Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Exodus 3:10
Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt.
10. Now therefore [Heb. And now = Quae quum ita sint ] come. Gen 31:44; Gen 37:20; Num 22:6 al.
11 ff. In his youth (ch. 2) Moses was confident and impulsive: but now ‘a fugitive and a shepherd, without influence or position’ (Kn., Di.), the greatness of the task laid before him makes him distrustful of his powers to undertake it. Accordingly the narrative which follows describes how four difficulties felt and urged by Moses are successively removed by Jehovah, vv. 11 12, 13 22, Exo 4:1-17. Moses’ reluctance to undertake the difficult task laid upon him is emphasised, it may be observed, by each narrator, by E in Exo 3:11 ff., by J in Exo 4:10-12, and by P in Exo 6:12, Exo 7:1.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Exo 3:10
I will send thee unto Pharaoh.
The calling of a great deliverer
I. His call was rendered necessary by intense national suffering (Exo 3:7).
1. The sufferings to which the Israelites were exposed.
(1) Politically they were prisoners.
(2) Socially they were bondmen.
(3) Commercially they were ruined.
(4) Religiously they were degenerate.
2. The Divine attention to the sufferings of the Israelites. God has deep sympathy with the sorrowful.
(1) God sees the pain of the oppressed.
(2) God hears the cry of the oppressed.
(3) God relieves the pain of the oppressed.
II. He was called to his mission by the immediate agency of god (Exo 3:10).
1. His free agency was consulted. Such a call is–
(1) Honourable
(2) Responsible.
2. His adaptability was considered. Social considerations are subordinate. A shepherd may be called to accomplish the freedom of Israel. Hence the Divine call to human souls is–
(1) Emphatic.
(2) Judicious.
(3) Hopeful.
III. He was definitely made acquainted with the mission he had to undertake (Exo 3:10).
1. He was to pay a visit to royalty.
2. He was to achieve the freedom of Israel. God forewarns him of the difficulties, that they may not surprise or overwhelm. This arrangement is–
(1) Merciful.
(2) Considerate.
(3) Accommodated to our weakness.
IV. In the performance of his mission he was animated by the highest hopes (Exo 3:8).
1. He anticipated the freedom of Israel.
2. He anticipated conquest in the event of war.
3. He anticipated residence in a land of beauty and fertility. God always animates those engaged in great service by great hopes.
Lessons:
1. That God knows how to prepare men to become the deliverers of the good.
2. That a Divine call is requisite for the mission of life.
3. That human sorrow is pathetic and powerful in its appeal to God. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
The mission of Moses; or, the qualification for a Divine work
I. God elevates the race by the instrumentality of individual men.
1. It serves to promote in man the principle of self-helpfulness.
2. It serves to promote social unity.
II. God specially qualifies the man He employs to elevate the race.
1. By a special manifestation of Himself.
2. By impressing him with the divinity of his mission.
3. By assuring him of His co-operation.
4. By making him sensible of his own insufficiency.
5. By providing him with a coadjutor to supplement his deficiencies. (Homilist.)
The call of Moses
I. The manner of the call.
1. Remarkable for its suddenness.
2. Remarkable for its mysteriousness.
3. Remarkable for its manifestation of God.
(1) His holiness.
(2) His faithfulness.
II. The reason of the call.
1. The severity of the affliction of Gods people.
2. The cry of Gods people, which had come up into the ears of God.
III. The purpose of the call.
1. The deliverance of His people from the task-master.
2. The fulfilment of the Divine covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
IV. The encouragement to obey the call. The personal presence of God.
V. The name of Him who issued the call.
1. The revelation of this name was called out by a significant question of Moses.
2. The significance of the name.
(1) It represents the personality, eternity, and supremacy of God.
(2) It represents an authority and sovereignty that even Pharaoh cannot gainsay.
Lessons:
1. We learn Gods deep and practical interest in His people.
2. We learn that God is a hearer and an answerer of prayer.
3. We learn Gods wisdom in calling His servants.
4. We learn the all-sufficiency of the Divine encouragement, to every worker. (D. C. Hughes, M. A.)
Gods choice of instruments
God chooses the humblest instruments. He passes by the tempest, and waters the fields and gardens with His imperceptible dew. He passes by the great elephant, and bestows the hues of sapphire and amethyst upon the tiny humming-bird. He passes by the lofty pines and huge elm tree, and lavishes blossom and perfume on the violet. All history teaches the same truth. Moses was the son of a poor Levite; Gideon was a thresher; David was a shepherd boy; Amos was a herdsman; the apostles were obscure and unlearned; Zwingle was a shepherd; Melancthon, the great theologian of the Reformation, was an armourer; Luther was the child of a poor miner; Fuller was a farm servant; Carey, the originator of the plan of translating the Bible into the language of the millions of Hindustan, was a shoemaker; Morrison, who translated the Bible into the Chinese language, was a last-maker; Dr. Milne was a herd-boy; Adam Clarke was the son of Irish cotters; John Foster was a weaver; Jay, of Bath, was a herdsman. (Christian Age.)
The call of Moses
I. The preparations for the call. His miraculous escape in infancy; his careful training in the court of Pharaoh; his knowledge of governments, men, armies, religious rites; his silent years of obscurity, watching the leisure of the seasons as they came and went, the slow movements of the star.s; the care of God for the helpless creatures over which he was a shepherd; the home-life–all these were part of the call. His soul ripened.
II. The call itself. A greater one was never issued to mortal man. The only greater one was assigned to that Prophet like unto Moses who, in the fulness of time, came to lead the world out of a worse than Egyptian bondage through the death of the cross.
III. The hesitation of Moses at the great summons. He was perfectly honest before God. And it is because he was so honest that we can understand him and get our lessons from him at this turning-point in his career. We would not lose the picture of this great man–this chosen vessel of God–hesitating, confessing his cowardly feelings, and trying to hide away from duty. The response from Jehovah was as sudden as the command, and it was a complete satisfaction for all the real and imaginary troubles in the situation: Certainly I will be with thee.
IV. Lastly, if we seek further practical lessons from this part of sacred history, we shall be led to ask why the Bible makes so much of the calls its chief characters received to their office. Was it merely to prove the genuineness of their commission? They proved that by their works done in the name of God. Was it to show the power of Him who can call out children to Abraham from the stones and cause things that are not to be as those that are? Not this alone, but rather to make us feel that we may be receiving calls to His service, though we disregard them, and that, if we live near Him, life may at any time take on a new form and character. (E. N. Packard.)
The deliverer and his commission
The personal history of the deliverer and his commission, viewed in reference to the higher dispensation of the Gospel, exhibits the following principles, on which it will be unnecessary to offer any lengthened illustration.
1. The time for the deliverer appearing and entering on the mighty work given him to do, as it should be the one fittest for the purpose, so it must be the one chosen and fixed by God. It might seem long in coming to many, whose hearts groaned beneath the yoke of the adversary; and they might sometimes have been disposed, if they had been able, to hasten forward its arrival. But the Lord knew best when it should take place, and with unerring precision determined it beforehand. Hence we read of Christs appearance having occurred in due time, or in the fulness of time.
2. The Deliverer, when He comes, must arise within the Church itself. With her is the covenant of God; and she alone is the mother of the victorious seed, that destroys the destroyer.
3. Yet the deliverance, even in its earlier stages, when existing only in the personal history of the deliverer, is not altogether independent of the world. The blessing of Israel was interwoven with acts of kindness derived from the heathen; and the child Moses, with whom their very existence as a nation and all its coming glory was bound up, owed his preservation to a member of Pharaohs house, and in that house found a fit asylum and nursing-place. Thus the earth helped the woman, as it has often done since. In the history even of the Author and Finisher of our faith, the history of redemption links itself closely to the history of the world.
4. Still the deliverer, as to his person, his preparation, his gifts and calling, is peculiarly of God. That such a person as Moses was provided for the Church in the hour of her extremity, was entirely the result of Gods covenant with Abraham; and the whole circumstances connected with his preparation for the work, as well as the commission given him to undertake it, and the supernatural endowments fitting him for its execution, manifestly bespoke the special and gracious interposition of heaven. But the same holds true in each particular, and is still more illustriously displayed in Christ. (P. Fairbairn, D. D.)
Preparation for the ministry
I. A human ministry for a Divine salvation. The mother in the nursery, or at the bedside of her children; the father, by his godly life, as well as by direct instruction; the merchant among his clerks and salesmen; the employer among his employee; the mistress among her servants: all these have opportunities for the exercise of the ministry of grace. Other means besides the public ministry, or the direct dealing of the Christian worker, are used of God to bring His people up out of the land of bondage into His kingdom of life and light. A thousand silent and cumulative influences may be amongst the agencies that end in the conversion of every soul
II. This ministry is not self-appointed. I will send thee. In all our service we should bear in mind that we are to go in Gods name, by His appointment to do His work and not our own: otherwise the work will be a miserable failure, and the name of God will be blasphemed.
III. The nature of the commission. I will send. The Lord calls all His people to go forth into this world with a testimony and witness from Him. What the Lord needs now, as at the beginning, is that His disciples should go everywhere preaching Jesus and the Resurrection. When the Spirit works freely in believers, then are many more disciples made.
IV. Moses was to go down to where the people were. Now, mark that when God bade Moses to go down He did not tell him to build a pulpit on the border of Egypt, and cry, Come! I heard of a minister who was asked to go and see a man who was anxious about his soul. He replied, He knows where I live. If he wants my help or counsel, let him come to me. If he is in earnest, he will. I should have said to him, If you are in earnest about your Masters work, and know the meaning of the commission under which you hold your office, you will go to him. Do net forget that our commission is to go. (G. F. Pentecost, D. D.)
The Divine call to service
1. It is persuasive–come.
2. It is immediate–now.
3. It is logical–therefore. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
I will send thee unto Pharaoh
1. A vocation.
2. A preparation.
3. A commission. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
A God-given task
1. Arduous in its requirement.
2. Responsible in its exercise.
3. Glorious in its issue.
4. Unique in its character. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
Notes
1. Gods call–is instant, and suffers no delay.
2. Though God needs no man, He calls some for the help of His people.
3. Such as God calls, He sends to bring about deliverance.
4. The mission of God may be of the poorest man to the greatest potentate.
5. Gods command is enough to empower the weakest man for the strongest work. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
The principle of mediation in Gods dealings with men
In the eighth verse God says, I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians; and in the tenth verse He says, I will send thee unto Pharaoh. Is there not a discrepancy here? If God Himself came down to do a work, why did He not go and do it personally? One word from Himself would surely have done more for the cause which He had espoused than all the words which the most gifted of His creatures could have used. Looking at this incident as standing alone, it does undoubtedly appear most remarkable that God did not personally execute what He had personally conceived. The thinking was His, so was the love; all the spiritual side of the case belonged exclusively to God; yet He calls a shepherd, a lonely and unfriended man, to work out–with painful elaboration, and through a long series of bewildering disappointments–the purpose which it seems He Himself might have accomplished with a word. We find, however, that the instance is by no means an isolated one. Throughout the whole scheme of the Divine government of the human family, we find the principle of mediation. God speaks to man through man. Undoubtedly, this is mysterious. To our imperfect understanding, it would seem that the direct personal revelation of His presence and glory would instantly secure the results which are so desirable, and yet so doubtful. It is here that faith must lead us. Moreover, this principle of individual selection in the matter of all great ministries, is in keeping with the principle which embodies in a single germ the greatest forests. It is enough that God gives the one acorn, man must plant it and develop its productiveness. God works from the one to the many. (J. Parker, D. D.)
That thou mayest bring forth My people.
The typical character of Moses considered, as the deliverer, mediator, lawgiver, and guide of Israel
I. Moses typical of Christ as a deliverer.
1. When we were dead in sin, God prepared a Deliverer.
2. Only one Deliverer for the whole race.
3. A Man, like unto His brethren.
4. Moses, like Christ, made no common sacrifice to fulfil the duty with which God had charged him.
II. In no point of view is the character of Moses more venerable, or himself more illustrious as a type of our blessed Lord, than when we regard in him the appointed mediator between God and Israel, Moses was qualified for this office–by cordial love–meekness–long suffering–dis-interestedness–ever-watchful zeal; so God could have no interest with men except through Christ, who is far more qualified for the office of mediator than Moses.
III. In attempting to estimate the character of Moses as a type of Christ, we must by no means neglect to regard him in his office of lawgiver to Israel. It was necessary that some mode of government should be given to them. This was given by the Most High–through Moses. So, in the mournful captivity of the soul, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life, oppose the will of God; and the fallen creature becomes a fatal law unto himself. Even when the condemnation of impiety is removed, and the fetters with which it bound all the passions, and faculties, and principles of the mind are broken, the liberated bond-servant needs a revelation of the Word of God by which his conduct may be governed. Christ a law-giver–assisted at the formation of the law–can best explain it–best enforce it.
IV. Consider his typical character, as the leader and guide of Israel. Ye may have fled from Egypt; but are ye beyond the reach of temptation? Have ye passed through all the wilderness of sin and seduction? Have ye triumphed over all your enemies, and received your allotted portion in the habitations of eternal rest and glory? Ye have not. A difficult pilgrimage is before you: but infinite mercy has not left you to wander alone. Your Conductor fully knows the way to that blessedness whither ye are endeavouring to follow Him. Ignorant as ye are, He can give you knowledge–feeble, He can support you–faint, He can refresh you. Lessons:
1. Be persuaded that the gospel is worthy of all acceptation.
2. But if worldly and unholy affections still oppose the influence of that gospel over your hearts, yield not tamely to the slavery they would impose, until ye are provided with an answer to the awful question, How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?
3. It will naturally be asked, Thou that teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? While therefore the ministers of religion are endeavouring to make others wise unto salvation, they may read in this history a rebuke to their own unbelief and timidity. (R. P. Buddicom, M. A.)
Leaders
1. Leaders we must have. To be a leader one must have courage. Not without reason did Sir Walter Scott say: It appears to me that what is least forgiven in a man of any mark and likelihood is want of that quality called pluck. All the fine qualities of genius cannot make amends for it. Boldness is demanded by the very nature of the ease. He who never moves till every one else is moving may be an excellent companion or follower; but a leader he is not. He who would lead must go before, must be in advance.
2. But courage must have some basis; and this basis is found largely in convictions. He who would lead must have not opinions alone but convictions. He must have before him some definite result to be reached, and a fixed conception of the manner in which the end is to be gained. And all this must not be a surmise, but an assurance. We cannot lead people with a perhaps. Usually, in proportion to the positiveness of ones convictions will be his courage in obeying them. If ones aims, methods, convictions are elevated and noble, so much the better; but convictions he must have, if he would be a leader, and he must hold them with a tenacity that death alone can unloose.
3. One of the convictions that go to make up leadership is a belief that things ought to be done, that they can be done, that they must be done; or, in other words, faith. There must be faith in a cause, faith in ones self, in ones destiny, in man; or, rather, there must be a faith in what God is able and desirous to do for man and through man. To say nothing can be done is to say God can do nothing. This despair is not only totally unchristian, it is fatal to leadership. I cant is powerless, or potent only for evil. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me conducts to victory.
4. Out of faith comes progressiveness. To have no aspiration beyond holding things just where they are—or, perhaps, pushing them back an inch or two–this is fatal. But there is inspiration in the thought of achieving something that has not been done before, of treading heights unattained hitherto. The brakeman is very well in his way. But he is not the conductor. He cannot start the train.
5. For leadership there mast be sympathy–a knowledge of men, of their feelings, of their desires, hopes, and fears, prejudices, etc. And for leadership there must be unselfishness. Many other qualities are needed that a man may lead wisely, successfully. These seem to me indispensable that he may lead at all.
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
10-22. Come now therefore, and Iwill send theeConsidering the patriotic views that hadformerly animated the breast of Moses, we might have anticipated thatno mission could have been more welcome to his heart than to beemployed in the national emancipation of Israel. But he evinced greatreluctance to it and stated a variety of objections [Exo 3:11;Exo 3:13; Exo 4:1;Exo 4:10] all of which weresuccessfully met and removedand the happy issue of his labors wasminutely described.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Come now therefore,….. Leave thy flock, thy family, and the land of Midian:
and I will send thee unto Pharaoh: this Pharaoh, according to Eusebius, was Cenchres, the successor of Achoris; but according to Bishop Usher u, his name was Amenophis, who immediately succeeded Ramesses Miamun, under whom Moses was born. Clemens of Alexandria w relates from Apion, and he, from Ptolemy Mendesius, that it was in the times of Amosis that Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt; but Tacitus x says, the name of this king was Bocchoris, who obliged them to go out, being advised by an oracle to do so; and so says Lysimachus y:
that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt; and conduct them through the wilderness to the land of Canaan, and so be their deliverer, guide, and governor under God, who now gave him a commission to act for him.
u Annal. Vet. Test. p. 19. w Stromat. l. 1. p. 320. x Hist. l. 5. c. 3. y Apud Joseph. contr. Apion, l. 1. c. 34.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
10. Come now therefore. After God had furnished his servant with promises to engage him more cheerfully in his work, he now adds commands, and calls him to undertake the office to which he is designed. And this is the best encouragement to duty, when God renders those, who would be otherwise slow through doubt, sure of good success; for although we must obey God’s plain commands without delay or hesitation, still he is willing to provide against our sluggishness by promising that our endeavors shall not be vain or useless. And certainly it is a feeling naturally implanted in us all, that we are excited into action by a confidence of good success; therefore although God sometimes, for the purpose of trying the obedience of his servants, deprives them of hope, and commands them peremptorily to do this or that, still he more often cuts off hesitation by promising a successful issue. Thus, then, he now aroused Moses to perform his commands by setting the hope of the deliverance before him. The copula must be resolved into the illative particle, because the command and vocation undoubtedly depend upon the promise.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
Exo 3:10 Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt.
Ver. 10. That thou mayest bring forth. ] Which, though as unlikely to be done as to remove a rock with his shoulder, yet, setting upon it in God’s strength, he effecteth it. Tantum velis, et Deus tibi praeoccurret. a Howbeit, let a man do what he can naturally, and God will meet him graciously; – there is no truth in such an assertion.
a Chrysostom.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Exodus
THE CALL OF MOSES
Exo 3:10 – – Exo 3:20
The ‘son of Pharaoh’s daughter’ had been transformed, by nearly forty years of desert life, into an Arab shepherd. The influences of the Egyptian court had faded from him, like colour from cloth exposed to the weather; nor is it probable that, after the failure of his early attempt to play the deliverer to Israel, he nourished further designs of that sort. He appears to have settled down quietly to be Jethro’s son-in-law, and to have lived a modest, still life of humble toil. He had flung away fair prospects,-and what had he made of it? The world would say ‘Nothing,’ as it ever does about those who despise material advantages and covet higher good. Looking after sheep in the desert was a sad downcome from the possibility of sitting on the throne of Egypt. Yes, but it was in the desert that the vision of the bush burning, and not burning out, came; and it would not have come if Moses had been in a palace.
This passage begins in the midst of the divine communication which followed and interpreted the vision. We note, first, the divine charge and the human shrinking from the task. It was a startling transition from Exo 3:9 , which declares God’s pitying knowledge of Israel’s oppression, to Exo 3:10 , which thrusts Moses forward into the thick of dangers and difficulties, as God’s instrument. ‘I will send thee’ must have come like a thunder-clap. The commander’s summons which brings a man from the rear rank and sets him in the van of a storming-party may well make its receiver shrink. It was not cowardice which prompted Moses’ answer, but lowliness. His former impetuous confidence had all been beaten out of him. Time was when he was ready to take up the rle of deliverer at his own hand; but these hot days were past, and age and solitude and communion with God had mellowed him into humility. His recoil was but one instance of the shrinking which all true, devout men feel when designated for tasks which may probably make life short, and will certainly make it hard. All prophets and reformers till to-day have had the same feeling. Men who can do such work as the Jeremiahs, Pauls, Luthers, Cromwells, can do, are never forward to begin it.
Self-confidence is not the temper which God uses for His instruments. He works with ‘bruised reeds,’ and breathes His strength into them. It is when a man says ‘I can do nothing,’ that he is fit for God to employ. ‘When I am weak, then I am strong.’ Moses remembered enough of Egypt to know that it was no slight peril to front Pharaoh, and enough of Israel not to be particularly eager to have the task of leading them. But mark that there is no refusal of the charge, though there is profound consciousness of inadequacy. If we have reason to believe that any duty, great or small, is laid on us by God, it is wholesome that we should drive home to ourselves our own weakness, but not that we should try to shuffle out of the duty because we are weak. Moses’ answer was more of a prayer for help than of a remonstrance, and it was answered accordingly.
God deals very gently with conscious weakness. ‘Certainly I will be with thee.’ Moses’ estimate of himself is quite correct, and it is the condition of his obtaining God’s help. If he had been self-confident, he would have had no longing for, and no promise of, God’s presence. In all our little tasks we may have the same assurance, and, whenever we feel that they are too great for us, the strength of that promise may be ours. God sends no man on errands which He does not give him power to do. So Moses had not to calculate the difference between his feebleness and the strength of a kingdom. Such arithmetic left out one element, which made all the difference in the sum total. ‘Pharaoh versus Moses’ did not look a very hopeful cause, but ‘Pharaoh versus Moses and Another’-that other being God-was a very different matter. God and I are always stronger than any antagonists. It was needless to discuss whether Moses was able to cope with the king. That was not the right way of putting the problem. The right way was, Is God able to do it?
The sign given to Moses is at first sight singular, inasmuch as it requires faith, and can only be a confirmation of his mission when that mission is well accomplished. But there was a help to present faith even in it, for the very sacredness of the spot hallowed now by the burning bush was a kind of external sign of the promise.
One difficulty being solved, Moses raised another, but not in the spirit of captiousness or reluctance. God is very patient with us when we tell Him the obstacles which we seem to see to our doing His work. As long as these are presented in good faith, and with the wish to have them cleared up, He listens and answers. The second question asked by Moses was eminently reasonable. He pictures to himself his addressing the Israelites, and their question, What is the name of this God who has sent you? Apparently the children of Israel had lost much of their ancestral faith, and probably had in many instances fallen into idolatry. We do not know enough to pronounce with confidence on that point, nor how far the great name of Jehovah had been used before the time of Moses, or had been forgotten in Egypt.
The questions connected with these points and with the history of the name do not enter into our present purpose. My task is rather to point out the religious significance of the self-revelation of God contained in the name, and how it becomes the foundation of Israel’s deliverance, existence, and prerogatives. Whatever opinions are adopted as to the correct form of the name and other grammatical and philological questions, there is no doubt that it mainly reveals God as self-existent and unchangeable. He draws His being from no external source, nor ‘borrows leave to be.’ Creatures are what they are made or grow to be; they are what they were not; they are what they will some time not any more be. But He is what He is. Lifted above time and change, self-existing and self-determined, He is the fountain of life, the same for ever.
This underived, independent, immutable being is a Person who can speak to men, and can say ‘I am.’ Being such, He has entered into close covenant relations with men, and has permitted Himself to be called ‘the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.’ The name Jehovah lifts Him high above all creatures; the name ‘the God of your fathers’ brings Him into tender proximity with men, and, in combination with the former designation, guarantees that He will forever be what He has been, even to all generations of children’s children. That mighty name is, indeed, His ‘memorial to all generations,’ and is as fresh and full of blessedness to us as to the patriarchs. Christ has made us understand more of the treasures for heart and mind and life which are stored in it. ‘Our Father which art in heaven’ is the unfolding of its inmost meaning.
We may note that the bush burning but not consumed expressed in symbol the same truth which the name reveals. It seems a mistake to take the bush as the emblem of Israel surviving persecution. Rather the revelation to the eye says the same thing as that to the ear, as is generally the case. As the desert shrub flamed, and yet did not burn away, so that divine nature is not wearied by action nor exhausted by bestowing, nor has its life any tendency towards ending or extinction, as all creatural life has.
The closing verses of this passage Exo 3:16 – – Exo 3:20 are a programme of Moses’ mission, in which one or two points deserve notice. First, the general course of it is made known from the beginning. Therein Moses was blessed beyond most of God’s servants, who have to risk much and to labour on, not knowing which shall prosper. If we could see, as he did, the lie of the country beforehand, our journeys would be easier. So we often think, but we know enough of what shall be to enable us to have quiet hearts; and it is best for us not to see what is to fail and what to succeed. Our ignorance stimulates effort, and drives to clinging to God’s hand.
Then we may note the full assurances to be given to the ‘elders of Israel.’ Apparently some kind of civic organisation had been kept up, and there were principal people among the slaves who had to be galvanised first into enthusiasm. So they are to be told two things,-that Jehovah has appeared to Moses, and that He, not Moses only, will deliver them and plant them in the land. The enumeration of the many tribes Exo 3:17 might discourage, but it is intended to fire by the thought of the breadth of the land, which is further described as fertile. The more exalted our conceptions of the inheritance, the more willing shall we be to enter on the pilgrimage towards it. The more we realise that Jehovah has promised to lead us thither, the more willing shall we be to face difficulties and dangers.
The directions as to the opening of communications with Pharaoh have often been made a difficulty, as if there was trickery in the modest request for permission to go three days’ journey into the wilderness. But that request was to be made, knowing that it would not be granted. It was to be a test of Pharaoh’s willingness to submit to Jehovah. Its very smallness made it so more effectually. If he had any disposition to listen to the voice speaking through Moses, he would yield that small point. It is useless to speculate on what would have happened if he had done so. But probably the Israelites would have come back from their sacrificing.
Of more importance is it to note that the failure of the request was foreseen, and yet the effort was to be made. Is not that the same paradox which meets us in all the divine efforts to win over hard-hearted men to His service? Is it not exactly what our Lord did when He appealed to Judas, while knowing that all would be vain?
The expression in Exo 3:19 , ‘not by a mighty hand,’ is very obscure. It may possibly mean that Pharaoh was so obstinate that no human power was strong enough to bend his will. Therefore, in contrast to the ‘mighty hand’ of man, which was not mighty enough for this work, God will stretch out His hand, and that will suffice to compel obedience from the proudest. God can force men by His might to comply with His will, so far as external acts go; but He does not regard that as obedience, nor delight in it. We can steel ourselves against men’s power, but God’s hand can crush and break the strongest will. ‘It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.’ It is a blessed thing to put ourselves into them, in order to be moulded by their loving touch. The alternative is laid before every soul of man.
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
I will send. Compare Act 7:23.
Pharaoh. See App-37.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
1Sa 12:6, Psa 77:20, Psa 103:6, Psa 103:7, Psa 105:26, Isa 63:11, Isa 63:12, Hos 12:13, Mic 6:4, Act 7:34, Act 7:36
Reciprocal: Exo 6:11 – General Exo 6:26 – Bring Deu 4:34 – take him Jos 24:5 – sent 1Sa 12:8 – sent Moses Psa 78:70 – and took Mat 4:18 – for
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Exo 3:10. I will send thee And the same hand that now fetched a shepherd out of a desert to be the planter of the Jewish Church, afterward fetched fishermen from their ships to be the planters of the Christian Church, that the excellency of the power might be of God.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
THE COMMISSION.
Exo 3:10, Exo 3:16-22.
We have already learned from the seventh verse that God commissioned Moses, only when He had Himself descended to deliver Israel. He sends none, except with the implied or explicit promise that certainly He will be with them. But the converse is also true. If God sends no man but when He comes Himself, He never comes without demanding the agency of man. The overruled reluctance of Moses, and the inflexible urgency of his commission, may teach us the honour set by God upon humanity. He has knit men together in the mutual dependence of nations and of families, that each may be His minister to all; and in every great crisis of history He has respected His own principle, and has visited the race by means of the providential man. The gospel was not preached by angels. Its first agents found themselves like sheep among wolves: they were an exhibition to the world and to angels and men, yet necessity was laid upon them, and a woe if they preached it not.
All the best gifts of heaven come to us by the agency of inventor and sage, hero and explorer, organiser and philanthropist, patriot, reformer and saint. And the hope which inspires their grandest effort is never that of selfish gain, nor even of fame, though fame is a keen spur, which perhaps God set before Moses in the noble hope that “thou shalt bring forth the people” (Exo 3:12). But the truly impelling force is always the great deed itself, the haunting thought, the importunate inspiration, the inward fire; and so God promises Moses neither a sceptre, nor share in the good land: He simply proposes to him the work, the rescue of the people; and Moses, for his part, simply objects that he is unable, not that he is solicitous about his reward. Whatever is done for payment can be valued by its cost: all the priceless services done for us by our greatest were, in very deed, unpriced.
Moses, with the new name of God to reveal, and with the assurance that He is about to rescue Israel, is bidden to go to work advisedly and wisely. He is not to appeal to the mob, nor yet to confront Pharaoh without authority from his people to speak for them, nor is he to make the great demand for emancipation abruptly and at once. The mistake of forty years ago must not be repeated now. He is to appeal to the elders of Israel; and with them, and therefore clearly representing the nation, he is respectfully to crave permission for a three days’ journey, to sacrifice to Jehovah in the wilderness. The blustering assurance with which certain fanatics of our own time first assume that they possess a direct commission from the skies, and thereupon that they are freed from all order, from all recognition of any human authority, and then that no considerations of prudence or of decency should restrain the violence and bad taste which they mistake for zeal, is curiously unlike anything in the Old Testament or the New. Was ever a commission more direct than those of Moses and of St. Paul? Yet Moses was to obtain the recognition of the elders of his people; and St. Paul received formal ordination by the explicit command of God (Act 13:3).
Strangely enough, it is often assumed that this demand for a furlough of three days was insincere. But it would only have been so, if consent were expected, and if the intention were thereupon to abuse the respite and refuse to return. There is not the slightest hint of any duplicity of the kind. The real motives for the demand are very plain. The excursion which they proposed would have taught the people to move and act together, reviving their national spirit, and filling them with a desire for the liberty which they tasted. In the very words which they should speak, “The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, hath met with us,” there is a distinct proclamation of nationality, and of its surest and strongest bulwark, a national religion. From such an excursion, therefore, the people would have returned, already well-nigh emancipated, and with recognised leaders. Certainly Pharaoh could not listen to any such proposal, unless he were prepared to reverse the whole policy of his dynasty toward Israel.
But the refusal answered two good ends. In the first place it joined issue on the best conceivable ground, for Israel was exhibited making the least possible demand with the greatest possible courtesy–“Let us go, we pray thee, three days’ journey into the wilderness.” Not even so much would be granted. The tyrant was palpably in the wrong, and thenceforth it was perfectly reasonable to increase the severity of the terms after each of his defeats, which proceeding in its turn made concession more and more galling to his pride. In the second place, the quarrel was from the first avowedly and undeniably religious: the gods of Egypt were matched against Jehovah; and in the successive plagues which desolated his land Pharaoh gradually learnt Who Jehovah was.
In the message which Moses should convey to the elders there are two significant phrases. He was to announce in the name of God, “I have surely visited you, and seen that which is done unto you in Egypt.” The silent observation of God before He interposes is very solemn and instructive. So in the Revelation, He walks among the golden candlesticks, and knows the work, the patience, or the unfaithfulness of each. So He is not far from any one of us. When a heavy blow falls we speak of it as “a Visitation of Providence,” but in reality the visitation has been long before. Neither Israel nor Egypt was conscious of the solemn presence. Who knows what soul of man, or what nation, is thus visited today, for future deliverance or rebuke?
Again it is said, “I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt into … a land flowing with milk and honey.” Their affliction was the divine method of uprooting them. And so is our affliction the method by which our hearts are released from love of earth and life, that in due time He may “surely bring us in” to a better and an enduring country. Now, we wonder that the Israelites clung so fondly to the place of their captivity. But what of our own hearts? Have they a desire to depart? or do they groan in bondage, and yet recoil from their emancipation?
The hesitating nation is not plainly told that their affliction will be intensified and their lives made burdensome with labour. That is perhaps implied in the certainty that Pharaoh “will not let you go, no, not by a mighty hand.” But it is with Israel as with us: a general knowledge that in the world we shall have tribulation is enough; the catalogue of our trials is not spread out before us in advance. They were assured for their encouragement that all their long captivity should at last receive its wages, for they should not borrow[6] but ask of the Egyptians jewels of silver, and gold, and raiment, and they should spoil the Egyptians. So are we taught to have “respect unto the recompense of the reward.”
FOOTNOTES:
[6] So much ignorant capital has been made by sceptics out of this unfortunate mistranslation, that it is worth while to inquire whether the word “borrow” would suit the context in other passages. “He borrowed water and she gave him milk” (Jdg 5:25). “The Lord said unto Solomon, Because thou hast borrowed this thing, and hast not borrowed long life for thyself, neither hast borrowed riches for thyself, nor hast borrowed the life of thine enemies” (1Ki 3:11). “And Elijah said unto Elisha, Thou hast borrowed a hard thing” (2Ki 2:10). The absurdity of the cavil is self-evident.