Exodus 4 picks up where Exodus 3 ended. The burning-bush commission has been given; the divine name has been disclosed; Moses has had two of his five objections answered. The chapter resolves the remaining three objections, supplies Moses with signs and a co-spokesman, and returns him to Egypt. The chapter is told with a structural symmetry — objection, divine resource, objection, divine resource — that the standard commentaries treat as the OT’s canonical pattern of prophetic call.
Objection three (4:1): “But, behold, they will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice: for they will say, The LORD hath not appeared unto thee.” The LORD answers with three signs, each carrying its own grammar of demonstration.
The first sign: the LORD asks what is in Moses’ hand. A rod . Cast it to the ground, the LORD instructs; it becomes a serpent . Moses flees from it. The LORD says, “Put forth thine hand, and take it by the tail” — a counterintuitive instruction, since serpents are normally seized behind the head. Moses obeys; the serpent becomes a rod again in his hand. The sign is one of the most theologically dense in the chapter: the symbol of Pharaonic royal authority (the serpent appears as the uraeus on the Egyptian crown) is shown subject to the LORD’s word in Moses’ hand.
The second sign: put your hand into your bosom; he draws it out leprous as snow. Put it back; he draws it out clean as the rest of his flesh. The chapter does not editorialize; the sign demonstrates the LORD’s power over flesh-corrupting disease in both directions.
The third sign is given as a contingency: if the first two fail, take of the water of the river and pour it on the dry land; it will become blood. The third sign foreshadows the first plague (Exodus 7:14–25↗, the Nile turned to blood). The chapter is establishing in Moses’ hands the very signs that will later be deployed against Pharaoh’s whole land.
Objection four (4:10): “O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.” Moses’ self-description (kvad-peh u-kvad-lashon, “heavy of mouth and heavy of tongue”) names a real impediment; standard commentaries divide on whether the description is literal speech difficulty or rhetorical-self-deprecation. The LORD’s answer is the chapter’s strongest sentence on the theology of vocation: “Who hath made man’s mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the LORD? Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say.” The objection is honored; the resource is the LORD’s own teaching.
Objection five (4:13) is Moses’ last and bluntest: “O my Lord, send, I pray thee, by the hand of him whom thou wilt send.” The chapter records the divine response in a phrase the OT will rarely use of God toward His prophets: “And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Moses.” The LORD’s resource is not retraction but accommodation: Aaron the brother is appointed as Moses’ spokesman. “He shall be thy spokesman unto the people: and he shall be, even he shall be to thee instead of a mouth, and thou shalt be to him instead of God.” The arrangement — Aaron speaks for Moses, Moses speaks for the LORD — establishes the chain of revelation that will run through the plagues narrative.
Moses returns to Jethro, asks leave to go back to Egypt to see his brethren; Jethro answers “Go in peace.” The LORD speaks to Moses in Midian: the men who sought his life are dead. Moses takes his wife and sons, sets them on an ass, and returns to Egypt with the rod of God in his hand.
The chapter’s central theological identification follows. The LORD instructs Moses on what to say to Pharaoh: “Israel is my son, even my firstborn : And I say unto thee, 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.” The whole Passover-and-firstborn theology that will dominate Exodus 11-13 is announced here in two verses. The plagues’ final blow is anticipated before the plagues begin.
Then the chapter delivers one of the OT’s most opaque passages, the lodging-place incident (4:24-26). “And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the LORD met him, and sought to kill him. Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art thou to me.” The pronouns are ambiguous (whom did the LORD seek to kill — Moses or the son?); the phrase chathan damim is debated; the circumcision-rescue logic is widely discussed but not fully resolved. The standard reading: Moses had failed to circumcise at least one of his sons; the omitted covenant sign of Genesis 17:9–14↗ placed Moses’ covenant standing in jeopardy at the very threshold of the great covenant mission; Zipporah’s quick act restored that standing. The chapter records the incident without explanation and moves on; SumBible reports the standard reading without claiming the text fully resolves the ambiguities.
The chapter’s final scene closes the commissioning sequence. The LORD speaks to Aaron in Egypt: “Go into the wilderness to meet Moses.” They meet at the mount of God, kiss, and Moses tells Aaron everything. The two brothers gather “all the elders of the children of Israel.” Aaron speaks; Moses performs the signs. The chapter records the people’s response in a sentence that mirrors the LORD’s own promise: “And the people believed: and when they heard that the LORD had visited the children of Israel, and that he had looked upon their affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshipped.” The verb “visited” (paqad) is the same verb of Joseph’s prophetic charge at Genesis 50:24↗ (“God will surely visit you”) and of Exodus 3:16↗‘s burning-bush instruction (“I have surely visited you”). The four-century promise is now being kept; the people recognize the keeping; they worship.
Language & Translation Notes
The five Mosaic objections and divine resources. Exodus 3-4 is structured as a five-fold objection-and-divine-resource pattern, the OT’s canonical shape of prophetic call. (1) “Who am I?” (3:11) is answered by the personal-presence promise “I will be with thee” (3:12). (2) “What is His name?” (3:13) is answered by ehyeh asher ehyeh and the covenant name YHWH (3:14-15). (3) “What if they will not believe?” (4:1) is answered by the three signs (4:2-9). (4) “I am not eloquent” (4:10) is answered by “Who hath made man’s mouth?” — the LORD’s teaching of Moses’ own mouth (4:11-12). (5) “Send by the hand of him whom thou wilt send” (4:13) is answered by the appointment of Aaron in anger (4:14-17). The pattern recurs in part for later prophetic calls: Jeremiah’s “I cannot speak: for I am a child” (Jeremiah 1:6↗) is answered with the same kind of mouth-teaching promise; Isaiah’s “I am a man of unclean lips” (Isaiah 6:5↗) is answered with the seraph’s cleansing coal. The Mosaic call is the template; the later prophetic calls echo and shorten it.
The lodging-place incident and the firstborn theme. Exodus 4:24-26 is one of the OT’s most opaque texts, and its placement matters as much as its content. The incident occurs immediately after the LORD’s “Israel is my son, even my firstborn… if thou refuse to let him go… I will slay thy son, even thy firstborn” (4:22-23). The juxtaposition is unmistakable: a firstborn-son crisis happens right after the firstborn-son theology is declared. The standard reading is that the chapter is showing the seriousness of the firstborn category by enacting it within the covenant family itself: Moses’ own son’s covenant standing is brought into immediate jeopardy at the very moment his commission depends on the firstborn theme. Zipporah’s circumcision-act restores the covenant standing through the sign of Gen 17:9-14. The chapter does not explain what the LORD’s “seeking to kill” means concretely (illness? a physical attack?); it does record that the danger was real, the response was the covenant sign, and the danger passed. The episode foreshadows the Passover (Exod 12) where blood will again be the sign that turns aside divine judgment from the firstborn.