Exo 4:23, emphatically in antithesis to Pharaoh’s own firstborn.”
let My son go so that he may worship Me: The demand names Israel as the LORD's son and sets the terms of the whole contest: release for worship, or the loss of Pharaoh's own firstborn. The threat stated here is carried out in the tenth plague at 12:29. Adam Clarke explains that Israel could not sacrifice in Egypt, since the animals it offered were sacred to the Egyptians, a reason Moses gives in 8:26.
Exodus 4:23
“Let my son go, that he may serve me - Which they could not do in Goshen, consistently with the policy and religious worship of the Egyptians; because the most essential part of an Israelite’s worship consisted in sacrifice, and the animals which they offered to God were sacred among the Egyptians. Moses gives Pharaoh this reason Exo 8:26. I will slay thy son, even thy first-born - Which, on Pharaoh’s utter refusal to let the people go, was accordingly done; see Exo 12:29.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Danger at the Lodging Place
Exodus 4:24-26
Three verses report an attack on the road and the account is compressed to the point that its pronouns carry no names. The text does not say whom the LORD sought to kill, and readers divide over whether it was Moses or the son, over which son was circumcised, and over what Zipporah meant by a bloody husband. Matthew Henry and John Gill both read the danger as falling on Moses, taken to account for leaving his own household outside the covenant sign of Genesis 17:10 while going to demand a nation's release. Keil and Delitzsch read it of the uncircumcised boy, and the passage itself names neither.
Exodus 4:24
“By the way in the inn - See Clarke’s note on Gen 42:27. The account in this and the following verse is very obscure.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Exodus 4:24
“To dishonor that sign and seal of the covenant was criminal in any Hebrew, peculiarly so in one destined to be the leader and deliverer of the Hebrews; and he seems to have felt his sickness as a merited chastisement for his sinful omission.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
took a flint knife: Zipporah acts at once, circumcising her son with a flint knife and touching the foreskin to Moses' feet. Her words, bridegroom of blood, are hard to interpret. Albert Barnes reads the act as distaste for the rite and relief at her husband's rescue, and the phrase as a marriage now sealed in blood. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, on verse 24, see the scene as chastisement for a neglected circumcision.
Exodus 4:25
“Sharp stone - Not “knife,” as in the margin. Zipporah used a piece of flint, in accordance with the usage of the patriarchs. The Egyptians never used bronze or steel in the preparation of mummies because stone was regarded as a purer and more sacred material than metal. Cast it at his feet - Showing at once her abhorrence of the rite, and her feeling that by it she had saved her husband’s life. A bloody husband - Literally, “a husband of blood,” or “bloods.” The meaning is: The marriage bond between us is now sealed by blood.”
So the LORD let him alone: Once the circumcision is done, the danger passes and the LORD withdraws. The writer then explains that Zipporah's phrase referred to the circumcision, tying her words to the covenant sign of Genesis 17. Albert Barnes adds that Moses later sent Zipporah and the children back to Jethro, as 18:2 records, since the road to Egypt could not wait for the boy to heal.
Exodus 4:26
“So he let him go - i. e. God withdrew His visitation from Moses. Moses sent Zipporah and her children back to Jethro before he went to Egypt, Exo 18:2. The journey would have been delayed had he waited for the healing of the child.”
Exodus 4:27-28
God had been speaking to Aaron as well, and the two lines of instruction meet in the mount of God, which is the Horeb of Exodus 3:1 where the bush burned. The reunion of two brothers parted forty years is given one word, that he kissed him. Moses hands over everything he was given, the words and the signs together, so Aaron goes in to the elders knowing what Moses knows.
Exodus 4:27
“Aaron met him in the mount of God, and kissed him--After a separation of forty years, their meeting would be mutually happy. Similar are the salutations of Arab friends when they meet in the desert still; conspicuous is the kiss on each side of the head.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Moses told Aaron everything the LORD had sent him to say: At the mountain of God the brothers meet, and Moses passes on the whole commission. Aaron hears both the words he must speak and the signs that are to be performed, so the arrangement of verses 15 and 16 begins to work. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, on verse 27, note that the brothers met after a separation of forty years.
Exodus 4:28
“Moses told Aaron all - Those that are fellow-servants to God in the same work, should use a mutual freedom, and endeavour, rightly and fully to understand one another.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Exodus 4:29-31
The chapter closes on the answer to the objection it opened with, since Moses had said they will not believe me and the people believed. What moves them is the report that the LORD had visited the children of Israel and looked upon their affliction, which is the language of Genesis 50:24 where Joseph promised that God will surely visit you. They bow their heads and worship, the same act the people perform at Exodus 12:27 on the night the passover is commanded. The belief recorded here does not hold past chapter five, where these same people turn on Moses once Pharaoh doubles the work.
Exodus 4:29
“All the elders - The Israelites retained their own national organization; their affairs were administered by their own elders, who called a public assembly Exo 4:31 to hear the message brought by Moses and Aaron.”
Aaron relayed everything the LORD had said: The plan of verses 15 and 16 now works before the elders. Aaron speaks the words given to Moses, and Moses performs the signs of the staff, the hand and the water before the people. Adam Clarke suggests Aaron knew the Hebrew tongue better than his brother, which made him the natural spokesman.
Exodus 4:30
“Aaron spake all the words - It is likely that Aaron was better acquainted with the Hebrew tongue than his brother, and on this account he became the spokesman. See Clarke on Exo 4:14 (note). Did the signs - Turned the rod into a serpent, made the hand leprous, and changed the water into blood. See Clarke on Exo 4:6 (note) and Exo 4:8 (note).”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
they bowed down and worshiped: Moses feared in verse 1 that the people would refuse him; here they believe. When they hear that the LORD has seen their affliction, they bow down and worship, the fitting response to God's visitation. Adam Clarke describes the eastern posture behind the phrase, bowing the head low, kneeling and touching the earth with the forehead.
Exodus 4:31
“The people believed - They credited the account given of the Divine appointment of Moses and Aaron to be their deliverers out of their bondage, the miracles wrought on the occasion confirming the testimony delivered by Aaron. They bowed their heads and worshipped - See a similar act mentioned, and in the same words, Gen 24:26 (note). The bowing the head, etc., here, may probably refer to the eastern custom of bowing the head down to the knees, then kneeling down and touching the earth with the forehead.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
How this psalm is built
The form: Narrative prose, the close of the call at the bush followed by the road back to Egypt, as Keil and Delitzsch classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| Three signs given as a graded series | The staff becomes a serpent at verse 3, the hand turns leprous and is healed at verses 6 and 7, and Nile water poured on dry ground becomes blood at verse 9. Each one is held in reserve for the case where the one before it fails. The third is never performed in this chapter, and it is the only one of the three that touches Egypt's own river. It becomes the first plague at Exodus 7:20.John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament. | Exodus 4:3, Exodus 4:6, Exodus 4:9 |
| The chapter opens on unbelief and closes on belief | Moses opens the chapter at verse 1 by saying that the people will not believe him. The last verse reports that they believed, bowed down and worshiped. Matthew Henry reads the close as the answer to the objection the chapter began with. The belief does not hold past chapter 5, where the same people turn on Moses once Pharaoh doubles the work.Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible. | Exodus 4:1, Exodus 4:31 |
| One stick, named three ways | At verse 2 it is the staff in his hand, and the question God asks about it is what it is. At verse 17 it is handed back to him as the thing he will work the signs with. At verse 20 the text calls it the staff of God. Nothing new is issued to Moses in the whole chapter, and the instrument of the deliverance is a shepherd's stick he already owned.Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible. | Exodus 4:2, Exodus 4:17, Exodus 4:20 |
| Objections answered with questions | Moses raises three objections here, at verse 1, at verse 10 and at verse 13, and the first two are met with a question. Verse 2 asks him what is in his hand. Verse 11 asks who gave man his mouth, and names the mute, the deaf, the sighted and the blind as God's own doing. The last objection drops the arguments and asks God to send somebody else, and it is the point where the anger of the LORD is kindled.Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible. | Exodus 4:1, Exodus 4:2, Exodus 4:10, Exodus 4:11, Exodus 4:13 |
| Two firstborn sons set against each other | Verse 22 has God call Israel his firstborn son. Verse 23 sets Pharaoh's own firstborn against him, as the price of refusing to release the first. The tenth plague is announced in this chapter, before a single plague has fallen, and it is framed as a matter between two sons. Exodus deals with the firstborn directly at 12:29, 13:2 and 13:13.Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch. | Exodus 4:22, Exodus 4:23 |
The chapter finishes a call that runs across two chapters. Moses raises five objections in all, at Exodus 3:11, 3:13, 4:1, 4:10 and 4:13, and each answer speaks about God rather than about Moses. The fourth objection contradicts what he has already been told, since Exodus 3:18 promised that the elders would listen to his voice.
9 more paragraphs on the patterns
What runs through the chapter is the answering of the whole errand in advance. The hardening is stated at verse 21 before a plague has fallen. The tenth plague is stated at verse 23 before the first. The demand at verse 23 ties the release to a purpose, which is that the son may serve God. The same purpose is fixed to the release again at Exodus 7:16, 8:1, 8:20, 9:1, 9:13 and 10:3. Release is asked for with a use named for it every time.
The chapter also sets the two men who will carry the book. Aaron speaks for Moses from verse 16 onward, and Aaron is the man who makes the calf in chapter 32. The staff Moses is handed at verse 17 is the instrument of every public act from Exodus 7 to Exodus 17.
The New Testament's use
Acts 7:22 says Moses was mighty in words and in deeds, and readers have long set that beside the objection at verse 10 without settling how the two fit together. Matthew 2:20 puts nearly the words of verse 19 to Joseph about Herod, that the men who sought the child's life were dead. Romans 9:17 quotes Exodus 9:16 into Paul's argument about the hardening this chapter announces at verse 21.
The debated point
The hardening of Pharaoh's heart is held two ways by teachers this site cites. The majority evangelical reading notes that Pharaoh hardens his own heart first in the narrative order, at Exodus 8:15, 8:32 and 9:34, and reads God's hardening as the confirming of a choice already made. The Reformed reading leans on Paul's use of Pharaoh at Romans 9:17 and 9:18, and takes the hardening as sovereign and purposeful from the start. R. C. Sproul, in Chosen by God, reads the sequence as one act carrying two true descriptions, with divine sovereignty and human responsibility both real. The verse that announces it stands here, before any plague, and no verdict is stated.
The lodging place at verses 24 to 26 is read two ways as well. Matthew Henry and John Gill read the danger as falling on Moses, taken to account for leaving his own household outside the covenant sign of Genesis 17:10 while going to demand a nation's release. Keil and Delitzsch read it of the uncircumcised boy. The passage names neither, and readers also divide over which son was circumcised and over what Zipporah meant.
Where to go deeper
The claim of verse 22 and the plague of verse 23 are laid out at the firstborn. The wonders of verse 21 are laid out at the Ten Plagues. The call this chapter finishes is laid out at the burning bush, and the country Moses is sent back to is laid out at Egypt.
Keep studying
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The context
Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.
The form and classifications
Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch, on Exodus 4 and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, on Exodus 4.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Calvin, Commentary on the Four Last Books of Moses Arranged in the Form of a Harmony; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and R. C. Sproul, Chosen by God.