Exodus 4:5, commentary and pictures

The time for Israel's deliverance had come after God heard their groaning under bondage and remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and He purposed to accomplish it in a manner to pour contempt on human pride. The deliverer was to go forth as a humble shepherd with only a rod in his hand, but God would make that rod the symbol of His power. The God who commissioned Moses is He who had revealed Himself to the fathers in ages past as the Angel of the covenant and who now spoke from the burning bush at Horeb, declaring Himself the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.

In Midian Moses feared the people would not believe him nor listen to his voice but would say the Lord had not appeared to him, and he pleaded for some sign that his message was from heaven. God gave him miraculous signs to prove to Israel that the Lord God of their fathers had appeared to him and sent him, so that they would believe. The evidence appealed to Moses' own senses: his rod cast on the ground became a serpent and seized in his hand became a rod again, and his hand put into his bosom became leprous as snow and put in again became whole like the other. The serpent was probably a cobra, a poisonous snake and the emblem of royal and divine power on Pharaoh's crown, so its transformation back into a rod was more than a wonder and pledged and represented victory over Egypt's king and gods.

By these signs God assured Moses that his own people as well as Pharaoh, the king, and his people would be convinced that One mightier than the king of Egypt and greater than Moses was manifest among them. They would cause the Egyptians and Pharaoh to fear so they would not dare to harm him, yet even after many miracles performed before Pharaoh in the sight of the people, Pharaoh would still not let Israel go. After his shepherd training Moses was ready to exchange his shepherd's crook for the rod of authority, to leave his flock of sheep to take leadership of more than a million idolatrous, rebellious people as the shepherd of God's own people. He was to depend upon the invisible Leader, for as the rod was simply an instrument in his hand, so he himself was to be a willing instrument to be worked by the hand of Jesus Christ.

It was through Moses' firm faith and abiding trust in the Lord that so many blessings reached the children of Israel, showing that the Lord Jesus seeks the cooperation of such men who will become unobstructed channels through which the riches of heaven may be poured out. Moses' plea for heavenly confirmation is the same plea later made by Gideon, by Elisha, and by Hezekiah. It is linked with Hezekiah's request for a sign confirming that the message of healing came from God.