Bible in 365 Days

Exodus 4-6 

Exodus 4

A further difficulty was now declared. The man who first doubted himself and then doubted because of his ignorance of God now doubted because of the people to whom he was to be sent. God had told him that the people would hearken, but now he questioned this. All fear of man is evidence of feeble faith in God. In the presence of such fear what we need is clearer vision of God. The story shows that God understood and answered the fear of His servant by granting him signs.

Then is revealed the strangest of all the difficulties. Moses returned to the first stated and declared his own weakness and incompetence. At the beginning it was natural, and the answer was one of grace. Now it was unwarranted and God was angry with him. The result was that Aaron was given to him as a mouthpiece. This is a strange and yet recurring experience. Faltering faith is answered by the supply of something that might have been done without, and the result is sorrow.

At last, difficulties having been dealt with, Moses commenced to walk in the path of obedience. Here we have the record of something certainly strange in the way in which it is told. Jehovah meets him on the pathway and seeks to kill him. The explanation is to be found in what follows. There can be no doubt that for some reason unrecorded Moses had failed to carry out the divine instructions concerning circumcision. The lesson is self- evident. No great consecration to service can excuse failure in what may appear to be smaller matters of conduct. Obedience completely established, everything moved forward.

Exodus 5

Here we have the last picture of the people in bondage. As we follow the history, we shall be particularly interested in noticing the process through which Pharaoh passed. Here Moses and Aaron came to him and uttered the simple requirement of Jehovah in the words, "Let My people go." The answer was immediate, daring, and stubborn. Pharaoh declared his ignorance of Jehovah and practically challenged Him as he bluntly said, "I will not let Israel go." His refusal was followed by brutality. He assumed the attitude of insolent ignorance.

As we read the story of the suffering of these people, we cannot wonder at their complaint. Everything surely seemed to be against them and as though the intervention of Moses was turning out for ill rather than good. The whole transaction constituted a trial for Moses in the pathway of faith and obedience. There is a touch of impatience and evidence of wavering faith in what he said in the presence of God. Yet the profounder truth is that there is a remarkable evidence of his faith in his going directly to God with his difficulty. Happy is the man who when he cannot understand the divine movement and, indeed, doubts it has yet faith enough in God Himself to tell Him all his doubt.

Exodus 6

Here commences the section of Exodus devoted to the subject of national deliverance. Everything began with a solemn charge to Moses. It is first an answer to the complaint which God's servant had uttered in His presence. It was a message of divine self-assertion and, therefore, necessarily a message of grace. Mark the recurrence of the personal pronoun. That is the permanent value of this wonderful passage. The supreme need in every hour of difficulty and depression is a vision of God. To see Him is to see all else in proper proportion and perspective. Moreover, in this passage we have the unfolding of the real value of the name Jehovah.

After this the command to go to Pharaoh was reiterated and a new fear took possession of the heart of Moses which again was expressed in the presence of God. He no longer complained at God's treatment of the people but spoke of his own inability to deliver God's message. That inability was now born of a sense, not as before of his lack of eloquence, but of his uncleanness. He spoke of himself as of uncircumcised lips. As when Isaiah beheld the glory of God he cried, "I am a man of unclean lips"; and as Daniel in the presence of the same glory said, "My comeliness was turned in me into corruption"; and as Job in the presence of the matchless splendor of God said, "Behold, I am of small account"; so Moses became conscious of his own moral imperfection.