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Exodus 4: What the Passage Says

101 claims across 31 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What Exodus 4 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

Moses raises objections to the LORD's commission, and the LORD answers each one: he gives Moses three signs (a staff that becomes a snake, a hand that turns leprous and is restored, and Nile water that becomes blood), and when Moses asks him to send someone else, the LORD's anger burns against him and he appoints Aaron to speak for him. Moses asks leave of Jethro and sets out for Egypt with his family and the staff of God, carrying a message for Pharaoh about the LORD's firstborn son and a warning about Pharaoh's own. At a lodging place on the way the LORD meets him and seeks to kill him, and Zipporah circumcises their son. Aaron meets Moses at the mountain of God, and after Aaron speaks the words and the signs are done, the people believe and bow down and worship.

Claim by Claim

  1. 4:1
    • Moses answered and said that the people will not believe him
    • Moses said the people will not listen to his voice
    • Moses said the people will say that the LORD has not appeared to him
  2. 4:2
    • The LORD asked Moses what was in his hand
    • Moses answered that it was a staff
  3. 4:3
    • The LORD told Moses to throw the staff on the ground
    • Moses threw it on the ground
    • The staff became a snake
    • Moses fled from before the snake
  4. 4:4
    • The LORD told Moses to put out his hand and seize the snake by its tail
    • Moses put out his hand and took hold of it
    • It became a staff in his hand
  5. 4:5
    • The LORD said this was so that the people would believe that the LORD had appeared to Moses
    • The LORD is called the God of their fathers
    • The LORD is called the God of Abraham
    • The LORD is called the God of Isaac
    • The LORD is called the God of Jacob
  6. 4:6
    • The LORD further told Moses to put his hand inside his garment at the chest
    • Moses put his hand inside his garment
    • Moses took his hand out
    • His hand was diseased with a skin affliction, white as snow
  7. 4:7
    • The LORD told Moses to put his hand back inside his garment
    • Moses put his hand back inside his garment
    • Moses took his hand out of his garment
    • His hand was restored like the rest of his flesh
  8. 4:8
    • The LORD said that if the people will not believe Moses and will not heed the voice of the first sign, they will believe the voice of the latter sign
  9. 4:9
    • The LORD said that if the people will not believe even these two signs and will not listen to Moses' voice, Moses is to take water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground
    • The LORD said the water Moses takes from the Nile will become blood on the dry ground
  10. 4:10
    • Moses said to the LORD, appealing to Him as his Lord
    • Moses said he is not a man of words
    • Moses said he has not been so in the past
    • Moses said he has not been so since the LORD spoke to His servant
    • Moses said he is heavy of mouth and heavy of tongue
  11. 4:11
    • The LORD asked who made man's mouth
    • The LORD asked who makes a person mute
    • The LORD asked who makes a person deaf
    • The LORD asked who makes a person seeing
    • The LORD asked who makes a person blind
    • The LORD asked whether it is not He, the LORD
  12. 4:12
    • The LORD told Moses to go now
    • The LORD said He would be with Moses' mouth
    • The LORD said He would teach Moses what to say
  13. 4:13
    • Moses appealed to the LORD as his Lord
    • Moses asked the LORD to send by the hand of whomever He would send
  14. 4:14
    • The anger of the LORD was kindled against Moses
    • The LORD asked whether Aaron the Levite is not Moses' brother
    • The LORD said He knows that Aaron can speak well
    • The LORD said Aaron is coming out to meet Moses
    • The LORD said that when Aaron sees Moses, he will be glad in his heart
  15. 4:15
    • The LORD told Moses to speak to Aaron
    • The LORD told Moses to put the words in Aaron's mouth
    • The LORD said He would be with Moses' mouth and with Aaron's mouth
    • The LORD said He would teach them what they should do
  16. 4:16
    • The LORD said Aaron will speak to the people for Moses
    • The LORD said Aaron will be a mouth for Moses
    • The LORD said Moses will be as God to Aaron
  17. 4:17
    • The LORD told Moses to take this staff in his hand
    • The LORD said Moses would perform the signs with the staff
  18. 4:18
    • Moses went and returned to Jethro his father-in-law
    • Moses asked Jethro to let him go and return to his brethren in Egypt
    • Moses said he wished to see whether they were still alive
    • Jethro told Moses to go in peace
  19. 4:19
    • The LORD spoke to Moses in Midian
    • The LORD told Moses to go and return to Egypt
    • The LORD said all the men who sought Moses' life were dead
  20. 4:20
    • Moses took his wife and his sons
    • Moses set them on the donkey
    • Moses returned to the land of Egypt
    • Moses took the staff of God in his hand
  21. 4:21
    • The LORD spoke to Moses
    • The LORD told Moses that when he goes back to Egypt he is to perform before Pharaoh all the wonders the LORD had put in his hand
    • The LORD said He would harden Pharaoh's heart
    • The LORD said Pharaoh would not let the people go
  22. 4:22
    • The LORD told Moses to say to Pharaoh, Thus says the LORD
    • The LORD said Israel is His son, His firstborn
  23. 4:23
    • The LORD said He told Pharaoh to let His son go so that he may serve Him
    • The LORD said Pharaoh refused to let him go
    • The LORD said He will kill Pharaoh's son, his firstborn
  24. 4:24
    • On the way, at the lodging place, the LORD met him
    • The LORD sought to kill him
  25. 4:25
    • Zipporah took a flint
    • Zipporah cut off the foreskin of her son
    • Zipporah touched it to his feet
    • Zipporah said that he is a bridegroom of blood to her
  26. 4:26
    • The LORD let him alone
    • At that time she said, a bridegroom of blood, because of the circumcision
  27. 4:27
    • The LORD told Aaron to go into the wilderness to meet Moses
    • Aaron went
    • Aaron met Moses at the mountain of God
    • Aaron kissed Moses
  28. 4:28
    • Moses told Aaron all the words of the LORD who had sent him
    • Moses told Aaron all the signs which the LORD had commanded him
  29. 4:29
    • Moses and Aaron went
    • Moses and Aaron gathered all the elders of the children of Israel
  30. 4:30
    • Aaron spoke all the words which the LORD had spoken to Moses
    • The signs were performed in the sight of the people
  31. 4:31
    • The people believed
    • The people heard that the LORD had visited the children of Israel
    • The people heard that the LORD had seen their affliction
    • The people bowed their heads
    • The people worshipped

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

4:1
LORD printed in capitals stands for the personal name of God in Hebrew, four consonants usually written YHWH. From early times Jewish practice was to avoid pronouncing that name and to say "the Lord" instead; English Bibles keep the custom by printing LORD in capitals wherever the name occurs, and "Lord" normally where the ordinary Hebrew word for master stands.
4:2
KJV "rod" means a shepherd's staff: a long wooden stick used for walking and for guiding and controlling animals. A staff was also a common mark of a man's standing and authority.
4:3
Egyptian kings wore a rearing cobra on the crown as an emblem of royal power, so a staff that turns into a snake and is then mastered by the tail was a sign with obvious force in front of Pharaoh.
4:5
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were three generations of a single family (grandfather, son and grandson) from whom the Israelites traced their descent. "The God of their fathers" identifies the speaker as the god those ancestors had worshiped, several centuries before Moses.
4:6
KJV "bosom" means the loose fold of a garment across the chest, used as a pocket. "Leprous" translates a Hebrew term covering a range of skin conditions; it is not the modern disease called leprosy (Hansen's disease). What mattered in Israel was that such a condition made a person ritually unclean and required them to live apart from others until it cleared.
4:8
"The voice of the sign" is a Hebrew turn of phrase: a sign is treated as something that speaks, and listening to it means accepting what it shows.
4:9
"The river" is the Nile. It was Egypt's only significant water supply and the basis of its farming, fishing and transport.
4:10
The Hebrew says literally "heavy of mouth and heavy of tongue." It is not clear whether Moses means a speech impediment, a lack of skill at public speaking, or rusty Egyptian after decades away; the wording leaves the question open.
4:11
KJV "dumb" means unable to speak. In 1611 it carried no suggestion of stupidity.
4:12
"I will be with your mouth" is an idiom for helping someone with the act of speaking itself.
4:13
Literally "send by the hand of the one you will send." "By the hand of" is the ordinary Hebrew expression for sending a message through a messenger, so the whole sentence is an indirect, deferential way of saying "send somebody else."
4:14
"The anger of the LORD was kindled" renders a Hebrew idiom in which anger burns or grows hot. Aaron is already Moses' brother, so calling him "the Levite" is unexpected; it names the family line the two share, descended from Levi, one of Jacob's twelve sons.
4:16
"In the place of God" describes a chain of speaking rather than a rank: God gives Moses the words, Moses gives them to Aaron, and Aaron says them aloud to the people. The same relationship lies behind the word "prophet," which is applied to Aaron in this role in Exodus 7:1.
4:18
Jethro is a priest in Midian, the region east of the Gulf of Aqaba, where Moses had taken refuge and married Jethro's daughter. "Go in peace" is the standard Hebrew farewell, roughly "go, and may it be well with you." KJV "brethren" here means fellow Israelites.
4:19
The men who wanted Moses dead are Pharaoh and his officials. Moses had killed an Egyptian overseer who was beating an Israelite, and fled Egypt to escape execution (Exodus 2:11–15).
4:20
KJV "ass" means a donkey, the ordinary riding and pack animal of the region. The word carried no insulting sense.
4:21
"Harden his heart" translates a Hebrew expression meaning to make it strong, firm or heavy. In Hebrew the heart is the seat of thinking and deciding rather than of feeling, so the picture is of a mind fixed and immovable, not of cruelty. "Put in your hand" means placed in your power to carry out.
4:22
A firstborn son held a distinct position in a family: he received a double share of the inheritance, carried the father's name and authority after him, and was regarded as owed to God in a special way. Calling Israel God's firstborn assigns the nation that position among the peoples.
4:23
The Hebrew verb translated "serve" covers both labor done for a master and worship offered to a god. It is the same word used for the Israelites' forced labor in Egypt, so the demand is worded as a transfer from one service to another.
4:24
KJV "inn" means simply a stopping place for the night on a journey, not a building with an innkeeper. The Hebrew of this verse uses bare pronouns and never says who is attacked, Moses or his son, and readers and translators have disagreed about it since ancient times.
4:25
Circumcision, cutting away the foreskin of the penis, was the physical mark of the agreement between God and Abraham's descendants, normally carried out on a boy eight days after birth (Genesis 17). Flint was used instead of metal, an old practice kept on in the ritual. "Feet" is at times a polite Hebrew substitute for the genitals, and the text does not say whose feet are touched. "Husband of blood" (the word can also mean bridegroom) occurs nowhere else in the Bible, and its sense is disputed.
4:26
Here too the Hebrew gives only pronouns: who lets go, and who is let go, is not stated.
4:27
"The mountain of God" is Horeb, also called Sinai, the place where Moses had seen the burning bush in the previous chapter. A kiss was the normal greeting between male relatives and close friends.
4:29
The elders were the senior heads of families and clans. They acted as the recognized leaders and spokesmen of the people, and among the enslaved Israelites there was no other body that could speak for the whole community.
4:31
KJV "visited" translates a Hebrew word meaning to attend to someone, or take notice of them with the intention of acting. Bowing the head here means going down to the ground face first, the usual gesture of respect before a king or a god.

Read Exodus 4